00:00

Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

00:36

Hello, and welcome to the show. Yesterday, a client, a gorgeous client, messaged me and said, Polly, this might be the make or break of our relationship, but I want to share with you a few things I feel like I needed to hear to, like, know it was a total no-brainer to work with you, and she’s sharing that because we’re having a bloody brilliant time working together, but to be honest with you, it was only through us hanging out in person that she felt confident to jump in and work with me, and I guess through the conversations we naturally had about the work we do, and so obviously she had a point, and one thing I’ll never claim to be is killing it with my content, I’m very good at identifying it, and others being the massive introvert that I am, the massive overthinker that I am. I’m very good at getting in my own way with content, that is something I am proactively working to get away from. But that’s not the subject of today’s podcast. I will share more of that journey with you later. 

But what I wanted to share with you today is, for those who are killing it with content, here is the thing that you need, because essentially what came from that conversation where I said you could not break our relationship, my gorgeous client. She was like, the thing is, Polly, people like me need you. Yes, she used the need word, need you, and you know what, I couldn’t disagree with her. I really couldn’t, and I’ve actually only worked with a handful of people who are killing it with content, but every time with absolutely phenomenal results. I’m talking about going from a 250k year to a 250k quarter level of phenomenal results. So I wanted to kind of touch on this a moment, because I don’t think people who are killing it with content necessarily identify that way. So, let me help you feel seen. Now, I know this might seem mad to anyone like myself who shares a post and is lucky to get 100 likes, or you know, 1520, 30 comments, but what I have found is this is what those who are killing it with content look like. They very often have a hyper, hyper niche. So, I’ve worked with people in the wellness space, between hypnobirthing to like weight loss, all the way through to ADHD, midlife, all of those areas, but the thing they have in common is they have a very strong visual, personal brand, a very consistent approach to their content, and they are clearly speaking around the same theme all the time. Hence, why, for those who aren’t killing it with their content, that is the first thing I encourage people to do, because believe me, if you look at any account that’s got over 100,000 followers, they will have that in common, like nearly all, unless they’re an influencer, they will have that in common, right? And they’ll be making money from it because of the fact that they are not an influencer, and they are selling the thing that they’re talking about all the time, shock horror. So they have that, they are usually totally unaware of how fortunate they have been, or skilled. I mean, I don’t use the word fortunate, because it indicates there’s a lack of skill, or a lack of passion, or a lack of drive, which there is not. They are full of all of those things too, but they don’t recognize how there are people out there who’ve been online for years who still don’t get the level of traction that they have. So they’re often kind of like, oh, that old thing, oh yeah, I post a few times a week, oh yeah. When I, and they’re more likely to notice when a post does badly than when it does really well. So often they’re very like led by their emotions.

 04:10

Their emotions is the thing that drives them, that makes them love what they do, but equally it means they’re very vulnerable to trolls, to anyone who kind of says anything. Sometimes they just don’t engage with comments at all, or if they do, sometimes they will go through a little hiatus of not posting because someone said something at some point, and that really killed their confidence of being online. So they’re very driven by their emotions. I think it’s that rawness in their emotion that’s probably also partly what makes their content really connect with people, because people pick up on that energy of real, genuine, pure enthusiasm to be there and to be sharing what it is that you are sharing, and real passion for the subject that you’re talking about. Otherwise, how could you talk about it so repeatedly all the time? Like, for someone who’s looking for a solution to a problem, they discover your account, it’s like a gold miner content that all helps. Helps them connect to the transformation that they desire and positions you as the perfect authority, so yeah, they’re usually pretty flippant about their content, as in, like, how often they do it. Usually, when I say to them, what’s your best performing posts, what’s your best performing message, they will not be able to tell me what it is, because they don’t look at their data, they tend to instead be driven by a thought that came to them in the shower or in a run, and these guys usually have a pretty good lifestyle balance, so you know, usually do have time. I mean, aside from very clear, like four hours a day content creation, like the one thing all these people tend to have in common is that the majority of the hours outside of client delivery is purely around creating content. Now, why am I going through all of this? And why are you listening to this? You might be thinking, like, why do I need this person to be identified. Well, I guess, firstly, like, I say partly because I don’t believe that people who are doing phenomenally with content A recognize the superpower that it is, and B, recognize, like, yeah, what possibilities it makes available to them. And then, okay, so here’s, here’s where, oh, here’s where I come in. So very often, what happens to these people, because they are driven by passion and drive and excitement, and of course, they know they often want to be, they’ll often say to me, I want a podcast at some point, I would like to be on TV. I want to publish a book. Oftentimes, when you ask them where they’re at with any of those projects, they haven’t got started on any of them, or they started something, it didn’t work straight away, so they’ve given up already. Same with ads, you know, any of these bigger things that help scale and authority in that next level beyond content. They have all the ideas, the dreams, sometimes even know the title of the book they’re going to write, but they haven’t started on any of them, and that is often because they easily get overwhelmed by having to actually create a structure outside of the structure they already have for their client work and for their, you know, what it is they’re doing, and also very often when I say to them, What is it that you do with your clients, what’s your methodology? They don’t necessarily have a name for yet. Some of them do, and if they do, sometimes they’re not very attached to it. They don’t really understand what it means. It feels a bit after them. They haven’t truly connected to why what they do is special and different. They’re often just way too close to themselves to really understand why they’ve had the impact they have on their community, but they know they want more of it, so that they are ambitious, they want big things, big goals, big money, big impact, you know, to kind of feel like they have landed, you know, like feel like they are grounded in that success.

 07:32

But here’s the thing, there is a vulnerability when your content is king to a certain extent, because if at some point everyone decides to turn on you, say you say something, say something a little bit stupid, and you massively fall off that pedestal, which even if that hasn’t happened to somebody yet, I think as you grow that tall poppy syndrome, that fear of like is someone going to want to cut me down at some point becomes increasingly prevalent, and unfortunately I do genuinely believe in these times where the internet has all these horrible bots everywhere, we’re almost being programmed to be more critical to pull people, like I’ve never seen quite so much trolling online as I do at the moment, so there’s there’s a real vulnerability around it, and then beyond the kind of identity, emotional piece that we can have around the whole, like, oh my goodness, what if I get canceled, what if this all goes away overnight. Beyond that, there’s also just the practical ness of, or lack of practicality, alongside recording three to four hours a day, and, and because you’re not planning content ahead and you’re doing it on the fly, if a family emergency arises, if suddenly the algorithm changes, you know, back in the day when everyone was doing carousels, and then suddenly they stopped reaching anyone, and it was only you were only reaching people if you did reels, like you are victim to the platform that you are on, if you’re not growing your mailing list, which a lot of people aren’t doing as productively as they could be, and you’re also victim to the time you have available, which is, if it suddenly gets sucked up by something else, like I say, very often for a lot of people I talk to, it’s a family emergency, or an unexpected pregnancy, or an unexpected bereavement, suddenly you’re looking at a business that doesn’t really feel like a business, and beyond that, like the other challenge is that there is just that kind of, yeah, they’re starting the beginning. I’m trying to remember all the.. I made no notes. Guys, are you proud of me? 

They’re starting the beginning of the month with like zero, very little recurring revenue. In many cases, they’re very reliant on launches, or they’re very reliant on one to ones reaching out to them. They don’t have a predictable flow of cash coming through the business, and that can also leave you in a really vulnerable spot, and so even though it’s kind of glamorous, you’re kind of on a gilded hamster cage of like kind of constantly churning content out, and knowing that if you want to take. Break, or you want to stop, or if you kind of share something that might suddenly be deemed unpopular. You know, sometimes what I see for some people is they start morphing to what they believe their community wants to see of them, because they’re afraid if they show the real version of themselves, people won’t like them anymore. Now, of course, the irony is, if you’ve ever done any kind of content challenge, you will know that one of the best things content challenge hosts usually lead with is share something vulnerable, share something raw, because when you share something vulnerable or raw, people connect to you and go, oh, she is like me.

10:32

I saw a wellness coach the other day kind of say, here are like 10 things that the wellness industry would cancel me for, but I believe they contribute to my health and happiness, and the first slide was her having a cigarette and drinking a Diet Coke, and there were just only a few other slides like that, and you know what, I don’t smoke, but I still thought, you know what, I’m interested in you, I am now curious, you are not predictable, you are sharing stuff that I wouldn’t necessarily see coming, and you’re a breath of fresh air in a space where I’m seeing a lot of the same thing, so I went and gave her a follow, because I was like, you know, what I am interested in someone who’s not afraid to share things that some people will unfollow her for, and some people will judge her for, and just, you know, knowing that I literally know a lot of my friends are nutritional therapists and coaches and stuff, and a lot of them have their vices because they’re human, but they don’t necessarily share those online, and you know, I love them, and feel if they were actually like who they were online in real life, I don’t know if we’d be friends. I need friends who are a bit naughty, right? So we kind of feel the same on social. Anyway, that’s a little tangent over there. Let’s get back on track. So, why do these people need me? If you’ve been listening to me long enough by now, you’ll know I really don’t like the word need. It’s a disempowering word, and I guess it’s a bit like the Bonnie to your Clyde, all that friendship, you know? Like in a romantic relationship, you often want someone who balances you, so there’s me who’s like out, like kind of outgoing and noisy and chatty, and my husband is very quiet, very grounded, very into nature, very still, very meditative, and I am so different, but we both balance each other because we’re so different. Now, I’m not saying I’m getting into romantic relationships with clients, but I’m kind of sharing that when you hire somebody, it is good to have a dynamic where they bring something that you don’t naturally, they do something that you know, they think in a way that you don’t think, and that is where, like, it’s not a need, but it’s a massive compliment to work with somebody like me, as in a compliment to your personality, your style, and what you’re doing, because I guess if you were talking about the groundedness and the being pie in the sky, you know, oftentimes these clients are very up, their energy is very high, they are like you say super sensitive, and you know also for those kinds of people, like you want to work with them when things are going good, not when things have started to go badly, because if things have gone badly, because they are so emotional. If you listen to an episode back where I talk about keeping emotional resiliency when your cash flow ain’t flowing, that is particularly challenging for them, because, because I guess it’s kind of like a house built on sand, right? 

And they really feel that, and in that moment, they’re like, “Oh my god, is it just about to be ruined as the next tide comes in now, it’s never as drastic as that, but that is how they will feel, and therefore they’re less amenable to mentoring and trying new things, and instead will often busy themselves doing the thing that they’ve always done, which will work temporarily, but then they’ll find themselves back in the same place again, right? So if you’re listening to this and you’re identifying with the kind of person I’m speaking about, then I’d highly encourage you. I’m not saying go work with me, but I’m saying, if you’re investing in a mentor, invest at the time when things feel good. Don’t wait for them to get worse or get bad. In fact, I would recommend that to anyone, because let’s face it, all of us do the work we do because we care about it.

13:58

None of us want to end up back in a corporate job, and so therefore you know if you want to grow your business and you want to be challenged to look at your business or do things in a way that is different to how you’ve done them before, do it at a time when you have high levels of emotional resiliency, and obviously the right mentor should do what I always do, which is like let’s maintain what is already flowing, and let’s ensure that whatever we’re doing is not disrupting that, while we build something on top to create a bigger insurance policy and bigger growth potential for your business in a way that doesn’t require more of you, and I think that’s perhaps one of the things that’s particularly challenging for this type of person to think about, because so much of their business has required so much of them that they can’t quite disconnect between I get to have more growth and it won’t require more of me, but it will stretch them in the fact that I will be inviting them to do the kind of things that they would normally choose to ignore, like looking at their data. Like you know, reviewing their content to see, I mean, this is connected to data, right, but looking at your content to see what did well previously, like what are the recurring messages that do well, what is the average retention rate of your clients, do you have ways to reactivate clients who work with you previously, like looking at real strategic pieces, because the fact that I know is that 70% of million pound coaching businesses is usually down to client retention and reoccurring clients, so the same clients coming back to work again, and that is a statistic that so many people just assume happens closer to a million pounds. No, they get to a million pounds faster because they are sooner to recognize, oh, okay, somebody who’s bought me from me before is much more likely to buy from me again. Somebody who’s had a brilliant experience with me once is much more likely to want to carry on working with me as long as I make it obvious why and how and what to do. And so many people overlook such simple things like that, but it doesn’t feel simple to them, because there’s so many things to think about, and that’s where having a mentor like me to hold that space to support you to be confident on that new ground, that new territory, and to explore those things. So, this sounds like a massive sales pitch right now, but it’s really not, because, like I say, I’m referring to myself here, but equally, anyone who is a strategist, strategy gets a lot of short thrift. There’s a lot of, like, you don’t need strategy, you just need to be the person. 

And you know what? Here’s what I would like to say. And I know for shed various different takes on this, but in this context, the kind of person I’m talking about really benefits from strategy, because they have got the identity locked in, their identity is so locked in, that is why their content is magnetic, that is why so much of what they’re doing works with what feels like almost ease, where they can just post a story and say, hey, I’ve got a few one to one spaces available, and they’re taken by the end of that day, at the latest, by the end of that week, now that those are the kind of results that some of us were getting back in 2020 when you know you can have a mediocre message, mediocre presence, and you could say, hey, I’ve got someone to one spaces, and they would be gone by the end of the day. Nowadays, that doesn’t happen so easily, unless you’ve got your positioning locked in, like these guys have, right? So, you know, like it’s really easy to, you know, they’ve got the identity piece dialed in, they already know they want money. They already know they want impact, and they’re not afraid to go after it. So, actually, they don’t need more confidence. They’ve got confidence in spade loads. What they probably don’t have confidence in is being a serious business owner, being a CEO, doing the stuff that feels a little bit boring and slow.

17:38

They want it to always feel easy and fun, and that is where I like to introduce my concept, which is the push before the cush, like get these things in place, and then you can still spend a lot of your time in your zone of genius doing the things that you enjoy, but at the moment you are like spinning your pedals and only generating what your energy can create, where when you have a funnel and an aligned offer suite. The output on the other side of you spinning your pedals is going to be like 10x 20x 30x not overnight very often, but very freaking quickly, because you’ve got an audience to sell to immediately. You are in such a privileged position. So, yeah, it’s really, really important to recognize that, because what I will say on the flip side of that, people like myself, who are much more into systems processes, the geekery, who often can hide away from content and often put off content and often put content bottom of the ladder in terms of priorities, they’re the people who also really benefit from not only having strategy, but having that identity piece, having support around who know what it means to be a CEO, or in my world, a cushy CEO, someone who gets to have it all. Okay, and so that identity piece is way more important for them, and there’s definitely a lot more conversation to be had around, you know, let’s not just play it safe with all the stuff behind the scenes, because no one’s going to enjoy the stuff behind the scenes if you’re not getting out and getting out there with your content, right? But we’re not talking about that person today, we’re talking about the person who, like I say, is killing it with their content, and so therefore, yes, strategy, the boring part, like they’d probably rather be in a retreat in Costa Rica, or at a sound bath, or at a daytime rave, but no, I’m encouraging you to talk to a strategist, because that strategist will help you get your, I mean, your niche is already clear. It’s then designing, ensuring that your methodology is the match, ensuring that you have an office suite that is a match to your methodology, and ensuring you have a simple funnel that allows you to, like, like I say, amp up your impact, because when you start adding things like ads to what you’re already doing, I mean, even without ads, if you are naturally kind of growing your list, or you’re following by, like, I don’t know, 1000 a month, and your social media following by 10k a month, then there’s so much you. 

Do without even touching ads, but ads will just amplify the magic, and that is how clients like Kelly, who worked with me, went from having like a 350k a year to making 350k in two months of evergreen enrollment in her program, because she had everything locked in, her systems, her processes, her team, her social media presence, her advertising strategy. When all of those things work together, the results are astounding. You can literally take yourself from, like, oh my goodness, I’ve just got to my first multi six figure year to like, wow, I’m looking at a seven figure year next year. It gets to happen really quickly. Like, I say, to be honest with you, once you’ve got the strategy piece style, then, and once you’ve got the visibility piece like connected to it, the only thing that really can stand in your way is you, because I guess if I’m being really honest, the one thing I’ve seen for people who’ve never made a million pounds in a year before is it is amazing how your inner saboteur will start to come out as those things start to materialize, people will suddenly go, you know, what I’m going to change my business model. You know what, I’m going to change my program. You know what, I don’t think I need a team of three.

 21:06

I’m going to go down to just me and assistant, and they make these big, bold, brave choices that feel like it’s them working from a place of alignment in the time, and they can often tell themselves that, but it’s often that same thing they’ll be reflecting back on in six months time to me when I say, what happened, you’re on your way to seven figures, and they’ll be like, oh, it almost felt so easy at that stage that I started being brave in other ways, and I just like literally just tore down the thing that was creating money for me, so that’s my only watch out, guys, like I’m getting far ahead here, but I’m just letting you know that if you are that person who’s got the strategy and the visibility piece in check. My encouragement is, and one client came back to me and said this. She was like, because I’d got to that level of success with you, and things were going so well, I felt like I could just take over the driving wheel, and everything was fine, but I wasn’t aware what was truly going to come up for me on the other side of that, and I wish I’d kept you as a mentor to keep me focused on the right things, so that I didn’t get distracted, and so I could have more easily hit that seven figure year without deciding to change my whole business model halfway through. So, yeah, you know, I guess the final reminder connected to what I’ve just said is anything you persevere with will work. So, please, for the love of God, again, I guess being an emotional authority, that’s what leaves you more susceptible, because if you have two weeks where sales seem low, if you have one dud newsletter that goes out and has a few people come urmoing at you, if you have one post where people suddenly start tearing you down, you get an ordinary social media manager, all of those things can make someone have a real knee-jerk reaction, where they’re like, I don’t know if I want to be doing this anymore, or you know what, I don’t want to work with this type of client anymore, or like whatever the thing is, right. And then they will suddenly change loads of things that make it really hard to get back to a place where it was about to get really easy for you, you were about to become the embodiment of a cushy CEO, where people like, wow, so you just show up to a few calls a week, create a bit of content, maybe jump on a few podcasts, go speak at a few events, and that’s your life now, and you’re making like you’re able to spend your summers abroad, your winter skiing, but yeah, when we’re not used to money, it can be a big shock to the system, and it is amazing the things that your brain will do to help you keep safe, and safe is what you know, and safe is not always a million pounds. 

So, anyway, I’ve just gone off, like I mean, we covered the full, the full scope here, right? How to identify yourself, what you need to do if you are that person. And then, similarly, on the other side of that, once you start seeing success with strategy, how to not sabotage it. We’ve gone the full journey, guys. As you can tell, I’ve supported people at every single phase of it. So, I hope, I hope for those of you who are in that situation, that this episode has been really helpful. Long story short, invest in the thing where you are the weakest. Invest in the thing that you know that you know at the end of the day, you’re probably regularly telling yourself, I do need that thing at some point, don’t put it off until you feel like you need it, need it.

 24:05

Do it when it still feels like a, oh, I wonder what be what it would look like if, when I shared a reel that went viral, not only did I get a bunch of comments, but I actually had a bunch of people joining my mailing list, and when they joined my mailing list, I’d know that they would also download my low ticket offer, and when they do that, I’d also know that they’d watch my video sales letter, my on-demand training, and I know they watch my on-demand training, they’ll then apply to join my program, and I know that basically means I can be making sales all year round. That’s how simple it gets to be. Like, do you understand? Like, that one piece of content suddenly is getting them on a really simple client journey that results in you making sales overnight, and that is how you create an everyday sales system with so much ease, and like I say, if you are this person, you are in the most privileged place to get started, the most no-brainer place to get started. So just jump right in. If you want more guidance around what that actually looks like, I have various free. Resources and mini offers, go check out my Instagram bio, or look at the link in the show notes, because, yeah, I’ve got too many free resources to even mention right now, but there is a breakdown of the everyday sales system about to launch, actually, so if it’s not already live in the show notes when you come to it on Friday, it will be very shortly, so keep an eye, follow me on Instagram for all the latest at Polly Laverello. I’ll be in your ears next week with a guest episode with Kerry-Anne, where we start the series as to how does she do that, talking about how she has taken her Pilates expertise and turned it into a movement, the Move at Your Desk method. I cannot wait to be speaking with her. We’ll be in your ears next week