[00:00:00] Jeff Schneider's days were a blur. He'd wake up in front of his computer screen in
[00:00:07] a basement office that sometimes doubled as a bedroom. A yawn, a snack, another project.
[00:00:16] His business, marketing ninjas, an inbound marketing firm was on the edge of failure.
[00:00:23] Jeff was putting everything he had into it and only getting chaos in return. For his
[00:00:29] 80 hours a week, he had barely enough money to pay his bills and a marriage crumbling from
[00:00:34] neglect. He was stuck. He didn't know how he was going to get out of the hole he was in,
[00:00:55] not alone find the time to do it. He had big dreams, but he had no clue how to grow and
[00:01:01] no time to think about it. In December 2012, Jeff started working with his coach, Mary
[00:01:07] Reidman, to turn things around. He committed 20% of his revenues toward coaching and laid
[00:01:13] himself at the mercy of the process. Step by step they worked together to tackle the
[00:01:19] chaos that was his business. Now nobody loves Mondays more than Jeff. He has a real office
[00:01:45] with 7 employees and is earning 9 times as much as he was before, all with a smaller group
[00:01:51] of deeply engaged clients. But it isn't just that Jeff's business is better, it's that
[00:01:57] his entire life has changed. This is the story of how he did it. I'll be talking
[00:02:04] with Jeff and his coach, Mary Reidman on this month's episode of On It, a production by E-MIF.
[00:02:18] This is On It, the podcast where you hear from business owners like you how starting
[00:02:23] to work on it and not in it transform their business from something they were working
[00:02:28] for into something that's working for them. I'm your host, Martin Kamensky, CEO of
[00:02:33] E-MIF, the business coaching company behind this podcast. We're interviewing our clients
[00:02:37] and the coaches who help them transform their business from the ground up. You can always
[00:02:42] schedule a free session with an E-MIF coach at emith.com slash free session. That's E-M-Y-T-H
[00:02:50] dot com slash free session. If you're resonating with these stories at all and would love
[00:02:54] to see change like this happening in your life, it's a great chance to experience
[00:02:58] what coaching is like. Today, I'm on the line with Jeff Schneider and his coach, Mary Reidman.
[00:03:03] Jeff's the CEO of Marketing Ninjas, an inbound marketing firm. This show, this episode, is
[00:03:12] a special one. We're going to go deep into Jeff's turnaround story from almost failing,
[00:03:17] working in his basement to the point where he's growing to seven employees strong
[00:03:22] with nine X revenue growth. We're going to get into some of his behaviors and
[00:03:26] patterns that were keeping him stuck, how he started focusing on the right product mix and
[00:03:31] the right customers, defined a repeatable customer experience through his brand commitment
[00:03:36] and how he tackled building a culture that was really meaningful for him and his employees.
[00:03:40] So thanks so much Jeff and Mary for being here. Great to be here. Hello everyone. Yes,
[00:03:46] thanks for having me. It's an honor. Jeff, could you describe for us how things were in
[00:03:51] your business and your life back when you started working with Mary? To be honest, when
[00:03:56] you ask me that, I get shivers because I was just coming out of the darkest place I'd ever been in my life.
[00:04:04] About six months prior to that, my wife and I had separated and that just gives you an idea
[00:04:10] of how much chaos was going on in my life. And I had actually decided amidst all that to
[00:04:17] walk away from my business, shut it down, close the doors and go and find a job. And
[00:04:23] I don't know, call it fate, call it divinity of the universe, whatever you want to call it.
[00:04:28] I could not get hired. Jobs perfectly lined up for myself with my skill set and I'd get all the way
[00:04:34] through to the end of the final interview and someone else would beat me to it. And so by default,
[00:04:40] I kept coming back to my business and thought, I got to make money. I have to make money to
[00:04:45] survive. So while I'm trying to find a job, I got to keep this business going. And bit by bit,
[00:04:53] week after week, new contracts would pop up. And I got to the point where I was keeping my head
[00:04:59] above water, keeping the wolves away from the door and I thought, okay, well, I tried the job
[00:05:04] route and I gave it on a shot and I just, I couldn't get hired. So maybe this is just,
[00:05:08] it's just fate or destiny that I need to get my business out of this hole. And I got to the
[00:05:14] point where I think I was bringing in about $5,000 a month in revenue. And I said,
[00:05:20] I'm going to put 20% of that into coaching. And that was a big commitment. But man,
[00:05:28] oh man, am I ever glad that I did that. And just it was an immediate value.
[00:05:34] So you said, I'm going to put it all on the line, make a huge investment out of your capital
[00:05:42] in this relationship with coaching. Was it an easy thing to fall into at first? Did you have,
[00:05:48] did you have the space and time to work with Mary? I absolutely didn't. I mean,
[00:05:53] I was at the point where I was working probably 80 hours a week. Well, I was at the point where
[00:05:58] if I was awake, I was working. That was the norm for me. Like people like you're always working,
[00:06:03] I said, yeah. And they said, well, when do you take time off? I said, when I sleep.
[00:06:07] And it was no exaggeration. I literally, you know, I'd go upstairs and make a plate
[00:06:11] for dinner and take it downstairs and eat while I worked. I'd work right through until I
[00:06:15] couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. It was slugging it out in the trenches day in and day out.
[00:06:21] But I knew that that absolutely wasn't sustainable. And I knew that was one of the main reasons why
[00:06:27] my relationship with my wife had fallen apart. And I committed to her, I said,
[00:06:32] I will not do that. I lesson learned, you know, I will make things better. And I knew at that
[00:06:39] point I had to do something drastic. And you know, I'd heard about coaching quite a bit. A lot of people
[00:06:46] had a lot of success with it. And I kept coming back to EMIF because I had read the book years
[00:06:53] and years ago, I read the EMIF. And I really got a lot out of it. And the story for the
[00:07:00] 1-800-GOT junk guy just kept popping up in my head. And I thought, you know, if it works
[00:07:05] for a guy in a rusty old pickup truck doing dump runs, it's got to work for me, right?
[00:07:11] Even if I don't see half the success that he does, at least I should be able to get my business
[00:07:18] up and running to a point where I can run it like a normal human being and have a life.
[00:07:23] Yeah. So Mary, you get someone showing up on your doorstep, so to speak,
[00:07:29] who's working 80 plus hours a week, who's taking his plate into the office to eat dinner
[00:07:34] while he's working? Where do you even start with someone like Jeff?
[00:07:39] I think my email to EMIF actually said, help me, I am in pain.
[00:07:46] Yes, and his he was, and the pain came through so clearly. And that's a really good question.
[00:07:50] Where do you start? And we just help him prioritize and help him get a step back
[00:07:58] and take a bigger view of what was going on. Sometimes that's the only time he had to
[00:08:02] work on the business was in our conversations. So that's where we started is just in those
[00:08:08] moments with, okay, how are you spending your time? How can you get more efficient with that?
[00:08:12] You know, time management, self-organization. And what does that actually look like when
[00:08:17] you say that you want to try to help him manage his time or see where he's spending
[00:08:21] his time? What do you actually have him do? At first, just tell me what he's doing and
[00:08:26] just simply talk about how is he spending his time? What is he doing? And is that the most
[00:08:30] productive use of his time? And the conversation, what happens is the conversation just helped
[00:08:38] Jeff get an idea of where and how he was spending his time in ways that he wasn't really looking at
[00:08:45] before. Because when you're in the trenches in the technician, you don't step back and look at,
[00:08:49] hey, is this the most productive use of my time? You know, you're just doing it and
[00:08:52] you're just in there. What was that like for you, Jeff?
[00:08:56] You know, it was really, really good. In the beginning, some of the things that we focused
[00:09:00] on, I felt frustrated about if I'm being totally honest. And I think that really that was just
[00:09:05] because of how much overwhelm I was feeling and experiencing. But just that ability to talk
[00:09:12] to somebody for an hour and have someone that's not just going, okay, not in their head,
[00:09:18] but actually was able to question me back and say, well, what did you know? Okay, so tell me
[00:09:22] about this. And I would tell her about what I was doing. And she would say, you know, what is that
[00:09:27] costing you? Like, there's got to be better ways of doing this or doing that. Like just having somebody
[00:09:34] stop you and question you and have you look at things from a different perspective
[00:09:39] was huge. And I knew that that's what I needed. I knew I needed somebody that would look into
[00:09:42] my business with a vested interest, but from like a third party standpoint,
[00:09:48] that wasn't caught up in all the chaos and the emotion. And just to look at it from a very,
[00:09:55] you know, a very, just that perspective of like, okay, let's analyze this and let's
[00:10:01] look at what's happening and let's start pulling the big pieces out and dealing with things bit
[00:10:05] by bit. And that was so helpful. So when you were running this operation just by yourself,
[00:10:13] working endlessly, what is it like to then have someone on the outside trying to hold you accountable?
[00:10:21] Right, where they now are going to look at what am I doing with my time? You know,
[00:10:27] it's like having to fill out a log where you're saying what you're eating. And sometimes just
[00:10:31] knowing that I'm going to have to write it down means I'm going to change the behavior
[00:10:35] that I don't want to have to write down that I did. What is that like to have someone
[00:10:40] knowing that someone is going to be there to hold you accountable to what you want to do?
[00:10:45] It was a little scary to be honest, just because of how much chaos was happening and how many things
[00:10:49] were flying at me nonstop every day. But there was also some comfort there that I knew that
[00:10:54] you know, the person that I'm working with, they want to see me succeed.
[00:11:01] They're it's not coming from a selfish place. It's coming from a giving place. And they
[00:11:06] want to see me succeed. That's why we're working together. And so that was really comforting.
[00:11:11] And I mean, I remember times in the beginning where we'd have our meeting and she like,
[00:11:16] so did you get axed on? And I'm like, no. And she would lovingly, I always tell people that
[00:11:21] Mary lovingly kicks my ass on a regular basis. And I need that. I need someone to kind of just
[00:11:27] go, Why do you keep doing this? And I go, I don't know. Well, let's look into that.
[00:11:32] And let's let's dig into that a little bit and understand like when you do something, there's
[00:11:37] sure there might be three things that you could be doing. But one of them is your best use of time.
[00:11:41] And sometimes you can't see that until you have somebody stop you and go,
[00:11:45] Okay, well, if you did it this way instead, what would that look like? And you start thinking
[00:11:49] about that. And you go, Oh, yeah. Yeah, I see that now. Right. And so in the beginning,
[00:11:54] it was a lot of it was a lot of sacrifice in the beginning because, like I said, I was working
[00:11:59] if I was awake. So to take an hour out of my day was like everything to me, but I knew I had to do
[00:12:04] it. Otherwise, I was just going to be stuck in on that same hamster wheel. Yeah. And Mary,
[00:12:11] you're helping him see that there's a long term payout for maybe some short term discomfort.
[00:12:17] And in the E myth point of view, there's this concept called double vision. And I know
[00:12:23] that that was something key to Jeff's progress early on. Can you tell us what it is? And
[00:12:28] how you helped him fight this, this balance between putting out fire short term and also
[00:12:34] looking at the longer term foundational work that you knew he needed to do.
[00:12:38] Well, sure. And that speaks to what was arising for me as you were talking is the,
[00:12:42] what's really important is why is to question why like Jeff was saying,
[00:12:47] Why am I doing this behavior? Why am I doing this to myself? And then you start to realize,
[00:12:52] Oh, it's not really serving me. And I'm rather than just doing it because that's the way you
[00:12:57] do it. You go, well, maybe I could be doing it a better way and I need to change what I'm doing.
[00:13:02] So I don't stay on the same hamster wheel. And so when you talk about the double vision,
[00:13:08] that's exactly what's going on there because Jeff had to keep working on his business, you know,
[00:13:13] operating, we call it old co and new co. And he had to keep operating old co of course,
[00:13:18] but then also having that double vision where you're looking at creating a new business and
[00:13:23] doing something different and actually making changes. So you have to do both at the same time,
[00:13:29] you have to keep setting your priorities for what you need to do day to day and
[00:13:34] keep an eye on the big vision, you know, what changes am I making so that
[00:13:38] I don't stay on the same hamster wheel and things actually move forward
[00:13:42] and don't go backwards or just stay stuck. So you're having him build new co that the
[00:13:48] ideas for the future, the kind of business that he wants to build while at the same
[00:13:52] time doing the work on his old co, on the business that he has now. And that's kind of
[00:13:57] the dual tracking. Yeah, exactly. And it sounds a little crazy because Jeff was already in so much
[00:14:02] overwhelm. How could I ask him to start thinking about new co when he's just completely in overwhelm
[00:14:07] with old co? Yeah, Jeff, how does she even ask you how to do that? Well, again, it was another
[00:14:14] thing in the beginning that it was like a tough pill to swallow because I knew that I had to
[00:14:19] do that in order to change where I was now. But there was times where the sacrifice in that moment
[00:14:26] was just it was so big, you know, like an example of like a one of those that was particularly
[00:14:32] tough for you. It's funny because it's actually the foundational stuff that really
[00:14:37] kind of irked me in the beginning, right? Like it stuff like our, you know, our brand
[00:14:42] commitment and our my vision and like the business vision and the purpose statement
[00:14:47] and stuff like that. I was just like, I need strategies to help me get stuff done and make
[00:14:52] more money. But I kept saying to myself, like this is you're building the like right now I'm a
[00:14:58] total slave to my business, total slave to my business. And if I ever want to get it to
[00:15:03] the point where my business is serving me, I know I got to start at the foundation. You
[00:15:07] can't build a skyscraper on a sandy beach. You have to have a solid concrete foundation.
[00:15:13] And so I knew that it was important, but it was tough in the beginning. But I kept just
[00:15:18] telling myself like you're doing this for a reason. You know what you want to create.
[00:15:22] I have always had this vision of what I want my business to look like. But to get from A to
[00:15:28] what seemed like triple Z at that point was just, I didn't know how we were connecting
[00:15:35] the dots. But taking that time to work on those documents and get those foundational pieces
[00:15:41] in place was so key. And that's what I so appreciated about Jeff was all that time he could,
[00:15:47] even though he's overwhelmed in chaos, he got the big picture and he knew he needed to do
[00:15:52] something different to change things. And he's willing to just do it. And he would,
[00:15:58] he would step in and he would work on his values, passion, purpose, peace. And he
[00:16:02] would work on his vision. He just was willing to do it.
[00:16:05] You know, I start to get this picture in my mind of Mary as the guardian of your strategic focus.
[00:16:14] Like making sure that you're constantly keeping some eye at least on that part of your work.
[00:16:20] While you have all the work that you know you need to do. You know you need to get the work
[00:16:25] done and get the billable hours build and turn around projects. But that hour, those hours
[00:16:31] that you're on the phone with her and working with her are important times to plant seeds that
[00:16:37] are going to bloom in the future. That are going to be the source of this growth that
[00:16:42] you've come to experience now, right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, like we said,
[00:16:46] there was, there was times in the beginning where the only time that I spent working on my
[00:16:51] business rather than in it was during that one hour coaching call. But if I didn't have
[00:16:55] that, if I didn't have that accountability and knew, hey Thursday is coming up and I got to be
[00:17:00] on that coaching call and I committed to having you fill in the blank done. I knew that if I didn't
[00:17:06] get that done, if I didn't have that accountability, I don't know where I would be today. I probably
[00:17:11] wouldn't be in business today. I probably would have gave up. I know Jeff that a big part of the
[00:17:16] work that you did together to get past those initial few months in the beginning was a lot
[00:17:22] of, a lot of growing personally as a leader. And that there were some ways that you actually
[00:17:29] that you were getting in your own way, patterns that were keeping you from your business being able
[00:17:33] to grow. And you told our team that one of those themes was this addiction to chaos.
[00:17:38] And I'm wondering what you mean by that and what you started doing to change it.
[00:17:43] That was actually a really in-depth conversation that Mary and I had one day. And
[00:17:49] the story behind that is we had put in a proposal on a, it was a half a million dollar
[00:17:55] contract, which I mean, that was more than we were even making in a year at that point. And
[00:18:02] it would have changed our business had we landed it. And I thought, we're going to do whatever it
[00:18:05] takes to make this happen. And I was busy doing my busy work. And I put it off and I put it off
[00:18:11] to the point where we had one week left to get this proposal in. And I started going into it.
[00:18:15] And I thought, holy fill in the blank with a curse word, there's way more work to do here
[00:18:21] than what I thought there was going to be. And so at that point, I,
[00:18:25] We're a half a million dollar proposal, Jeff. Yeah, like go figure.
[00:18:31] And so we just started, I put the pedal to the metal and the nose to the grindstone. And
[00:18:37] it had to be in by Monday at five o'clock. So I worked on it all that previous week.
[00:18:41] And then I worked literally around the clock on the weekend. I actually pulled an all-nighter
[00:18:47] on Sunday night. And I didn't like, I got up, I got up at nine. I had a bite to eat on Sunday
[00:18:51] morning. I started working. And then when everybody came in the office Monday morning,
[00:18:55] I had the largest bags under my eyes and I was going on caffeine. And everybody walked in,
[00:19:00] I said, okay, we got to get this proposal done. I need you to do this and this,
[00:19:04] and I need you to do that and that whatever else you had planned to do today,
[00:19:07] toss it aside. This is the priority. And the thing that really stuck out to me was that
[00:19:12] Casey, one of our, he was our first employee. I really put him in a place that made him
[00:19:17] extremely uncomfortable and very agitated because the things that I had asked him to do,
[00:19:21] he had no clue what they were. I didn't even have a clue what it is. And he came to me,
[00:19:25] said, I don't know what to do here. And I said, you know what, Google it. I don't know either,
[00:19:29] but we got to get it done. And I just sent him on his way because I had tons of other
[00:19:32] things I had to crank out. And he was really like by the end of the day,
[00:19:36] he was steaming that at me. And that it just like when he left, he was like night and left.
[00:19:41] And I just thought, I can't do that anymore. I can't do that to people. And I'm doing it to myself.
[00:19:48] And what I realized in that conversation with Mary is that we actually hit the submit button on
[00:19:53] that proposal at 4.59 and it had to be in at five o'clock. Like literally 4.59,
[00:19:59] I got it in 60 seconds before the cutoff. And it was down to the wire. Let me tell you.
[00:20:05] And when I hit that submit button, I literally leaped out of my chair and put my arms in the
[00:20:09] sky. Like I just won the Stanley Cup. I felt so good. I'm like, yes, I did it. I overcame the odds.
[00:20:15] I succeeded. You know, ha ha world. I'll show you, I can do this. I'm this unstoppable entrepreneur
[00:20:22] and I'll defy the odds. And that was what Mary pointed out to me that I'm addicted to is that
[00:20:28] feeling of I overcame the odds and I succeeded and I did it even when all the odds were stacked
[00:20:33] against me. My back was against the wall. And when she said that to me, it stopped
[00:20:37] me in my path and I started thinking about it and going through like other times that it happened to me.
[00:20:42] And I thought, yeah, I am totally addicted to that feeling. It's like a huge rush and it's
[00:20:48] this big feeling of success. It's an idea. You get an adrenaline rush finishing a project like that
[00:20:54] in the 11th hour, hopped up on Red Bull, haven't slept all night. Of course, yeah,
[00:20:59] it's empowering. And you raise your hands in the air in celebration at having an employee of yours
[00:21:08] walk out with his head hung low, feeling confused and not knowing how. And that juxtaposition is
[00:21:17] so intense. How did you bring that to him, Mary? This story was so powerful. And if it had been
[00:21:24] a one off and this hadn't happened before, I wouldn't have thought so much about it. But
[00:21:28] it was a repeated pattern. And that's one of the things I watched for as a coach is what
[00:21:34] are the patterns in this business owner? What keeps happening over and over?
[00:21:38] And this kept happening. And even though we talk about it, we talk about time management,
[00:21:43] we talk about setting priorities, we talk about putting these things in his calendar so we
[00:21:48] sure they get done and it didn't happen. So here comes the why question again. I had to
[00:21:52] ask why, why? What's going on here? We actually went really deep to figure out why that it wasn't
[00:22:00] just why is this happening. And I came up with the answer. I mean, we dug into tell me about
[00:22:04] childhood, tell me about what do your parents think about you being an entrepreneur and all
[00:22:11] these little things just kind of stacked up. And because I hadn't hit a point in my business where
[00:22:17] even family was saying, okay, it's time to pack it in. You gave it a go. And I was like,
[00:22:21] no, I was too stubborn to quit. And I got to the point where I started shutting people out
[00:22:26] of my life and what was bouncing around my head was I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll do this.
[00:22:31] You watch. And it was that ingrained just program in my brain that was bringing and it
[00:22:40] was coming out in the business over and over. And I didn't realize that until we stopped
[00:22:43] and just really dug deep into that. And that was a huge pivotal aha moment for me in my
[00:22:50] business. And as soon as I realized that's what was happening, then we worked together
[00:22:54] after that to go, well, how do I give myself that same good feeling? But do it so that we're not
[00:23:00] leaving things to the last minute. And it just it was creating that new behavior.
[00:23:05] And still giving myself the opportunity to have that same success feeling.
[00:23:11] Yeah.
[00:23:12] But it changed and that was a huge change in our business.
[00:23:16] So Mary, you're, you're now helping Jeff become aware of this, of this pattern happening in the
[00:23:23] business. How do you actually work with someone to make that kind of change?
[00:23:27] The biggest piece is awareness because if you don't have awareness of what's going on,
[00:23:31] you can't make changes. So bringing that awareness to Jeff and him really getting that and
[00:23:38] feeling the impact it had on himself, his life, his business, he realized he doesn't want to
[00:23:43] do that anymore. So with that awareness, now we talk about steps. Okay, how can you make sure
[00:23:49] that doesn't happen again? And we come back to priorities and reorienting his relationship
[00:23:56] to what success is. So rather than needing that chaos to have that feeling of power,
[00:24:01] just really building a strong sustainable business is a really powerful thing to do if I can put
[00:24:07] it in those words. So now he's got that feeling like, okay, this is what I really want to do and
[00:24:15] what really makes me feel like I'm on the right track and I don't need that chaos anymore.
[00:24:20] I mean, we've been working together for a long time and if I was to make a top five list of
[00:24:24] big pivotal moments, that was one of them. I actually, it was quite an emotional session.
[00:24:31] There was some tears on my end and I remember telling Mary, I'm like,
[00:24:35] I really wish I could hug you right now because that awareness, understanding that about myself,
[00:24:40] and we're going deep into just personal behavior. I mean, it was beyond just business coaching.
[00:24:46] It was really deep for me. And I remember saying to her, I'm like, I feel so empowered
[00:24:52] now that I'm aware of that. There's another thing that I think feels so connected to this
[00:24:58] addiction to chaos, which was that it seems like it's not only limited to the way that you
[00:25:04] were working, but also the kinds of the work that you were taking on. And so at that point,
[00:25:11] like so many business owners would, you were saying yes to literally any kind of project
[00:25:17] that would come your way. And it seems counterintuitive, but how was saying yes to everything
[00:25:26] that was coming your way actually making you less money?
[00:25:30] Well, I mean the major thing was that anything that fell into the umbrella of digital marketing,
[00:25:35] we would do because we were capable of doing it, not necessarily that we could do it very well.
[00:25:40] And we were taking on all kinds of work from all kinds of clients.
[00:25:46] Like what? What were some of the projects that you would do?
[00:25:48] Oh, we would do, I mean, we did marketing for a seminar. We would do, we launched
[00:25:55] a major boot camp for another client, literally everything. I mean, setting up the website,
[00:26:01] doing landing pages, email blasts, list building, paid advertising, email copywriting.
[00:26:09] We even did a webinar. I mean, we just, we were all over the place.
[00:26:14] And it was just a scramble to make money, right? Like I knew I needed to grow my company
[00:26:18] and get more people on. And I was in a really tough position at that time because
[00:26:23] I was still in my basement and we were out of room. So I knew like I needed to,
[00:26:29] I needed to either make a whole bunch of money really quick or land a big client
[00:26:32] so that I would have enough income, enough revenue to pay for another employee to take
[00:26:37] workload off as well as get office space. So that was a big struggle. So yeah,
[00:26:42] we were all over the map doing anything for everybody.
[00:26:46] Mary, how do you start to help him see the cost that he's paying for this
[00:26:52] saying yes to everything mentality? It comes down to helping Jeff look at how much time he's
[00:26:59] spending with these clients and how much money was coming in in return for his time.
[00:27:04] And this is where he would start to look at what is the value of his time and actually
[00:27:08] put a monetary number on it, which he did at some point. And it took a bit of a leap
[00:27:13] of faith for Jeff to say no and say, you know, it's just not really worth it to serve
[00:27:18] these clients for many reasons. One that it wasn't really his target market and what he really wanted
[00:27:24] to do. And there were much more lucrative projects out there that he could actually
[00:27:31] do better and serve the clients better. And so it did take a leap of faith to let go of those
[00:27:36] that weren't really working. So there was space to say yes to the bigger ones that did work.
[00:27:42] And that's what happened. So you started out by, I think first creating some packages,
[00:27:47] right? That was the first step in this. So what were they? What were your new packages that you
[00:27:54] were offering the world? Yeah, so we knew that there were certain things that we did really,
[00:27:59] really well. And so we created a blogging package and we created a social media package
[00:28:06] with three different levels of service. We standardized our website packages rather than,
[00:28:13] you know, typically a client would call and I talked to him a little bit and tried to
[00:28:16] understand budget and then, you know, just whip up a number out of thin air. I started,
[00:28:22] I developed a system to actually go through and figure out what a website would cost. And
[00:28:28] so that was the first step. And then after doing that, it became a lot easier to deal with
[00:28:33] prospects and phone calls at that point too because you had a set price. And the other
[00:28:40] thing that allowed me to do too was standardize our proposals because that was a nightmare in
[00:28:45] the beginning. Every single proposal I did was totally unique, took like four to six hours to do
[00:28:52] depending on what was involved. It was just a, it was crazy. And by creating packages, I could then
[00:29:00] create proposals for said packages and they were all templated. So wait, wait, wait,
[00:29:05] can I just want to make sure I understand this right? You would spend four to six hours
[00:29:09] on the project before you even had the project, before you were getting paid for it,
[00:29:15] just to create the proposal. Wow. Can we say chaos?
[00:29:26] Okay. So, and now you're obviously not anymore. And you've streamlined this process.
[00:29:35] What kind of impact did that have? Just this first step of putting packages out there,
[00:29:41] what kind of impact did that have on the rest of your team and your business overall?
[00:29:46] Well, that was the first step towards developing systems. Because when everything you do is
[00:29:51] completely one-off and you may or may not ever do it again, you can't systemize that yet.
[00:29:55] Well, I mean, you could, but you don't know if you're ever going to use it again. We were
[00:29:58] all over the map. And so just in doing that, I was like, okay, then we have a blogging package
[00:30:04] so what are the steps involved with getting the information that we need from a client to develop
[00:30:10] their content strategy and then to start creating blog posts? So we could actually come up with
[00:30:14] step one is this, step two is that. So that was really, really big. And that not only
[00:30:21] made it dealing with prospects a lot easier, but it also helped streamline,
[00:30:27] stream in Casey's jobs as well because now there was some sense of normal. Like
[00:30:33] this is a process that we do now. And you didn't stop there necessarily. You
[00:30:39] kept going and eventually now you're at a place where you not only have really one focused product,
[00:30:46] but also a pretty well-defined market that you're trying to serve, a defined customer base.
[00:30:52] How did you get to that next stage of this process? Well, part of what we realized was
[00:31:00] that when you start bundling these packages that we had together, you'd really amplify your results.
[00:31:07] And I ended up trading some services to sponsor an event and met a gentleman named Brent at this
[00:31:15] event and him and I started working on doing digital marketing for a downtown condo. And
[00:31:22] they had a really good budget to work with. It was one of our larger clients at the time,
[00:31:26] which was great from a casual standpoint. And so we bundled together a bunch of our packages and
[00:31:34] just the results that we saw were just off the charts. I mean, it was really mind-numbing how
[00:31:38] well it worked. So we started to change the way that we did business and got to the point
[00:31:46] where we were only offering the services now while they were bundled together. But with
[00:31:50] the way that we're doing marketing now, we can actually measure and give our clients a marketing
[00:31:56] return on investment. You give us X for retainer, we provide X for net profit.
[00:32:02] And you're stating that at the beginning of these engagements? You're guaranteeing that?
[00:32:06] Now we do. Yep. And what we really understood when we started putting these packages together
[00:32:12] was that there was a whole formula for how all this stuff all worked together.
[00:32:16] The other thing that that allowed us to do was start saying no to clients,
[00:32:20] or potential clients. Somebody would call and say, well, I just want this or I want that. And I would
[00:32:24] say, I don't think I'm the right guy for you. What I could provide for you with the budget
[00:32:32] you have, I don't believe is going to work. And if I'm not 100% convinced that I can get results
[00:32:37] for you, then I don't want to work with you because I don't want to let you down.
[00:32:41] Wait, wait, wait. So the same person who not put a few years ago was sitting in his basement and
[00:32:49] saying yes to everything and working 80 hours a week to do it, you start turning away business
[00:32:54] at the door saying, nope, sorry, I'm not your man? Yep. I probably turned away 75%
[00:33:01] of the people that call us on a day-to-day basis. Wow. How does that feel?
[00:33:06] It feels amazing. And again, Mary was the one that encouraged me to try that the first time.
[00:33:14] And I remember telling her that's another conversation. I remember very clearly,
[00:33:17] Mary, I can't let this client go because I won't have enough revenue to cover all my expenses
[00:33:23] at the end of the month. And she said, but look at how much time it's consuming. If you let go
[00:33:28] that revenue, look at how much time you're going to free up. Do you think that you can
[00:33:32] find another client that's not going to require as much time that's going to generate as much
[00:33:37] or more revenue? And I said, well, maybe. I don't know. And she said, I just encourage you to try it.
[00:33:42] Just try it. And I said, it's scary, Mary. And she said, yes, it is, but you need to try it.
[00:33:48] And so I did it. And lo and behold, within three weeks, replaced that client and we were
[00:33:53] making twice as much revenue from them with the same amount of work. And I just thought,
[00:33:57] okay, here we go.
[00:34:27] As always, you can schedule a free one hour session with an EMIF coach at emith.com slash free session.
[00:34:34] That's E M Y T H dot com slash free session.