SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Yeah, so I'll reiterate and then I'd love to actually talk to you about this. So you and I were talking a couple months ago when I didn't have a full-time job. I was doing fractional work and now I've got this full-time job that I'll be starting. I've heard another podcaster refer to it as their jobby job. So maybe I'll use that particular phrasing. So I'll be starting this jobby job, but... I've also been talking to you about consulting type of work that I'm interested in doing, and I'm not wanting to stop that. I want to keep doing it because it's asynchronous. I don't have to be in meetings. There's nothing onsite. I can kind of work on it my own in the evenings type thing. I'm wrestling with that a little bit, that I've got what looks like a really good job coming up in a couple of weeks, but I've been used to being able to tell anyone like, hey, I'm not available today if something comes up, and I won't really have that freedom. So I'm curious, yeah, if you have any questions or thoughts on that. And just real quickly, my guest today is Jason Lexell. We'll get into some kind of an official intro. And Lance is out sick today, not feeling well. And Jason was a mutual friend of mine and Lance. He was so kind to jump on with very little notice and chat about life together and some of the stuff that he does that I think will be relevant to fractional type work. So hello, Jason.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Hey, hello. Absolutely. I mean, you can be honest with the audience. I've been begging you guys to be on this show ever since I heard that it existed welcome it was a great it's a great opportunity I'm excited to do it

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

so I want to actually kind of get your take on that because I want to dive into talking more about your work and what you do as it's related to this but yeah what are your thoughts back toward me of you know that I've enjoyed doing freelance I'm about to do fractional freelance forget the wording at the moment but Do you have any thoughts on how I'll be approaching this in the coming weeks or any questions for me?

SPEAKER_00: 1:55

Thoughts? Well, yeah, plenty of thoughts, actually. There are times I don't know if I'm the only fractional out there. I would call myself a fractional, although I do a lot of freelance work. I have my own business. It sort of straddles all those different lines, right? But these days, some people would call it fractional. There are times when I wished my next hire could be a boss for myself because managing time can be difficult. And managing priorities and having somebody to help simplify all these decisions about what are you going to do with today, what is most important, where are you putting your time. So... there are times you know and hey let's face it with family you've got an ironclad excuse when you have a boss telling you to get something done whereas I think it's possible when you are independent or a fractional people know you work for yourself to say what yeah of course you can go to the store you're you're your own boss right can you please do this now and you really can sometimes have that structure being eaten into I don't have that much of an issue you know but I know when my kids were younger that was a constant source of decision fatigue right can I say no to this can I feel okay saying no to this so that I can work or am I now being you know a bad parent by not you know what I mean whereas a job makes that all very simple no you're working right now

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

yeah it's so true because You could just take the time off when you're fractional, when you have your own business. You could just not work. But you have this fear that if you don't do it, it won't get done. And that, in a way, can drive you to do more than you would have otherwise. And I guess that's a great way of looking at it. And I'm wrestling a little bit with... What will my future be like a few years from now? I don't know. And I'm trying to, I've been spending this week thinking about that. So I guess for you, what would it take for you to go have a boss? Like what would be that perfect dream job scenario where you'd be open to doing that? And this is, you've been on your own for so long now. I'm curious what that would look like.

SPEAKER_00: 4:20

Golly, we joke. I mean, I'm sure we're not the only ones to joke. Maybe you and I have, or maybe it's been other people who are their own bosses like you always have a boss you really always have a boss either your customers are your boss or yeah you can say no you can push back but in a way they're a boss they're a set of boundaries that you have to operate within and meetings that you need to go to and things like that so the question is if you hire an official quote unquote boss or they hire you to work for them what do they like to work with so what would it take for me somebody who respected me um gave me some pretty wide a pretty wide berth to be able to operate within although sometimes i feel like i waste a lot of my freedom like i want all this freedom to be able to do what i want when i want and the reality is i get up just like everybody else does and i show up And it's like, yeah, I could be at the movies right now, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_01: 5:27

Why not? I've thought about that so many times. Like, I could go watch a matinee today, but why won't I? So why don't you?

SPEAKER_00: 5:34

I used to. Back in the day when, you know, Hollywood actually put out decent movies, I would occasionally do that as like, that was the big splurge. But the funny thing is, you find out very quickly when you work fractionally, when you work independently, that everybody's working during the day. Most people People are working. So anything you do is going to kind of be solo. And I do think that that's, you know, the ability to go grab a workout. If there's a gym that you like to go to and there's a class being held, a fitness class, and you want to go and it's 2 o'clock, you can do that. But there's people in jobs that can do that too.

SPEAKER_01: 6:14

That's a really great distinction, actually, that for things you wanna do solo, being a fractional can be so fantastic, right? But this is also one of the challenges I've heard where people have talked about this sleep hacking, where you're awake for four hours, sleep for 20, and you do that around the clock. And in theory, Some people claim it's enough sleep for them. But what happens, let's just say it was for a moment. I see your eyebrows are going up, right? That sounds completely crazy. But what happens is you absolutely destroy any social community aspect you'll have, which I believe is really important for us as humans to be connected with other people.

SPEAKER_00: 6:49

And that is it. Yeah. That is it for most of us. It's your family. You want to make money to support your family and pull your weight and have a decent lifestyle. And then it's kind of about people, really, and being around people. So not having a social life negates even the need to work really hard and have money because most of the... And I'm not talking to anybody here on this podcast, but other people, a lot of them, their driving motivation is to buy stuff to impress people. So you're still looping in people as being the fundamental driving force. So if you remove that and just go completely solo and don't connect with people anymore, then you're really just surviving.

SPEAKER_01: 7:42

And there is that element of, I've called this out before my future ted talk will be about the three c's of humanity one is we all need creativity we need uh curiosity and connection so you do need that like go do fun stuff maybe on your own or with people but absent people there's almost no point right like there there is no point So when you have a lifestyle that you alternate completely against everyone else, that's not to say my wife and I have been trying to figure this out with our kids. Can we have a lifestyle where we do spend more time together? And we haven't quite nailed that yet because our kids are still young. We have options. It's interesting. I want to get that big, have you seen this, this wall calendar? It's called 4,000 Weeks. And every week you circle in a little square and You fill it in and that's your life. So if you're 50 years old, if you're 30 years old, you're X percent through the chart. And you just keep that on your wall to remind yourself. It's a little bit nihilistic, but it kind of just helps put into perspective like, hey, life is short. Let's spend that time doing things that are meaningful and helpful. And beyond that, like, don't stress it too much.

SPEAKER_00: 9:01

Yes, but you don't really have the highs without, I shouldn't say the lows, but it's, I remember playing football in high school. And I say this because practices were hard. And it finished at the end of the week with a game where you, you know, you're going to finish with bruises and cuts and had a great time, but exhausted instantly. You wake up Saturday morning and you don't have to go to practice. That is the absolute best feeling. Now let's pretend you don't play a sport. You don't have to grind it out. You're not pushing during the week or being pushed. And that Saturday comes, it does not feel the same. So you almost can't, it's tough to enjoy freedom when you have too much of it.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

The hedonic treadmill is a term that I learned a few months ago where it does not matter what happens in our lives, we adjust. If every day something was a great day, you will adjust. That becomes an okay day. If every day was a horrible day, you actually adjust and that becomes an okay day. It's called like reversion to the mean. So what you're describing, if you live in San Diego and it's 72 degrees year round, I've heard this from people who live there, they don't realize that every day is perfect and fantastic. Actually, every day is just an okay day. Versus if you live in Idaho with two hours of sunshine in the winter, you will soak up those summers and appreciate them. So that variance, that is important.

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

Yeah, I forgot what got us off on this track, but as far as freedom, you can't taste freedom as well when you're bathing in it. You know, when it's all you have, it can actually... become its own burden because you don't realize how many decisions certain restrictions can make for you that when you remove those your decision fatigue is the best way and prioritization fatigue and all this stuff so having a job where it's people's You have support and maybe you're not having to do billing and collections and all those other elements of your business because there's teams to do that. And maybe it's somebody's sole goal to make sure that you're supported and that you're doing your best work and looking at what you're doing is saying like, hey, you know, I know you're you've been really busy, but this thing that you're doing that's keeping you really busy probably isn't that important. And you don't have that when you are solo. Right. So

SPEAKER_01: 11:38

that is a good point. And to follow like the earlier, I remember being single. No responsibilities. I could do whatever I want, build anything I want. I had all day long. I did not work half as hard as I do now with less time. There was no focus. So now I've got an awesome wife, amazing kids who want to spend time with me. I do not have all day and all evening to just go play around and build whatever I want, but I actually do far more cool, productive, valuable things with that focused time than if I just had unlimited time. And you are right that those very I finished reading yesterday Juliet's School of Possibilities, a fantastic book by Laura Vanderkam, I think, where it's a fictional story about choosing what to do in your 168 hours a week. and all of us have that equal amount of time. Anyway, fantastic book, I highly recommend it. I'm curious, can you tell us more about what do you do? What's your background? How do you spend your time? How does what you do relate to this fractional thing that I've recently been learning about?

SPEAKER_00: 12:53

Well, fractional is a new term to me as well. I've heard of soloing, solopreneur. I've heard of, you know, micro business and small, you know, single person business and contractor, all that stuff. So fractional is a new layer to that. And I didn't realize I've been doing that largely. How does what I do relate? Well, basically I started off selling internet advertising. My very first job out of college. The internet was coming on. It was before the bubble, the internet bubble, when dog food, you know, pets.com and stuff like that, before they blew up and then exploded. Anyway, I was selling advertising. And I did not like working at that company. It was not a healthy company culture. And I left to go work for a client that I was in early discussions with at that company. And I said, I'm just going to work for you. I'll just come work for you. So I started selling. And over time, what I realized was these people were buying, I was selling, and a relationship developed. The problem was when they would buy banner ads or ads in email they wouldn't know what to do with it so their ads oftentimes really weren't very effective or good and I learned that if you have a customer who's buying something that's not working for them they don't buy it for very long and I decided to be there was nobody else helping them so I decided to start to learn how to make their advertising more effective and giving out that meant giving out free advice so I could sell my media and And so I learned all about it, and I tended to have a knack for it and an understanding for copywriting and design work. Although I am not a designer, I know some of the elements that are required for a direct response and stuff like that. Anyway, fast forward, and today I consult. Everything is from consulting and management of web-related activities. So small book of websites for whom we manage their websites. I do have a small team that is remote, but then I also get brought in on projects to solve issues when clients, they're not getting enough phone calls. People can't find them on the internet. They need something built on their website to help them out in their business. So it runs that gamut. So I would say there's a staple of recurring business related largely around website management and SEO. And then there are a myriad of unique projects that were brought in to scope out and help companies solve.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

What are some ways that people find you or that you find people? How do you how do you kind of bring on new work?

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

Referrals, referrals, or I will sometimes meet people and we'll just get to talking. but if this were to put in the in the within the context or the framework to help other people listening I would say referrals are great you know you get referrals I get referrals it's great but it is it is sometimes frustrating with how we can't control it you know what I mean you don't know if you're you get two referrals this week and nothing for a long time after so you can't I guess there's some ways you could amplify it. We'll leave that discussion for another time. If I were to say, hey, you have to proactively go out and get customers and I'm working with fractionals and I've got a room full of them, I would say, what can you teach? How can you teach somebody something and add value right away? And go out and start doing that. Define your target audience. It should be an audience that's reachable. You can get in front of them inexpensively and have something you can deliver relatively easily that's of value. and start giving it away because that will build relationships if anything they might not need you but they could now vouch for you and refer people to you and I think that has worked for me in a variety of ways go out there teach offer but when people hold their special skills you know really really tight and they don't want to talk to anybody and give away advice because Why would they buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? You know, if they're able to come every day and get the milk for free, that's one thing. But if you give them a sample, a really healthy sample of the milk from the cow, then, you know, maybe we're taking this metaphor too far. But do you understand what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

Yes, you said something to me when we were chatting a couple weeks ago to the effect of don't worry about giving too much away that— Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but it's like that can't happen or that almost can't happen. Or if you think you're giving away too much value, can you kind of finish that sentence for me or where your brain goes when I say something like that? Because that was really helpful when you described it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:18

The type of thing we often think people hire us for is implementation. It's not what we're going to do. It's not like that secret thing. It's like they can't implement a lot of what we are talking about. So we should be free to talk about what we would do or what we would explore and investigate. I think that people want to have somebody who they can task with it and not worry about it anymore, even if they could do it. Even if you give them the blueprint and the tools all in a nice little kit and a box and say, here you go, here it is. I guess you don't need me anymore. That's not true. What we're not realizing, A, I think people tend to undervalue their experience and their ability just because all these things we do routinely become easy for us. And we don't realize that it's not easy for other people, but also... A lot of businesses don't want to do it. Like, no, that's not my job. So I'm perfectly happy to hire somebody to do it. But if you can talk about it openly and I can sort of get a feel for your personality and your passion for what you do by how you talk about it and how you're interested and curious, then... I want to hire you to do it. I trust you. That's another big piece. People hire those whom they like and they trust. And it's very difficult to build trust when somebody's very tight-lipped with, well, I'm not going to tell you that. You have to hire me. I'm not going to offer you that information. Most times when I've gotten the sense that somebody wasn't going to hire me and they just wanted information... It's fine. I've given it to them. Let them have it and let them do it. They weren't going to hire me. It wasn't going to be. And if they did, it probably wouldn't be the best fit. Right. If somebody is constantly trying to figure out what you're doing so that they can do it. Hey, let's make this a training engagement or here you go. And they might not hire you, but I don't think that it's that fragile. I don't think our relationship with our customers and what we do is that fragile to where you could tell them anything that would make them not want the result and have you handle it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 20:40

No, that does, because yes, there are some people who would take advantage of you, but you're not worrying about them because they're not the type of person you're actually trying to hire, right? They're not the kind of person you actually are expecting to make money from. If anything, wish them well, give them something, let them be on their way, and at some point you'll probably... Stop just giving them something because you realize it's not going anywhere. But I actually, I'll draw this to another parallel. In the last couple months, I've been trying to learn the ins and outs of podcasting, the production part, the editing, the hardware, the software, all that. And I've just been... wanting so badly to find anything on how to do it correctly. And there's a few, Jason Snell was one person, I think Stephen Hackett's another, some podcasters who they took the time to make YouTube videos and articles about it. And I just soaked it all up because it was so niche and specific to the exact use case I wanted. And I'll kind of draw this background to what you're describing. When someone is looking for a problem, if they realize you're that person who knows their unique solution to that problem, it's like water in a desert, right? Like this person gets me, they understand me. And when you've been doing, to use this example again, a podcast for years, you forget how absolutely basic some questions are. Oh, do I use a mic? Do I use headphones? What software do I use? How do I do it? What's a double ender? How do I record? How do I edit? What about audio drift these things? I'm suddenly learning all this terminology that I didn't know existed three months ago. But I'll bet the vast majority of podcasters have forgotten that they know 100 times more than I do. And in the beginning, I'm just dying for any information on how to figure this out. And if someone, granted, I'm not the ideal customer because I'm not paying, but if I was, and someone said, Joshua, I will hold your hand and teach you everything you need to know, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 22:34

You brought up a really good point. Yes. Information is one of the most compelling. Sharing information is one of the most compelling ways to get new clients. Undoubtedly. Anytime I've given a presentation. And I've basically– so I was hired– I was brought in one time to give information about how to help industrial distributors rank. And it was a corporation that was having their annual meeting, and they invited me out. And I thought, oh, my gosh, here's a great opportunity. It was a good customer of mine. I was super happy because they invited me, so that felt nice. And I was going to get to meet these people. And, hey, you know what? You might get some business out of it. And so I'm trying to think, okay, creating my presentation, I want to give value. I want to talk about what I've done for these guys and show them mistakes. And then partway through, I'm like, wait a minute. If you tell them all this stuff, I'm like, well, forget it. It would be more embarrassing to go up there with a really crummy presentation that nobody really learns anything from. And so I decided to just give it all away. Here's what we did. Here's where we moved here. These are the types of content and elements We added, and this is what it did. And I had three people contact me immediately after I got off stage and giving me their business cards for new prospective clients. And there weren't that many people to begin with in the presentation. Maybe there were 20 companies there. So that, to me, made me learn that when you share and you give away information... That is the most compelling element to developing relationships, trust, goodwill. We as humans and tribal creatures... are, you know, not long ago, we were in tribes. You know, your contribution, your ability to give and reciprocate, right? You don't want to be that person who doesn't reciprocate. So when you give to somebody and they really help you out a lot, you want to help them back. Maybe it's introducing them to the boss of your company. Maybe it's introducing them to another client who has the budget to do what it is that this person offers. But information, you can give it away for free. It helps make you an expert which makes you look good, it develops demand for your services because somebody who's got a lot of questions isn't going to hire anybody until they're answered because they're going to feel like, I don't know enough to really decide who's good or who's bad and I might get ripped off here. So if you're out there educating and teaching people, then you're definitely a safer bet.

SPEAKER_01: 25:25

you brought up a really good distinction. When I was doing graphic design back in the day, a few times I gave away free design work, like actual implementation work, and I got burned every time. What we're saying is it's more like, hey, You want a logo? I'll tell you how to make a logo. I'll make a video for you walking through how to do it. I will even tell you like what software to use. I'll even give you all the things. So if you want to watch this, you can go make a logo. But what you're not saying and what I'm not saying is, oh, Jason, I'll do the first logo for you. And I bet you'll come back to me afterward. We stop at implementation, but we're all about here's how to do it if you want to take the time, which establishes yourself as an expert.

SPEAKER_00: 26:08

Agreed. Maybe your logo is your loss leader. Now, if everybody you give a logo to doesn't call back or doesn't use the logo or uses the logo but then doesn't hire you for anything else, not a good loss leader. Okay, but I could potentially see whereby we'll give you the logo to get the foot in the door and then we get to build you a website. We get to build the UI for, you know, blah, blah, blah project and we become your go-to, you know, if you like it. I think that there's that. With something, okay, so I think you brought up a good point. In some cases it's easy to give away information. I don't think on this, I think we're talking about people working in knowledge-based work um and so we're not talking about somebody who paints houses like hey i'm going to paint the front of your house and if you want it hopes you'll hire me to paint the rest of it but i think that there are other elements where we can talk about it or here's something that'll blow your mind here's something that'll blow your mind you can offer information in a completely independent area and still build goodwill and trust with people. And I've got a few examples of that. Has this ever happened to you? You're at either a networking event or cocktail party or friends, whatever. You're talking about different things. completely unrelated to work, and you're jiving, and you guys are really getting along, and then they say, hey, what do you do? And you tell them, like, oh, man, I could use blah, blah, blah. Why don't you contact us for... They've never asked to see a portfolio. They want you, and they don't even know how good you are at what you do, but they've created a decision about your competence based on how you presented in a completely unrelated subject. So we have a realtor. here in Riverview I'm in Tampa right now downtown Tampa is where I work but my home's in Riverview and we have a realtor who runs a run who offers a run club

SPEAKER_01: 28:30

I just want to say by the way I resonate so deeply with that I've had people that in a different field or area of knowledge I've been able to give them advice or connect really well with them. And I mentioned I'm a designer and sometime later they'll tell another person, hey, you've got to talk to Joshua. He's an amazing designer. And I pause for a second. I'm like, They can't know that. They've never seen my design work. How do they know I'm an amazing designer? And you've just described the phenomenon where I've always been like, they're probably just, they're probably not sincere. No, they actually are sincere. They really believe I have to be a good designer because I was good in some other area. So please tell me about your realtor.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

Yeah, no, I should have circled back with you because I started that as a question and I'm glad you brought me back to it. So that's happened to you. It's happened to me. Like, oh, what do you do? Oh, we need your help. I got to have you to talk to someone And so it's like, you have no idea how good I am. Like, you don't know anything, but they've clearly developed an opinion about you in an unrelated area. So it doesn't always have to be exactly what you do. Can you get in front of your audience and add value? Can you get in front of that audience and add value about something that won't cannibalize what it is you're offering if you're fearful that that's what will happen if you tell them too much about what you do? Yeah, so the realtor, every time before we get up and start running, you know, it's about like a 5K There's multiple routes, but people mostly will do like three miles and then have a beer afterwards. But beforehand, she'll just kind of do the pre-run speech and she'll say, you know, by the way, I'm a realtor and we're opening up this new community and blah, blah, blah. There's nobody out of these 20, 30 people that doesn't know that she's a realtor and I know that she's gotten tons of business from it. What does it have to do with selling houses? Do we know anything about how quickly she sells a house versus somebody else? But what does she have? She has exposure to a local audience that's likely given that size group to buy or sell a home, you know, in the coming, you know, with that many people. It's going to happen with some level of frequency.

SPEAKER_01: 30:37

And for all of those people, if someone says, do you know a realtor, if they don't already have an established realtor, she's the one that's going to come to mind, right? That's how that works. Hands down.

SPEAKER_00: 30:47

Absolutely. And it does. I've seen it work. And so it doesn't have to actually be in the area where if you're worried about, well, I can't design them a logo. Yeah, but maybe talk to them about something independent that you can advise on and develop. We're frequently not too far from having more information than the client. I've been thinking about this idea

SPEAKER_01: 31:33

yesterday and I want to pose it to you. I have generally stopped doing follow-up with sales where I will, if someone reaches out to me or if I connect with them initially because they had some kind of a job board out for a project, I'll have the initial call or the initial conversation and then I will forget that they exist. If they come back around to me, I will respond. I'll be as helpful as I can. When that ends, I will forget they exist. And some of them come back again and we work together. Do you think, should I be doing a little bit more? I basically have just stopped all follow-up and let it solve itself, where if I was valuable enough and if the time was right, they're going to find me again. What's your thought on that?

SPEAKER_00: 32:16

I worry it communicates that you don't really want the work. When I know that most of us do want the work, work I'm not sure I think was there a time when you did follow up

SPEAKER_01: 32:31

I used to when I was younger I would follow up like 6, 8, 10 times and we both know those projects never worked out right like nothing would happen with those so maybe I'm a little bit too far on the other end I guess I treat them how I would want to be treated and maybe I need to come back a little bit if I've had a great conversation with someone I'll come back to them when I'm ready so this is where like feel free to disagree with me but I don't know I just I don't like being followed up on myself so I don't want to follow up on other people

SPEAKER_00: 32:59

I would agree right you want to show and you don't want somebody to be like oh gosh don't ask him for a don't ask him a question or he's going to follow up with you for the next six weeks which doesn't make sense because six weeks is not I've had clients I've followed up with for longer I think it depends on the type of conversation you had and I have started to adopt a new level of proposal. All right.

SPEAKER_01: 33:26

Here's the scenario, by the way, to maybe give you some information. I talked to a founder. We've had two conversations now. She said, hey, we're going to work together. The project's not right here yet. The project should land in a couple weeks. I basically am not planning to follow up with her again. Should I, though? Like, hey, you mentioned it was going to follow up. Should I send her a message and check in? Or what would you do in my position? And then please, I want to hear your example.

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

Okay. Absolutely. I mean, I'm sure the audience is listening saying, absolutely, Joshua, come on. how do you do it without being overly being annoying right so how would I do that I would say oh okay so two weeks you're thinking all right I don't want to be a pest but would it make sense for me to just circle back with you and let's say three weeks if I don't hear anything in three four weeks should I do you want me to circle back with you oh yes absolutely right so now she's invited you to contact her back but it sounds to me like you guys have had a conversation I don't want to send somebody a proposal if they're not ready to move and so what I would do is have a series of discussions and the proposal where we put it all together and add dollars to things comes at the end when they're ready so I would try and involve them in this process and so maybe we just had a discussion and And then maybe we had a follow-up discussion that was a little bit more involved. But I don't want to send you a proposal with numbers and all these things and having taken a ton of time and real big detail And then wait six months. I mean, like, let's get you to a point where if you're really ready to talk numbers, then I would be expecting to hear back. Now, to send them some price ranges, but I'm worried about you right now. I'm worried. I'm thinking about you saying provide them with something that's appropriate for their level of commitment at that time.

SPEAKER_01: 35:35

So actually, this fits another client that I've been talking to, which is a little more parallel. We had a conversation where I met with the founder and two of their leads. And on the call, I said, hey, do you want to talk budget now? Because sometimes people are funny about that. Only one person wants to hear the price. They're like, oh, yeah, you're fine. So I verbally threw out budget ranges. They didn't blink. They're like, okay. And I said, okay, I will now follow up with a document. And I did that that evening that had what I had just said on the phone. I actually then added a more expensive tier as well, just to like flush all that out. And then I didn't hear from them. They disappeared. And then they came back to me yesterday and said, hey, can we set up a call to talk about this? So we're going to chat on Tuesday about the details of this call. And for me, I basically forgot they existed after the call because I'm like, I don't want to bug them. I'm just going to just ignore it. And great if they come back, great. And what I hear you saying is it would not have hurt to just send a little bit of a follow-up maybe a week afterward and check in. My inclination was to not do that.

SPEAKER_00: 36:39

There are going to be a variety of situations. I think you have to read it and depend. I mean, in this case, talking to the founder, and depending on how the initial conversations went and how detailed they were and what I knew about their situation, but to not follow up at all, I do worry there's a downside to that in appearing as though you're not interested. And so I don't think there's... So in that case, there's a downside, And I don't really see– but I do– okay, yeah. So there's a downside to not following up. But to following up, unless you're obnoxious and continue to just hound them, following up I think communicates that you're interested and you're professional enough. But yeah, yeah, especially talking about larger numbers. I want people to know that I care and this is something that I'm interested in, just looking for an update if there has been any movement. But I keep the email super short and I let them know that, hey, not trying to nag, but I'm curious to know if this is still in play.

SPEAKER_01: 37:47

Which it's what you're describing insinuates that it does move the needle by having that slight little bit of very light follow-up where maybe if they were on the edge and kind of wavering you reaching out could help I'm okay with that that's different than these horrible sales cycles I've fallen into where someone I'm on some kind of a checklist or automated sequence where there's 10 responses that are going to come my way because I accidentally had one stinking zoom call with them or something but that's not what you're describing that's very far away no that's helpful

SPEAKER_00: 38:20

yeah yeah yeah but I don't think that there's yeah I think it's there's so many different situations um And, you know, a follow-up, it's always good. It's always good. And it's surprising how many times things have become dislodged by a follow-up. Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to call you. I'm glad you reached out because I'm going to be, but I need you to talk to so-and-so. And, you know, hey, the ball moves forward and maybe, you know, it gets signed. But if somebody, yeah, if somebody gave me some help and spoke to me a couple of times and sent me a proposal and I never heard from them again, that would be kind of weird but maybe i don't know i guess everybody you know it depends on the amount of business you're doing if you're busy right are you busy are you swamped with projects if you're busy and swamped with projects and really don't have any more bandwidth then i could see somebody saying i'm not going to do any follow-ups right now i just can't and maybe that creates you looking a little bit more exclusive right like i don't need to that's what i

SPEAKER_01: 39:23

was wondering if that starts to happen if there's some kind of like psychology that happens that way that way I

SPEAKER_00: 39:30

could okay potentially potentially but if you give a hundred proposals and two people they each send out a hundred proposals equally skilled equal customer quality one guy follows up and one doesn't I know who's getting more deals right because sometimes deals can be held up by a single question and Have you ever had something you've needed to order on Amazon for like more than three weeks and you finally just do it and you order it and it comes to the house and it's done? You're like, why did I wait three weeks? I mean, this was so easy. People do stuff like that. And so there can be a job or a project being held off because of a question. And all it takes is that email coming in or that phone call coming in or that text coming in saying, hey, just check in. You're like, yeah, you know what? I've been thinking. Thanks for reaching back to me. I've been thinking, what about blah, blah, blah? And then you answer it and it's like, got it. Perfect. That makes sense. Yeah, let's go with this. You've dislodged it.

SPEAKER_01: 40:36

And for me, if I'm busy, and let's say I'm the client, I've got a million things going on, I'm not prioritizing it, but you're kind of... No, this is really helpful by kind of stepping into my window a little bit, checking and showing that you care. This was actually in Juliet's School of Possibilities, that book I described earlier. She was so busy and wound up, and the person who helped her in the book actually kind of intruded into her space three or four times to kind of check in because she realized she was overwhelmed. It was like, hey, I'm here to help you. Think of it as like providing the service. And it ended up being really valuable. I think it's the attitude, right? If I'm checking in to help unblock I think that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00: 41:31

I think that's a good point. You're just continuing discussion at that point. You're continuing, you know, helping and servicing the client at that point. And it's sort of almost an assumptive role. Like, we're going to work together. I'm already starting. In fact, I thought of a couple of other things that we didn't talk about during our discussion. You know what I mean? That I just wanted to share with you. And these are additional possibilities. You know, these things all depend on the level of client and how much time you have available. I think that that's really nice. And people... will be judging you through the sales process without a doubt. They will be judging how they're going to be serviced during the sale. And so somebody who follows up and kind of gives just the right amount of follow-up at the right time to me, that can only... paint you in a good light as far as somebody who I'd be wanting to work with.

SPEAKER_01: 42:24

You actually described that scenario and I'd forgotten that this one person who I had not followed up with, but she came back around. She actually had a question. She's like, hey, the project I was trying to close with you isn't quite ready yet. By the way, do you also do X service? And she described the service. I don't remember what it was. And I was like, yeah, I absolutely can do that too. And you're right. That question was hovering in her brain and she actually took the initiative to reach out and do it. I think there's something in between I would rather do nothing than be that car salesman. But you're talking about a happy medium that is not going to be pushy, but it might be helpful and persuasive.

SPEAKER_00: 43:00

Yeah, well, you're bringing up something that's probably another entirely discussion. It's like there are fewer big fish out there, but they're better to work for, and they pay better rates, and they're paying out of somebody else's budget. So they have money to spend. And then there's a lot of projects that might be smaller, maybe a little bit more intensive, but smaller. And just sort of figuring out that line like who are you what's your service how do you follow up with people you know i'm wondering if that's almost a brand type question right hey This is who I am. This is what I offer. I don't chase. And you're not going to be bothered by me. But there's a certain element, too, of like, let's pretend you went out looking for, you know, a luxury vehicle and you went to the Land Rover dealership. And the guy showed you the different models and you took a couple of test drives and you never heard anything back. But you went to the Toyota dealership and the guy's followed up and he's told you there's a sale coming up. up or a specialty so they just got the model in with that feature that you were asking for and did you want to come take a look at it? I don't know. I don't know. What makes you feel better? I

SPEAKER_01: 44:21

was looking for a Subaru a couple months ago and there was They didn't have exactly 100% what I wanted, and I didn't mind. Of course, there was a lot of annoyances there, but I didn't mind. Like, hey, by the way, we did just get the trim in that you're looking for. It is now available. We've been low on inventory. It is available if you want to come to the car lot and take a look at it. I ended up not doing it because some things shifted. We started looking at other options, but that didn't bother me the way he handled that particular interaction. That was okay.

SPEAKER_00: 44:46

You bring up an interesting point. Yeah. So we expect that, right? Because he sells cars. That is officially his job. He doesn't make the car. He doesn't detail the car. He doesn't repair the car. He sells it. And if his job is to sell it, it's a contact sport. As we want to brand ourselves as valued and somewhat limited access professionals, we can't be out there selling like car salesmen. And where do you draw that line? So how do we do that? Well, by making compelling offers. And I see that being done sometimes, you know, like, hey, there was one guy who I hired. He's a consultant and brought him in for a limited time. And the pricing that was on the proposal had a date next to it. It was like price good until. So he found a way. He did follow up with me. It was nothing like overly over the top. But yeah, I would say probably not following up 10 times, somewhere between 10. I would say maybe it really depends on the situation, but not zero. If it's a substantial deal, you've already talked a couple of times, circling back.

SPEAKER_01: 46:09

That's a good point because there was a scenario where if it's real, if I were to say, hey, by the way, I'm about to fill up in August. I still have a slot available. Otherwise, we can start looking at September. That could be used in a manipulative way, but it also could be used in a genuinely helpful way, right? Like, hey, if you still want priority for this month, let's lock something in or let's go ahead and prepay and we'll get started. I had a client last year where I told him in December, I'm like, hey, just a heads up, I'm raising my rates in January. If you want, you can lock in the next three or six months of rates at the 2022 rate and And he did. And what happened is I was able to give him better service by knowing he was committing to a larger amount and I was able to prioritize him over other things. And so Sometimes what I think of as a slight impugnment on someone's personal space can actually help them by checking in like, hey, this is a little bit of a sales pushiness I'm doing, but you're actually going to be better off for it. It's for your own benefit.

SPEAKER_00: 47:15

Yeah, yeah. There's pushy selling. And maybe that's the next book we should all be reading is selling where you're reaching out, you're being respectful, you're just touching base. Do you have any questions that I can help with or anything? And not with an over-the-top frequency. I think that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01: 47:35

Yeah, matching what's genuine to who you are. So two more questions. First of all, what are you excited about right now?

SPEAKER_00: 47:42

I'm excited that things seem to be going okay in the Ukraine. It's so funny, but I'm excited about that. I'm glad to hear we're talking to China again, even though I don't agree with a lot of their policies. I think opening up diplomacy... You know, makes me a little more relaxed. And I'm excited because a longtime, a former client, but longtime friend who's gone off on her own to be a fractional chief marketing officer. Help me out with some proposal writing questions that I had yesterday and help me develop this beautiful looking template that I use now. And it just makes my whole process so much... You have beautiful proposals as well. And I like the slide deck approach. I like the minimalist approach. Not overly, but focused on what people tend to skim a proposal for and includes it in there because... I have a phobia of proposals. I procrastinate. I take too long. Then I create something that's too long and I read it and I review it and I review it and I edit it. And it's just so when somebody asked me for a proposal, on the one hand, I'm excited. And on the other hand, I'm like, oh, gosh. So I'm excited to finally have that. One thing

SPEAKER_01: 49:04

that's helped me, by the way, is proposals for me are a few simple slides and then I either share it live and I give context or I record a video. And that's helped me a lot to just remove so much pressure because I'll have notes on the side of the things I want to actually say, but I won't take the time to write out the perfect prose and format. It's just, it's a couple bullets and then me talking. And that's removed so much pressure from my proposal creation process.

SPEAKER_00: 49:29

I love that you just said that. I landed last week I landed a client that exact way. In fact, I didn't even create a proposal. He's been a client for a long time and he asked me for this project. And I literally just opened up Google Sheets and listed out some things and what I thought it would cost. And instead of putting it into a beautiful, pretty proposal, I recorded a video and I helped him navigate and shot it over to him. He watched it. He said, let me follow up. Let's have a connect call tomorrow morning. And we talked about it and boom, done. It was just, it was amazing. So I'm taking a little bit of the blinder off of this thick, multi-page document with headers and text and bullets and, you know, appendices towards something that is a little bit easier to write. And yeah, I was motivated and inspired by some of the proposals I've seen you do. You know, we can talk a little bit more about that. So I'm excited about the proposal system. I'm prepared for this question because I actually wrote down some of these answers. I'm really excited that we connected again. So we worked together, I don't know, eight or nine years ago. And then we met out again in Austin for the hosting conference. What was it called?

SPEAKER_01: 51:04

CloudFest and NamesCon. Okay,

SPEAKER_00: 51:06

yes. What it did for me was the group that we hung out with then... Everybody was an entrepreneur. Everybody was doing something interesting. And a lot of whom I've remained in contact with and even either voluntarily helping or, you know, helping on some other basis. And it's then that I realized that The people you work with and do your services for can have a huge impact on your overall happiness. And so it's it's now become something where I'm I used to really focus on the industry I was in or this or that. And now I'm realizing, given my preference, I would like to be working with people. the person at the operation that can make the decisions that I have a relationship with it's not super super formal and we can have fun and talk and we know a little bit about each other personally as well yet for the bulk of my professional career I've been trying to chase down and work for big companies where that's been absent and it's been cold and it just hasn't been as much fun.

SPEAKER_01: 52:26

By the way I My first note in my Gmail is that 14 years ago we were communicating, and it may have been longer. So it's been a while now. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 52:36

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that's been a rejuvenation, a renaissance. And you've asked some questions about remote working. I'll tell you what. I go through phases. Right now, I mean, the past couple of weeks I've been working from home a lot. remotely, but I have an office here at Industrious. It's similar to where we work, common space, different offices, people in all sorts of different, and you've got attorneys, engineers. Plenty of people doing, you name it, and they're here. I hop in my car. I brave the traffic. I come downtown. But it gets me into a routine, and it gets me here. And then I'm able to focus. And I also feel a little bit more emboldened to take action, sometimes working from home. I can't explain the vulnerability. It's just weird. You're kind of alone. You're at home. I can't explain it, but I needed connection and I needed to be around people and Starbucks is way too loud.

SPEAKER_01: 53:46

It's that contextual shift of putting yourself in a different environment. That is when you go down to industrious, this is the I'm here to get something done environment versus, you know, if you're in your bedroom, like sitting on the bed, that's actually you're like, I'm here to relax and sleep environment. And obviously people can make it work, but it's different, right? Versus that's the context for getting something good done. have done is when you get, get a shower, get dressed and go into an office. Um, I'm not against office culture or working in like going somewhere. What I don't like is being required to do it by someone else. I like when, when I am able to set my own schedule and modify it as needed. That's what I enjoy. I

SPEAKER_00: 54:28

think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And so I have that, you know, I can come here when I, when I need and, um, and it does help me and for mental health and for connection and all that and I've made friends here so that's really important to me and you've asked also what I like about remote work you know certainly being able to be there for my kids and grocery shop during lunch you know when I grab a lunch break to get out and what I don't like is sometimes the sense that the days pass by and you're not with the world like your environment isn't changing. Your scenery's got to change more. But what I would advise people to do really is, this was helpful to me as well, take the Myers-Briggs test and find out a lot, learn a little bit about the basics of your personality. I think 16personalities.com is a good website. I think that's what they're called. That's what the website's called. And you can take a quick free Myers-Briggs test. It's going to tell you what your strengths are and remind you of a lot of things that nurture your personality and guess what if you're not if you're not fertilizing certain elements of your personality that are important you're going to be unhappy i don't care how much money you're making or what you've been able to force yourself to do and convince yourself it's okay there's going to be an element it's unhappy so i Really respecting who you are and what your personality, honoring your gifts and the differences, and knowing what environment it takes for you to thrive, and then putting those things in place, I think has probably done more than anything to help me just feel happy. I

SPEAKER_01: 56:24

love that. I think that's a good place to end. My final question is, where can people learn more about you?

SPEAKER_00: 56:30

All right. Well, Strava, for those of us who like to run and go outdoors, Jason Lexell, L-E-X-E-L-L. I'm kind of a new runner. I'm an old runner, but it's the first time I'm really actually starting to run frequently. My website is dhmedia.com. But if you want to shout and you've listened to this and you got something from it, you find it valuable, you want a copy of my book, Tone, which teaches, give you a free copy, digital, teaches about target, offer, nurture, and exposure, which I think would really be helpful to people who are out there trying to develop more customers for their business, then reach out to me at jason.com. at dhmedia.com and say, hey, I heard you on the podcast. Would love a copy of that free PDF.

SPEAKER_01: 57:29

Perfect. I'll include that all in the show notes. So if you're listening to this and driving, don't worry. It's in the show notes. You can grab it. Thanks, Jason. I appreciate you joining. And it was good chatting.

SPEAKER_00: 57:38

Hey,

SPEAKER_01: 57:38

it's been my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00: 57:39

Thanks for having me. I'll have to do this again sometime. A lot

SPEAKER_01: 57:42

of fun.