Stacey Harris:
Hey everybody. I’m super duper, duper, duper excited today because we have Allison Crow who you’ve probably heard me talk about before. And you for sure heard me on her show because you already listened to that a couple of weeks ago. Or a couple of months ago now. And I really am excited to have her on the show today because we’re going to talk about hiring high-level help. And this episode falls … We’re recording it before, but it’s going to fall after a marketing 101 series that we do for established business owners. And so what we talked about last week was, what to delegate and what not to delegate. Because I really don’t actually believe in delegating everything. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about that today. So first and foremost, welcome to the show, Allison.
Allison Crow:
Thank you. I’m excited. I’m honored. And then I’m also amazed how far ahead you record. Because what y’all didn’t hear is Stacey and her team helped me with my podcast and she’s like, “When are we going to get your episode for Sunday?” And I’m like, “I’m going to do it today.” So I’m last minute, you’re Miss Prepared.
Stacey Harris:
Yeah. This will go live … You guys are hearing this in September and we’re recording it in July.
Allison Crow:
That’s why I hire you. Because that way I don’t have to plan. And so I have hired your genius to plan for me.
Stacey Harris:
So I feel like … First of all, thank you. I will totally receive that and accept it and I’m going to be really honest now. This was actually planned to go out next week and then yesterday I had this really big idea and I changed my editorial calendar around. And now this fits after a series I thought of literally yesterday.
Allison Crow:
So I just got dumped.
Stacey Harris:
Two weeks putting together a product that we’re going to sell on the back end. So yes planning but also planning is why I get to have random ideas and be like cool, let’s do this in two weeks.
Allison Crow:
Exactly. And for those of you … Let me just go ahead and sell Stacey, not that that was the intention. But one of the reasons I’m in love with it and one of the things I resisted was I do like to create on the fly and in working with you and your company and your team, when I have a moment or an inspiration … And sometimes I have moments and those are just like oh, I don’t feel like doing this. And other times I have, ooh, I was inspired to do this. You helped me adjust the plan. So I teach my clients, no cement and no water, let’s have jello jigglers. And jello jigglers is where we cut out the shape of the plan and we just move it to a different place. So thank you.
Stacey Harris:
I like that.
Allison Crow:
So jiggling my business.
Stacey Harris:
I think of it as Lego blocks. They’re movable. No matter where we put them, we create something. So before we get too far down the road, can we take a minute and I want you to tell people a little bit about who you are and how you work. Because you work with really cool people who in my opinion resonate and fit in with you and then maybe go in other places and feel like only parts of them get to fit in. And what I really like about the space you create is like all of them gets to fit in with you. And so tell everybody a little bit about the kind of space you hold in the world.
Allison Crow:
So I’m Allison Crow and I have been coaching for 14 plus years and self employed for 16. And there’s this big silence because it’s such an amazing story. And all of us, like we’re always unfolding. So I started out in hardcore sales, in real estate sales. I wanted to be a wife and mom of 10 kids and have five kids that I adopted from around the world. Then my husband that left, and I ended up in real estate. I did really well in real estate. And then they tapped me to be a real estate coach.
So that’s where I started coaching and starting sales and I learned a lot about business. Like just thrown into the deep end of the water and I loved it. Like, bring it on bitches. This shit tastes good. Money and fun and being good at sales and having some freedom and then I started seeing things that would work in coaching, in sales training, in all the things that didn’t really feel an integrity with me. I thought there were better ways of doing it. I thought there were more integris ways of doing it.
And I would kind of try to bring that when I worked for somebody else. That didn’t work. So it took me four years and two quitting. But four years later and two quits, I finally left the company I worked for and started my own practice. And so I started … They were always telling me you can’t do this. You can’t talk about depression from the stage. And you can’t do this. And I didn’t have a word for it at the time. I was in my mid 30s and I just knew something in me was like, wait a minute.
We’re all human beings and why does leadership always so polished on the front of the stage and behind the scenes it’s a cluster fuck? Like it was bad behind the scenes. And that didn’t resonate. And so because I wear my heart on my sleeve I was like, there’s got to be a way. If I’m having a successful business and I struggle with depression and anxiety and I’m a little bit foul-mouthed, don’t you think there’s other people out there who don’t want to wear the blue suit and pantyhose, that want to develop their self as a business owner and a leader too? So that turned into … The online world came right about that time. 2008, ’09, ’10. And I just started being me on Facebook. I just started being me.
I shared a little bit of personal, shared a little bit of professional. Ended up calling it share your heart, show your work. I kept developing my skills. And so I tend to hold space for weirdos. They’re not really weird, they’re awesome. But for people who want to have integrity and soul in their business. We call them gardeners, not machines. That’s the other thing. I have a wide range of, like I still work with a lot of realtors but they want to have, in real estate we call it a net life business.
So in the real estate industry, it was always about net, net, net, and everything was about numbers and so we call it net life. And then in the online world and coaching coaches and artists and a lot of those people are sometimes a little bit more metaphysical. They don’t fit. None of my people fit in the blueprint. But I can hold a wide range of space and my specialty is from mystic to logistics. I can clear your energy and do deep inner child work and I can help you come up with and implement a strategy and technology like nobody’s business. And so I’m kind of unique in that mystic to logistic, strategic to soulful.
Stacey Harris:
Well, I think that’s one of the things I love most about you, is again, that whole person. Obviously I see a lot of what happens with your clients in your membership, Soulful Success, which is really cool. What I love is… I remember when I built your strategy initially, god, a year and a half ago now. And you were like, we’re going to have life calls and business calls. And I was like, why? Wait. There’s life and there’s business. Why are we muddying them up?
But then I went in and I watched those calls in preparation. As I was building out the strategy. Because when we build strategies I kind of lovingly stalk you a little bit. And I was like, oh my god, I get it. This is why you do this. Because coming from the outside, I was like, this is Allison, way over fucking delivering. And then I get in there and I was like, I get why it works together and I think that’s so cool about the space you hold in that group and you hold with your high-level clients is that whole person. And it’s easy I think when you’re standing up against the blueprints to feel like a weirdo. When reality, they’re not weirdos so much as they’re just like the genius in the room. The smartest person in the room is usually the weirdo.
And it’s just because they’re kind of sitting on another level. They’re kind of like they’re occupying another space. And that’s I think so cool about what you hold. Because I think in so many other groups specifically online and in the coaching space, they’re told that they have to shut off some part of themselves or hide some part of themselves. And I think that that does so much to hurt your business but also so much to hurt you as a leader. And nobody can lead from this place of half assness. This place of I can only be part of myself.
Allison Crow:
Well, it’s not a wholeness. It literally makes us sick. That’s the other thing. Many of my clients are growth and achievement phase. So I have these three distinctions. Well, four really. There’s visionary. Like you’re thinking about leaving your job or what are you going to do. Then there’s launch. You’re like new, zero to three years. And then growth, You’re not zooming yet but you’re making a living, you’re figuring it out, you’re building, you’re still experimenting but you’re actually making money. And then achievement is like, okay, this works, now I’m bored. I want to burn it all down and do something. And I have worked with a lot of achievement people who have physically and emotionally burned out. Who have given their souls and now need to find sustainable success.
So what was interesting is when I did work for the corporate company, I had a small group. And it was a Friday morning group. I still know all their names. And they were high achieving coaches in their local offices.So I was coaching coaches at the time. And we never talked about what we were supposed to talk about. Never. We always … We actually talked about spiritual stuff. And they were all across the country and we always talked about life stuff and that’s when I first realized. Because the company was saying you need to coach on this and action, action, action and productivity, productivity, productivity.
I started accumulating history with clients and I realized the ones who actually were the most successful and happy were the ones who took the time to do life coaching. And I can’t leave business coaching. I think even when we first met, I was thinking maybe I should just do life but because I think business is so fun and sexy and so I have to combine it. And I sometimes get in comparison where I need to buy into the niche but the reality is my niche is the whole reason we built Soulful Success.
So yes, I over deliver. I wanted people to be able to have $30,000 a year life and business coaching for a really easy fee so that they would spend money getting high level help. Because I saw so many of us especially in the online and in the coaching industry spending $30,000 a year on coaching. We’re doing all this great deep work but then our business is suffocating because we’re doing all the things instead of hiring somebody else to help us maximize our gifts. It was my own clients who told me, “Allison, Frank Sinatra doesn’t move pianos.” My own clients. And I was like, oh.
Stacey Harris:
And I love that. I want to talk more about … Because you brought us on in the late spring of 2019.
Allison Crow:
May. Yep.
Stacey Harris:
So it’s been just about a year and a half that we’ve been together. And whether you know it or not, we’re going to be together forever because I love you.
Allison Crow:
I like longterm commitments.
Stacey Harris:
We’re monogamous. So what I want you to kind of share with me is … Or share with everybody that’s listening because we’ve talked about this already. I want you to talk about, was there like a resistance to bring in somebody to build a plan for you? Because I know you had worked with marketing people before and it didn’t feel great. So were you hesitant to do that again?
Allison Crow:
I was hesitant to spend money and kick myself. There’s two aspects. Number one, I had experimented. This was before the algorithm changed as far as ads. And I was watching some of these people. Massive amounts of ads. I was in a membership group and I was watching that woman completely build it on ads. And so I did hire a done for you high level company. The two gals that worked there were great. They knew what they were doing and they worked a formula. And so we did the whole ads to the webinar. It got me a lot of the wrong people.
So that wasn’t necessarily their fault. That was partly my messaging and all this other stuff. But it was also me trying to do what the “big boys” do or whatever. You know in hopes … I think we all are like, if spent this money on this one thing it will fix all my things. And so they were awesome people. I really liked that gal and I might do Facebook ads again. But I will do it more. I didn’t know there was someone like you. And so after that experience, which wasn’t bad but it didn’t work like I thought it would work and it didn’t feel as organic. As a gardener I like things to feel organic instead of machine.
It was October before I met you. I went to a freelance conference here in Austin. I actually spoke at the freelance conference and I went in to go see the keynote speaker. He had a guy with him with a camera. That guy just followed him everywhere with the camera. And I was like, oh he has his producer with him. And I was like, I don’t want a marketer, I want a producer. I create so much content. That’s how I live. It’s just how I live. Share your heart, show your work, it’s what I do. It was natural. It wasn’t forced for me. And so that was the part that was scary.
It was scary to bring somebody in because I’m like yeah, I create on the fly. I have an idea, I pop on a live. I had gotten all this business from Facebook. But there I decided, I need somebody that can produce my brain. Instead of fitting me in their box, they actually make my box bigger and put me on top of it. So when I not only met you but knew I wanted to hire you was, I was in this program that we’re in together and I got an email and I was like, oh my gosh, this Friday check-in email was so badass. I felt cared for as a customer. My girlfriend said, “Yeah, Stacey Harris did that.” And I was like, I’m calling this girl. And this was just an email. But who gets all excited over an email?
Stacey Harris:
Big, big nerds. That’s who.
Allison Crow:
I did. I mean I do get excited over emails. Because I get so many shitty ones. And so it was a little scary. I had no idea what a plan was. I couldn’t even … I’ve seen Pinterest but … And so when I saw your actual plan and it’s a spreadsheet. But what I saw in all the boxes of the spreadsheet was my own heartbeat. And I saw my mojo. But I saw it organized.
So those of you who cook … I had food insecurities as a child. I have a little bit of kitchen trauma. I’ve been working on it, teaching myself to cook. But it’s not my natural language. My two best friends, amazing in the kitchen. I’ve had someone come over to my house and just look at what I had and created this gourmet meal that I never knew existed. And I feel like you’re like that. You looked in the pantry and make the most gourmet meal out of the stuff I have on hand. And that felt supportive, liberating and it also made sense. So I do like things to make sense. But my brain and my creativity sometimes goes so fast. I don’t slow down enough to put the puzzle pieces or if I do slow down and put the puzzle pieces together I lose steam.
And so that’s what you guys did for me is you produced my brain. You connect the pieces. There’s actually a purpose for the pieces. So this is one of the things we talk about that distinguishes growth from achievement. Launch and growth, you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Stacey Harris:
You need data.
Allison Crow:
Yeah. And I didn’t realize though what it was. It was like oh I’m experimenting. I’m experimenting. What do I like, what works? What doesn’t work? And after a while to throw spaghetti at the wall. When you’re in a launch you’re excited. And when you’re in growth you’re excited because you’re actually making money.
Stacey Harris:
It’s working.
Allison Crow:
It’s working. But when you start getting in achievement it’s really weird because you’re like, it’s working, I’m bored. It’s working, I want to burn it all down. I watch our mastermind sisters say that a lot. We’re making all this money and everything’s working and we’re not working as much. And all of the sudden we want to burn it down and it’s like nope, let the plan support you. And as an achievement person we don’t have to strive so much but we have to readjust how we’re creative and how we’re held for.
So I’m older than you. I’m almost 50. But in my mid 40s I hit perimenopause. I was in super achievement going, going, going, going, but I didn’t have the high level help. And as soon as my hormones changed and I got adrenal fatigue and cortisol and I didn’t understand, I just thought I was tired. And as all this happened, it was from the cortisol in my body. How was I going to keep making that money? And now what I love is I make twice as much more in half the time. I know people say that all the time. But it took some planning. It took really thinking about it instead of throwing spaghetti.
The other thing I had to do to go from growth to achievement and in getting high level help, is had to be willing to do the boring work. And those of us who are risk takers get off on fun. So anybody listening to this, I know they get off on fun. Because otherwise you’re not self employed. You get off on risk and fun and it’s that cheesy saying, what got you here won’t get you there. Then you have to figure out okay, how do I have fun now that my taxes are paid, I’m making regular income?
And so learning to have that plan, I’m actually learning how to have fun outside of my business. I have fun with my clients. I have fun in the delivery. And then I’m still in the process of allowing that high level help. Because sometimes I wake up and I’m like, ooh, I should be doing something. And it’s not that oh, you guys are … I mean, part of it is that you guys are taking care of it. Amber is taking care of it. Alise is taking care of it. Cali is taking care of it. Sometimes it’s no, you worked this hard to let it be easier. And you were willing to do the boring stuff. Now let’s find fun in your personal life. I hope that makes sense.
Stacey Harris:
It’s so funny. So, every other week Cali and I meet and we talk about what’s going on and really for Uncommonly More, for our own business. It’s where I check-in and we’re like hey, this is what we’re doing. And we were talking about something and she now has my calendar on her calendar and every day for two hours in the afternoon something on my calendar says flight school. She hadn’t heard about this. iI was something that I decided to do this year because of exactly that. I spent a long time building an agency and a team and I’m not nearly as necessary as I once was in this whole machine. And so I get real ready to pull out the matchbook and burn it all down because the thing that will be fun and exciting is if I have to start over.
Allison Crow:
Exactly. If I don’t pay my taxes and all of the sudden I get a $50,000 bill, then that’s really-
Stacey Harris:
I’m going to have to figure that out.
Allison Crow:
I used to get off on … There really was this physical and emotional and psychological sweet ego that was like, I can hit a grand slam if I have to. And so I had to learn how to do singles and it doesn’t mean we deny our need for fun. But sustainability … Someone asked today in our membership. What do you want a solid business … What was the other word she used? I don’t know if you saw it.
Stacey Harris:
Solid, substantial.
Allison Crow:
And I added, I want sustainable. I want my business to be substantial. I want it to be solid. And before I think it was solid, but did it have foundation? Because I would always make it solid by hitting a grand slam home run to win the game instead of the boring single, the boring single, the boring single. And I had to find fun like flight school. I don’t want to do flight school, you have fun with that.
Stacey Harris:
I’ll come fly you when I get my license.
Allison Crow:
It’s a major growth thing because how many of us have full … I love emotions and I want to honor them. But how many of us have destroyed something that even though we think it’s not working it really just needs a tweak. It doesn’t need to be burned down. It’s kind of like, really, you could change the pillows on your couch. You do not need to burn your house down to have it feel new. Let’s get some new decorator pillows and fluff.
Stacey Harris:
I love that as an example because it’s super true. And yes, so I am looking for … I went into this year going okay, so I have to find something that is fun and challenging that is not work or I’m going to get the matchbook out all year.
Allison Crow:
Yeah.
Stacey Harris:
I physically cannot survive another year of that. And so I’m doing flight school, something I wanted to do my whole life. But I think you’re exactly right. Also on that meeting, we were talking about something we’re going to play with in August and it was again… I mentioned this earlier. It was an idea I had yesterday and I was like cool. And we’re going to have this … As you now know because it’s been released. There’s this really incredible offer available to build your 30-day strategy and I’m literally teaching the system. It’s our first paid program that UM has ever offered. The first program I’ve offered since I closed my membership earlier this year. It’s me getting a new couch, not burning my house to the ground. Because it’s something fun to play with in the business, doesn’t require me to destroy everything else around it.
Allison Crow:
It’s so true.
Stacey Harris:
You know what’s funny though is high level help. It’s funny because high level help is what made me figure that out. And for so long I have been high level help but I have not gotten high level help.
Allison Crow:
Exactly.
Stacey Harris:
Even having Cali on the team and having Cali be higher-level help for you, I wasn’t utilizing all of the awesomeness that was Cali inside of UM until this year. Because A, we had her really busy with client stuff and now we’ve expanded the team and taken some things off Cali’s plate. Not of course any of Allison’s things. Because Allison has a real clause in her contract that she gets to keep Cali forever. But it’s been really amazing.
We use Monday as project management and she created me this board and Monday that is big ideas and I get to go in there. And I’m going to be like, “Hey, I saw this in a Facebook ad and it sent me down a rabbit hole. Could we do this?” And she’s like sure. And she just project manages it. Like being supported in that way prevents me from getting the matches out. Because A, I can’t burn down the thing that literally pays Cali. That’s not okay.
Allison Crow:
There is something about that. It’s like finding people that you work really well with and that you really like. And that’s part of … I know that earlier this spring we did a lot of talking about social justice. But I love helping good women make good money. And so I feel really … Curating this team. And not just a responsibility to pay them but our money is all circulating. And I want to pay good money for the things that I do. So hell yeah that’s part of it. Not that we owe that. I want to keep helping those people meet their dreams too. Including you, including Cali, including Alise and Amber.
Stacey Harris:
It’s cool to step into that and it’s cool to support that. So the thing I want to talk about before I let you go is I want to talk about some of the things … Because one of the things I really love about you and this is pretty fresh is, we were talking on your podcast a couple weeks ago and you were talking about taking something back from-
Allison Crow:
Yeah. Amber.
Stacey Harris:
Amber, who’s not a part of my team but also works with you. Because you could do that and we could put her some place else. And I think oftentimes when we think of high level help, especially before we hire them, we think okay, so when I hire high level help I have to just give them everything and I have to shut up. And we see this a lot with our clients, which is not true. In fact, it’s the opposite of true. The best thing that you can do when you work with us is stay in it with us.
Our clients who have the most success are ones like you who are also creating some of their own content and who … I always talk about the work we do is your foundation. That way if you go on a trip and you go quiet for two weeks, cool. Everything keeps running. But if you’re here, layer on top of it. And I think when we hire high level help it’s so easy for us to shut off and be like cool, I’m handling all decisions making and responsibility and I’m just advocating everything to you, which doesn’t feel good. So I think sometimes we get in these situations where we hire them and we’re like, oh maybe not.
And that’s the point we talked about last week when I talked about some other things you should hold on to. So I want to know from you, how do you kind of decide what you’re going to keep and what you’re going to hand over? Because I know that kind of ebbs and flows for you sometimes. Is it just instinct or is it sometimes you keep something for a little while and then you hand it back? What makes that feel good about what you keep and what you give away?
Allison Crow:
So the first thing is, what is it that I want to do? What is it that I love to do? I love to go live. I love to create content on the fly. My opt-in is 10 years old. My sequence is four years old. It’s out of date. It’s got to go. And I’ve got to create something new.
In my brain, I was saying that I had to write this book. And all of a sudden it was like, why am I writing a book? Why don’t I just do a live class? Why don’t I just record a class? And then I can actually transcribe that and Amber can make it into the book and make it pretty and we can have the opt-in be if you want to watch the live video if you prefer to read, and we can just pull the audio off of it. Then I can give it to my audience in three different modalities instead of me trying to sit down and write something. I used to write every single day. Facebook killed the writer in me. But I create in these live ways now.
So number one, what do I love to do? Then number two, what will make me money? So what is fun and what’s important? So the other thing I learned… In the past, I hired a VA first. I hired all these things but they weren’t making me money and they were costing me money. And so then I started paying attention. If I hire, how’s it going to make me money?
So when I hired UM, UM is going to hold me up, sustain me when I need a break and we’re going to work together just like you talked about. We’re going to … Like the cords, you, me, and Cali. Three cords make it stronger. I don’t know. I’m messing up a bible verse probably. And that will eventually bring in money. That will bring in new clients. Like the whole reason I’m working with you guys is to do the long game, steady weekly work. I mean since I’ve hired you, I’ve never missed a podcast. You’ve even said, “Oh we can pull in an old one,” and I still get it done. I never did that. So I have done it every single Sunday since I hired you guys.
And not because you said I had to. It helps me do that. So everything doesn’t make money. And so I actually don’t have a VA. It’s easy for me to do technology so I did a lot of it for myself. Because even though y’all were more expensive than the VA … So I think sometimes we’re trying to make increments, choices based on what’s the next level of spending instead of what is the outcome that this help will get you? And I have learned that doing my own laundry and uploading shit to Vimeo, I can do all day long. But I want to have somebody that is helping me do things that bring in new clients.
So after working with you guys for a year, I decided it’s ready to have somebody that can do some of that back end but is also front-facing. And what is one of the things we always hear about? Oh, you need to give up your inbox. You need to give up your inbox. You need to give up your inbox. Well, I’ve trained people not to email me generally.
And I like to look at my inbox because that’s where my Ulta coupons are and my pet dog stuff. The things I’ve signed up for. So I gave that to Amber. I hired Amber to be … I guess some people would call her an integrator. She’s my COO. My implementer. I call her my implementer. But she’s not just pushing buttons. So she helps me think and strategize. She’s front facing. She loves all my clients. And she had done some tactical things like my inbox. So we did that for a couple of months and then I realized, I’m still looking at my inbox because apparently I like it. It didn’t cause me dread. I just thought I was supposed to do it.
And so I said … I didn’t even ask her. I said, “Amber, you don’t need to be in my Gmail. If there’s something that needs to be taken care of …” And she’ll still monitor the hello@Allison account. But I don’t need her to filter my shit because I was going in there anyway. I’m paying her for something that I’m still … So I was like, let’s figure out something that you can do that does one of two things. I do believe that the number one way for me to make money is to retain my current clients.
Number one is serve and love on my people. That’s what we call it. Love on my people. So that is her primary job is to help me love on my people. And then number two is she’s helping me think and implement strategies for getting new clients. So she’s going to help me implement some of the stuff behind the scenes with the opt in. She’s going to go and collect all the testimonials. So all the little projects she’s doing are towards creating new clients.
So I think the last thing … Knowing what I know now the last thing I’m going to delegate is stuff that doesn’t make money. I will push buttons. I am not above pushing buttons. Button pushing doesn’t create new clients. And so I feel smarter with my money. Obviously when I scale someday I’m going to be pushing a button and it will bring me a martini. But other than that, I can delegate that stuff or not. But I want … You always say … I learned this from you. I’ve stolen it from you. I give you credit every single time. What are you selling? Who are you selling it to? And I use the phrase, in what ways will you sell it?
And that’s what I like. Because everything is like what are we selling? And number one, we’re selling staying in the membership, and number two, we’re selling getting in the membership period.
Stacey Harris:
Well I love that and I think it’s a really cool to look at it from these two perspectives of, UM and my team, we can bring in people. We can nurture those leads. And Amber can really help you retain the revenue you’re already creating. And I think that’s something that not enough people give enough weight to. I’d much rather get more money from the people who I already work with than have to go find new people to work with. Because then I just have to train new people. I just have to train them to behave well in working with me. That’s a lot of work. I would much rather have money coming in from relationships I’ve already built.
Allison Crow:
And it’s easy for me. So you and I have talked about some things. I’m like, “Hey, how much would it cost to have Cali do this?” So like one of the things we’re talking about, I get so lured in by those audio bursts. Also, when I came to work with Stacey I already had a sound editor that I love. I feel good about supporting her and having her on my team. So even though Stacey’s team does that, she was like, “We can work with your existing person.” So she passes the baton to y’all. She was like, “Well, we can totally create these audio bursts but we would have to get your podcast sooner. Here’s how much it would cost to add that amount of work.”
So, it’s tempting for me to throw money at it. And so I asked. Right now for the extra X, Y, Z amount of money, is it number one, am I profiting enough? Have I scaled? Have I added enough clients to have that as a … Because to me that’s a luxury. Now, I don’t know if it’s true or not. I don’t actually listen to them. I just like to see them.
Stacey Harris:
Some people do listen to them, but yes.
Allison Crow:
I know that some people-
Stacey Harris:
But they’re absolutely a luxury. 100% they are not a critical necessary … You will not die without them. Your podcast won’t stop working.
Allison Crow:
Exactly.
Stacey Harris:
With the marketing we’re doing now, without the audio grant, we’re driving traffic to the podcast and the podcast is growing.
Allison Crow:
So yeah. That’s the thing. They’re in my ideal world. And one of the ways I get to my ideal world is doing the things that work. Quit looking for a new shiny object. And there’s a lot of shiny objects. And so using my critical thinking … I wish I could say it was my intuition. It ain’t my fucking intuition, it’s my goddamn brain. PSA to the whole fucking world, could you please use your logic and critical thinking? I love intuition but it’s from … Analyze the situation, collect data. Even if you half ass collect it.
Stacey, you might be the kind of person that puts your data in a spreadsheet. I put data… I plant that little flag, I plant that little flag. It’s not done real science half-ass. But I can see oh, this isn’t … I’m spending money. I didn’t have to go ask Amber, “How many hours are you spending on my inbox?” I’m sitting there in my inbox going, “I’m wasting time on this, I don’t want her wasting.” And the other thing was, I wasn’t using the time I was wasting. So just because I handed it off to Amber doesn’t mean I was using that time for profit. So what time is profitable? I love profit. I love things that help my clients and that make money. And I have got to stop getting all excited about the new thing.
Stacey Harris:
I think it’s so easy. It’s so easy to see the new shiny thing and be like yay.
Allison Crow:
That will solve everything and now I’ll have 10,000 million gazillion members.
Stacey Harris:
In reality it’s sort of like … Like I have a wishlist. I legit in my planning docs … I mean, I plan on an iPad. Note app and it’s what I journal in and it’s what I write in and I have a list of super fun things that I think would be cool to do. And guess what guys, I could 100% do all of them probably myself. But they’re a waste of mother loving time right now. They’re a distraction and so they go in there. And here’s the deal. Like 40% of the time I go and I look at that list and I go that is a stupid idea. I should not do that. That is terrible. I’m so glad I didn’t spend two weeks and 20 grand trying to make that happen because it’s dumb.
Allison Crow:
Well, and is it effective?
Stacey Harris:
And there’s another time I go, “Oh, this is perfect. Let’s do this right now.” For example, the Launch Your Podcast Challenge is something I did when I was still under Hit the Mic. Honestly, it was four years ago when we launched Hit the Mic Backstage, my membership. A program in there was called The Rockstar Guide to Podcasting. Man has my branding changed. It was called The Rockstar Guide to Podcasting and I built that challenge to sell into the membership and it worked and it was great.
And it had been sitting there for a while and we started doing podcast production services as a standalone service this year. And I was like, how are we going to sell it? How are we going to sell it? How are we going to sell it? And I had thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and tried to force this idea out of my brain. I’m sitting on the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland one day. I may or not have been intoxicated during this. And I’m in the middle of the ride and I go, holy shit, we’re going to repurpose that and up level it. I literally got off. Turned to Charles who’s sitting next to me and was like, “Babe, I have to voxer Cali when we get off of this. I have to tell her what happened.”
And we got off the ride. And I went finally that thing that I wanted to do something with and I wanted something to happen came together. But it had to be the right timing. And guess what? It’s working. We’ve built it out. It’s great. It drives traffic and building the list. It’s generating interest in podcast production services.
It’s working but it’s because I let it sit in idea land and I didn’t force it into working before my brain and my business and my team was ready for it to work. Had I tried to force it earlier, it would have been a waste of time and wasted money. And I think that’s one of the things I so love about how you think critically is just because you think of it now doesn’t mean right now is when it has to happen. You can plant that flag and be like cool, so this is what we’re working towards. We’ll get there. And we always do. We always do.
Allison Crow:
Always right on time. I like sharing ideas with you guys. I like just kind of sharing them out because you guys sometimes remind me of things I forget that I said three months ago. And so you also help me tend that garden. Instead of me just keeping those thoughts until I’m ready to implement them, having you and Cali.
Every once in a while I see something … Oh this was funny. So you and I are in the same mastermind. I’m in the mastermind hot seat this week while we’re recording it. And I was in a little bit of overthinking mode. Because it’s actually a really … I feel grounded. I feel stable. There’s no drama. I’m like, I’m okay. So it’s like even though … Am I supposed to have something to need to be coached on? I was kind of overthinking. I get off our mastermind call and there is a post that Cali, your team has done for me on overthinking. And I was like … I almost thought, did Stacey do that on purpose to make fun of me? And she didn’t.
Stacey Harris:
I had checked to see if we had done it because I thought it was from you. I was like-
Allison Crow:
No, it was from y’all.
What I love is that I feel like we’re so in tune and what your team does for me. And so this is one of the reasons I really like you and Cali. And Cali is the one that implements and does a lot of … She writes me really well. And it’s almost like she’s reading my mind because that is something I would have posted except for I was on a call. Because I like running my business from an emotional place.
When I’m in flow and when I’m in ebb, I bring ebb to the front of the room so people can see how to lead when they’re in ebb. I remember the first time I woke up and I was like, oh, I got to post something. And all of a sudden I look up and I was like, no I don’t. They did it. And the first time I got an email that said … I can’t remember what it was but it was like telling me how wonderful my emails were and they felt so connected to me. And I was like, that’s my team.
Stacey Harris:
The best. Awesome.
Allison Crow:
But that felt like high level help that was authentic. And I know authentic is a buzzword. I claim that I was one of the early people to like macaroni and cheese and used the world authentic before they became cool. And I didn’t know that having high level help … Especially that wasn’t … So y’all are not employees. You’re not all mine. You have other people you work with. And so it’s like yeah, if i have this big cooperation and I’m paying somebody $200,000 a year to be my marketing director then yeah. But I didn’t realize that I could work with somebody who is a company of one or a consultant that works with a lot of people and still have that authentic powerful profit inducing support.
I’m your greatest fan. You and Cali … I just … Some of my growth clients are just now having their first marketing experience with another one of my marketing clients. And I think budget-wise it’s appropriate for where they are in business. But it’s nice to see what’s possible because I didn’t know what was possible until I had it. And I didn’t know that until I was willing to have a conversation with you about what that could look like. And I did know myself and I remember saying, “Oh good lord Allison, here you go again.”
Allison Crow:
And I was like you know what? I want the done for you. I want the whole year planned. And it took you three weeks. You went through my old stuff. And when I saw just that … You were like, “I’m going to do the first quarter so you can see it, because I don’t want to do the whole thing wrong. Let me know what you think about first quarter.” And I was like, holy shit. This feels … I get to be the fire but you’re the vehicle that moves it forward. I get to be my own fuel but my fuel is held by something stable and logical. All the things I value but I’m not natural at.
Stacey Harris:
I love that. I love that. Awesome. So thank you for coming on and talking to me about this. Because I think that so often these are the conversations that you and I have sitting on couches at mastermind retreats and on Zoom calls and we have inside of our mastermind. And I think we don’t talk enough … That’s why I’ve been doing the marketing 101 series. I think so often we think about these pieces as we’ve grown beyond them. And it’s always these things that we come back to about like, so what do I actually need? What am I actually doing? We’re always reassessing that.
And I think you’re right. As we get to that point where we’re in achievement and we’re like, all right but I’m kind of bored now. Because this thing works and that’s great and I worked really hard to make it happen but I sort of … I’ve become a habit of stress.
Allison Crow:
It’s nice to have people in your life that you communicate. Whether it’s your team, your besties, you’re coach, whatever it is. For people to help us see what we’ve actually done. I mean I was on a call with our coach yesterday and I was like, “Oh, I found this new copywriter.” And she goes, “You just told me you got three new clients without doing anything or without doing anything new. They all emailed you. So why are you about to spend money?” And I was like, oh yeah. And so I literally wrote down, work what works. Don’t try to find something new. And I feel like y’all work me. You work what works.
I’m not trying to fit into a blueprint. You fit around me and magnify exponentially what I’m able to do. And I’m able to sustain longer and better. And this is the other thing I think a lot of people think, oh, I’m going to hire this and four weeks later it’s going to pay for itself. But I’ve been in business long enough to know that the things that are sustainable and truly profitable are long-tail, marathon, climb the mountain.
And I want to say this one last thing. I know we need to go. You were talking earlier about shiny objects. And a few years ago right before I crumpled my high fee coaching world and built the membership I had three other coach friends that all grossed revenue $2 million. All $2 million coaches. Oh yeah, $2 million coach, $2 million coach. All three of them netted 97. And all three of them were sick and burned out. One man, two women. All three of them were miserable. All three of them were paying. Y’all $2 million and they were only keeping 97.
What was crazy was, I had at the time a … It was 197 and I kept … I spent 100 but I kept 97. And I was like, that … Just thinking about that was like, that makes me realize that they had big teams, they could hire all these people. But it matters what you take home. And so being really smart and being willing to readjust just like you would a recipe, readjust along the way.
So I want more people to have that. I want more people to have Uncommonly More. To have the podcast support. I want more people to have those cute little audio bursts that I’m not quite ready to invest in. I will at some point. But I want to be at a lot higher profit. I want way more cash before I pull the luxury cord.
Stacey Harris:
I love that.
Allison Crow:
I want more people to have y’all. And if you’re lucky you might get Cali but I think Cali has already moved up and I just get to keep her.
Stacey Harris:
She’s just mine and Allison’s.
Allison Crow:
Sorry, you can’t have Cali. I’m sure there are other wonderful people that are amazing that Cali has trained and taught them how to be magic. But Cali is mine, mine, mine.
Stacey Harris:
It’s true. It’s true. Well the great thing is Cali now runs and project manages the whole rest of the team. And so even if you don’t get Cali directly, you still kind of get Cali which is good. So thank you for taking the time. I want everybody to go check out allisoncrow.com and check her out on social. The Soulful Success community is one of my favorite offerings of any of my clients’ offerings. It’s so fun to see the people.
Allison Crow:
I think it’s the greatest offering in the whole world as far as coaching life and business goes. Because it’s so inexpensive you can afford to customize the … It’s a piece. I’m like your general practitioner.
Stacey Harris:
I love that.
Allison Crow:
We’re really good.
Stacey Harris:
Yay. Awesome. Well thank you Allison for taking the time and talking to me and sharing this. I think this is not a conversation we have publicly often enough and so I appreciate you coming in.
Allison Crow:
No. We just see the ads and then we make a lot of mistakes. And even the mistakes help us but I love having these kinds of conversations and think more people need to hear them.
Stacey Harris:
Awesome. Thank you. All right guys that’s it. I will talk to you next week.