By Rochelle Moulton
5
1010 ratings
The podcast currently has 51 episodes available.
When you started your business, you probably imagined steady revenue growth under your original business model—only to discover that the only way to grow the way you want is by experimenting! Business Coach Jessica Lackey (a McKinsey and Nike alum) shares her year-by-year experience in crafting her ideal business model:
How she contracted for “bridge jobs” in Year 1 to ensure cash flow—and why she’d do it again.
Year 2: building a “whale” delivery model with enough whales so you’re not overly dependent on any one.
Why she pivoted from a 1-1 delivery model to group and membership options (and it wasn’t because she had a large email list).
The pros and cons of running multiple revenue models as you pivot vs. making a faster shift.
How building interchangeable assets allows you to leverage your authority faster.
LINKS
Jessica Lackey Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Jessica Lackey is a strategy and operations advisor who blends business strategy, practical application, and a human-centric approach to create sustainable businesses.
With a background in corporate leadership, McKinsey & Company consulting, and a Harvard Business degree, Jessica knows a thing or two about hustle culture and what it feels like to judge success by the bottom line…at all costs.
Now, she combines her deep experience in consulting, Fortune 500 operations leadership and coaching to help businesses grow without sacrificing the well-being of their clients, team, and community.
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:19
Jessica Lackey: I had a social media team, but I actually dropped Instagram in 2023 and I stopped doing as much LinkedIn. And I really focused on those marketing platforms that took more time, but had a bigger result. So again, I write once a week, I guess teach once a month. And people are like, you do that for free? I'm like, well, yeah.
00:24 - 01:05
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm joined by soloist Jessica Lackey. She is a strategy and operations advisor who blends business strategy, practical application, and a human-centric approach to create sustainable businesses. With a background in corporate leadership, McKinsey & Company consulting, and a Harvard Business degree, Jessica knows a thing or 2 about hustle culture and what it feels like to judge success by the bottom line at all costs. Now she combines her deep experience in consulting, Fortune 500 operations
01:05 - 01:15
Rochelle Moulton: leadership, and coaching to help businesses grow without sacrificing the well-being of their clients, team, and community. Jessica, welcome.
01:16 - 01:17
Jessica Lackey: Yay. I'm so glad to be here.
01:17 - 01:29
Rochelle Moulton: Well, I feel like we're kindred spirits here, like escaping from big firm consulting and evangelizing on building sustainable businesses without buying into hustle culture. So let's just dive in.
01:29 - 01:31
Jessica Lackey: Sounds Good. First, your
01:31 - 01:43
Rochelle Moulton: resume reads like a who's who of American business. Harvard, McKinsey, Nike. You even interned at Apple. What made you decide to leave all that to start your soloist business?
01:44 - 02:14
Jessica Lackey: When you work in firms like that, there's, as you know, there's a real upper out culture. And these are places that will suck the life out of you if you let them. And in my 20s, like I did, McKinsey and Company Consulting, I was on the road, as you know, you are Arthur Anderson, 4 days a week, sometimes 5 days a week. Like I gave up my Sundays, I gave up my Fridays. I didn't have roots in town. All my friends were working. And that kind of moved with me to business school and that moved with
02:14 - 02:46
Jessica Lackey: me to Nike. Nike, it's so cool as a campus, there's the gym, there's restaurants and beer on campus, but it's really kind of designed to keep you in the berm, as they call it. Literally, they have a track and things like that. I was working 12 hours a day. The 1 job I was in, I was working weekends. And I realized at some point I had a health crisis and I realized, I'm like, okay, I have no life. I was making good money, but I didn't want the next step up on the ladder. And so I
02:46 - 02:51
Jessica Lackey: hit kind of a wall in 2015 and decided, all right, it's time for me to do something different.
02:51 - 02:55
Rochelle Moulton: Well, yeah, because it doesn't get any better when you go higher up the ladder. It usually gets harder.
02:56 - 03:18
Jessica Lackey: They tell you it gets better. And really, what's interesting is that you end up with more responsibility. But a lot of these places, you end up with more politics, you end up farther away from actually doing the work and much more Pushing powerpoints around and that wasn't I didn't want to play the politics I didn't want to be mucking around a PowerPoint our day I wanted to solve real problems in the the farther up the organization I got, the less I got to do that.
03:18 - 03:36
Rochelle Moulton: Well, preach, sister. That's exactly what it was like being a partner at a big firm. And the minute I got there, I was like, oh, finally, I've arrived. And then you look around and you go, oh, crap. It's like, now I have to do this every day. Yeah, it's a bit of a change, isn't it?
03:37 - 03:44
Jessica Lackey: Definitely. I'm thankful I had the experience, but at some point I was like, this is not the life for my second chapter in my professional career.
03:45 - 04:12
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, exactly. So 1 of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the show is that you've done some really intriguing Experimenting with your business model as you've grown. It's it's like you've served as your own Petri dish Which I love especially for soloists. So year 1 if I have this right so you started coaching but you subcontracted to a consulting firm to keep the cash flowing. So talk us through how that worked and why you made the decisions you did.
04:13 - 04:40
Jessica Lackey: Yeah. So a little bit of backstory. I tried, I got certified as a life coach because I thought I wanted to be a life and leadership coach in 2018. And I tried to build a coaching business as a side hustle 2019, 2020. And yeah, I mean, you know, I was working 1 of those big jobs where I was, you know, I didn't have time. I didn't have the mental mind space. So in 2021, I knew I was going to leave. I hadn't really done any biz dev. I had connections, but I was like, I don't really
04:40 - 05:11
Jessica Lackey: know what I want to do for my personal business. I was like, I just don't want to be at my job anymore. And so I quit thinking, I was like, I don't know what I'll do. I'll figure it out. And so I did my first year was all the subcontracting through a bunch of those matching platforms and with another firm. So I was through some connections. I got connected with, again, I did project management for a rebranding company. I did sales and operations consulting through, I got matched on a platform. I didn't actually know the firm
05:11 - 05:42
Jessica Lackey: I was going into. It was 1 of those like a BTG or Catalan. I think I was with Graphite there. And then some of my former colleagues from Nike started up a consulting firm. They didn't have a huge book of business, but I got to be part of some of those projects, which was really great because I got to show up and be an analyst associate from a consulting perspective without having to do any biz dev. It certainly wasn't the top money, but it was a way for me to get paid in fractional part-time work, which
05:42 - 05:44
Jessica Lackey: was fantastic for the first year.
05:44 - 05:51
Rochelle Moulton: Well, yeah, it's kind of like an easy glide path into seeing what it's like. And if you hadn't liked it, it wouldn't be so hard to go back.
05:52 - 06:22
Jessica Lackey: Exactly. And I'm super thankful that I quit during the pandemic where everyone was at home and it was normalized to be fractional. It was, You could do part-time, you could show up for the calls you need to show up to, do your work, but not have to be on site. I don't know if this would have been as doable of as an opportunity 2019-2018 before it got normalized that we worked from home, But I was thankful that it happened when it did. I didn't have to do a ton of my own biz dev during the first
06:22 - 06:26
Jessica Lackey: year and ended up making money. It was great.
06:26 - 06:30
Rochelle Moulton: Well, of course, that's the question I'm gonna ask. How long did it take you to hit your first 100, 000?
06:32 - 06:34
Jessica Lackey: I hit my first 100, 000 in my first year.
06:34 - 06:36
Rochelle Moulton: With those contracts? Those contracts, you
06:36 - 06:57
Jessica Lackey: know, when you're billing a hundred dollars an hour on a 20 hour a week consulting project, even if that's not nearly the kind of money you want to be making, It was easy to do in the first year, but I didn't. 70% of that was all through these contract jobs. I think I made 30K in my first year from business coaching and consulting under my own
06:57 - 07:08
Rochelle Moulton: brand name. Okay. So that was going to be my next question. So you were doing both. You were doing some business development for yourself, but the big kahuna, the big percentage of your revenue came from these other deals.
07:08 - 07:39
Jessica Lackey: Exactly. So I think I got my first business coaching client. I quit in March. I got my first business coaching client in June or July. That's not bad. Yeah, and I got my second 1 in September and then I got my third major 1 in December. So it took me quite a while to, I work on a retainer model for many of my clients. So once I get 1, then it's not a 1 and done type of project for my own business. So I kind of built 1, then the second and the third. But it took
07:39 - 07:48
Jessica Lackey: me, you know, if I hadn't had these other consulting jobs, I'm not sure what I would have done with my time, honestly, because there's only so many hours a day you can do networking when you're starting.
07:48 - 07:56
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and you don't want to have that sense of desperation, because people can smell it on you. So it sounds like it was a nice balance of those 2 for year 1, right?
07:57 - 08:19
Jessica Lackey: Yeah, and my husband actually told me, I was terrified about how I was going to get my first client, but I was like, okay, well, I have enough money. I made a bonus right before I left. So I was like, okay, well, I can, you know, I have an extra 3 months of salary. And then I got a call from 1 of the, my friend put me in touch with a matching platform and They said, hey, do you want a project? I'm like, okay, I was planning to take some time off. And then of course I
08:19 - 08:25
Jessica Lackey: didn't. Resh respect, I probably shouldn't have taken the time off, but I was terrified I was never gonna get that first client, so I jumped right in.
08:25 - 08:38
Rochelle Moulton: You're not alone, that happens a lot. Okay, so take us forward. We're gonna go to year 2. So do you still have these consulting contracts in year 2? Are you still doing that or do you stop?
08:38 - 09:12
Jessica Lackey: So I am not doing the subcontracting anymore through the matching platforms. That was year 1. But in year 2, What happened is 1 of the consulting, I was working again with some colleagues from Nike, they had some projects so I did those. But interestingly enough, 1 of the clients that I picked up in year 1 from a business coaching perspective, they let go of their CLO, they were a seed stage startup, and they said, will you step in to do fractional COO? So I went from doing subcontracting and doing strategy work to now actually being a
09:12 - 09:28
Jessica Lackey: fractional COO for 6 months. So I worked, I had like a part-time job, not even doing consulting, but doing in the business, running reports, running an account management process. I ran a fractional COO for a startup for 6 months with an existing client.
09:29 - 09:35
Rochelle Moulton: Let me just make sure. Do you still have your 3 retainer clients that you had from year 1?
09:35 - 09:48
Jessica Lackey: I did. I've had 3 of those. I picked up some additional coaching clients at that point in time, but 1 of those retainer clients, we went from, I think, a thousand dollar a month retainer to a $5, 000 a month fractional COO gig.
09:48 - 09:55
Rochelle Moulton: The fractional. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And how many clients did you have total? Just roughly.
09:55 - 09:58
Jessica Lackey: I think at that time, like 6 or so clients at that time.
09:59 - 10:25
Rochelle Moulton: Well, here's why I'm asking is because a lot of people get stuck with this idea and they stop when they get to the 2 or 3 whales because they're like, that's all I can do. I can't do anymore. And when you have 6, you've insulated yourself quite a bit, even if half of them drop off, you've still got a decent book of business, what I call a whale model. You don't need 60 clients, you need 6 or 10 or whatever your magic number is.
10:26 - 10:53
Jessica Lackey: Yeah. And everyone asks me how I managed to have, for my first 2 years, I had 1 whale client at a time and a bunch of other little ones, little as the eye of the eye of the holder, but you know, 1 like 5 to $8, 000 either fractional COO gig or consulting gig. And people are like, how did you manage having a bigger client and like a bunch of small ones? And the nice part about it is because it's flexible, I could manage in the pockets of time that I had. And so, you know, as
10:53 - 11:18
Jessica Lackey: a soloist, sometimes the time where I get to do focus work on my COO client was on a Sunday morning because that's when it made sense. I could really focus. And on other times it was sometimes hard for me to do a lot of like deeper dive work on when I had like coaching calls that day. So I structured my calendar to say, when can I serve my big client and when can I serve more of the in and out context switching coaching clients?
11:19 - 11:38
Rochelle Moulton: So if I had to sort of summarize year 2 from a big picture perspective, you got away from these matching relationships. You basically doubled your client base, but you also significantly expanded 1 of those relationships in particular and discovered the glories of fractional work.
11:39 - 11:39
Jessica Lackey: Yes, I did.
11:39 - 11:46
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. So should we go to year 3 or was there anything else that you kind of, some seeds that you planted in year 2?
11:47 - 12:16
Jessica Lackey: Yeah, So year 2, I actually started my first round of a group business coaching model. So it was in the fall of 2022. I realized that, again, in order to keep growing my revenue, I wasn't going to be able to take on, I thought at the time I was going to be taking on more clients, we'll talk about your 4, but I couldn't take on more clients at the price point I wanted to serve for that audience, which is small business owners. So I started a group coaching model, coaching program. And this 1, it was, there
12:16 - 12:41
Jessica Lackey: was no big launch. I think I invited, I had like 200 people on my list at the time. And I think it was 8 loom videos. They were like 5 to 10 minutes talking about some concepts. And then it was 6 weeks of teaching and 4 months of Q&A. And I had like 5 people sign up and they were all people I knew and they were all people from my local network who said, yes, I'm in for this round. There was no big launch. There was no fancy tagging or anything like that. There was no course
12:41 - 13:00
Jessica Lackey: platform. It was here's the link to register. And I taught live. Love it. Did you record? Oh, I recorded and I posted, I think I had a Mighty Networks at the time. So I recorded, but I didn't have worksheets. I didn't have templates. I just had like a 5 minute loom video where I taught about some concepts and then we did it all live.
13:00 - 13:17
Rochelle Moulton: I love that because it's starting with, I mean, think about it. Not having to do all that other stuff meant there wasn't really any pressure on you to fill, and I use that word in quotes, to fill your class, right? You just get a chance to try it out and see what works and your investment is fairly small.
13:17 - 13:32
Jessica Lackey: It was great. And I know what it takes now to put a whole program like that together, which was year 3. But it was so, it was low effort. It really was just an opportunity to, and I didn't sell hard. They all came from personal limitations. I didn't have a fancy sales page.
13:32 - 14:01
Rochelle Moulton: I was like, here's a Google doc. It was just really nice to step into that with low effort on...
If this last year was NOT smooth sailing for your Soloist business finances, now is an ideal time to pave the way to better. There’s still time to avoid unpleasant surprises (think giant tax bills) and start streamlining your financial life before year-end:
The five strategic pieces of information you want in your hands before year-end.
How to think about your financial team (and why it’s worth investing in the right experts).
How a financial surprise made me completely shift how I managed my business cash flow.Why you want to build a cash reserve for your business and a resource to get you started.
LINKS
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Consultants + Money podcast episode on cash reserves (Erica Goode)
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:43
Rochelle Moulton: Think of it like a non-emergency emergency fund for your business. It's a way to smooth out the inevitable cash flow variations in our kinds of businesses. And once you fully fund a cash reserve, I can guarantee you will like the comfort and freedom that it provides. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I want to talk to you about getting your finances straight. It's late October as I'm recording this and it's the perfect time to get both strategic and tactical
00:43 - 01:18
Rochelle Moultob: as you pave the way for the year you want for your business and for your life. So let's start with the strategic. Okay, at this point in the year, you wanna have several things in the bag. 1, you want a reasonable idea of your current and projected financial position. That means how much revenue have you already closed and what's likely to hit before year end. Same thing with your expenses so you can get a feel for your bottom line year. It also means how much more can you tuck away in your taxed advantage solo 401k. Now
01:18 - 01:59
Rochelle Moultob: remember, you can make additional employer contributions above and beyond your salary deferrals. Don't have a solo 401k yet? Talk to your financial advisor or your CPA about the best options for you. Contributing consistently to your 401k is a baller move, especially for soloists since we don't have anyone funding our future life but ourselves. 2, take this understanding and combine it with whatever other income and expenses are happening in the other parts of your life. Maybe you have other sources of income like a spouse or other businesses. Share all of this with your CPA so you don't
01:59 - 02:39
Rochelle Moultob: get surprised with a whopping tax bill you haven't accrued for. 3, have your CPA give you a revised estimate for your annual federal, state, and local taxes. And I say revised because I know you worked out an estimate with your CPA earlier in the year, right? You're just honing it now, making sure you account for any unexpected blips. And 4, have you got your plan for your business firmly in mind for the next year? If not, now's a good time to start strategizing or finish strategizing? What investments of time and energy will your plan require of
02:39 - 03:13
Rochelle Moultob: you? Is this the year you write that book and say no to some new client engagements? Or is it the year you step on the gas and go court new clients or build out some new offerings? All of these have implications for your finances, and it just takes a tiny bit of time to line up where you want to go with keeping your finances on an even keel. And 5, how happy are you with how you manage your finances this year? So let me give you a few questions to think about here. Are you happy with
03:13 - 03:50
Rochelle Moultob: how your cash flowed this last year? Not just how much, but when? Did you get the right information on your financial results in the right way at the right time? Did you have any unplanned big expenses, like say a tax bill, that had you scurrying around to deal with? Did you have enough cash set aside so that you could invest in yourself without worrying to attend conferences or hire a coach or buy some training? Your answers to these kinds of questions will point to changes you can make, and some will be quite simple, to get your
03:50 - 04:28
Rochelle Moultob: finances in better order. Maybe it's time to hire a bookkeeper, or replace your CPA with someone more strategic, or just start holding yourself accountable for getting and keeping your finances straight. And make sure you don't cheap out here. Excellent business financial advisors cost money, sometimes a not insignificant amount of money, but the best ones will earn their fees many times over. You know, in the middle years of owning my business, I got slapped upside the head with a huge tax bill. It was a combination of an excellent year in my business with a mistake by my
04:28 - 05:02
Rochelle Moultob: CPA that I didn't catch until after the return was filed. Nobody likes those kinds of surprises. But my first move was to instantly change how I accrued for taxes. I started taking a percent of my revenue every month and tucking it outside my business checking account where it didn't co-mingle with my regular cashflow. And then I use that account to pay quarterly and annual taxes. And because I added a cushion to the amount the CPA told me to set aside, I almost always have a bonus left after our taxes are paid. And I just 0 out
05:02 - 05:34
Rochelle Moultob: the account. We take the funds and invest half for the long term and play with the other half. It's like a bonus and it always makes me smile when I transfer it over. I also use that situation to find a new CPA, not because they made a mistake. I mean, that can always happen, but because I knew it was the system we were working that was at fault. They were not interested in strategic discussions, but operated more like a tax mill, pushing out returns like widgets. So I hired myself a new team. I found a bookkeeping
05:34 - 06:12
Rochelle Moultob: firm with a standard operating procedure and secure systems and a tax firm with a vested interest in strategy as well as tactics. I will say I sleep so much better at night with that arrangement. But there's another piece to that too, and that is your cash reserves outside of taxes. So friend of the show, Erica Goody did an excellent episode. It's number 82 of her Consultants and Money podcast that I heartily recommend, and I will drop a link to it in the show notes. It's a quick and juicy 8 minute episode on how to set up
06:12 - 06:49
Rochelle Moultob: cash reserves for your business. Think of it like a non-emergency emergency fund for your business, it's a way to smooth out the inevitable cashflow variations in our kinds of businesses. And once you fully fund a cash reserve, I can guarantee you will like the comfort and freedom that it provides. So as you consider all these questions, you can decide which tactical moves make the most sense for you. The goal is to get and keep your finances working for you rather than the other way around. So let me give you a few examples of things my clients
06:49 - 07:29
Rochelle Moultob: have done to handle their finances with more ease and comfort. They have hired a fractional CFO to plan and manage their business finances. Not a low cost solution, but 1 that allows them to detach from the day-to-day tactical. They funded a six-month cash reserve to smooth out wide swings from a whale project model. They handed off monthly bookkeeping to a specialty firm that interacts directly with their CPA. They worked with their spouse to generate a 2 earner household cash flow and reserve model and I highly recommend this for those with more complex financial lives. You will
07:29 - 08:09
Rochelle Moultob: not regret doing that. They engaged a fee only financial planner to model various scenarios so they could make fully informed longer-term decisions in concert with their CPA. And while my clients tend to be well-established with six-figure plus incomes, don't think they haven't shared their past financial horror stories with me. The moral of the story is this. The sooner you get your finances working smoothly to support you, the faster you'll get to reap the rewards, the ease and comfort of focusing on your business without constant worry about it all crashing down around you. Take it from me.
08:09 - 08:35
Rochelle Moultob: It's worth the small amount of time now to plan and set up the systems that will keep your finances on the straight and narrow for years to come. Now, as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for the soloist life. Bye. Bye
When you’re in the midst of an overwhelming business challenge—your revenue plummets, your audience dries up, you can’t seem to make a sale—what do you do?
Award-winning author and podcaster Jenny Blake takes us through the messy middle, sharing her story of challenge, resilience and percolating without yet knowing the answer:
Why her first reaction to a pandemic-induced 80% revenue drop was “I wrote a book called Pivot—I’ve got this.”
How that reaction turned to “I couldn’t fake it anymore—I couldn’t pretend anymore. I didn’t have any hope left…” when she lost a six-figure client.
Channeling her angst and uncertainty into a popular (paid) substack as she semi-publicly worked through what to do next.
The health scare that made her dramatically change how she was working.
The glimmers of her next chapter—how they appeared and how she thoughtfully nurtures them.
LINKS
Jenny Blake Substack | Free Time | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Jenny is an author and podcaster who runs a Delightfully Tiny media company. She is the author of three award-winning books, including Free Time (Ideapress, 2022) and Pivot (Penguin/Random House, 2016). She hosts two podcasts with over two million downloads combined: the Webby-nominated Free Time for Heart-Based Business owners, and Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change.
On her Substack Rolling in Doh, she shares personal essays about the messier parts of running a small business.
She lives in New York City with her husband and her angel-in-fur-coat German shepherd Ryder.
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:30
Jenny Blake: I have no judgment about anybody working at a job, but I get sick with that kind of work schedule or the meetings and calls. It drains me of all life, all the creative juice I have. It's just not the format. I've known that about myself. These are kind of the known variables. And yet, as you said, it's just so precarious. It's so touch and go. Even now, we're recording at the start of a month and I don't have the mortgage in the bank for 28 days from now. So where's that going to come from? I have
00:30 - 00:30
Jenny Blake: no clue.
00:36 - 01:16
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm thrilled to welcome back Jenny Blake to talk about what's been happening since we last spoke and spoiler alert, business has been challenging. Jenny is an author and podcaster who runs a delightfully tiny media company. She is the author of 3 award-winning books, including Free Time and Pivot. She hosts 2 podcasts with over 2 million downloads combined. The Webby nominated Free Time for heart-based business owners and Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change.
01:16 - 01:33
Rochelle Moulton: On her sub stack, Rolling in Dough, she shares personal essays about the messier parts of running a small business. She lives in New York City with her husband and her adorable angel in fur coat, German Shepherd rider. Jenny, welcome back. Yay, thank you, Russel. I'm thrilled to
01:33 - 01:34
Jenny Blake: be here.
01:34 - 02:08
Rochelle Moulton: I'm just so excited about this, as you know, from our pre-chat. So 1 of the reasons I wanted to have you back on the show is that last time we talked, you mentioned a big event. Well, 2 events, really. 2 big events that wiped $150, 000 of ongoing revenue off the table in a week. And that was the impetus for starting your Substack Rolling in Dough, where you've been documenting the not so lovely underbelly of owning a solo business when things go sideways. And I've been reading it since we talked almost a year ago. And now
02:08 - 02:13
Rochelle Moulton: today, I'd love for you to lift the veil a bit for our audience. So are you ready?
02:13 - 02:15
Jenny Blake: Sure. Yes.
02:15 - 02:15
Rochelle Moulton: And
02:15 - 02:22
Jenny Blake: We should say it's rolling in dough, D-O-H with a face palm for the O. I'm trying to tell my subconscious.
02:23 - 02:24
Rochelle Moulton: I always want to call it duh.
02:24 - 03:02
Jenny Blake: Yeah, right, which could work too. I want my subconscious to think that we're rolling in dough, And then the funny part is celebrating the dough, you know, the Homer Simpson of it all. And my husband made fun of me that I'm becoming a scholar in flop eras. And I'm like so interested in this topic of failure or when things go wrong or they're embarrassing or just the dough of it all. So it's actually become quite a fruitful area to dig into once I get over, you know, whatever embarrassment or fear that I'm self-sabotaging by sharing what
03:02 - 03:03
Jenny Blake: I do out loud.
03:04 - 03:15
Rochelle Moulton: Well, the other thing I should mention is 1 of the visuals for this is a beautiful donut with pink frosting and sprinkles. So I really, I love that juxtaposition of the duh with,
03:15 - 03:45
Jenny Blake: yeah, he's the little mascot. He has 2 eyes looking on a shifty. I have a lot of fun in Canva figuring out where to put him like on the beach or yeah, just different scenes. So thank you. Thank you for reading. And it's really a joy to be doing this project. I didn't even know that it would be lasting over a year, but also to get to talk about some of this out loud because part of the reason I started Rolling in Dough is I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt like every business book I read,
03:45 - 04:15
Jenny Blake: every business podcast I was listening to was all about the shiny and the successful and how to be more successful and how to earn 7 figures and now 8 figures and now you're a billion dollar creator. And yet behind the scenes, every phone call that I was having one-on-one with small business owners like myself, people were struggling. They were feeling like something's wrong with them. They were feeling like after 10, 15, 40 years that it was their worst year in business and that it was all about to collapse at any moment. For me, part of the
04:15 - 04:20
Jenny Blake: motivation here is, somebody's got to say this out loud. It might as well be me.
04:20 - 04:40
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. Part of me wants to say welcome to being a soloist. It's the ups and downs. Everybody has them, but very few people really talk about it until after they're through on the other side and then we can look back and we can pat ourselves on the back for how brilliant we are now, but we forget about how badly it sucked then.
04:40 - 05:13
Jenny Blake: Right. There are very real concerns. You wouldn't want to be a Debbie Downer or drive all your clients away by complaining, or seem ungrateful, or just seem like you don't have your stuff together. You know, like there are risks and the writing adage right from the scar, not the wound, why say dough is the wound? And I'm not saying that I advise everybody to do that. And I do lean more now toward the creative part of my identity than even the business owner part of my identity. So it's okay in a sense that I'm playing with
05:13 - 05:43
Jenny Blake: my play dough of my sub stack. So it's not that I would recommend everybody write from the wound, but I also feel like sometimes when you write from the scar, you forget the details. You forget what it's really like. It is a little shiny. We all know a scar. It's kind of like, Oh, isn't that beautiful? It just reminds me about the time I fell face first in the grass. OK, but in the moment, how did it feel? And I think it's easy to forget. So this is me also putting myself on a limb to say,
05:43 - 05:52
Jenny Blake: I haven't solved this yet. Even I get self-conscious coming to this conversation thinking, gosh, do I have anything new to share? I haven't figured anything out really.
05:52 - 06:22
Rochelle Moulton: And that's what to me was so interesting because you're in the messy middle and I love the messy middle. Now, having said that, And I'm sure we'll get there as we talk about this as an observer just reading what you've written I feel the change I can feel the next direction Especially with the 1 that you just sent this morning. Thank you. We should start with a little background Right. So talk us through where you were with your business when you got whacked with that $150, 000 loss.
06:23 - 06:54
Jenny Blake: Yeah. Well, the first whack was with everyone else March 2020 that's when 80% of my income was wiped out at once because I do a lot of speaking and events and corporate licensing from the pivot IP part of my business. And I was at that point, a decade into solopreneurship, I had a lot of fear. I used to work at Google, I had so much fear leaving that I wasn't cut out for entrepreneurship. I was just, I was a good employee. I was a good girl, a straight A student, but I didn't know how to make
06:54 - 07:23
Jenny Blake: it on my own. But I didn't dream to have the fears that all my income would get wiped out at the same time, all clients at once, and 2 years into the future. That I never saw coming. That was a worst case scenario I couldn't even imagine. I thought about recession, and I actually wrote my second book, Pivot, to be countercyclical in the sense that, OK, if there's a recession, pivot is still relevant. More people will be pivoting and getting pivoted than ever, which of course was also true in 2020. And I felt in that moment
07:23 - 07:50
Jenny Blake: when the pandemic hit, okay, I wrote a book called Pivot, I've got this. Now's the time, I doubled down on my podcast, I did a daily show for 3 months, I was like, really leaned on my reserves to be resilient and positive and optimistic and hopeful and grateful and all the things, even though it was such a tough time. And I'm the breadwinner for our household. So for me, my husband and our dog living in New York City with a mortgage that I had just bought this apartment a year prior. So my business had been at
07:50 - 08:20
Jenny Blake: a peak in 2019, the highest revenue I had ever had. I had just gotten married. We just brought home a puppy and I had just bought a house. Now maybe to my future self, I would say, can you please not do all those things at the same time ever again? But that's what I was carrying by the time at the same time all my income got wiped out. And I'm not trying to be a victim about it. It's just like this was the facts. Like the complexity of my life ramped all the way up, the pressure,
08:20 - 08:54
Jenny Blake: the stress, as the financial floor fell out. And for a few years, I was able to feel resilient and I even doubled down on my love for small business by leading into free time, launching a podcast, hybrid publishing the book, Free Time, that came out in March of 2022. But then things just didn't get better. I felt like the economy still was just inching along and there was this saying in real estate, survive till 25. And I kept thinking each next year things would turn around again and we'd go back to normal somehow but every year
08:54 - 09:28
Jenny Blake: got worse there were all these tech layoffs I work with a lot of tech companies it was the year of austerity the year of efficiency the year of cuts and layoffs and sure enough by last summer June 2023 1 of my biggest most favorite long time licensing clients ended our contract. And at that point, I felt it was the straw that broke the camel's back of my psyche. I couldn't fake it anymore. I couldn't pretend anymore. I didn't have any more hope left. And it's not that I'm trying to put all my identity into this 1
09:28 - 09:57
Jenny Blake: client, but hinted at it rhymes with Google and I used to work there. And I just thought, who even am I as a business owner without this client anymore? This was the thing that would impress my peers when I told them who my clients were. And I still have 1 licensing client who's been with me 8 years, but at that point I didn't know what else to do. And when I got that call and I processed the only way I could see to deal with yet another loss, yet another sort of devastating financial blow was to
09:57 - 09:59
Jenny Blake: start writing. And I haven't stopped since.
10:00 - 10:33
Rochelle Moulton: I mean, I so feel that, what that's like. You have this event that no 1 could have predicted, right? I could feel your optimism. I can do this. I'm going to do this. And then at some point, you know, there is a straw. But I guess what I'd like to talk a little bit about what I guess we could call personal narrative writing, which is, you know, what I think of as the substack. And so you dived into this new to you form of writing on substack. You're a great writer. I mean, I loved your book.
10:33 - 10:51
Rochelle Moulton: So that's why I was so intrigued by the substacks. And then eventually you also paused both podcasts, which, you know, by the way, sounded like a hellish production schedule to begin with. So it's been what, a year plus of regular substack pieces and 6 months roughly off of your podcast. Like, what's
10:51 - 11:24
Jenny Blake: that been like for you? Yeah, the pausing the podcast was a tough decision because I had had a show for almost 9 years. Pivot podcast was around for the longest since 2015, and then Free Time had been going for 3 years. And yes, the production schedule was intense. I published 14 episodes a month. However, it was the thing I loved. And if you've read Doe or Shall You Know, the post, do what you love and the money will follow if you meet these 20 criteria. I think 1 of my sort of veil lifted on the myths
11:24 - 11:55
Jenny Blake: and promises of entrepreneurship was if I just find the thing I love, I can make a job for myself even within my business. And that's what I tried to do with podcasting the last few years. And it was costing much more than I was making. So I was spending about 3, 000 a month on production and certainly wasn't earning that back because the shows didn't get big enough to have ad revenue that would have even broken even. And without regular speaking gigs, because in-person events, I mean, for me personally, still haven't fully come back the way
11:55 - 12:34
Jenny Blake: they were. I just couldn't float. It was almost like my corporate work was providing the funding for my passion projects, even within my own business. So I couldn't justify the cost anymore. I also felt I couldn't justify the time and energy. It wasn't just the cost, It was that here I am giving everything I have to this thing that I do love and I was really loving making the relationships and meeting people like you, but it wasn't sustaining me. It wasn't giving back to me. I mean, I love the love notes from listeners, so honored the
12:34 - 13:03
Jenny Blake: people for whom it was their number 1 show and Spotify wrapped. But I also had to look in the mirror and say this thing didn't work. It didn't take off. It's not sustaining me. It's actually putting my finances more at risk. So I need to take a break because it's trying to tell me through my bank account, something's not working. At least that's what my broader business is trying to say. Whatever you're doing with your time, it's not working because the bank account is in serious trouble. And pausing them in February, as you read in Dover
13:03 - 13:31
Jenny Blake: Shell, I ended up getting a surge of work in the spring. And I was able to run around doing a few speaking gigs. I was doing a lot. But I ended up in the ER. And then I spent the summer going to the gym every day. I joke that I joined Equinox and I call it my spa office, because I go and I do some work, some writing, some working out, some sauna and steam room. And I realized in hindsight now, looking back, I wouldn't have been able to focus on my health like that and my
13:31 - 13:50
Jenny Blake: recovery if I was still doing the podcasts because they were all consuming. It was filling my time every day. And now I'm really unhooked from the computer and the calendar and much happier, even though again, I haven't really solved anything yet. But I know what I need to kind of leave on pause for the moment.
13:50 - 14:02
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it's interesting when you mentioned the bank account, I know you were talking about money, but it also struck me that you have an emotional bank account and that was getting empty too, in part from the podcast.
14:02 - 14:34
Jenny Blake: Yeah, or I was just dedicating so much time and energy. The weird thing about it is that it never drained me. That's what was so confusing is that every day I really enjoyed interviewing my guests and being interviewed as other people's guests. That never really wavered. So that's what I found confusing in the decision to pause them was that I thought if you find that thing that gives you energy and lights you up and that you love and that People seem to think you're good at like that's it and then it takes off and it works
14:36 - 14:37
Rochelle Moulton:...
Being a podcast guest pays some excellent dividends: introducing you to new audiences, practice delivering your point of view and honing your message for starters. But how do you get yourself booked?
The qualities that will make you a solid, bookable podcast guest.
The 5-step system to get consistent results to your podcast guesting requests.
The one thing you must have before pitching yourself to a single podcast.
Why smaller, niche podcasts may be ideal, especially when first starting to guest.
How to craft your pitch—and the 3 paragraph format to improve your chances of a YES.
LINKS
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:42
Rochelle Moulton: The best pitches are short, impactful, and do not make the host do any work to say yes, because the second you require them to do work, your chances of a yes drop dramatically. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Molten and today I want to talk about getting yourself booked on podcasts. Now, maybe it's because I've seen some of the most god-awful pitches in the 7 plus years I've been hosting podcasts. I so don't want you to write pitches like those. But it's
00:42 - 01:23
Rochelle Moulton: really because I believe in the merits of guesting on podcasts, even when, maybe especially when, you're not hosting a show of your own. Being a solid podcast guest pays all sorts of dividends in terms of introducing you to new audiences, filled with potential clients and buyers. You also get to practice delivering your point of view and honing your message, becoming a better communicator of your message in the process. Now, what do I mean by being a solid podcast guest? Well, you like to be interviewed and have a conversation. You have some compelling stories to share and
01:23 - 02:04
Rochelle Moulton: you have something valuable to teach. If all you're trying to do is sell your services or products and you genuinely don't like to be interviewed or share stories or teach something valuable, podcast guesting is not a good strategy for you. But if you wanna do more guesting, it helps to create a very simple system, 1 that you can partially outsource if you like to get consistent results. And think of it as 5 steps. So number 1, decide why you want to be on podcasts. Number 2, Research and plan for your guesting. Number 3, I'm sure it's
02:04 - 02:45
Rochelle Moulton: your favorite, pitch yourself. And number 4, prepare for the actual interview. And last but not least, number 5, leverage the asset you've created. So let's talk about each of those. First is your why, your purpose in guesting. And hey, there's nothing wrong with your purpose being very self-serving. You're spending significant time with this, so you'll want to pick a highly valuable outcome to make it worth your while. And for example, do you want to entice people to your own show, grow your network, sell high ticket consulting or coaching, sell books? You want to get exquisitely clear
02:45 - 03:21
Rochelle Moulton: on your why so that you can be highly focused in your pitches, your message, and how your performance as a guest boomerangs back to help you grow your business. And once you figured out your why, researching and prioritizing potential podcasts gets vastly simpler. Now, pitching is a bit of an art form, but when you know why you want to guest on their show and have done your homework, your custom pitch can cut through to increase your chances of getting a yes. Once you get that yes, it's all about preparing for the interview. What will you talk
03:21 - 04:01
Rochelle Moulton: about? What stories are most relevant to their topic and their audience? What's your call to action for the interview? And yes, you want to have a call to action because it will allow you to build toward 1 central theme and keep you and the listener on track. Plus, you can point them to something as a bonus afterwards, say a checklist or an assessment or an article. It keeps you on track. And after your episode goes live, you still have work to do. Now you wanna leverage this asset you've created together. And remember podcast episodes live forever.
04:03 - 04:38
Rochelle Moulton: If yours is evergreen, you can keep leveraging it for as long as it works for you. All righty, let's dig into this some more. So let's say you've decided you want a guest on podcast to find more high ticket clients. And let's also say that you work on PR for B2B SaaS founders, and you've got some really compelling stories. Now, sidebar, this process is so much easier when you have a clear cut ideal client or buyer. If you're not there yet, spend the time to get your audience and messaging down before you start researching potential shows.
04:39 - 05:11
Rochelle Moulton: Okay. So you're a PR expert with a specific point of view and you do some research on SaaS podcasts. Now start with those you already listened to because you know how the show works and you can a lot of times you can reverse engineer how they choose their guests. Make a list, a spreadsheet works great for this. I do love a good spreadsheet with the show, the host, their audience, what you think you'd want to talk about, how many reviews they have in Spotify or Apple, and any notes you want to capture from your research. Just
05:11 - 05:41
Rochelle Moulton: leave room to add a priority ranking and an estimate of their reach later. Oh, and make sure that they have guests regularly. Not everyone does. So take a quick look at their episodes to make sure that they might be interested in interviewing you. Notice that it's not so easy to know if a podcast is right for you. If you've never heard of the host or listened to an episode. The antidote to that is giving a few episodes a listen. I mean, you can play it on 2 times speed once you get the hang of the host
05:41 - 06:18
Rochelle Moulton: style, but don't shortcut this step. And if you're outsourcing this to an agency, get some assurances that they have actually vetted the podcast they're pitching you for. Now get at least 5 or 6 on your list. Even 10 to 20 is fine, and not just those with huge audiences. If you're new to this, you'll have better luck with smaller niche podcasts, and the practice will be good for you. Once you've got a good assortment, it's time to prioritize. So our PR consultant to SaaS founders has a list of 20 SaaS podcasts. They're going to prioritize those
06:18 - 06:57
Rochelle Moulton: that are targeted to founders first. Then I'd suggest getting an idea of how large their audience is to help you prioritize. And you can do that by looking at how many reviews they have as a proxy for downloads and or you can use a site like listen notes.com that ranks podcasts with a listener score. Neither is perfect, but it will give you an order of magnitude that will help you decide which to pitch first. And this may feel counterintuitive, but you probably wanna start with a smaller audience podcasts first. Because they will 1, tend to be
06:57 - 07:30
Rochelle Moulton: excited about getting a well-crafted pitch from an ideal guest, and 2, be more receptive to a pitch from someone they don't know because filling guest slots is hard. Now the bigger shows can be pickier and if you haven't made a name for yourself yet or don't have an intriguing book to send them, it's harder to get a yes. Just start with the lowest hanging fruit so you can get in the game and start honing your skills. Now, let's assume you've picked a couple to pitch, okay? Now you wanna parse these out a bit because your pitches
07:30 - 08:09
Rochelle Moulton: will get better as you get some practice. And the pitch is everything, because it's typically your 1 chance to connect and intrigue. Right? The best pitches are short, impactful, and do not make the host do any work to say yes. Because the second you require them to do work, your chances of a yes drop dramatically. Now I get a surprising number of pitches, often from agencies, where they go on and on about the guest bio, but they never give even a hint the person has ever been on a podcast, which means if I'm going to consider
08:09 - 08:43
Rochelle Moulton: them, I have to track down their site and they rarely have a podcast. So I'm supposed to go looking for their interviews and then listen to some to see if they'll be a fit. Not gonna happen. Right. Or they use a can pitch for every podcast they pitch. I get about 1 a week from someone pitching a talk on leadership in corporate America. I couldn't care less about that topic. And just reading the title of this podcast, nevermind the 2 sentence description, should tell the most casual reader it's not a fit. So I don't even respond
08:43 - 09:21
Rochelle Moulton: to those. My point here is your pitch must be crafted for that specific host based on what's important to them. Just follow the with them rule, right? What's in it for me with your host in mind. So our PR pro might pitch a podcast with SaaS founders by teasing a story where a SaaS founder saved their bacon by getting out in front of a breaking story, you know, of course, with PR help, or suggesting an episode on the top 5 signs a SaaS needs to hire an outside communications expert, and you'll be telling stories to illustrate
09:21 - 10:00
Rochelle Moulton: that. Or how to avoid hiring the wrong PR advisor. Again, more stories. Now the actual pitch will vary based on the specific point of view of the PR consultant, how that fits or challenges the host's point of view, and the suspected audience for the show. And you can do devil's advocate style pitches too. It's got a lot of options. Whatever you decide, keep the pitch super simple and in your own voice. Now, most successful pitches are just 3 paragraphs. You've got an opening where you make a meaningful connection to the show's message, and that can include
10:00 - 10:34
Rochelle Moulton: a reference to an ongoing bit on the show or a specific guest or episode, but make it specific, not generic. And the second paragraph where you suggest the topic of your proposed episode, adding just enough color so the host can envision it. And you can add a link or 2, say, to the page on your site with your interviews or to a media page so that they can get you with a quick click. And the third paragraph is a great place to say something humble and connective. You might say, I've given a Spotify review of your
10:34 - 11:08
Rochelle Moulton: podcast because it provides so much value to the SaaS founders I serve. Or something like, totally understand if this isn't a fit right now, but I'd love to connect since we both serve a similar audience. And if you aren't already, connect with them on LinkedIn after sending your pitch, so they'll connect the pitch to your face. It helps make you more human. Oh, and pro tip, send your pitch in an email, not on say LinkedIn. It's too easy for those with lots of connections to lose your message on social. Keep it in their email inbox where
11:08 - 11:42
Rochelle Moulton: they can find it or delegate it. Okay, so you hear back and you book your first interview. Yay, right? But you're not done yet. You've got to prepare for the interview so your episode does exactly what you want it to do. Just go back to your why, your purpose, and remind yourself why you want to do this, and then dig in. Look again at your pitch and their response. This will tell you the angle you want to take here because only then can you lay out the 3 key pieces of your interview. What you'll be talking
11:42 - 12:16
Rochelle Moulton: about, which stories will be most compelling for that topic and their audience, and your call to action. So this might sound like a 15 minute note taking session and you're done, which if you've been doing this awhile and you have clear talking points, it is. But if this is relatively new territory for you, you'll want to dig in and really think about how to match up your point of view, your expertise and your stories with this particular podcast and host. And you might want to let the prep stretch over a few days so you have a
12:16 - 12:50
Rochelle Moulton: chance to mull over different stories and how to best present them. Some of the best interviews, the ones that feel fresh and engaging and natural, are the result of hours of preparation. Now the good news, if you keep good notes, you won't have to rethink every interview, but build on what you've already done, what you've already prepared. When my first book came out, I booked an interview with Chris Doe on the future, which felt like a really big get at the time. I had to get through an hour screening call with his managing director before even
12:50 - 13:20
Rochelle Moulton: being added to a possible guest list. So you can bet that when I got booked, I prepped like crazy for that. I spent the equivalent of almost 2 days just to make sure I nailed it. Because for me, it was a test of how my book could be received in the creative community. And I knew he was a good interviewer with plenty of influence, which meant I needed to be at the top of my game. It's 1 of the best interviews I've ever done, and I would do the same prep work all over again for the
13:20 - 13:57
Rochelle Moulton: next book. All this is a long-winded way of saying that preparation is important. Invest the amount of time it takes for you to feel prepped and confident on the podcasters platform, No more and no less. So let's assume you've done the interview and it was great. You're happy with the outcome. And if you're not for some reason, get a second opinion versus thinking it sucks because you're unhappy with the sound of your voice. Okay, now it's time to leverage this evergreen asset that you've created together. A lot depends on the agreement, if any, that you made
13:57 - 14:32
Rochelle Moulton: with the host. Sometimes you agree to drop it in your newsletter or specific social channels. Other times the host doesn't care so much because they've already got an engaged audience and they view you as a bonus. In either event, do a simple thing as soon as you've wrapped the episode, preferably right after you hang up. Go give their podcast a review in Spotify or Apple podcasts. It's thoughtful and quick and easy. And then put your marketing hat on. Your host will have a process around sharing assets from your episode. You have visuals, audio clips, marketing copy,
14:32 - 15:03
Rochelle Moulton: and they'll usually deliver it pretty close to when your episode will drop. Now, if you can't get an exact drop date, see if you can get a general timeframe so you can fit it into your email and social posting schedule. Think about how and where you wanna share this, And if you haven't already, make a home for your interviews on your website. Yeah, it looks kind of lame when you have just 1 interview, but use that as fuel to keep getting more. Or save them up in a document so when you're ready to add a media
15:03 - 15:36
Rochelle Moulton: page, you've got all the info and links at your fingertips. And those also make excellent links for pitching new podcasts so that they can see that you're not a first-timer. Then when your interview comes out, share the heck out of it. Maybe you include it in your emails to your list with some compelling copy about why it's a good listen when it first comes out. But maybe it's a terrific adjunct to something you write 3 months or 3 years later. I mean, you can link to the original podcast for people who want a deeper dive or
15:36 - 16:11
Rochelle Moulton: who may have missed it because they didn't know you then, or the topic just wasn't on their radar then. The reverse happens too, which is fabulous. New listeners to the original podcast dip into the back catalog of episodes. I've had clients come to me from something they listened to 5 years ago. It happens more often than you think. It's why podcasting is so powerful for people like us, experts who are selling their expertise. Very little of what we have to say will be dated or irrelevant quickly. We have a much longer shelf life than the latest
16:11 - 16:48
Rochelle Moulton: pop star or breaking news. Okay, I've covered a lot of ground here, So let me recap and try and tie this up with a bow. If you want to get yourself booked on podcasts, it's going to take some attention or some cash if you'd rather outsource this work. But the process is the same. Decide why you want to be on podcasts, research and plan for your guesting, pitch yourself, prepare for the actual interview and leverage the asset you've created so you can reap the benefit for years to come. Now I know you can do this. You
16:48 - 17:07
Rochelle Moulton: just have to start and stick with it. All right. Now as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for the Soloist Live. Bye bye.
You’ve heard the hype about AI, but how can you tactically and strategically use it to manage and grow your Soloist business? Global AI consultant Heidi Araya—who says “experts should be experts, not task-jugglers”—gets highly specific on how we can best use AI right now:
Why your most productive use of AI starts with where friction currently lies in your business.
Saving time: buying or building AI assistants for the time-intensive tasks typical with knowledge work.
Creating a “librarian” to answer questions from your existing content—internally, externally (with or without monetizing).
Protecting your proprietary content from being used to train large learning models (LLMs).
Strategic use cases that may surprise you (and replace the thousands of dollars you might otherwise spend to uncover this data).
LINKS
Heidi Araya Website | LinkedIn
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Heidi Araya is a global consultant, keynote speaker, and patented inventor who has dedicated her decades-long career to driving multimillion-dollar business improvements using a people-first approach.
Fueled by a desire to continuously learn and push boundaries, Heidi pivoted from leading large scale change initiatives inside organizations and has embarked on her third career, first upskilling in AI and then starting her own AI Agency. Leveraging her deep expertise in business operations, coaching, and change management, she now empowers solopreneurs, startups, and small businesses to unlock their full potential in the AI era.
Heidi's passion lies in bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI technology and practical applications for small businesses. She doesn't just talk AI, she implements it. Her people-centric approach focuses on AI enablement, AI automation, and productivity coaching, allowing smaller businesses to compete with larger corporations.
When she's not empowering businesses with AI, she enjoys raising butterflies, tackling home improvement projects, and staying active.
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:18
Heidi Araya: I had 1 creative agency who their clients were asking for competitor insights. So it could go out and actually look for the competitors on the internet and come back and deliver a report and summary of whatever the competitors were so that they could go back and save them like 35 hours of work for each competitor report that they had to run.
00:24 - 01:10
Rochelle Moulton : Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton, and today I'm joined by soloist and AI consultant, Heidi Araya. Heidi is a global consultant, keynote speaker, and patented inventor who's dedicated her decades-long career to driving multi-million dollar business improvements using a people first approach. Fueled by a desire to continuously learn and push boundaries, she pivoted from leading large scale change initiatives inside organizations and has embarked on her third career, first upskilling in AI and then starting her own AI agency. Leveraging her deep expertise
01:10 - 01:38
Rochelle Moulton : in business operations, coaching and change management, she now helps solopreneurs, startups and small businesses unlock their full potential in the AI era. And when she's not empowering businesses with AI, she enjoys raising butterflies, tackling home improvement projects, and staying active. Heidi, Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here today. I love the combination of AI with raising butterflies. Somehow that just feels so perfect to
01:39 - 01:46
Heidi Araya: me. That's great. I just released 2 of them today this morning. They emerged. I was so happy to see them take flight. Oh,
01:46 - 02:20
Rochelle Moulton : I like that. I think we're going to work this metaphor into there somehow. So 1 of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is that there is so much hype on AI right now. And I feel like you are the AI soloist whisperer with your smart, practical advice. It's like you jump over the hype to see what we can make work right now. So let's dive in. So first, before we talk about AI, let's talk about you And how you decided to focus your business on AI like if I remember rightly you started
02:20 - 02:22
Rochelle Moulton : out with a BA in Russian Yes,
02:22 - 02:58
Heidi Araya: yes, correct. I did start out with my BA in Russian But that part of my story is as soon as I graduated the Soviet Union fell So my dream of linking Soviet and Americans and building bridges was basically dead even before I got my diploma. So I had to pivot right away. I became a researcher, a technical writer, found my way into agile ways of working and what's called lean. So I was doing these large-scale transformations inside organizations and I always found these processes were broken and people were miserable at work because they couldn't actually get
02:58 - 03:30
Heidi Araya: work done. So it became my mission to alleviate misery in the workplace. And I don't think that's really changed. I think when I noticed the decline of my previous career in leading agile transformations inside large organizations, it just seemed like people, they need the help, but the companies didn't want to invest there. So luckily, I saw that AI was coming on the scene for years. And so I launched the opportunity to say, this is an opportunity that I can leverage, learn from, and then help other people. And at the time, when I first started thinking about
03:30 - 03:49
Heidi Araya: it, I thought, well, I'm going to lead, again, some initiative inside an organization. But by the time I ended my data science program at MIT, I had decided that, no, I have to go with boots on the ground talking to people. This is something that I want to impact small businesses and solopreneurs because I've just seen people struggle too much. So I was done with large organizations.
03:50 - 04:27
Rochelle Moulton : Well, I can totally relate to that. I just love this movement from Russian to MIT to AI. And so thank you for sharing that. I really wanted listeners to see that pivoting can happen fast when you've made up your mind to provide value in new ways. All right, let's 0 in on soloists and especially soloist consultants. So we are typically doing some combination of tasks from admin for the business to serving clients, maybe we're writing reports or we're conducting assessments to marketing. At least I do, I feel like I spend a ton of time doing that.
04:27 - 04:46
Rochelle Moulton : Writing articles, running podcasts, engaging on social media, managing an email list of prospects, and of course, their pipeline. So I know what we want to talk about here is some use cases for solos, but before we do that, should we start with where the listener is feeling friction in their business?
04:47 - 05:14
Heidi Araya: Yeah. Well, actually, the solopreneur consultants that I speak with and coaches that I speak with, you've hit it. They don't have enough time to work on their business, they're working in their business, they are struggling because they're, well let me give you 1 example. I was spending 5 to 10 hours a week creating meeting notes and task action items. After you meet with a potential customer or a customer, you have to send out action items and send out those emails. And I was never getting to it, or it would be late, and I would be so
05:14 - 05:42
Heidi Araya: exhausted. And so I actually automated the process. And I have an AI note taker that attends my meetings, like my little executive assistant, and then creates summary with task items. And when the call ends, within 5 minutes, I open up my draft emails. And I have the draft email with summary and action items. All I have to do is hit send because it's pre-populated with the people who were in the meeting. So I guess I just look for ways for people to reduce the things that they're doing. That's what I would call drudgery. So we can
05:42 - 06:07
Heidi Araya: free up time. Now I don't spend that time with that. And I already, the automations and the AI that I use inside, for myself, I guess I feel empathy, right? Because I am a solopreneur and I'm struggling with those exact same things. So I know each solopreneur has maybe slightly different struggles, but I think we also have a lot of similarities, like the marketing content creation proposal creation, responding to emails as some of the things that we have to time slice across our day.
06:07 - 06:33
Rochelle Moulton : Well, it also makes AI so much more accessible that we're not having to sit back and go, oh, how can I use AI instead of saying, okay, where's the friction? Where are the bottlenecks in my business now? And especially, what do I not like doing that maybe there is another way to do? Yes. So let's talk about those use cases. I know you've been developing and working with clients on quite a number of these. So where should we
06:33 - 07:10
Heidi Araya: start? Yeah, so I guess the first 1 that's very popular across my clients today is a custom AI assistant, I'll say. You can imagine it like chat GPT, but it's trained on you and it knows everything about you. So we train this robust backend on, you might have like 1 client, 17 years of blog posts, books, podcasts, talks, whatever it is, your website. So we train it on all the content that you think is relevant, and then that's accessible then. You can imagine that second brain knows everything about you that you have ever shared with the
07:10 - 07:40
Heidi Araya: world that you just chose to share with that. So then we actually build a brand for the person and find the brand voice. And so that's there as their own little personal assistant. So I use mine multiple times a day to everything from, you know, help me write this email to, I need to write a proposal, rephrasing things. And even for social media, that's 1 of the struggles we have as solopreneurs is we want to write more resonant content in social media that's not just coming from chat GPT. So now when that second brain knows all
07:40 - 07:46
Heidi Araya: about us, we come up with much more resonant content in minutes instead of hours.
07:46 - 08:00
Rochelle Moulton : So I just want to dive into that just a little bit more. I want to make sure that people understand this. I want to make sure I understand this. So you train it. So you're putting in audio from podcasts, you're putting in blog posts. Can you do books
08:00 - 08:07
Heidi Araya: as well? Yep, you can do books. And I have 1 client who has put all of his 28 books up in his second brain.
08:07 - 08:16
Rochelle Moulton : I love that. And so you could use this internally, right, to help you. I love that a byproduct of this is getting clear on your brand voice.
08:16 - 08:39
Heidi Araya: Yes, it is amazing. So that was 1 of the realizations. I wasn't sure. I tested it. I just wasn't sure how it would turn out. I was like, let me just ask, what's the brand voice? But it turned out amazing. So actually, we have a system where we work with clients to figure out certain things. Let's say they don't have a lot of content yet, but they want to get there and they want to start building their brands. So we have them fill out a little paper and we meet with them and we do a recording.
08:39 - 09:01
Heidi Araya: And that's part of the first thing that we would get up in their content. It turns out that the audio recording is so much richer than the blog post that you write, and you just communicate in a completely different way. So the content that comes out after you've done something like a recording is just so rich, and I guess that's what they find value in as well, right? This rich content that gives them really great stuff that they can use right away.
09:01 - 09:07
Rochelle Moulton : I'm sitting there thinking of 7 years of weekly podcast audio. Right.
09:07 - 09:38
Heidi Araya: Yes. And now, so that's an internal use. I know that you have a client who used it externally. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So I have several clients who they're actually using it externally as well. So 1 of them is, well, I have a few authors there. But 1 of them happens to have really high usage. It might get like 100 chats per week on the chat bot. And I guess the value there is so this person's content is in English, but people across the world want to understand this management philosophy
09:38 - 10:05
Heidi Araya: that he has. So people talk to the chat bot in up to 100 languages across the world 24-7. And so now he's seen as a thought leader in his space because he was the first 1 to have that there and people are getting value and I see some of the chat logs are, you know, thank you so much or this is the best response I've gotten on that. So people ask it anything from help me write a job description to how do I run this activity, to all kinds of things. So I view it as really
10:05 - 10:33
Heidi Araya: crucial for an author who wants to maybe expand their reach globally. And 1 of the other things is people don't have time to read whole books now. So they can now ask a very specific question. How do I do this particular thing, right? And get that answer right away in real time. So it's bite sized learning. Now in in that case, did this person monetize it or are they doing this? So actually he has to. 1 is open on his website and he did monetize the 1 with the 28 books.
10:34 - 10:39
Rochelle Moulton : Okay, well that makes sense because if you're giving away your book content, eventually nobody buys the books anymore.
10:40 - 11:05
Heidi Araya: Right. His website traffic is up 25 to 35%. He's getting more people purchasing the books and I mean now you know his you can just see the engagement everywhere that you know his posts are He also does actually share the funny things or the valuable things that people get out of there So from time to time he'll be sharing a little snippet of the chat bot gave this answer or someone asked this question. So it's also fun. Well, plus that sounds like
11:05 - 11:25
Rochelle Moulton : a social media post that just wrote itself. Yes, true enough. Yeah. So what do you say when authors are worried about putting their proprietary information into a chat bot that somehow this is going to wind up in the master scheme and be used inappropriately. How do you deal with that concern?
11:25 - 11:59
Heidi Araya: Yeah, so the unlike when you upload it to a public platform like chat GPT none of the data or none of the LLMs are training on your data. So it's secure from that perspective. It's not going to be trained. We're just accessing, you know, what's called the API. So it doesn't have access to your content. But otherwise I also have a very secure platform. That's ISO 27001 GDPR and SOC 2 compliant. So it's from that perspective they're very secure platforms now that customers don't have to worry about that. Maybe even someone hacking into the platform right.
11:59 - 12:18
Heidi Araya: So they're very secure platforms And there's another way where you can sort of upload it and then delete the actual source material so it stays trained, but no 1 can actually go and download the material afterwards. So there's various ways that you can secure it if people are concerned. And this person was actually concerned. This is his livelihood. So he wanted to make sure it was very secure.
12:18 - 12:50
Rochelle Moulton : Interesting. Interesting. So is this what would you call this the librarian? And you know, I've had this conversation with a couple people on the podcast where we said, gee, what we really want is a librarian, Because we have all this content. I mean, I do have 17 years of blog posts and 7 years of weekly podcasts. And it would be awesome to have, I'll say, somebody, in this case, something, go and be able to pull answers to certain kinds of questions from content. Is this the application that you would use to do that,
12:50 - 13:21
Heidi Araya: or is there another 1? So you could. I have a very robust platform that offers citations. And so, for example, if you asked a specific question and it referenced a podcast, like I have another customer who's an attorney and when it references some of the material from the podcast. For example, it's going to pull that in a citation and then put it there in the chat so you can see exactly where it came from. So unlike chat GPT where you just don't know where the answer came from, this actually tells you where in your content it
13:21 - 13:35
Heidi Araya: got that answer. So you also feel safer that it's not hallucinating, which is another thing we can talk about if you want to, and that you know exactly where that content is. So I've had customers say, "'Oh, I forgot about that blog post. Yeah, that was a good 1.
13:35 - 14:01
Rochelle Moulton : Yeah, I could see that. Okay. I mean, this is really interesting because there's a lot of people that really have concerns about this. And I think sometimes the concerns are really warranted. And I could see why you'd want to think twice. And in other situations, there are opportunities to manage the risk. So what else are you seeing, especially soloists and consultants, use AI for?
14:01 - 14:32
Heidi Araya: Well, a lot of them actually are looking to grow their brand on LinkedIn. And...
This episode is inspired by a listener question that I’ve been hearing a lot lately: how can you pull yourself out of a slump? And does a prolonged slump mean you’re not cut out to be a Soloist?
The gift (and the hidden cost) of a great first year as a Soloist.
Why hitting the wall—where your revenue tanks or plateaus—happens, especially with new-ish Soloists.
When it’s time to invest in positioning yourself appropriately and developing a sales system to consistently fill your pipeline.
One simple action to ensure you’re ready to turn around a difficult revenue situation.
Why it’s never too late to niche down—and how to do it without wasting months getting it right.
LINKS
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:45
Rochelle Moulton: If you haven't honed your messaging to focus on your ideal clients and buyers, and you haven't built a recurring system to find, nurture, and close those people, eventually you'll hit that wall. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today I want to share a listener question about pulling yourself out of a slump because I've been hearing variations on this lately and it's worth addressing. So this particular question goes like this. I'm feeling stuck in my business and I just don't know what
00:45 - 01:21
Rochelle Moulton: to do next. In the past, I hit over $100, 000 in revenue easily. And 2 years ago, I broke $200, 000 for the first time and I was thrilled. The last year though, has been pretty miserable. I just barely hit $100, 000 in 2023 and I won't in 2024 unless something changes dramatically. Is this a sign I need to go get a job or is this fixable? Okay, so let's call this person Chris because they didn't want to identify themselves in the show. Chris and I tossed a few emails back and forth, and this is what
01:21 - 01:57
Rochelle Moulton: else I learned that I think is important to talk about what to do next. 1, Chris is a B2B consultant with a respectable level of expertise, about 8 years in their specialty. 2, if we were to look at Chris's website and social media, we'd see they focus more on talking about their expertise versus identifying their ideal client and the specific problems they solve. 3, Chris has been in business for almost 4 years and they need about $100, 000 in revenue to meet their basic needs, but have targeted $200, 000 as their goal to build a Freedom
01:57 - 02:33
Rochelle Moulton: Fund for their future. So I think of that as their enough goal. They can tighten their belt for a year or so, but they need to be on a $100, 000 plus trajectory soon. 4, Chris does not have any sort of consistent pipeline of new clients, nor do they have any recurring revenue of any consequence. It's mostly project work. 5, Chris has been experimenting a bit, but since nothing is stuck yet, they're starting to doubt themselves to feel less confident. And finally, number 6, all that said, they really, really, really don't want to go back to
02:33 - 03:10
Rochelle Moulton: a job job. All of this is important information when you're making big life decisions. You know in your heart of hearts whether you want to stay independent or go back inside. And it's folly to ignore your very real need for revenue to support yourself and perhaps others. So what we have in Chris is someone who has tasted the good life of being a soloist and wants more. They need to make a certain level of income to feel like the risk of being independent is worthwhile, like they can create the right business for themselves. From what I
03:10 - 03:47
Rochelle Moulton: can see, Chris has hit a wall that many soloists do in the early years of their business. If you've been in a corporate role, built up some good creds and some relationships, hanging out your shingle can feel amazing that first year. Everybody wants to help the newbie and you get plenty of referrals or just, hey, will you do X for me? Kinds of projects handed over without any competition. Year 1 can look and feel surprisingly easy, almost effortless in terms of sourcing new clients. They basically come to you And your job is to close the deal.
03:47 - 04:25
Rochelle Moulton: And then year 2 rolls in. Now if you've got a highly marketable skill with the right reputation, year 2 might be even better than year 1. And if that's the case, like it was with Chris, it's Probably because you're getting referrals from clients or people in your circle who've seen what you can do. But if you haven't honed your messaging to focus on your ideal clients and buyers, and you haven't built a recurring system to find, nurture, and close those people, eventually you'll hit that wall. Now, I don't wanna make this sound like you have to
04:25 - 04:59
Rochelle Moulton: do all of this, niche down and build a sustainable sales system at once. The truth is it's usually a process. Year 1 is when you do a bunch of different things to see what sticks. The last thing you're probably thinking about in that first year is niching down because you're having so much fun getting to do cool work with people who actually pay you. It's a blast. And year 2 tends to be 1 of 2 things. Either your revenue falls off dramatically because you haven't been investing in relationships and business development. Or like Chris, you got
04:59 - 05:41
Rochelle Moulton: lucky with referrals and your revenue ticked up, even though you didn't do much to cultivate it. But eventually, most folks who stay in solo consulting realize they have to invest not only in positioning themselves appropriately, but in selling themselves and their services, which is usually some combination of spade work to turn up opportunities, maybe via some social media interactions, authority marketing, and one-to-one conversations with potential buyers. Chris hit the wall because they assumed that a couple or 3 years of relatively easy revenue Meant that it would simply continue on the upswing It probably won't make Chris
05:41 - 06:21
Rochelle Moulton: feel much better to know they aren't alone But the good news is there is most definitely a solution. And where it starts will probably feel weird, but it's essential to get your headspace where it needs to be to dial into your next best moves. So I want you to do something every single day that reminds you of your value. Because getting ghosted or figuratively kicked in the face while you're selling is hard. You need to be comfortable and confident in the value you deliver to bust through this current situation. Maybe you rummage through your digital or
06:21 - 06:59
Rochelle Moulton: physical glory box, you know, that place where you keep all those reminders of the high points of your career, or you give yourself a 5 minute speech while the theme from Rocky plays in the background. Whatever grounds you in the knowledge that you are providing significant value through your work. Remind yourself of how good you are. Okay? That's step 1. I want you to be in a clear place of confidence before making any major moves. Step 2. Once you're in a calm, confident headspace, I want you to take a clear-eyed view of your sales pipeline and
06:59 - 07:35
Rochelle Moulton: relationships. Is there some low-hanging fruit? People you already know you can help? If you're in a financial pickle, this is 1 place to start, but I'm throwing up a yellow caution flag. The worst time to try and sell something is when you're desperate. Because I guarantee you will say and do things you'd never consider if all was well. Sure, I can do that for half my regular price. Of course I'll work with you, even though every time I see your name in my inbox, I want to vomit. Or worse, you push when the best sales are
07:35 - 08:12
Rochelle Moulton: a pull. So assess the current state of your pipeline. Is it a jumble of different kinds of people looking for different sorts of help? Or can you identify pockets of folks who just need nurturing to become valued clients. Chris has a mixed bag. They have lots of people they can help, but there's not a lot of commonality to their industry, their title, or even their desired outcome. Which means step 3 is to identify a next level cut at their ideal client. In a perfect world, this would be step 2, but when you're in a revenue crunch,
08:12 - 08:55
Rochelle Moulton: most soloists handle this better after they've assessed the current state of their pipeline. 1 easy way to get to your next cut is to just do an autopsy on your past projects. Who did you most like serving? Who felt most like your people? Who didn't agonize over pricing, but saw the value of the outcomes you produce. Who is a natural fit with your talents and passions and has the budget to afford you. Instead of overthinking, just start experimenting. It's as easy as having a conversation with people you've identified as potentials. And social media connections like in
08:55 - 09:35
Rochelle Moulton: LinkedIn can easily grease the skids. As you're Having these conversations, ask questions about the outcomes they most value, and then take a good hard look at your services and products. Are they aligned with your clients most pressing problems? Are they priced in line with their value? You know, a good rule of thumb here is that you wanna deliver 10X the value of your price. So if you charge $10, 000, you want to deliver $100, 000 of value. That 10 to 1 ratio makes saying yes to you so much easier because it's a good investment. Now you
09:35 - 10:15
Rochelle Moulton: may need to adjust how you deliver. Maybe it's an advisory retainer versus a done for you service or vice versa. You may need to adjust when you deliver. Maybe your service is best before or after certain major events or specific calendar dates. And you may need to adjust the price for what you deliver, creating a ladder of increasing cost and value that makes sense to both your ideal client and your business model. You simply have to experiment bit by bit adjusting as you go. You're not going to get it right the first time at every step,
10:15 - 10:52
Rochelle Moulton: but you will learn what sticks and what doesn't. I'd also suggest you get yourself some help. It could be anything from a very low or 0 cost affinity group to serve as a sounding board or a group facilitated by an expert, all the way up to a one-to-one coach to help you jump those hurdles faster than you can on your own. Being a soloist doesn't mean you have to do it all on your own. It does mean that you want to adopt an attitude that says, I'm curious and always learning because chances are excellent that the
10:52 - 11:24
Rochelle Moulton: key to your next big leap is baked into those experiments. I would just keep experimenting, evaluating, and sometimes overhauling, and you'll set yourself firmly on the road to the kind of revenue growth you want. Okay. Now, as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for the Soloist Live. Bye bye.
Does your brain seem to work differently than those around you—maybe you even went solo so you could operate at your best? Coach (and former psychotherapist) Diann Wingert shares her experience advising the neurodiverse:
Neurodiversity—what it is, why it’s a spectrum and how experts look at it today (hint: don’t think of it as a disorder).
Why so many neurodiverse people become entrepreneurs—and serial entrepreneurs.
The signs you might be on the ADHD spectrum (and what to do with that if you are).
How understanding the unique challenges and opportunities of how your brain works plays into the design and success of your Soloist business.
Why radical self-acceptance—whether you’re neurodiverse or not—is the way to go.
LINKS
Diann Wingert Shiny Objects | LinkedIn | Instagram
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
After a twenty-year career as a psychotherapist and mental health administrator, Diann pivoted into business strategy and coaching for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Her passion is helping those who think differently build a profitable, sought-after business based on their unique brilliance.
Diann has extensive experience working with neurodivergent individuals, especially those who are gifted, ADHD, or both. On the personal side, Diann loves dark fiction, strong coffee, and laughing out loud. She is also a Peloton enthusiast, practicing Buddhist, and host of the newly re-branded ADHD-ish podcast.
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:25
Diann Wingert: Understanding, oh, there is a name for my difference. I am actually neurodivergent. I've always known I was different. And trust me, if you're listening to my voice and you are neurodivergent, You've always known it. We know we're different, but if we don't know why, what most people do is go to shame.
00:30 - 00:45
Rochelle Moulton: MUSIC Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm so happy to welcome my new pal, the incomparable Diann Wingert.
00:45 - 00:47
Diann Wingert: That's a great intro.
00:48 - 01:35
Rochelle Moulton: Well, wait, there's more. So after a 20-year career as a psychotherapist and mental health administrator, Diane pivoted into business strategy and coaching for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Her passion is helping those who think differently build a profitable, sought after business based on their unique brilliance. And Diane has extensive experience working with neurodivergent individuals, especially those who are gifted, ADHD, or both. On the personal side, she loves dark fiction, strong coffee, and laughing out loud. She's also a Peloton enthusiast, practicing Buddhist, and host of the newly rebranded ADHD-ish podcast. Diane, welcome.
01:35 - 01:37
Diann Wingert: I'm so excited to have this conversation.
01:38 - 02:01
Rochelle Moulton: Well so am I. So let's just dive right in. And I first just want to understand, do you identify as a soloist yourself? I certainly do and proudly so. Yay. So what made you pivot from psychotherapy to coaching? I mean, there's some, you know, you could make some logical reasons why, but it really is a different way of operating. What made you go there? It's a really great question and
02:01 - 02:34
Diann Wingert: I love being asked it. On a practical note, my husband was interviewing for another job, which meant we were probably going to leave the state, if not the country, and you may or may not know that a therapy license is only good in the state you're in. But there was something going on with me personally, which is the bigger, deeper, and I think more important reason. I had outgrown the role of being a therapist. I wanted to be more directive. I wanted to help people move forward at a faster pace. And I was ready to work
02:34 - 03:15
Diann Wingert: with people who had done the work of healing and developing insight and were now wanting to move into growth, change and reaching their highest potential. So I knew that was no longer a therapy role. And I had also been a serial business owner, and I wanted to bring my 2 skill sets together as what I like to refer to as a psychologically savvy business coach. Because if you work with soloists and you know this, the business can only be as successful as the business owner is healthy, mentally, physically, spiritually. So I like to work with the
03:15 - 03:19
Diann Wingert: whole person so that both they and their business can thrive.
03:19 - 03:39
Rochelle Moulton: Oh, preaching. I know. You preaching. I know. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So, I want to talk about neurodivergence. I still have the worst time saying that word. So define it for us and is there a spectrum that we should be aware of? Like how is this being discussed now? I feel like it changes moment by moment.
03:39 - 04:16
Diann Wingert: No lie. In fact, it's a really hot topic that it seems like came from out of nowhere and is suddenly on everybody's lips. So I'm going to talk about neurodivergence and neurodiversity because you're going to hear both. And I have a friend who's in the field who gets really upset when people get them confused. So I'm going to try to set the record straight. Neurodiversity means simply this, differences in the way people's brains work. The notion that there's no 1 right way for a brain to work really flies in the face of the psychiatric model, the
04:16 - 04:56
Diann Wingert: medical model, and the DSM, which I was a practitioner of for many years as a therapist. This notion that there's a right way for things to be and a wrong way, neurodiversity honors the fact that different brains work differently, and there's no 1 correct way. So neurodiversity means there's a range of ways that people perceive and respond to the world around them at that these differences can be embraced and even encouraged. Now neurodivergence means that you diverge from the norm. So we're kind of moving away from norms and calling it typical. So there are, instead of
04:56 - 05:28
Diann Wingert: saying, well, this is normal and this is abnormal, and I sat through so many courses in abnormal psychology, But if you embrace a diversity model and think, okay, there's different ways for people's brains to work, and by the way, it's not just brains, it's nervous system too, and that includes the emotions. If that's the way we're thinking now, then instead of normal and abnormal, we are talking about typical and atypical, neurotypical and neurodivergent. Does that
05:28 - 05:29
Rochelle Moulton: help? Yeah.
05:29 - 05:30
Diann Wingert: And I just
05:30 - 05:47
Rochelle Moulton: want to embrace the neurodiversity term. Like, I just love that because it just flies with everything else that I think about the world right now in terms of how we need to understand that everybody's not like us. Exactly. And just to add how your brain works as another form of diversity, I think, is
05:47 - 06:28
Diann Wingert: a really powerful way to think about it. Well, how your brain works, Rochelle, how your brain perceives self and others, how your brain perceives and responds to and interacts with the environment, This influences and affects everything. And it starts from birth because babies who are born to be neurodivergent are going to behave differently. They may be harder to soothe. They may be more irritable. They may be more excitable. They may be more active. They may be more passive. There's so many different ways that they may be different from babies that are developing typically, and it's why
06:29 - 07:06
Diann Wingert: conditions like autism and ADHD are still in the psychiatric manual and are still considered to be a form of neurodevelopmental disorders. But if we practice what I like to call radical self-acceptance, It's this is who I am, this is how I am. I might as well work with the brain and nervous system that I have instead of trying to conform to the norm and do so unsuccessfully. That's where I think the symptoms come from that most of us try to mask, hide, or medicate.
07:07 - 07:36
Rochelle Moulton: Yes. And I feel like that's what I keep reading about. Is it just my imagination or are more adults being diagnosed as, let's call it, neurodiverse right now? I mean, I think LinkedIn is a good example where so many people in my circle are already all of a sudden coming out, if you will, saying, hey, I've been diagnosed as this and it explains so much about my life and my experiences up to this point. So is this just happening more often now? Like what's happening?
07:37 - 08:14
Diann Wingert: It's not your imagination. It's like slug bug, okay? Or when we don't look for something, we don't find it. And that's 1 of the things I say over and over and over. There's so many generations of adults, most especially women who are realizing it midlife or later, some of them younger, some in their 20s and 30s, especially if they're on TikTok because there's a lot of creators. And, you know, God bless them. Like, there's so many people who are kind of what I call falling into these diagnostic categories by recognizing themselves on TikTok because there are
08:14 - 08:49
Diann Wingert: creators who are saying, hey, you may be autistic if or these are signs that you have ADHD. And while they're not professionally trained, most of them, and while, you know, nobody should be trying to diagnose people off social media or the internet, if you can help people see who they are and point them in the direction of learning more, I don't think there's any way that can be a bad thing. And frankly, in my opinion, and 1 of the reasons why I have rebranded my podcast ADHD-ish is that after many years of having the legal right
08:49 - 09:20
Diann Wingert: and responsibility and privilege even of diagnosing people with various mental disorders, I no longer think it's necessary or even beneficial for many people to choose that Because understanding who you are, understanding literally how you tick, what lights your brain up like a Christmas tree with dopamine, and what makes you feel like you just need to take a very long nap, These are the things that are important, not what diagnostic category you fit in or
09:20 - 09:51
Rochelle Moulton: how many symptoms you can check off the list. You know, I just, you can't see me, I'm bowing down right now. Because It's really a shift from viewing anything that's not typical as abnormal or a disease, disorder disease. And I just don't know how that's helpful in a situation where there isn't a prescribed thing to do, right? A medically prescribed thing to do. Or even if there is Rochelle, because here's the thing,
09:51 - 10:21
Diann Wingert: you know, a lot of people, and to your point when you say people are coming out with their, and that's the term I use to because a lot of my friends are queer, but it's like coming out with your ADHD or your autism or you might have heard of AudiHD, which is people that are realizing, oh, actually, I'm both ADHD and autistic. So they've combined the 2. Some people don't like any of those medically-oriented diagnostic labels, So they come up with clever ones like NeuroSpicy, which I think is great.
10:21 - 10:22
Rochelle Moulton: I've heard that 1.
10:22 - 11:01
Diann Wingert: I love that 1. Yeah. I love it. And here's the thing. I think for many people understanding, Oh, there is a name for my difference. I am actually neurodivergent. I've always known I was different. And trust me, if you're listening to my voice and you are neurodivergent, you've always known it. You may not have known what to call it. You may have had to deal with other people's labels and feedback, because trust me, you've got labels even if you don't have a diagnostic 1. People think of themselves as spacey. They think of themselves as scattered. All
11:01 - 11:44
Diann Wingert: the jokes about squirrel and rabbit holes and all that. We know we're different, but if we don't know why, what most people do is go to shame. Shame. Because, Let's face it, we are living in a world, by and large, that is made by and for the benefit of neuro-typical people, people who think in the typical way. And because all the systems were built by and for them, because they are neuro-normative, We try to fit our square peg into their round hole and it's either really tight, really uncomfortable, we just simply can't do it and we
11:44 - 12:08
Diann Wingert: opt out, which by the way is 1 of many reasons why so many of us become self-employed soloists. We don't want to go to meetings. We don't want to have arbitrary bureaucratic rules that make no sense to us. We want to explore and express our own creativity. We want to do things our way because we've tried to do it their way and it just wasn't a good time.
12:08 - 12:26
Rochelle Moulton: Amen. So, I mean, you've alluded to this, but let's get into this. So, if a listener has not been diagnosed with some form of neurodiversity or ADHD specifically, what are some signs that they might be? I wish we still had our cameras on.
12:28 - 13:01
Diann Wingert: When I was still a therapist, Many, many people came to me with diagnoses of anxiety, depression, both often, eating disorders, adjustment disorders. Some people were told they're bipolar, they're borderline. And once I started to get to know them, I thought, you know, is there any possibility that you could be ADHD? And of course, their jaw drops and they're like, why would you say that? I'm like, well, I'll tell you what, let's just make this a fun experiment. I'm gonna get out the manual and I'm gonna read you a list of things and every 1 of them
13:01 - 13:40
Diann Wingert: that applies to you most of the time and has across your lifespan, just put up a finger. By the time they've run out of fingers and we start having them take off their shoes, they get my point. Let's play along as the audience. Let's do it. Let's play along. Good, good, let's play along. Okay, now let me put in a caveat. The term neurodiversity or neurodivergence applies to a wide variety of brain-based differences, including, but not limited to, autism, ADHD, OCD, giftedness, specific learning disabilities. And because this is a relatively new and expanding field I'm sure
13:41 - 14:11
Diann Wingert: the list is going to be expanded over time because there are just so many different ways that people think, feel, and do things differently than the typical norms. So my expertise is in ADHD and in giftedness. So if it's okay, I'd like to just stick to the symptoms of ADHD because I don't think we have enough time to do all of the different lists. Okay? Let's do it. I'm not going to give them to you straight from the DSM because I choose not to use that anymore. I'm going to give them to you from like real
14:11 - 14:25
Diann Wingert: life, real things you would like, oh, I do that. Because if they're in clinical terminology, sometimes we go, I don't really relate to that. So are you ready? Ready. Okay. And you don't have to yell out yay or nay.
14:25 - 14:28
Rochelle Moulton: I'm going to keep some hash marks, so I'll be honest when we're done.
14:28 - 14:57
Diann Wingert: Girl, this could get cringy really fast, you know. And I actually also want people listening if they're not trying to drive a car, feed a baby or lift heavy machinery, like you can play along too. So here we go. We don't say yes or no, I'm just gonna go through the list. Okay, if you do this often and you always have, because by the way, there's no such thing as adult onset neurodivergence. If you are this way, you have always been this way. And it's something I cannot stress enough because a lot of people are like,
14:57 - 15:35
Diann Wingert: I became this way. Let me tell you this. If you are ADHD, you always have been, but it's possible that you had the safety structure, systems, and supports necessary to keep you functioning like a neurotypical person. Once you become a soloist and you remove yourself from those structures and supports, and then you suddenly find, oh my God, I think I'm ADHD. You always were, you just had workarounds and things that kind of kept you, you know, more organized and focused and so forth. So starting with this 1, 1 of my favorites, because I am very guilty
15:35 - 16:17
Diann Wingert: of this, interrupting others. And I'm just going to run quickly through so it doesn't get boring, because boredom is a life threatening condition. If you have ADHD. Interrupting others, easily distracted, forgetful, difficulty organizing tasks or possessions, Trouble staying seated. So you might not get up, you might fidget. Difficulty engaging in something quietly. Fidgeting or squirming. Trouble taking your turn. Like I'm terrible for playing games because I interrupt people, I start playing for the other side, it's terrible. Inability to focus or priority unless you're doing something you really, really like in which case you hyper-focus and you
16:17 - 17:04
Diann Wingert: forget everything else that isn't what's right in front of you. Feeling restless. Difficulty managing time. You either don't think you have enough time or you take on more than you have time to do. Trouble with impulsivity, impatience, trouble taking your turn when...
If you’ve ever hesitated to put your voice “out there” because you’re not the “right” size, shape, age, race, gender, orientation, know that you’re not alone. But it’s time to step up and be heard:
Why it’s harder to sashay on stage with your megaphone when you’re different from the norm in your community (and yet you’ll be more memorable when you do).
How creating a routine—a schedule—can keep the fear harnessed.
Enlisting a partner(s)-in-crime to push you forward or back you up.
Scoping out the “competition” to remind yourself of how you’re different—and why you need to publish.
Using archetypes to rise above traditional thinking and claim a unique niche in your marketplace.
LINKS
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:39
Rochelle Moulton: Walking into a gym full of more or less fit people when you're struggling with your weight and fitness requires a certain kind of courage. The wrong coach, and I've witnessed a few of them, could easily make you turn around and never come back. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton. And today, I want to tell you a quick story and then talk about why your voice needs to be out there and we can talk a little bit about the how. So I
00:39 - 01:14
Rochelle Moulton: go to a gym where you have the option of buying sessions with 1 of their staff personal trainers. Now I've been a member there for about 5 years, so I've seen trainers come and go. And with few exceptions, they're usually in their 20s or early 30s, incredibly fit with the patience to work with whoever walks through the door. Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I eavesdrop on their conversations with clients to hear how they encourage or explain or just shoot the breeze. And it's kind of fun, you know, professionally really to see their techniques
01:15 - 01:52
Rochelle Moulton: and personality and action with all different kinds of people. But every once in a while, an outlier shows up. And I've been watching this 1 guy who's been around maybe a year. He doesn't look like any of the usual characters. He appears maybe 30 to 40 pounds overweight, and he wears their uniform in a baggy style, not like any of the other gym gods. And he seems like a nice enough guy, and he has 1 of the most infectious laughs I've ever heard. But I kept wondering, would someone serious who wants to get fit choose the
01:52 - 02:26
Rochelle Moulton: guy who doesn't look like he's figured it out for himself yet? Now, he seems consistently busy, and I've been idly wondering how he was doing. And then yesterday, watching him with a client made me see his appeal. Overheard his discussion with a new client who had lost 35 pounds and hit his first goal to get his weight down to 300 pounds. Now this coach was so supportive, he immediately engaged the guy in talking about what they could do together to get him to his next goal, which was 250 pounds, and about how it wasn't just a
02:26 - 02:58
Rochelle Moulton: number on a scale that defines success. They were clicking on so many levels, I was in awe. Because walking into a gym full of more or less fit people when you're struggling with your weight and fitness requires a certain kind of courage. Like the wrong coach, and I've witnessed a few of them, could easily make you turn around and never come back. I'm not gonna lie, I teared up a bit at how this man was being seen and supported in a way that would help him become the person he wanted to be. So why am I
02:58 - 03:37
Rochelle Moulton: telling you this story? Because it is so easy, I've done it myself, to decide that you aren't the right size, the right shape, the right gender, the right race, orientation, age, to deliver whatever message it is that you want to share. And when you're whatever is accepted as the norm, like say a straight white cis male, it's much easier to sashay onto social media, for example, and pull up your megaphone. But if, for whatever reason, you feel different and that difference is holding you back, I'm here to tell you it's time to let that go. Not
03:37 - 04:13
Rochelle Moulton: saying it's easy, let me tell you there are days I can't even look at LinkedIn, never mind post there, but getting your voice out there, Your uniquely powerful voice from your lived experience is everything. You will help people in ways you can't even imagine. So I'm gonna share a few tips and tricks to get yourself in the habit of sharing your ideas, of sharing how you help your ideal clients and buyers. So number 1 is set yourself a routine. Holding yourself accountable to a schedule helps in a few ways. I mean, first, it gets the time
04:13 - 04:43
Rochelle Moulton: to do it into your calendar, into your routine. Say you're going to do something as simple as posting a LinkedIn piece twice a week. Maybe you'll experiment at first to see what days and times work for you, but you know you want to deliver 2 posts a week. So you add that to your production schedule. Your client work, your business development, your writing, think of them as all part of what you produce each week. How much time do you need to write those 2 posts? How far in advance do you want to prep them? And there's
04:43 - 05:18
Rochelle Moulton: no 1 right answer here. You'll decide what works for you. My point here is when you think about pushing out ideas, it takes a lot of pressure off if you just make it part of your routine. Okay, number 2, enlist a partner in crime. Whether that's a friend, a spouse, your coach, find someone who will read or watch or listen to your stuff and give helpful feedback. I got in the habit early on of reading my draft emails to my husband. Now it has 2 advantages. 1 was that hearing it out loud pointed out where I
05:18 - 05:50
Rochelle Moulton: was too formal or too wordy. It gives me more of the reader perspective. And I actually do that with everything I write now to read it out loud first. The other is that the hubs is not in our sort of business. He's in commercial production. So he listens to it with a different ear and he will tell me when I'm being too buzzwordy or I get on my high horse. Co-hosting my first podcast was another way of punching through a whole bunch of concerns I had 8 years ago. Having a buddy podcast meant if I had
05:50 - 06:25
Rochelle Moulton: a bad day, he'd be on his game and vice versa. And we split the duties of production and marketing so it was never overwhelming and we always had each other's backs, which when you're a soloist is especially wonderful. And then third, you could do a very deep dive on what your competition, and I use that word loosely, is doing. So hear me out on this, because I can almost hear you saying, what, why would I want to copy them? Well, you don't. What cruising the competition is good for is a big old reminder of how you're
06:26 - 07:01
Rochelle Moulton: different. Whether that's like the trainer at my gym who doesn't look like a traditional trainer, or whether it's much deeper than that. Here's a way to look at it. I'm willing to bet that your space has a few archetypes. There will be the sage, for example, someone who's deeply researched an aspect of your niche, and they're constantly updating the industry with their findings and their viewpoints, right? You know somebody like that. There is usually a warrior, right? The 1 who takes a contrarian position and dukes it out with everybody. We know those. The alchemist who seems
07:01 - 07:42
Rochelle Moulton: to midwife those deep transformations and is always looking for the magic. Artist who's constantly creating or making new things. Maybe there's an Avenger who's looking for justice and protects the underdog. That's the 1 railing on how the system doesn't work or is rigged. There's the storyteller who's gifted at metaphor and explaining meaning through stories. And the pioneer who's discovering and exploring new things. Your space might even have a gambler, the 1 who plays the odds and then convinces you to go along. And there's probably at least 1, judging by LinkedIn, probably way too many, playing the
07:42 - 08:19
Rochelle Moulton: hero, right? The 1 who swoops in and fixes it all. The advantage of thinking in archetypes as you look around you is that you realize that it's not about you. Not really. It's about how you best share your point of view about how you communicate lines up with your genius zone. Because the more you 0 in on that, the more likely you'll become unforgettable to your ideal clients and buyers. So looking at people you may see as intimidatingly ahead of you as just archetypes, take some of the sting out of it. Instead of saying, oh, I
08:19 - 08:54
Rochelle Moulton: can't talk about X because Jesse already is the authority, you might say, Jesse is acting the sage. He's been doing this forever, But I'm a pioneer here. I have some new ideas that could attract people just like me. And when you put it from that perspective, how could you not put your point of view out there? Plus, if you start seeing yourself through that pioneer lens, it will impact the kind of language you use, who you start aligning with, and how you develop your expertise as you grow. So, listen, here's the thought I want to leave
08:54 - 09:33
Rochelle Moulton: you with today. Your voice is valuable. It's 1 of a kind, and you have no idea how many people you might impact positively if you just use it for good. And in case you're wondering why I haven't said anything about monetizing your voice, I'll tell you. There is so much pressure, especially on newer soloists, to monetize your expertise. And of course, that's the ultimate goal. But if you're having trouble getting your voice out there, decouple it from making money. Make it about helping the people you care most about in ways that only you can. And go
09:33 - 09:50
Rochelle Moulton: get them. Now, as we wrap up this episode, if you haven't joined my email list yet, now is the time. Your soloist business and your future self will thank you. The link is in the show notes. That's it for this episode. Please join us next time for The Soloist Life. Bye-bye.
Have you ever considered moving yourself and your business to a new country? Content marketer Casey Kelly-Barton did just that and shares her challenges and opportunities as an ex-pat:
Her journey to niching into the intersection of three related niches— including how niching bumped up her revenue and reduced her hours worked.
Meeting the challenges to building a business while single-parenting after a divorce (and the most freeing thing she let go of).
Why she decided to move countries with her business—and how long she let the idea simmer first.
How she identified and evaluated target locations including the resources she tapped to explore the expat experience in advance.
The dividends from intensely focusing on that critical first year of transition.
LINKS
Casey Kelly-Barton Website | LinkedIn
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Casey Kelly-Barton provides content marketing and brand development for B2B companies in cybersecurity, fintech, and fraud prevention.
When she started her business, she was a newly single parent looking for ways to make the most of her writing and strategy skills.
Now, her business is well established with a roster of clients she enjoys working with, her kids are grown and she works from Portugal, where she moved in late 2023.
BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLE
RESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS
Join the Soloist email list: helping thousands of Soloist Consultants smash through their revenue plateau.
Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather, connect and learn.
The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - 00:28
Casey Kelly-Barton: So I started researching and I was very methodical. I made a list of countries that met my criteria for like weather, time zones, languages, blah, blah, blah. And so I was looking at Latin America and Central America pretty carefully because I speak Spanish. My parents are still in Texas. It would be time zone friendly for my American clients. And then both my kids ended up in the EU.
00:32 - 01:11
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm joined by Soloist and new expat, Casey Kelly Barton. She provides content marketing and brand development for B2B companies in cybersecurity, fintech, and fraud prevention. When she started her business, she was a newly single parent looking for ways to make the most of her writing and strategy skills. Now her business is well established with a roster of clients she enjoys working with. Her kids are grown and she works from Portugal where she moved
01:11 - 01:32
Rochelle Moulton: from the US in late 2023. Casey, welcome. Hi, thank you for having me, Rochelle. I'm so glad to be here. I'm excited to talk to you today. Yeah, me too. So when we met and I heard that you were moving countries, I just knew you had to come on the show to talk about your experiences because for some people, that's living the dream.
01:33 - 01:39
Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I do get a lot of questions about it. And so I'm happy to talk about that in detail.
01:39 - 01:47
Rochelle Moulton: Well, first off, let's go back to when you started your business. So what made you start the business? And when did you start?
01:48 - 02:27
Casey Kelly-Barton: I started the business, I was newly divorced and I had been doing some freelancing and some education off and on for years. And I thought, okay, now it's time to get serious about this, I was a strong writer, I had good writing and strategy skills, but I needed something that I could tailor to my own schedule and that wouldn't have me away from home 50, 60 hours a week. So I needed something that I could do independently. And at that point, I just started working my contacts and seeing who had freelance writing needs. And that was
02:27 - 02:51
Casey Kelly-Barton: the beginning of it. At the beginning, I did not have my niches. I was basically taking on any and all writing assignments for companies that needed it, like performance marketing, elder care, all kinds of things, just to build a portfolio, build some skills, and to really test and see if this particular path would work for me and my family. Well, obviously it did.
02:52 - 02:57
Rochelle Moulton: Do you remember how long it took you to get your first $100, 000 a year?
02:57 - 03:29
Casey Kelly-Barton: Oh, it took a while. I won't lie because, you know, my kids were young, 7 and 12 when I started this. And so it took me, I want to say, 6 or 7 years to get to that point. So it was not an overnight thing And part of that was because I didn't have the niche. It got to a point where I was just taking on, you know, the strategy that worked at the beginning of let's try everything and see if this works. Let's take on all the gigs you can find. Kind of that new freelancer.
03:30 - 04:06
Casey Kelly-Barton: I don't want to say panic, but definitely an eagerness to book work. When I started, I don't know if you're familiar with Carol Tice, but she used to run a freelancer, sort of an online forum or a clinic. And she said, you know, You need to niche and not just take everything that comes along because you're never going to move up your income if you are just a generalist and So I just started working on the things that really interested me which were fraud prevention cybersecurity fintech hadn't really exploded yet, but it did pretty soon after.
04:06 - 04:22
Casey Kelly-Barton: And it's related enough that I was able to capitalize on that. But it was really once I started to niche and develop some some expertise in specific fields that was hard for clients to find. That's when my income really took off.
04:22 - 04:51
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I think it's interesting with writers, especially, I think a lot of writers just have this mindset that it's about writing and just like it's the craft of writing and getting really good at that. And that's important, but it's how you apply the craft, which is where you make the money and where you can get paid more. And Carol Tice had it right about Nisha. So how long did it take you to 0 in on those 3?
04:53 - 05:24
Casey Kelly-Barton: Fraud prevention came first. And that came, I had a client who requested that I handle, it was an agency client, and I still work with them. I've worked with them for a decade. They, I want to say it was like 2014. So 3 years in, I had somebody come to me and say, we have this account, it's fraud prevention. We're having just a devil of a time finding writers who are A, interested enough to learn about this niche and B, willing to actually commit to it for a while and do the homework. And I was like,
05:24 - 05:53
Casey Kelly-Barton: I'll do it. And I found it was really, really interesting to me. And that's where I just started to invest in that. And because fraud prevention has kind of a natural overlap with cybersecurity, I was able to capitalize on that and then start moving into those other areas. And then when FinTech startup ecosystem really started to grow, Well, a lot of what they need is cybersecurity and fraud prevention to protect their data and protect their customers. So that was just a natural segue.
05:53 - 06:00
Rochelle Moulton: That's the tie because I had a different idea of FinTech in my head. So that makes sense then I see how the 3 are tied together.
06:00 - 06:08
Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, and cyber security now is kind of ending up in everything because everything is connected. So yeah.
06:09 - 06:19
Rochelle Moulton: So do you think you'll niche down further into 1 of those 3? Or do you find that the combination really suits you?
06:19 - 06:57
Casey Kelly-Barton: I like the combination of them. And honestly, they're so interrelated that there was a spate of articles earlier this year about the cybersecurity convergence, which is basically the idea that everything needs to have cybersecurity built into it. Anything that's online has to be protected. Anything that handles money or data needs to also have fraud prevention. And a lot of it, if you're moving money and you're doing it online, there's going to be some sort of fintech aspect to it. So I kind of feel like the niche is niching itself down without me having to do anything
06:57 - 07:32
Casey Kelly-Barton: necessarily. Yeah. There's a little overlap with RegTech, like regulatory and compliance and insurance. So I could continue to niche into those areas, but I feel like there's enough going on in cybersecurity and fraud prevention, especially with the 4 horsemen of AI, enabling this sort of escalation of the spy versus spy, good guy versus bad guy strategies. I kind of feel like I'm good for now, but these niches touch on enough other areas that if I needed to switch or refine, I can.
07:32 - 07:42
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I was kind of visualizing a highway when you were describing it, because it feels like these things are all connected. It's like you've cornered the market on a piece of the highway.
07:42 - 07:54
Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, there are plenty of other good cybersecurity and fraud prevention and fintech writers out there. I just make explicit the fact that I work at the intersection of these areas.
07:55 - 08:22
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, that's a niche and it's how you build authority. So I want to switch over just for a moment and talk about single parenting because it is a topic that comes up more than you might expect, certainly in my Slack channel. But it's single parenting while you're building your business. So we definitely have some listeners that can relate. I mean, like, what was that like for you? What kind of challenges did you have to deal with for that?
08:22 - 08:54
Casey Kelly-Barton: It was hard. It was hard, I won't lie. It was super hard. And it was super hard, even though I had, their father was supportive. Like, you know, he paid his support. He was active in the kids' lives. So I wasn't without support the way some single parents are or newly divorced parents can be sometimes. So I had that. I also had a pretty strong social and professional network, But it was hard. It was hard helping my kids adjust to a new normal. It was hard learning all the things that I needed to learn as quickly
08:54 - 09:32
Casey Kelly-Barton: as I could so that I could start ramping up my business. Like I would fall asleep listening to podcasts. Like I would work, I would deal with the kids, I would fall asleep listening to podcasts, and there was about a year or 2 where I had literally no time for myself unless it was like the weekend when the kids were with their dad and I would do something really wild and self-indulgent like lay on the couch and watch a nature documentary for an hour You crazy fall asleep. I know So it was it was hard. Yeah
09:34 - 10:03
Casey Kelly-Barton: It was just my time was not my own, but I kept telling myself that if I invested this time and just went all in and went really hard up front, that I would be able to be in a better position and have more time and more options later on. Which safe to say that that happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a gamble though, right? Anytime you're like, you know, you don't know that it's going to work out when you're in the thick of it. But I thought, well, you know, I got to do something. So
10:03 - 10:04
Casey Kelly-Barton: I'm going to commit to this.
10:05 - 10:31
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I think a lot of times when we talk on this podcast, you know, we hear from people who've really been able to create a business where they have a lot of free time, what we don't always hear about is the messiness in the beginning. Yeah. If you're not sure, if you're experimenting. Some people start this knowing exactly what they want to do. Other people are following their nose to see what's going to work. So yeah, I appreciate you sharing the messy beginning.
10:31 - 10:59
Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah, yeah. Oh, and it was messy. We were talking about this a little bit earlier in the green room, I guess. But there were a lot of things I just had to let go because my priorities were my children's wellbeing and my business. And so there was 1 6 month period, I had a friend who said, well, how are you doing all this? And I told her, I said, you know, I haven't cleaned my house in 6 months. And I was expecting as soon as it popped out of my mouth, I was like,
10:59 - 11:01
Rochelle Moulton: oh, no, judgment, judgment.
11:01 - 11:03
Casey Kelly-Barton: Yeah. Yeah. And she looked at me and
11:03 - 11:24
Rochelle Moulton: she said, oh, thank God. She said, I am so relieved to hear that I'm not the only 1. Yes. Well, if you look at Instagram, it looks like everybody has 47 children, works a million hours a week, and has a perfectly clean and well-organized home. So yeah, that's not reality for most of us.
11:24 - 11:48
Casey Kelly-Barton: It's not reality. And you know, the thing is, it's like having a clean house. I mean, I love a clean house. But at the time, there was no money for a cleaner. There was no time for me to do it and I thought You know, how is dusting all the corners gonna further my goals? It's not so I'm gonna put it on the back burner for now That dust will still be there when I get back to it and it was Good for you. I like that.
11:48 - 12:06
Rochelle Moulton: I like that. So I'm just really dying to talk about your expat experience. I know you know that. This idea of picking up and moving countries with your business. So first, what made you decide to move? Was this a big adventure? Was this like a very carefully calculated thing?
12:06 - 12:38
Casey Kelly-Barton: This was a project I had been working on since 2010. Well, even before that, I had always wanted to live abroad just for the experience of doing so. I was born and raised in Texas with the exception of 18 months when I lived in Atlanta. I've lived and worked in Texas all my life. And, you know, it's a big state with a lot going on, but it's also just 1 part of the world. And early on working on my business, I was working for an elder care, like information provider. And so I was doing a lot
12:38 - 13:11
Casey Kelly-Barton: of research on things like the cost of care when you get older, who pays for what? And looking at the numbers and looking at the trend lines, I thought there is no way that I can afford to grow old in the United States. And then once I got a divorce, I thought, well, I can kind of do what I want once the kids are grown. And so I started researching and I was very methodical. I made a list of countries that met my criteria for like weather, time zones, languages, blah, blah, blah. And so I was
13:11 - 13:46
Casey Kelly-Barton: looking at Latin America and Central America pretty carefully because I speak Spanish. My parents are still in Texas. It would be time zone friendly for my American clients, and then both my kids ended up in the EU. There goes that plan. And they were like, well, you should come over here. They said, but don't live in the same countries as us because that would be creepy and weird because Europe is so tiny, you know, that if I'm in the same country as them, I'll practically be looking into their living room window. So I thought about it
13:46 - 14:20
Casey Kelly-Barton: and I thought, well, let's try it. And so, yeah, but I spent about a decade researching and planning and making some little trips here and there when time and money allowed to check out different places. So, yeah, the fact that my kids ended up in the EU really kind of changed that calculation. And Portugal has a nice clear, I mean, I say this, even though Portugal right now, their immigration agency is going through some major logistical and technical challenges that weren't present when I applied. But of all the countries I looked at in the EU, they
14:20 - 14:34
Casey Kelly-Barton: were the ones that had the clearest immigration process, everything spelled out in detail, and the clearest path to a dual citizenship in several years, should I choose to pursue that?
14:35 - 14:43
Rochelle Moulton: So I'm curious because I love Portugal. I could totally see why someone would want to live there. Why not Spain if you spoke Spanish?
14:43 - 15:18
Casey Kelly-Barton: Right. I asked myself that a lot. I did look at Spain extensively, and this was before, you know, they just, I want to say at the end of last year, maybe it was right when I was almost done with my visa application process for Portugal, when Spain finally came through with their digital nomad visa. Before that, they only had something called a non-lucrative, which you were supposed to be retired. And depending on who you talk to, there either were or weren't restrictions on earning money from outside Spain. And like I talked to immigration attorneys in Spain,
15:18 - 15:48
Casey Kelly-Barton: I talked to different people. They said, well, it depends. It depends on your consulate. It depends on who is interpreting the rules. And I thought, well, I can't move for it depends. And Portugal's guidance was very clear. They had a visa that was in the category that fit my needs. And they were like, bring us this, this, this, and this. And, you know, it'll take a while because it's there's bureaucracy, just like everywhere. But, you know, do these things and this will be the outcome. And I was like, yeah, clarity. I like that.
15:48 - 16:09
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. And I just Portugal, I've been all over Europe. And there...
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When to consider offering group options including paid communities.
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TRANSCRIPT
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