.png)
Small Business Bestie
Entrepreneurship is hard, and sometimes we could use a friend to walk a mile in our shoes. Small Business Bestie is here to provide that friendship, support, and inspiration that small business owners need from time to time.
Small Business Bestie
58: Mastering the Money Mindset With the Incredible Tremaine Wills
In this heart-to-heart episode, financial strategist Tremaine Wills of Mind Over Money joins Michelle to unpack the messy, magical world of small business finances.
Tremaine shares her FREE Indeed framework and gives a candid look at how pricing too low almost derailed her success. We talk about:
- The lies we believe about money (and how to unlearn them)
- The secret to charging what you're really worth
- Why building wealth isn’t selfish—and why your goals don’t have to be "for someone else"
- Pricing strategy for service-based businesses (hint: aim for 70% margins!)
- How your spending already reveals your true values
- Aligning your vision, money, and mindset for next-level growth
✨ LINKS & RESOURCES:
Website: https://mindovermoney.net
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mindovermoneycoach
Check out the Small Business Bestie Website
Follow along on the Small Business Bestie Pod Facebook
Join the growing community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smallbusinessbesties
Connect with Michelle on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/bestiemichellesmock
Check out the Small Business Bestie Website
Cultivate Accounting is the preferred partner of Small Business Besties for all things small business accounting needs. Check them out!
www.cultivatelex.com
https://www.facebook.com/cultivateaccounting
This episode of Small Business Bestie is sponsored by Cultivate Accounting. We're all that and a bag of chips, and we've recently added Lexington's favorite tax pro, microzine, to our team, combined with the best small business bookkeeping pros. We're ready to help more besties than ever. We offer a free 30-minute review call each month to review your financials and answer your questions, because your numbers should empower you, not overwhelm you. Visit CultivateLexcom or find us on Facebook to learn more. Hey, besties, welcome back to another episode of Small Business Besties. I'm Michelle Smock, your host, and today I'm super excited to be talking with Tremaine Wills, with a company called Mind Over Money, and she's coming to us all the way from Virginia today, so I'm super excited to have somebody outside the Central Kentucky area to chat with us and kind of expand our horizons. Tremaine, please tell us a little bit about you and your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, michelle, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited Anytime I get a chance to talk to small business owners, especially about money. That makes me excited. So what I do is I work primarily with small business owners, especially about money that makes me excited. So what I do is I work primarily with small business owners to give them a white glove experience around managing money better. So I love teaching, promoting, talking about, thinking about all things finance.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and I think one of the hot topics in small business, especially kind of across the board, is the fact, especially as women, we have been taught for generations now that we don't talk about money, it's impolite, we don't talk about it in company and all of the things. So I think it's so important right now that we really take hold of this momentum and say you know what we do talk about money and we talk powerfully about money. So tell us a little bit about what you do when you work with small business owners to help them kind of wrap their heads around finances and money and all things.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I have a framework that I follow.
Speaker 2:It's called Free Indeed, and the idea is to help free us from the bondage of feeling like we are slaves to our finances.
Speaker 2:Right, for many people, you might go through like these feast and famine moments where when you have money, you feel good and when you don't, you don't feel so great, and so the idea and the strategy is to help take you through this process where you're thinking less about the resources and more about what resources allow you to do, so that way, you can find real freedom in your business and in just how your everyday dealings are. So we do this through creating comprehensive financial plans, helping people price better, managing taxes, anything that is finance related for the small business owner, getting structure and system around that gives you this level of peace and clarity that then allows you to operate as your best self. So that's really what you know the framework is all about is how do we help people use their brilliance to generate the revenue they need to generate and then turn that into the wealth so that they can reach the goals they want to reach and ultimately like live their best lives. So that's what we do. In a nutshell, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So is it just you in the business, or do you have a team that you work with? How does that shake out? I have a team.
Speaker 2:I have a team, but it's like bringing together everybody that's operating in their zone of genius. So, while I like to think of myself as like the quarterback, that kind of gets the ball to where it needs to go, because not every business owner is the same Sometimes you know you might have issues where you really need tax support, right. Or you might be in a place where, ok, we have all this extra money we're ready to invest, right. And so it's identifying what is the most pressing need for the business owner at that time and then putting together the plan to execute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're the quarterback and the like offensive coordinator. Yes, that's awesome. So I want to just kind of get into the meat and potatoes today, because I know you have so much wisdom and knowledge to share with us and it's such an important topic and I think, especially during the summer months, a lot of small businesses kind of slow down, especially if you're in a service based business. So we kind of have that time and capacity over these next couple of months to start thinking a little more strategically and I don't want that time to slip away. So I know that you have some really good insight about mindset when it comes to money and how we can start to shift out of old thought patterns and things like that. So talk to me about mindset when it comes to money for small business owners. Oh, my goodness, I opened the whole can of worms for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just jump right in, right, straight out the gate. So I will say that this is a special topic for me because it's definitely something I struggle with myself right when I first started my business and sometimes I feel so ashamed to even talk about how much, how little, I was charging back in those days. But when I first started providing services around financial coaching and just helping people budget better, I was only charging $30 a month for a subscription service where I was meeting with people every month for an hour.
Speaker 1:Okay, If they're not watching the video. Y'all on my face.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I think that. So at that time I was also a teacher and so this was like my side hustle.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I immediately devalued the time, the expertise that I was bringing to the table because I didn't need the money. Yeah Right, but those of us who know how much teachers get paid, you needed the money. I could have used the money. Right is especially for those of us who start our businesses, as you know, five to nine, that we do in the evening after we get off our primary job. We don't price appropriately because we don't need the money. And I think a lot of that comes from just not really valuing time, especially if you are working a full-time job like you, have even less time to build this, this business, but, at least for me, I had these deep-seated beliefs that building wealth was wrong.
Speaker 2:And you know, you couldn't charge hundreds or thousands of dollars for a service because the people that you were trying to serve, they couldn couldn't afford it. And so there were just all these lies about building wealth that I had internalized, even though I had been formally trained differently right Before I became a teacher. I worked in financial services, so I knew very well that it takes money to make money. You have to have higher income to be able to invest higher percentages and higher amounts of dollars every month, and it did not register right. Sometimes we have the technical knowledge about what we should be doing, but your programming, what you bring to the table, sometimes all of that stuff will just override what you know you should do in your mind, because your heart is saying I can't charge that that.
Speaker 2:I can't do that, and so there was a lot of battle that I had to go through myself in order to bring my pricing up to what I know. It should have been based on the competence, the skillset and the transformation more importantly right that I was providing to clients. So a lot just came out of my mouth but long story short is.
Speaker 1:I think it's so relatable, like, regardless of what service you're in, I know that that's such a huge issue for so many people of just like being able to like stand up and say, like I know that my worth is X, y, z, yeah, so okay, keep going. I'm all in see yeah, so okay, keep going, I'm all in.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that was that was like the beginning, right? So $30 a month for this service that I was providing because I was still computing you know what's my hourly rate working this job and not really thinking about that's not the same way we figure things out when you're a business owner, because the hour that you spend servicing a client doesn't include the overhead, it doesn't include systems or tools or your certifications that you have to keep renewed or any of the things that allow you to deliver this service, and that's just being able to deliver it. Then you add on the time you've invested becoming the expert and then you add on the transformation that can only happen if they get support right. All of those things have value that needs to be assigned and allocated to your pricing. And if we don't take a moment to just sit and think about that, then we continue to have these prices that are bottom of the barrel.
Speaker 2:And then that communicates a message to potential buyers, right, because sometimes I look at things now and it could be a fantastic service provider, but if it looks like it's too cheap, then I think to myself what is this experience going to be? Right? And so our price even communicates a message and when we are not aware of that, we do a disservice to ourselves. So there's so many things that happen when we are in business and we aren't really thinking about you know what money means, how we use it to build wealth, the message it communicates. When we don't think about all of these things, we are unintentionally sending a message to our potential customers and to ourselves that we aren't worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you have a strategy to help people break through this, or what's the like golden key here?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it all goes back to like the beginning of our process. So free stands for foundation readiness, encampment and elevation. And in the free phase, the foundation phase, this is where you sit down and you think about why am I doing any of what I'm doing? Why does the money matter? And for a lot of us, we like to skip ahead, to like make the plan right, tell me what accounts to open, tell me what investments I need, and all of those things matter, but they don't matter more than why any of this is important, right? And so most of us, we go into business because we want to make more money, we want time, freedom.
Speaker 2:Whatever your reason is, it's usually not just because you want to say you're a six figure business owner or seven figure business owner or a millionaire, right, those are the what I want to call it like the catchphrases that are byproducts of you putting in the work, but it's not the reason why you do what you do.
Speaker 2:And so many of us we haven't sit, we didn't take the time to sit down and say I want to be a millionaire because I want to provide, you know, a month long vacation for my family every year abroad, and that's important to me, so I'm going to work hard because that's the thing I care about, or it might be I want to be able to, you know, start an endowment for a charity that I care about deeply, right.
Speaker 2:And so when you take a step back and you say you know, why am I doing these things? Now, the reason becomes embedded in your activities and your outcome, and so it's no longer like, oh, seven figure business owner, because that doesn't matter, but it, oh, my goodness, I have to do this because I'm going to be able to provide this amazing experience for my family, and that is important to me, right? So when we have shifted our mindset from an empty dollar amount to the things that actually matter, like the things we value, the things we care about, then it's so much easier to say, okay, I am not giving up all this value, this fantastic product, this service, for pennies on the dollar anymore, because that's not going to help me reach my ultimate goal of providing a fantastic experience for my family. Right, my family deserves so much more. And so you put yourself in a position where you're like you're more appropriately charging what it's worth, because you know, on the other side of this, you're going to be able to do the things that matter to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so interesting to have this conversation Now. The episode that I released today was kind of like oh gosh, we didn't get to record last week and so I had to kind of figure something out on the fly and I recorded a solo episode, and what I talked about was kind of the same principle of like you have to be clear on your vision and if you're not, you don't know what goals to set and you don't know, why you're setting them.
Speaker 1:So it all comes back to like knowing what's important to you. Why are you doing it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. It's so interesting, especially like approaching this as a financial person. Oftentimes people will assume that I'm motivated by money and it's like I'm not. I'm not right. I'm motivated by what wealth does, who it impacts and how I can help other people.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I need a lot of money to do the things I want to do. But if I could do the things I wanted to do, but if I could do the things I wanted to do without the money, then forget the money, right. So that kind of thinking too also then helps you make sure that you always stay grounded and align everything back to the values, right, because oftentimes when we're in this right building a business, it can be lonely. But when you start to get grounded in your core values, then you start to connect with other people who have similar values and then you start making partnerships and like the ways to accomplish things they just happen and like the money is a byproduct of being able to reach the vision. So, yeah, it's kind of cool once you really start to get in alignment and you're able to see everything working together as it should.
Speaker 1:What are the things that I run into sometimes when I'm talking to people about money and you know what their vision is, either for their life or their business and, generally speaking, for small business owners. That's intertwined right. But one of the things that I run into is people are just afraid to say that maybe their value is I want to have, you know, a month off every six months because I want to go travel, and they think, well, that's not altruistic enough, there's not enough like I'm doing it for somebody else, and I think it's really important for us to just embrace, like it's okay to have desires for yourself as well, like everything that you set a vision for or a goal for does not have to be for other people's benefit. If you've got some goals or values that align with helping other people, that's wonderful, but I don't think we should feel like ashamed if we have some values or goals that are just for you many times.
Speaker 2:Society will pressure you into thinking that if it's not for somebody else, then it's not worth pursuing. Right? But at the end of the day, you have to take care of yourself first, and if we want to accomplish anything real, your goals have to be honest and in alignment with what you value, and if not, you won't put in that extra work. That is your effort to actually go after it. So we kind of correlate this to like creating a budget, right, and you'll say, like you know, x amount of dollars goes towards living expenses and X percent goes to paying off debt and X percent goes to investing, right? Well, if I like nice things and I want to spend more money on a nicer home, then who am I as the advisor to tell somebody oh no, you need to cut your living expenses down to 40%. You can't spend that extra money on, you know, living in this nice high rise with all these amenities, you know, because that puts you out of percentage based on what you know conventional strategy says. But if you value having a nicer home and having all the amenities, then it doesn't matter, right? Because ultimately you're going to revert back to the thing that's in alignment with what you value. And so when we're creating these strategies, it's important that it accurately mirrors what we value, so that where we're not trying to stick to something that we don't care about, that's why budgets fail. Because you're telling me that I can't have Taco Tuesday and I can't go out to brunch and I got to stop eating avocado toast and all I can have is rice and beans, and that's not what I value, so I'm not going to stick to it.
Speaker 2:Right, but if you create strategy and you create things around actually what you care about and you forget about what the world is saying Because, if we're being honest, a lot of people are not practicing what they're preaching Right, they might just be putting out good sound bites because, because everybody else you know on the Internet agrees this is the thing we say, but in practice it's like, oh, I'm actually only saving 10 percent, I'm not saving 20. Right, because I like taking vacations, right? So when you get real and clear about what actually matters to you, it's so much easier to stay in that lane. And so if you guys don't take anything else away from today, the conversation is alignment and being true to what matters to you. It's what's going to push the needle forward to you it's what's going to push the needle forward.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. I was at a coaching retreat and it was all about values, work, and it took three full days to come up with my true, like, honest, what are my personal values? Because I kept wanting to throw these things in there like I kind of laugh about it. But I would be like, family, that's a value to me, I value family and I love my family. But at the end of the day, the true me, the real me, I don't make my decisions based off of family. I make them based off of all sorts of other things that are important to me. And, yeah, I take care of my family and I'm not going to hurt my family. But for me, that just isn't truly one of my deep-seated values. And I had to come to terms with that as hard as it was, because that was keeping me in this, like on a treadmill right. Because what.
Speaker 1:I really wanted was something totally different and I was trying to fit into this box because I thought, well, I'm a mom, so family is supposed to be one of my core values, and it just wasn't yeah. So when people work with you, do you go through that like values work, to help them get clear on it, or do you have outside resources that you suggest to them, or how does?
Speaker 2:that work? Yeah, so we start in the beginning. I'm always asking what do we actually care about? Yeah, and so the good thing about having access to people's financials is oftentimes your spending will tell on you. Yeah, it will.
Speaker 2:Right, and so I can look to see what you care about, right, and so and we use that as a guide to kind of identify, like, is this something that really is important or do you value convenience, right?
Speaker 2:So those are the kinds of things that we're really trying to figure out and navigate, and having people to sit back and dream right, if you did not have to work, what would you be doing? Right, because so many of us, either we don't have an example of somebody that is successfully retired, or we say, and I have a client like this, and I hope he doesn't listen to this episode but he tells me all the time that I'm not going to retire and I'm like that I'm not going to retire and I'm like, okay, right, cause he loves his job, which is great, right. But I believe that more of us, if we were financially independent, we would not work and we could be creating some beautiful things, but because we don't know what that would look like and we don't have anybody around us telling us it's safe to say I don't want to work, right, we never really sit with what we would do, because it almost feels like it's impossible to get to that place, right.
Speaker 2:And so anytime I'm talking to folks and they're like oh, what you up to in the business? I'm like I'm trying to retire tomorrow, right, I'm trying to retire tomorrow, absolutely. Yeah. So it really is helping people start to see in their mind where you want to go. Who's there with you, what are the emotions you are feeling, and not being ashamed of whatever comes out of your mouth, right, Because finance it's so personal and there's so many different things you can build in your life that nobody can judge you on what you actually want. And if that's what you want, go after it. Right, we're going to help you create the strategy to go achieve that. So, yeah, I just I want people to dream again. I want us to not be bound by, you know, work hours or location Like there's. You can create anything in this life, and I don't think enough of us really believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the the world is changing so quickly around us. You know the idea. Even 15 years ago, the idea of working remotely was still like, oh my gosh, that's so novel. So just in the past, like decade, decade and a half, it has totally transformed the capabilities of work and making. Like creating revenue for yourself in these unconventional ways. And you're absolutely right, like, if you really allow yourself to dream like what, what do I value? What is important to me, I get really creative. There are so many ways to create a life that you love, that has financial freedom, that has the capability of giving back in the ways that feel good to you. It's, uh, it's really an inspiring time to live in, I think, for as as dark as the days can seem sometimes, sometimes, if you really let yourself, you know, dream and think through like what's possible, I think there's a lot of light and love left to have in this world, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we have AI now, right, right. And so sometimes I'll sit and I have to be careful with like spending too much time doing this. I was like I want to do this, this, this and this, and these are the constraints around what I want. Give me ideas. Yes, I'm like, oh, that's good. And then I'm like, okay, with everything you know about me right now. How can I implement this and will it take more than 10 hours? Right. So, like I do that kind of stuff all the time because you really can create almost anything, and like that is powerful if you give yourself the freedom to dream. And then like the next step is probably the hardest, right. It's like believing that you can and then executing on it. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was actually just talking with my AI assistant earlier today. My favorite thing to do lately is just turn on an open chat and drive. I feel like when I run out of great podcasts to listen to, it's a great way for me to process thoughts. I'm a verbal processor, so it really helps me. And next week I'm taking a whole week off and I thought I knew what I was going to do, where I was going to go, and now I'm like having all of these second thoughts and so I did that. I just said, hey, knowing what you know about me and what I enjoy and here's my time constraints and this is the budget I have what are some great ideas that you can throw at me that I could do with my time off next week? And she gave me, you know, five or six different ideas that I was like I never would have thought of.
Speaker 1:That. It's amazing. So good, yeah, so so good, yeah. So, okay, I want to. I want to touch back on the pricing, like specifically for service-based businesses, right, Are there strategies? Or like systems or processes that business owners can go through to evaluate? Like am I charging the right amount?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's all kinds of calculators out here, right, but I do want to give like some baseline things to consider.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Depending on if you have a facility or not. Right, we should be measuring profitability to check and make sure we are even on par with the industry that we're in, right and so for some industries, for some businesses, the profit margins are going to be different. But if you are remote and you do not have overhead of a building, we should be looking at profit margins that are at 70% right.
Speaker 1:Say that again for the people who might have zoned out. Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if you are service-based business owner and you do not have overhead of a building, right, we should be looking at profit margins around 70%. Now, that's going to vary, right. Some might be a little bit more, might be a little bit less, but this whole 30%, 40%, you're not charging enough. You're not charging enough, right, and I think that being remote has conditioned many of us to believe that it's okay to charge less for a service because it's remote.
Speaker 2:But the only thing that changed was you don't have the building. The value still is the same, the time invested is still the same, you know, the tools needed typically are still the same. The only difference is you don't have a facility to manage. So when we get past this, I've cut expenses. I'm going to pass that along to the consumer. Then you can reposition yourself to be even more profitable and provide a better customer experience.
Speaker 2:And this was something that I had to learn the hard way. I told y'all. I started charging 30 bucks, right, right. But even just building my own business, I was like I don't have rent to pay, I don't have to pay utilities for this building, like I can charge us because in financial services, traditionally you would go to your advisor's office, sit across the desk from them. You know there was this whole thing, right. And now I'm like you're sitting across Zoom from me, right, and so in my mind, that meant I could charge less. My customers don't have to sit in traffic. There's all these perks, right.
Speaker 2:But really, what I was doing, I was cutting out my ability to reach my goals In the timeline that I wanted to reach them because I was passing along every cost saving to the consumer itself is similar to what, like a Walmart would do, right?
Speaker 2:You slash prices, you get bulk discounts and you're able to pass those discounts on to the consumer. And then I was like huh, am I providing a Walmart experience? Why am I passing along savings like Walmart would do? And so that is what allowed me to recondition and reframe pricing where it's not about penny pinching and speaking to folks who are looking for the cheapest price, it's about providing an exceptional customer experience that can only be provided with premium pricing. So I had to make that shift for myself where it's like OK, do I want to akin myself to that particular brand, or do I want to think myself to that particular brand? Or do I want to think about like Chick-fil-A, right, where it's a pleasure being here? Well, of course it's a pleasure because I'm not trying to figure out how I'm going to meet payroll, because I kept giving you 10, 20, 30% discounts all the time, right, right. So, like, that kind of reframe and shift is what allowed me to make the adjustment that says just because it's a virtual business does not mean discounted pricing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you were talking in the beginning, something that stuck out to me was mentioning you know, you're creating this virtual experience for your clients. So there's all of these conveniences that are passed along automatically to the client, right? They don't have to sit in traffic, they don't have to take the afternoon off work to come sit with you, you know. They don't have to find childcare, whatever it is, and so that in and of itself is a bonus to the client. So why on earth would you say, okay, I'm going to give them all of these convenient bonuses and also I'm going to charge half as much as my you know, competitors or the other folks doing the same service, because you know, somehow it's not as legitimate because I'm not paying for an unnecessary building. The funny things we do.
Speaker 2:Listen, right is what some of us start to feel in our pricing is oh, if I charge less, you know, then I may not have to live up to a particular standard, right, right. And it's like, well, if that's the standard and the value you provide, you should be compensated for it Absolutely. And so you rise to the occasion and you provide services to the occasion of which you charge, and so nobody's saying like, go charge 10K for something that you know industry standard is a thousand bucks, right, and you just printed some PDF off of Canva, right. But if the experience and the transformation and what you provide is worth it, we have to be bold enough and confident enough to charge. And I think for some of us too I speak for myself, I think for myself too was there was a confidence piece missing around commanding that amount and standing on it when it's time to say, okay, what's the price for this service, and not stuttering, right.
Speaker 2:So I think there's a lot of like pieces that kind of weed together around being able to manage money better. And, oddly enough, it's not what's on the spreadsheets. It starts here. It's what's in your mind about what you think, about what you're doing, and we have to be bold and confident enough to stand on it, so that way we can execute with confidence. Because if you try to close me and I hear some hesitation in your voice, I'm like ah yeah, I need to go through some sales training, I feel like.
Speaker 1:I'm great with like connecting with people and explaining how I can be of benefit to people, but when it comes to like actually try to close the deal, I'm like, well, maybe we just have another coffee, I don't know. And so, yeah, I definitely need some sales training, it sounds like, or you would walk away from me.
Speaker 2:I don't think you need training. I think you just need to get comfortable saying it out loud, and this is what helped me, right? I had a business coach tell me to start saying my price. When I raised my price the most recent time, she said start saying it out loud before you start having the sales call, so you're already comfortable speaking it right. Sometimes we haven't said the price out loud, right? You might've like put it on the website for what the pricing was, but you haven't actually said it to anybody yet, right? Yeah, the conviction isn't there yet, and so you might. I think you just need to communicate. Say it to yourself out loud a few times, right, so that way you're not saying it the first time to the next person. Yeah, that's so smart.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to. I can talk to my AI about it. Just tell her I need to practice talking about the pricing structure. Oh, that's a great idea. I love that, all right.
Speaker 1:So one of the other things that I run into just in the course of helping people think through their business and things like that, is oftentimes when I see profits that are either not there at all, you know, or very low, and we start to try to get into that conversation. The first thing that they want to talk to me about is oh, I know I'm spending too much on advertising. Or I know I'm spending too much on, you know, networking or whatever the thing is. Their immediate response is to go I'm spending too much, instead of thinking that top line of like why is my revenue not where it should be? So is there any like particular way that you can help me to understand how to help other people to say sometimes we think from the top. Sometimes it's important to think from the top instead of immediately thinking we've got to figure out how to get these expenses down.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is good, because I think a lot of us, our initial thought is like budget cuts Right. Right, that's where we immediately go to is like, oh, let me cut out these subscriptions and let me cut this. Let me cut that Because that feels more controllable, it feels like it's not as painful to engage in because you know, I'll just cancel a few things. Yeah, but when we start talking about generating more income, then you have to decide okay, what does that look like and what kind of sacrifice or uncomfortable experience am I going to have to go through to make that happen? So, for me, recently, right, I had some very aggressive sales goals that I created for starting next month in July. Right, and I have been accustomed to sales just coming to me. Right, I get lots of referrals and I teach and promote content online. So, like it just happens, right, and I've been coasting.
Speaker 1:I'm going to interrupt for one second. Y'all check out her website because I was like doing a deep dive earlier. Her videos and blogs are amazing, so make sure you check out her website. Yeah, no, legitimately good information, and sometimes I feel like blogs are just there for like SEO, not yours. They're really good. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay, so you teach and you put out content online.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so, like, people find value and you know they come through the sales funnel that way. But I decided that, like I have very aggressive goals I want to reach, and you mentioned about being able to take more vacations. I was like, yeah, I need longer vacations because what I'm doing right now is not working, like, but I need more money in order to do it. And so what I realized is like I'm not going to be able to rely on what I've been doing. I'm going to have to do some uncomfortable things, which means being more aggressive with selling. I'm going to have to cold pitch because I need to increase that top number.
Speaker 2:And so initially I was like I don't want to do this, and then I felt like I could just keep doing what I'm doing. Right, it's working. Who needs more vacation? But then I was like, no, this is no, what I'm doing right now is not the life I want to live. I want to take more vacations and I know what I have to do. I just need to do it.
Speaker 2:And so then I was like, ok, is it worth being uncomfortable for a little while until I get into this new rhythm? Because initially I wasn't comfortable making content. I didn't want to be in front of anybody's camera, didn't right. But now it's comfortable because I've learned to get accustomed to it. And I think it's the same thing with pitching and doing more sales calls and more sales like activities is.
Speaker 2:The first few weeks, maybe months, are uncomfortable, but the outcome is going to get me closer to what I really want, which is more money to go on more vacations. So is it worth being uncomfortable a little while in order to increase that top line? And I think that's the conversation a lot of us don't want to have with ourselves. Yeah Right, we'd rather stay comfortable, or even uncomfortable in the current situation because we don't want to address the thing we don't want to do. That's going to generate the results we actually need. So I think that it's like OK, what is it that you don't want to do that you know you have to do to reach the goal you want to reach?
Speaker 1:It's always that resistance piece, right, man. Okay, I love this. This has been so helpful. My favorite thing about starting this podcast a year ago is that every week when I talk to somebody, I feel like it was just the universe put them in front of me and was like here's what you need in your life right now. And it always works that way and I always get so much value from the conversations myself. And then it's just an added bonus that you know other people get value from it too. So it's kind of a selfish motivation, but it's always the perfect message. This week was definitely no exception to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much. And now I've snitched on myself and told everybody that I was going to do cold pitches and be more aggressive. So now folks can hold me accountable.
Speaker 1:That's right. I'll check in with you mid-July and be like how many cold pitches have you done? Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else that you feel like if you didn't have an opportunity to tell us, it would just be a totally lost cause for you.
Speaker 2:Man I want to say keep going. Right, I want to tell all of the business besties listening, keep going. Yeah, I'm like smiling and super smiley here, which is typically my temperament, but there are definitely dark days where I'm like I don't even want to run this business anymore, right, right. And so I think that us having those honest conversations, that it's not always rainbows and sunshines and we're not always in like the great money mindset and always believing all the time. I think every entrepreneur, if they're being honest, does have those moments, but you have to decide that you're going to keep going, even though you do have the moment, because we are really in a unique position to create the life we want and while there are some great opportunities for employment, right, none are going to be as flexible and give us the capacity to build the lifestyle we want as entrepreneurship. So keep building that business.
Speaker 1:I love that. I couldn't agree more. It's the scariest, greatest, most joyful thing you can do. Well, this has been such a pleasure. I'm so, so happy to know you. I will honestly set a reminder to follow up with you and say how's it going Mid-July, and then you can hold me accountable to practice in the mirror and talk to my AI to help me with all of my stuttering and everything.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'll be sure to link your website, your social media channels, all of the things in the show notes and description. Man, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much, tremaine. Yes, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. We'll talk to you guys later. Bye, all right, besties. That does it for today. If you're interested in becoming a part of the Small Business Bestie community, join us in the Facebook group or find out more information on the website at smallbusinessbestieorg. Please share the podcast with your friends, who could use a friend in business, and it would really mean so much to me if you follow the show and take just a few seconds to rate or review. A five-star rating really helps the show become visible to other besties who may just need the support and friendship that we offer.