Ash Shastry

[00:01:33] That’s not that fun. It’s not that sexy, but it’s what we’re all going through as a business owner. So it doesn’t matter if you are, at your beginning stage of a startup or, you’re going from 1 million trying to get to 5 million. There’s still this dark phase that we go through as business owners.

[00:01:51] Sometimes it’s easy and we’re able to push through those challenges quickly. Many times it’s dark and it’s lonely and it’s scary. And you may wake up in the morning, find yourself on indeed, cuz you’re just not sure how to progress or if your business is gonna make it. But I think the important thing is let’s start having that conversation about

[00:02:10] what do we do when we get stuck and what is the best way to work through those kind of challenges? So we can get up the next morning and get back at it. And I think that, there’s lots and lots of podcasts and energy focused on the guy that’s getting started. And you know how to test your idea and find your market and your MVP and all that cool stuff.

[00:02:32] And then there’s the other guy on the backside that, I launched a funnel, I made a million dollars and this is how I did it. But there’s nobody talking about this sucky stuff. This messy, middle of the ups and downs. And really, like I said, sticking to it until you’re able to get some momentum.

[00:02:49] I think so many entrepreneurs do really well. They start to get a little momentum and then they start second guessing themselves, or they lose a client or they just aren’t able to see what’s next to be able to keep that momentum going. And they end up cycling, it’s feast or famine. This month, you have five clients next month two quit and you didn’t get any new ones.

[00:03:10] How do we manage that space? You’re not getting rid of it, cuz it’s gonna happen forever when you’re in business, but you can learn skills to get better at handling it and getting through it quicker. Meaning the recovery time of getting through it. So I said a lot there, but I’m trying to set the stage of as more and more of these podcasts come out, really who we’re trying to help.

[00:03:34] you know, it’s a win for me, if one person watches this and says, you know what, I was stuck today, and I’m glad to hear that this is normal, or I’m glad to hear that everybody else is experiencing the same things I am. 

[00:03:48] Ash Shastry: Yeah no, a hundred percent. I think you’re totally right on that bit that you mentioned about, the messy middle that no one wants to talk about because it’s pretty unsexy, right?

[00:03:55] It’s really sexy to be like, oh, enter this world, quit the nine to five. And then it’s really sexy to be like, wow, look, you’ve made 4 million, 5 million in five years in business. That’s you’ll never achieve that. And for me, it’s been about two years and a tiny bit, but all of that time, I haven’t been full-time into the business.

[00:04:13] And I explain why that’s important in a second. So sure. You know, I only went full time in, end of last December. That’s when I like fully severed my ties with the bus, with the W2. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then. But I’ll tell you, like, when I was still in the company, the ups and downs seemed not that drastic.

[00:04:33] Right? So the peaks and troughs were there, but let’s say this is a neutral line. know, I was like just hovering there, but when you come to, when I finally quit and went full time, That’s when the peaks and troughs are so much heavier and I’ve come to realize over the last, like couple of months, I’ve been doing some thinking about this.

[00:04:51] And I think it’s because of the pressure that we put on ourselves. Oh, sure. Cause it’s not even just the pressure that, oh, I need to make this work in order to pay my bills. It’s the pressure of, what does it look like if I don’t make it work, you know what happens? what do other people say about me?

[00:05:05] What do I say about myself? what happens to my parents? All these different things that you think about. And so the level of activity that you can put in, at least what I found was like, I feel like I’m doing a lot of work, but at the same time, I’m not being productive. And I know to a certain level.

[00:05:22] Why that is and what I’m not doing or what I’m avoiding doing. You know what I mean? So that kind of becomes this dance that you try to convince yourself that you are doing what you need to do. And then one day you wake up, you’re like, actually I’m not, here are the things I need to do. And bam, bam, bam.

[00:05:38] And you have this like insane motivation that you can continue going for. So I think that kind of, that definitely happens all the time. And I think that in an entrepreneurial journey, at least in the beginning, when you’re still trying to find your. You know, you see inevitably whether you want to or not, you see other people who may or may not be actually getting these results, but they show that, I started three months later, I’m at this level and you’re like, okay, I don’t wanna compare myself, but your brain is consumed that information.

[00:06:07] Right. So it’s going in there regardless of what you want. So you’re like, oh, hang on. What am I doing wrong? And you might be doing nothing wrong. I think you mentioned when you were saying as well that, people, they go, and then at some point you just stop. For you feel like, oh, I need to quit.

[00:06:20] And I’m on indeed looking for jobs . And that seriously happens just because we’re like, I’m not where I wanna be yet. Right. So I must be doing something wrong. My niche might just not be working. I may be missing some, this next webinar, this next masterclass someone’s running is gonna solve my problem.

[00:06:38] versus actually just sticking through what we’re doing and then, just, well, as I say, trust the process, right? You gotta just put in the process. You do. 

[00:06:48] Audra: Yeah. Unfortunately I think that because there’s such good marketing out there and social media, we get on there and we do the comparison thing.

[00:06:57] The FOMO thing we see. You know, like I said, brilliant marketers putting out content. But the challenge that I go back to when it comes to content is you are buying a piece, a product, or a course that one, you may not be ready for. Meaning you are in the launch stage, but you took a Facebook ads class. you’re not ready for that yet.

[00:07:20] So why are you spending energy on something that you’re not gonna actually be able to get the results from? Because that knowledge gap that is between the I’m just launching to advance Facebook ads. Who’s filling that in. You’re not getting it through osmosis. That course you’re taking is not going to teach you that stuff.

[00:07:39] So you end up taking that course, being frustrated, going into more debt, or it sits on your shelf. And then you go back to the drawing board. Guys there is no easy way build it right. And then you only have to build it once. mind you, I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education in the last 14 years of being in digital marketing, but I had to learn it the hard way.

[00:08:03] And if we can, put anything out there and tell you, stop doing it. Look at where you’re at, look at what stage you’re at in your business, and then learn content around that because the more solid you get with that knowledge, then the easier it is to evolve up to the next type of content. there are 50 ways to send an email and you know what they’re all right.

[00:08:25] Every single one of them will work and it’ll get it in the inbox. The deal is not really that. And we get hung up on that more technology, look at more tools, more bigger, faster, better, but it’s really not about that. Find one tool that works for you that you can use consistently that gets opened. And improve on getting better open rates and improve on getting more signups, but we get so stuck in that comfortable stuff of looking at technology versus doing the real work, yeah.

[00:08:57] That we hide in the tasks of doing that. 

[00:09:00] Ash Shastry: Yeah, I think, one of the things that I found speaking to some people who are, newly, let’s say one to two years into the business, kinda like I am. What I found is that the outreach part is how most businesses get built in the beginning, right?

[00:09:13] Yes. You can do content marketing and you can get inbound, but if you really wanna grow your business and actually have funds to play with, if you’re bootstrapping it, if you get funding, that’s a totally different ballgame, but you know, if you’re bootstrapping. Outreach is how the game is built and it’s been built that way for generations and generations.

[00:09:30] Just the beginning. Yep. Thinking. So instead of going door knocking in person, you are now door knocking on, Facebook messenger or whatever. There’s multiple different ways doing it. But what I found is I think that part is so uncomfortable. And so challenging, no matter what stage you’re in, right?

[00:09:49] You could be new, you could be seasoned or whatever, but when to do outreach, it feels not that good because a lot of just the general free stuff out there is quite sleazy. Like it’s this cold message,whatever, like of spray and prey kind of approach. but so I think a lot of people try to avoid that.

[00:10:06] And in pursuit of avoiding the outreach, they’re looking for an easier solution. Which might not require them to do this step. So, oh, I’ll look at Facebook ads because I’m now not physically the person whose messaging or whatever, the ad will do the thing for me and then say, oh, it’s not working.

[00:10:25] You know, the ads are bad. Facebook is bad, mine people aren’t on Facebook and you look at other ads. Or you’re now looking at CRM systems or mobile chat bots, and you’re like, hang on, that’s the next step? the beginning step is you need to actually have prospects. And then you’re like, oh, who are my prospects?

[00:10:42] who, who do we even need to look at? So I think the, a lot of what you’re saying about people just moving around, regardless of the stage that they’re in. I think one of the reasons is potentially. Because they’re trying to avoid this discomfort of having to do outreach, just to build up a bit of presence.

[00:10:59] Ash Shastry: Yeah. And I definitely found that for me. Like, especially when there’s so many different people out there, you can do content marketing, you can start getting followers, but to actually get enough inbound that you are making consistent income, at least what, from my experience just takes time.

[00:11:16] There’s like probably nothing else that can, you know, even if you go viral on two or three videos in a row you’ll you might get a few people coming to you from there. A few leads that you might even close. But then what, it still needs to keep growing. So yeah, I think it’s this pursuit of ever trying to avoid discomfort and thinking that there’s just a little bit of an easier way to get to that end result.

[00:11:39] so a good example of this is me trying to use this Facebook live. It took me three tries. I couldn’t figure out the screen. I typically am not the one doing this. So. It’s uncomfortable. It feels stupid. I’m still gonna push through it until I get it. Right. And I think that just comes with trying and failing.

[00:12:02] Audra: Right. Trying and, or it’s not even failing, I’m learning. And until I learn how the right way to do it is then how do, how would anybody get it? I mean, we all start in kindergarten and we are expected to learn things and evolve through school. Business is no different. just because we have an expertise, doesn’t mean all of a sudden that translates into a hundred thousand dollar year business.

[00:12:28] You still have to backfill all of that knowledge. Now you don’t have to become, I think there’s a fine line between learning how to run a business and becoming an expert marketer. Those are two different things. Owning an agency for all these years. Say if I served 5,000 customers, maybe a hundred of them actually had interest in marketing.

[00:12:51] The rest of them don’t wanna do it. they’re in business cause they wanna sell the widget that they’re selling. But the challenge is you don’t have a business without sales and marketing. You just don’t. So you have to learn enough to be effective to, learn enough to generate some sales and then you can delegate it, hire somebody and let somebody else handle it for you.

[00:13:15] But I’ve, been on both sides of that. I’ve been on the ones that refuse to learn enough because they don’t wanna be marketers then don’t, but you know what, your product’s not gonna go anywhere or go get funding so you can hire somebody. it’s just the hard truth and it’s easier if you just face it instead of.

[00:13:32] Pushing things around in circles, cuz it’s not gonna go anywhere. you can’t put that triangle in that square, cuz it’s just not gonna work. So stop, save your energy. But the other side of that is the ones that can write a check. Maybe they’re in one industry and they decide they wanna branch out into another industry.

[00:13:48] So they have money, but then they hire the wrong people because they didn’t know what was actually required from the skill that they were trying to bring in. I have done more business rescue work. Then I have done new client work, meaning I go in behind the agency that just left that they paid 5,000 or 10,000 or $20,000 to that was going to do X and didn’t deliver.

[00:14:18] But you know, half of that is the owner’s responsibility cuz they didn’t hire correctly to begin. So they gotta get in the weeds, learn enough to hire effectively or learn enough to get the business off the ground, to generate enough revenue, to hire somebody, to do it internally. But at least, you know what it’s supposed to look like.

[00:14:39] And then when you’re not getting results, you know how to fix it. 

[00:14:43] Ash Shastry: Yeah. I think this is a big thing when we do kind the leadership training, one of the things we always talk about is, okay, cool. Like, we’re at this training, you’ve hired us to do some training for. What does a successful outcome look like?

[00:14:54] Everyone’s like, what, why are you asking me? Aren’t you, the person selling? I’m like, well, look, you hire other people. Like you hire marketers, you hire email specialists, you hire all these different people to do things for you, but you don’t even know what the success is like, what you don’t know what you are looking for.

[00:15:09] I think, it’s an often used, analogy, but it works is that if you’re trying to go on a trip, you are not gonna be like, all right. I need a car and let’s go, you’re not gonna just do that. You’re gonna say, OK, I need a car. I need a GPS. And to know where I’m going and to put that destination in, then I can follow the route.

[00:15:26] Ash Shastry: Or you find you first probably just check the route and then see whether you wanna hire a car or you want get a taxi, right. Get a plane, get on. Yeah. Or a plane. So it’s the same thing. I think if you know what that success looks like, you know, where you’re going, you know, that journey that you need to take, then everything becomes a lot easier at that point because you are no longer.

[00:15:46] In this position where you’re just second guessing everything and right in the last kind of maybe six or seven months, I’ve had this realization that there’s one school of thought of people who are just like, don’t learn don’t prep, go for it. Just go try, fail, learn, iterate, whatever. And another school of thought is like, oh, no, prepare and then execute.

[00:16:07] Right. But I think there’s some happy middle there where. You don’t want to be preparing for too long, but actually I think one of the bigger mistakes that people probably do now is they jump into execution too quickly. Like without the first thought. You’re already in like, cool, I’ve set up a logo, I’ve bought a domain name, I’ve done whatever.

[00:16:27] And now I’m reaching out to people and it just comes across really weird because you’re like, you don’t know what you’re doing and you haven’t figured it out. So like, why is it? So you need to probably have a little bit of that strategy up front to be like, okay, cool. This is what I’m doing.

[00:16:41] This is why I’m doing it. And I’m good at this thing. So I can go and talk to people about that. Kind of, you mentioned earlier, it’s like, You know, when people have their little bit of expertise, they need to be able to show that. So the only way to show that is by having clarity on that expertise that you have, right.

[00:16:57] It can be like, it could just be a little story that you’re able to tell about your expertise and how you got there. But if you don’t even have that, you’re like, yeah, I can just go on a call and now I’m stuck because this other person. I’m expecting them to hand over their hard earned money to me, to experiment with , to experiment or to learn on the job.

[00:17:16] Right. Yeah. Right. 

[00:17:17] Audra: Yeah. I started my agency in 2009, my first probably five clients. I paid them to learn. I mean, I lost so much money. I didn’t know what I was doing. back then though there wasn’t the amount knowledge available like there is now. We were just figuring it all out blogging and SEO websites and conversions funnels didn’t really exist back then.

[00:17:39] so it’s been a process to learn and I’ve tried so many different things and failed at, but you build on top of that. And I think if I take away from all the different things that I’ve done, no matter what clients I would go into, once I figured it out, how all the pieces kind of work together as this beautiful symbiotic system.

[00:18:00] we always started with a strategy. So, and this is probably my biggest advice and the most used thing that I do. But when I would go in and consult with somebody, they may have been bringing me in to talk about their email. But when I look at the whole system what’s working, what’s not working where there’s revenue opportunities.

[00:18:21] Audra: I will typically say, look, I know you think that your email’s broken, but if we make changes on your website we can actually bring the conversion up, which brings the traffic up, which will bring the sales up. Then it’ll increase the list where we can make some more money off the list. And I will drive them to a different direction.

[00:18:40] For me. It always starts with a strategy. What is the goal? What are we trying to do? Then we find whatever piece is the best fit to make that goal happen without that strategy then yeah, you’re just, you’re all over the place. I built a website. Then I went to this event and I did an event and then I bought some product and then I

[00:19:01] bought some Facebook ads and then you’re broke and can’t figure out why you can’t get your product out. Stop for a second. Just stop watching marketers online, stop looking at your competitors, sit down and think who is my audience and how am I trying to serve them? And then what would be the best way that’s most comfortable for me to actually get that message out there.

[00:19:26] If you’re not an extrovert and you don’t wanna be on video, you got 50 other ways you can market your product online, find something else instead of day in, day out, like you started this conversation, thinking about all the things that you haven’t. I need to post and I need to be on Twitter and I didn’t do it live today and there’s no Instagram reels.

[00:19:47] And then you rush and you put something up and it’s typically crappy. And then you’re mad at yourself for not taking the time to plan it out properly, stop the madness and just create a plan, stop one platform. Do it well, and then move on from there. 

[00:20:04] Ash Shastry: yeah, I understand. And, I was listening to this, this podcast with Chris DOE the founder of future.

[00:20:10] He’s awesome. Yeah. I really like his stuff. And what he was saying was really interesting about the comparison between, when like exactly what you’re saying about the strategy. So he was saying a lot of like, obviously he speaks a lot to designers, but what he was saying is, okay, look a designer, you know, you go on there.

[00:20:24] Somebody’s like, oh, I need a new website. Cool. So you are there. You’re like, okay. Yeah, I’ll do my fact fine. I found, yes, I agree. Your website is ugly and here’s how I can fix it. They’re like, great. But they’ve heard the exact same thing from five other people. Now, all they’re doing is price comparison.

[00:20:41] Right? Everybody’s telling them they’re gonna give them best website ever. So you’re now competing on price, but if you thought for a second, had your strategy hat on and you were like, okay, great. This person’s asking for a website why? It’s not just because they think their websites ugly that’s the surface level.

[00:20:55] Right? Like, but why did they even come to assess that the website was bad is because they were probably not seeing enough leads or they’re not seeing enough conversions. They’re not seeing enough sign up something that’s bottom line driven. Is ruling that thought process. Right? So you’re like, okay, great.

[00:21:11] When you are analysis, now, you still do the whole same thing. Yeah. I can do your new website. Let’s find out your analysis in the analysis. You don’t then say, oh, your website is crap. You’re now saying, oh, actually what I’ve found is this positioning in your thing is not converting, well, you’re messaging is not right.

[00:21:26] Right. And now you’ve just added more values. So now you’re like, Hey, instead of us just redesigning this website, how about we look at your. How about, we look at the signup process, like here’s benchmark of other competitors that are doing this really well. Why don’t you beat them? Now?

[00:21:41] You are no longer comparing on price and you’re not competing with other people who have just said, I can do you a new design. You’ve now created a category of one, right? So you are the only competitor in that category of one. So you will, of course win. And you will probably get paid way more because you are now perceived to be adding way more.

[00:21:58] Yeah, you’ll probably still end up doing an update to the website, but you might also be able to win their contract for a copywriting thing or, an upgrade to their funnels and whatever it is, even if you don’t have the skillset to it, you can now hire other partners who can deliver that. So at the end of the day, yeah

[00:22:15] make more money. You, know, just thinking about that strategy, you’ve solved their problem to a level that’s much better than everybody else. And I think for me, that kind of thinking has started to sort of, you know, work really in favor because people are like, oh, there’s something different

[00:22:32] you said something that I haven’t heard before. 

[00:22:35] Audra: Yeah, that’s a great point. And it could go across the board no matter what you’re selling, right? If you’re selling coaching, you’re selling courses, you’re selling web development, you’re selling copywriting. The more value that you can add, the more you’ll edge across or ahead of your competitors to not be another me too.

[00:22:53] I was reading a article last night on AI that was talking about globally how many people say they’re marketers? It’s millions and millions. The competition since COVID has just been ridiculous, how many people decided to get in the game and marketing is a commodity now. And it didn’t used to be that way.

[00:23:14] there’s still, some of us OGs that have been around a long time that we don’t play in the price just because we’ve been doing it for so long, but the people coming in the last couple of years, and then even going forward, they’re competing on price. Because their reputation or their expertise, unless they’re really niched and are known for something specifically to get people results.

[00:23:38] you end up being very competitive on price, so it’s worth it to dig in and learn strategy and learn how to, look at the whole process of what somebody’s doing. And specifically we’re talking to people that provide services, but it’s worth. that was probably my strongest skill that I learned early on.

[00:23:57] Audra: I would go in for social media and I would leave with the social media and a new website and the content and, you know, something I thought was gonna be a $5,000 deal, ended up being a $30,000 deal when it was all said and done, it’s beautiful to work that way, but you have to be able to really know what you’re talking about and it needs to be valuable to your clients.

[00:24:19] Otherwise you’re just ripping ’em off and, you know, go somewhere else to do. 

[00:24:23] Ash Shastry: Hundred percent. And, I had a client I was working with, quite recently actually like just before the summer. and he wanted to offer, so we were doing a sales specific thing, so okay. What he was trying to offer a social media management agency.

[00:24:34] Right. But his thing was, I will, do your social media for you. I’ll, find people to outreach for you. I will, set appointments for you, all of these different things. And I was like ok, in theory, when you’re saying that you should be killing it in business, because there’s not that many people who can offer all those things to a good level.

[00:24:51] but you’re not, so that means that you’ve probably diversified yourself too early on that nobody can trust that you will deliver the process. So you’re now looking at it and break all that down as okay, well, where are your expertise? How can you show that you’ve done all these things?

[00:25:05] Ash Shastry: Oh, I haven’t, I’ve never done outreach before I am doing outreach to get my clients. I’m gonna do the same process for them. I was like, how does that make. You know, you haven’t even tried tested your own method. but the one thing that he had done was he had grown Instagram pages really well, and, you know, just thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers and sold them on and, you know, done things like that a few times.

[00:25:24] So I was like, you’re missing a trick here. Like you have absolute authority in this space because most people you were talking to would have not built, not just one hundreds of thousands of, followers page, but several and sold it on. So that’s your skillset, Yes. When you’re going into the strategy, you should in fact identify all of these things, right?

[00:25:46] That they are lacking. You can like as a good, service provider, you have two options, right? You don’t necessarily have to service client yourself. You can still become a valuable partner by saying, look, you are doing this thing wrong. I don’t have the skillset to do it myself. And I’m new to the game.

[00:26:04] So I actually don’t have partners either. Now I can go and find them. But they might not be the best thing, but you should find someone else who can do that. And here are, X, Y, Z things that I would look at when you’re looking to hire somebody. 

[00:26:17] Audra: Yeah. And the other thing he could have done was reach out and just take on three clients for free.

[00:26:23] Yeah. And say, or at a very discount, just as hard cost enough for say 90 days to show where that client started and then where he got them to. And then one of the conditions 

[00:26:34] is they write a testimonial and share it as a case study to, to prove that he’s got the knowledge to do that. a lot people went through that stage.

[00:26:43] Like I said for my knowledge, but it ended up costing me way more than I ever made. And I did try to farm it out early on, but you run into a couple challenges with that. I didn’t have the knowledge to build a website, so I would find web developers and I would end up playing kind of the project management role.

[00:27:04] But I couldn’t control them. I couldn’t control when I got the work done. The result that I got there was too much back and forth. using different vendors. Yes. It’s good to use when you initially start, but that should be like a short term bandaid just for you to get in and learn it well enough that you can bring it in house and do it yourself.

[00:27:24] It forced me to learn how to build websites, and I tell you, I kick and screamed cuz I had no interest in learning how to build. And since then I’ve probably built 500 websites so I build on WordPress so you know, like the back of your hand, right? Yeah. And, and I know no coding guys, but I have built, once I got in, I was like, okay, I’m gonna learn this.

[00:27:48] And I still delegate out, I still get other help, but I’ve personally probably built that many sites. But I had to learn it and, yeah. The how is not always fun. to go back to where we started this conversation, the how, and being in the weeds is not always fun and it’s not always sexy.

[00:28:05] And sometimes it’s hard and frustrating that it’s not easier, but fast forward, it’s so worth it. If you can learn some of the basic stuff. 

[00:28:15] Ash Shastry: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I know a lot of people compare, athletics or sports to this. and I can compare that as well, but I actually, I didn’t resonate with that personally too much because I just thought.

[00:28:27] It was overdone. Right. So I’m like, oh yeah, cool. Yeah, I get it. A basketball player needs to practice drills thousands of times before you even get on the court, but I’m not a basketball player. So what’s my drills. Right. but then I realized that like, when I was in the corporate world, it’s kind of the same thing, right?

[00:28:41] you’re a new joiner. You get given the crappy tasks because you’re like, so I’ll relate it to my own story. I was a management consultant. Right. So stereotypical job worth is just all about Excel and Powerpoint. So, yeah, like my initial thing, I was just doing that, was that what I wanted to do?

[00:28:59] Ash Shastry: No. Was that where my skillsets were, but no, but that was the building blocks that the firm needed from me. So I did it and I think most people can relate to something like that because most people will have a job or have had a job. And so when they first started. that’s they had to do stuff that they didn’t like, because that was part of the job.

[00:29:16] And just cuz somebody else was telling you to do it, you would complain, you would moan whatever, but you still get, get that done. And then a year or two years later, you’re like, you are now giving that type of job to somebody else. Right. Who’s a new, you’re like, this is what you need. I did that. So it’s like when it comes to business, I think there’s a bit of an expectation of this like instant return because you’re like, well, I’ve put in, I don’t know, one week of effort here.

[00:29:41] Whereas where’s my progress to show for it. Right. And, but I think it seems, cause I guess no one else is telling you that, Hey, stick it through. Look, I am here two years later and I’m telling you to do this. Like you have to just be that for yourself to be like, yeah, I think this is the right path.

[00:29:56] I think this is the building blocks that I need to do in order to get to that next level. So let me just crack on and keep going at this building block. I think the challenge, and this is where the messy middle becomes really real I think that the challenges where you don’t know whether the building blocks you’re building are the right building blocks.

[00:30:16] Right. You know what I mean? If I wanna explain, it’s like comparing to a job again, if I was gonna be a management consultant, then yes, Excel PowerPoint are my building blocks. But imagine if I was in a management consulting job and I was learning accounting, right. I was learning financial calculations or I was learning like the basics of surgery.

[00:30:34] Like now I’m, these are all building blocks, but for completely different professions. So I think that’s where a lot of people kind of get stuck in this entrepreneurial world because. You don’t know which exam you’re preparing for. right, right. You’re just preparing something and you’re like, hopefully this is gonna be the profession or the area that I’m gonna be in for the near future.

[00:30:57] But I think how I’ve come to terms with that a little bit is knowing that any building blocks that we build now can actually be built on top of even if you switch into a different area. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you could be selling a product. But when you then switch to a service, you feel like, oh, that was the wrong building blocks.

[00:31:15] Ash Shastry: But actually it wasn’t because like you said, the website building the marketing, all of that is transferable. You’re just now serving a different audience. So you are copywriting and speech might be different, but that’s a new skillset you can then stack on top. 

[00:31:28] That’s a great point. I think that also going into it with that kind of mindset also gave me the ability to service multiple niches.

[00:31:37] Audra: So the client would be like, yeah, but you don’t know anything about ATVs and I’m like, I don’t need to know anything about ’em. I know how website works. Yeah. Who your audience is and who your competitors are. You know, I need to be able to put the message together, all that data already lives out there.

[00:31:54] Remember we’re not creating anything from scratch anymore. Everything is and iteration of something else. So the data’s out there, I let the data decide. So we start with a best guess, right? We start with years of experience of what’s worked. We set that down as our best guess. We drive a bunch of traffic to it, and then we let the data tell us what’s right.

[00:32:18] What they like, what they don’t like if the price point’s too high, if the price point’s too low, the ones that are willing to take out their credit card are the ones that we need to pay attention to. At the beginning there, it’s just, we’ve gotta start somewhere. If you’re trying to get from Arkansas to Texas, it doesn’t matter how many times you look at the map.

[00:32:36] If you don’t get in the car and drive it doesn’t matter. so get out there and at least start moving forward. And I think the other really important thing as an entrepreneur is where we start and where we end up are never gonna be the same. So your idea may have been, I’m gonna launch this widget and I’m gonna serve this community because it’s being underserved.

[00:32:59] And then you get frustrated because people aren’t fitting into your idea of what your business should have been. Yeah, but that’s okay. That was just a place to start the conversation you need to be open to. Okay. You know, really glad I started here, but guess what? I can really serve this audience over here if I just make these few changes and yeah.

[00:33:22] That’s, isn’t that the whole reason why we started business is to serve. So be open to that. What do they stay liquid? Stay open to the opportunity of, where your business can go and become, especially, if you’re under a million dollars, you gotta stay liquid period. Yeah, I think you totally good.

[00:33:43] You’ve kinda figure it out. Your product is solid. You’ve got an audience you’re solid pride tested. Yeah. it’s time to come up with more products maybe at that point, but until it’s at that million dollar mark, everything’s up for negotiation. 

[00:33:59] Ash Shastry: What’s interesting is, in the business world, people just say, oh, you know, test it out and see how it goes in the corporate world.

[00:34:05] The same thing is actually being paid a lot of money, which is to come up with a strategy, a hypothesis led strategy, which is exactly the same thing. Just call a totally different thing. Right? So a hypothesis is nothing, but, well, I’m taking an educated guess at saying, this is what’s gonna work. Oh, the data has said it doesn’t work or it does work.

[00:34:25] So right now you crack on and iterate on that. So I think the more people think about it in that way, you look at all these massive firms and you’re like, wait a second. This is exactly what they’re doing. They don’t know if it’s going to work or not. Right. Like Coca-Cola had that one advert then with Kendall Jenner doing something right.

[00:34:43] that drinking cola. That was a hypothesis. Or if we put this ad out, it’s going to get some kind of reaction. That’s going to increase our sales. They tried it, it had very mixed reaction and then they killed it because they were like, oh, this actually is not doing a good job for us. So, you kind of forget those things, but saying like, you know, from my journey it’s I started off by being a fitness coach.

[00:35:05] Ash Shastry: Oh did you?. Yeah, because I was like, when you’re starting out and this was like a side hustle for me, right. I was like, oh, I wanna start business. I have no idea in what, so now I’m looking at my strengths because I wanted to have that credibility to be like, I am good at this. I can do this. I didn’t have enough confidence to be like, oh, and my job I’ve had four and a half years of experience of literally just coaching executives.

[00:35:25] So I can probably do that. But instead I was like, what have I done in my life? So I’m looking at it. I’m like, oh, I had a big kind of issue with my body and eating habits and all that. So I’m like, oh, I’ve figured all that. I could probably help other people. So I started that way, but over time I realized that actually where my skill were more like confidence and communication skills and that stuff.

[00:35:46] So slowly evolved into serving more of that and less of the fitness stuff. And then now, I’ve come to a position after a couple of years of iterating on what I’m learning and what my clients are saying and what, the market resonates with to come to the services that we are in now.

[00:36:01] And I think. Whether we’re gonna stay in this service in the next five years or not, who knows? But I, think all of these skill sets that I’m building up is probably just a stackability. And like you said, this is the messy middle, right. I don’t know when the messy middle really ends, but I feel like when you can fill a room of 50,000, people’s like Grant Cardone or someone does then you are probably at a stage where you feel like you made it, but I don’t know.

[00:36:26] Audra: Well, I don’t know that you end through it, right. Challenges are always gonna be there regardless where you’re at. I mean, Grants probably got tons of headaches and tons of headaches with staff and lots of layers and layers of stuff, bigger problems. Yeah. But he grew into that.

[00:36:42] if you took ’em back 10 years and said deal with where your business is now, with the skills you have now, you probably couldn’t have done. Right. Yeah. So we grow into being better, adapt at handling challenges as they come up. And to pull things back in, I think that going forward, everybody needs to look at, take some time for yourself.

[00:37:03] we are always driving, driving, driving. I am just as guilty as anybody else of overworking and trying to over-deliver all the time. And. Sometimes it’s not about more work. Sometimes it’s about being more strategic and sitting down and saying, okay, how do I get the same result with two steps instead of five?

[00:37:23] Audra: Is there better technology do, am I using three pieces of technology, but really one would do the job of what I’m actually using. You know, what simplify your tech stack, simplify your process. Look at your social media outreach. Remember too many people invest in social media. It’s just a marketing channel.

[00:37:44] That’s it. It’s only a marketing channel. When we’re online, we should be there as promoters and then get off when you want to go on and be a consumer. That’s a different conversation. When you wanna go check what your granny’s doing or your, you know, BFFs are doing that’s different time. Yeah. But when you’re in work mode, you’re on there to get a job done, get in, promote, engage and get off.

[00:38:07] Cuz you have 20 other marketing channels you should be spending time. and I think some of it’s schedules, some of it is, I don’t know how to manage it. So I go back to, like you said earlier, what’s comfortable. What’s easy because I don’t like uncomfortable and I can’t figure out how to get through it.

[00:38:25] Yeah. many of the entrepreneurs I’ve met, probably 90% of them they’re willing to put the work. They are, they just need somebody to show ’em, they’re happy to do the work. There’s a handful of ’em that think it’s gonna come easy. I’m like, okay, you could try all that. And when it doesn’t work, you come back and we’ll talk some people will have to go through the lessons on their own and that’s okay.

[00:38:46] It’s not my journey, but many of them will do the work. They just want you to help slow it down for them a little bit or wean away maybe. Yeah. 

[00:38:58] Ash Shastry: I really agree with that. A practical example I think it’s when productivity comes into play and time management, like I said, so I think a lot of times, you know, I said earlier I was super busy doing things.

[00:39:10] And like I said, I was like, oh, well, these people say I should be on all these social media platforms. So yeah. Lemme put out content and all these things. Then I realized it took me half a day to do all of that and film all the content and, write all the message and like a copy for. And I’m like, why am I doing all of this?

[00:39:26] Like, I’m not getting clients from here. Like at this stage, I shouldn’t be spending half a day, on, on trying to do all of these things, but that’s half a day of just production on top of that, you have, the thinking, the research backend, the worry about oh, did anybody look at this?

[00:39:42] You know, it’s I think when it comes to that productivity angle, Yeah, so you’re totally right. I think focusing on something that makes sense, focusing on that uncomfortable outreach. Like if I think you’re right, most entrepreneurs want to work hard and they’re happy to work hard because at the end of the day, you’re quitting a nine to five for a 24/ 7.

[00:40:02] So, you’re definitely taking on more work, but if people like the listeners, they can focus on doing that uncomfortable thing that actually generates revenue. I think that will easily make a big difference. And it’s gonna be the thing that gets you out of that middle messy middle the fastest, I think because once you’ve made money, you can then play with stuff because if you wanna do more content, you can now hire a person to distribute it for you, to contextualize it and do all of those things that matter.

[00:40:36] But you have money you have now time because you’ve streamlined your process to do that. But if you haven’t simplified your things like even now, right? I have these three offerings that I’m doing and I’m like, this is too much. Like there are three, they’re the same skillset that I’m delivering. So the delivery part is really easy, but you know, like most people get into a job or a business because they have a passion, they have something that they want to sell their.

[00:41:00] And, but you don’t realize that you then have to become a marketer, a salesperson, an accountant, HR, all these. So for me, the delivery part is super easy because it’s the same kind of skill set, just marketed differently. But the marketing is totally different. Right? And then the target audience, the type of people who want it are totally different.

[00:41:19] So I’m like, this is too messy. Like we’ve evolved into it because I haven’t been paying attention. But this is too messy. Like if I, if I need to actually optimize my time, I need to figure out which of these things is most profitable and just focus on doing that one thing. And it’s scary. It’s painful.

[00:41:34] You’re like, Ooh, what are people gonna think I have this on my bio now I’m gonna change it. But I think at the end of the day, that’s part of the messy middle, You’ve gotta do, it’s gonna remember five days from now, all the stuff that you’re worrying about.

[00:41:47] Audra: Right. I think it’s all us in our head.

[00:41:50] Yeah. Well, so to wrap this up, cuz I know we’ve been on here about 45 minutes or so, what last words would you give to people listening to this, to help them dig back in and go back into work whenever they’re listening to this with a kind of a new, fresh perspective on being stuck here, 

[00:42:13] Ash Shastry: this is, a really good point, actually.

[00:42:15] So one of the things we were talking about is productivity earlier. Yeah. for people who are in this messy middle chances are you’re working every day, right. You’re actually not taking a day off. And even when you do take your day off, you’re still thinking about the problem. Yeah. And I’ll give an example, like when we were all in, school, university, whatever, if there was a problem that we were trying to solve an exam to study for an assignment or whatever, we’re sitting there and looking at it and we just can’t rack a brain around.

[00:42:42] Then you take a nap, you go away, you do something with your friends or whatever you come back. And you’re like, oh, this was easy. Why did I spend so much time looking at it? So if you analyze that, what’s happening is your brain is actually switching off. So, but in your subconscious, it’s still, you know, calculating all these things.

[00:42:59] It’s still going through the process of running through all the scenarios, but you have now regained the energies when you come back, you can activate on that. So in the same thing in business, I’ve definitely found that when I actually switch off. Even if it’s for a day or two days or whatever, when I come back, everything is so much clearer because I’ve just had that time to think about things.

[00:43:20] And this can be the same thing during the day. So when I’m talking about productivity for people, it’s during your day, instead of working for eight hours consistently just sitting in front of your laptop, maybe doing something, maybe. Wanting work for a half an hour, take a 10 minute break, literally just walk around, come back.

[00:43:35] And you will just be able to be so much more focused. There’s even like studies being done now. I can’t remember which university about like micro naps. Yeah. But these aren’t actually napping. Like it was like, yeah, it was like you’re doing something. And then I think the study is like a buzzer goes off.

[00:43:50] And as soon as the buzzer goes off for 20 seconds, you close your eyes, do nothing. And in 20 seconds back on, you’re doing it. And I think the study is showing. That your brain function activates much higher after that little nap. So there’s definitely worth, or it’s definitely worthwhile taking that rest to actually become more productive rather than feel less productive.

[00:44:11] That would be my thought yeah. Like you have to push. 

[00:44:13] Audra: Yeah. No, I think that’s great. And we’ll wrap it up there. I guess just last words, you guys, we’re gonna start doing podcasts on a, more of a regular basis. And the goal of these is to have tough conversations, maybe it’s to coach somebody through,where they’re stuck.

[00:44:30] So if anybody that’s listening to this would like to hop on one of these and have a conversation about your business specifically, I am happy to get on and I don’t wanna say coach you, but just talk through it. Just kind of be a sounding board and maybe another perspective and an outside view. Of getting outta your head, cuz I don’t know what’s going on in there.

[00:44:52] And so I’m not bringing anything with me that you’ve got and maybe we can look at things a little bit differently and get you back on the right path to hit that momentum. I think that’s where the messy middle starts to, get a little bit easier to handle once you start to get that momentum.

[00:45:08] But until then it’s a desert and it’s challenging and you are thirsty, but stay the course cuz you will get. just stay curious and, stay liquid. Right. stay liquid. I wanna borrow that from SWAT isn’t SWAT, the ones that say that stay. I think that , but it’s yours now. You’ve got it. Stay liquid.

[00:45:29] We’re use this. So all, thank you so much for your patience and, chatting. This has been great. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Audra.

[00:45:37] Ash Shastry: It’s been a great, great time chatting with you. So thanks again for having me on. 

[00:45:41] Audra: Yeah. And guess what? This is my first. My first one. Amazing. I feel honored. So you’re the, inaugural session that we’re going with.

[00:45:52] So thank you again. Appreciate it. Of course, peace!