202 - Making a marketing strategy from scratch — with Joana Galvao

91% of all B2B buyers are influenced by Word of Mouth. Well, let's turn Word of Mouth into a strategy. That's what we started to double down on. Like, when we saw, like, where do our clients come from? Oh, they always come from our other clients? How can we turn this into an actual marketing strategy so that we keep having leads even when I'm away for four months? (upbeat music) Guys, it's been over two years since Joanna our featured guest for today has been on the channel. And she got a little heat last time for the quality of her audio and other things. So we're now fully prepared and tested and you're going to be so blown away by the level of upgrades that she's has. And I got a little sneak peek at the presentation. You're going to really want to stick around for us. Joanna, welcome to the show. - Thank you for having me again. I'm so happy to be here two years later with an update. - I know, right? - Set up. - Yeah. - It's been a hot minute. Okay, so I know you've prepared certain things so why don't I just turn it over to you and let you drive and I'll chime in where necessary. - Yeah, sure. So I'm excited to be here, guys, and tell you all about the book, Solid Designer, how to be fully booked with your dream clients without burnout. And even if you want to take a four month maternity leave without checking email or a holiday, which is, so the four month maternity leave, that's what I did. And so I've been asked by the future fam to talk a little bit about that. So that's what you're going to get in this presentation. But so I'm the co-founder of GIF Design Studios. It's a design agency based out of Porto Portugal. We specialized in brand identities and web design. But a couple of things that I'm proud of just really quickly is that this year we turned seven. So that, like, it's, I'm still having pinched me moments. Like how can I still have a business running? Like seven years later. And also we've had a really fun run. Like we've had really amazing projects come our way that I've really loved working on. But the thing that I'm most proud of, not only is it that we've been able to work with clients that I really get along with. And that always helps make work a little bit easier and just enjoy the ride of the ups and downs of running an agency. But I was able to take a four month maternity leave without ever checking email for four months. I didn't check email a single time. - That's probably just giving some entrepreneurs anxiety. Just hearing that, like, not even looking at your email for four months and you did it. And you're still able to maintain and manage a successful business. That's really, really impressive. - And not only that, but during a pandemic and we were able to have our most profitable months ever. - Wow. - Without me being involved. - So the big question is how, how tell us? - I will. - How are you able to do this? - So it took me a couple of, it took me two years exactly to figure out like how can I make this actionable for the future firm? And I realized that it's three core pillars and they each have three components that you need to have in place. So also, if you guys wanna follow along and you're the type of person who wants to like, write everything down, you can grab the workbook and fill it along with us at thembitiouscreatives.com/thefuture. - And we'll clue that in the description below. So if you need to go download the resource then rejoin us, okay. - And so the first thing, the first pillar that we need to make sure is in place and working is, well, we need to make sure we're marketing the right way. We need to make sure that we're bringing the right leads in. And I realized that there were three key things that we had done to make this work on autopilot whilst I was gone. The first thing is, well, we need to choose. What do I mean by that? We need to get really clear on who our ideal client is, what our ideal project is. Is what I noticed that what I noticed happens when you work with ideal clients and ideal projects is that you're lit up, you're excited, you're doing your best work, your clients are feeling it. They're feeling the energy that you're bringing to the project which in turn leads them to spread good words to their friends. And because they are your ideal clients, they're likely gonna bring more like-minded people your way. And so you're just in a happy cycle of hopefully ideal clients. But the reverse can have the opposite effect, right? If you're working with clients that you don't really identify with, you don't align in values, they don't treat you with respect, you're gonna start to resent them, you're gonna start to resent your work, you're gonna start to resent your inbox, you're gonna not wanna get out of bed to work and that can have a negative effect. And so I think this is a really great place to start. Even if you're at a place where like, oh well, great, John, but I don't have many clients right now, I can't give myself the luxury to say no to work. Just keep in mind that that can have a spiral effect either way. And so the thing we did was just really define who's our ideal client and only letting those through the door or really trying to. And that brings me to the next step is to connect with those people. I found that this has been one of the key pieces in how we're doing our marketing is we're connecting with the right people. So, you know, if you're a freelancer, you run an agency, I'd love for you to think like, where do you get the majority of your clients from? Like when I asked this to my friends who run agencies or freelancers or like peers or students, Chris, guess what they say? - Word of mouth? - Yeah, word of mouth. But it's funny 'cause marketers will make us think, well, that's a dangerous way to run your business, right? 'Cause then you're depending on other people spreading the word. And so they teach you all these marketing strategies and they tell you like, no, you need to be on Instagram and maybe around some Facebook ads. And you go along and maybe you read a book, you know, like expert secrets, which I've read and I started to implement all the things and your head is spinning with ideas and you put like your creator hat on and you start creating all this content and putting it out there. But then sometimes what happens is you hear nothing or maybe you have a couple of peers commenting on like, oh, that's really great work, really love that post. But clients aren't coming in the door. And so you're feeling really frustrated and you're wondering like, well, what next? What did I do wrong? Like why didn't, like I followed these strategies that I learned like, why aren't I getting clients? And you know, we actually, I think I shared this with you the last time I was in LA. We spent a lot of money paying an agency to set up a funnel for us. I think it was like 30 grand. And then we spent three grand on ads and we got zero. - Oh no. - Not to say that this is gonna happen to everyone, but when we looked at the, like if we looked at the data, we saw that like most of our clients were just referring us to like through word of mouth, you know? And if you think back to like when we renovated our house, I didn't go on Google and search for architects or, you know, builders, I just asked like my closest network or people who I knew had just renovated their house, like who did you hire? Did you have a good experience? And I also love this statistic. Like 91% of all B2B buyers are influenced by word of mouth. And so what we decided to do is, well, let's turn word of mouth into a strategy. And if you think about it, like referral is the key to the door to the of resistance. Like I love this quote from, from Bo Penin. And so that's what we started to double down on. Like when we saw like, where do our clients come from? Are they always come from our other clients? Well, how can we make, how can we turn this into an actual marketing strategy so that we keep having leads coming in, even when I'm away for four, four months? And so one of the things that I say a lot and I stand by and I believe that this has contributed to the success of our agency is that the more people know about who you are, what you do and for whom, the more likely it is that they're gonna spread the word and bring in word of mouth referrals. And so my philosophy is to always be planting seeds and watering them. But if you're wondering, well, okay, again, how do we do that? Then if we turn to our workbook, one of the things that I did with my operations, manager as we sat down and we made three lists. And you can do this in your own time. The first one is leads that inquired in the past, but never became clients. And we just started jotting them down. It helped that we had a sales pipeline in place 'cause then we could just like pull all of those contacts and we had like a list of 900 people. Like I was shocked. It was like 900, but over like six years, we had like 900 leads of people who were like, "Hey, how much for a brand identity?" Or I'd love to work with you. And then at some point the conversation dropped off. So that's the first list we did. The second list was we listed our dream clients, like the best of the best. And the third one was other potential referral partners. You know, other people that were sending work our way were like copywriters, photographers, Facebook ads strategists, SEO agencies who had worked with our clients. And hopefully your audience will love this 'cause I've included in the workbook, the email templates we use to reach out to these people. So for this first column, we sent out this magic email that was coined I think by Dean Jackson. It's the nine word email. And it's basically, "Hey, name of the client." Are you still interested in brand identity or website? And that's it. Joanna, my ops manager in my absence, she would send like 50 of those a day to our like list of 900. And at one point she had six sales calls a week booked. And I think from that, she was able to close like six clients. Like some of them, you know, they had inquired two years ago. But now they had moved on to another project. And also maybe with the timing of the pandemic, everyone was like reinventing themselves or starting new businesses. And so maybe that helped, I don't know. But I'm still fascinated by it. Like how can that simple email that all you have to do is copy paste and sent all pastly, it can still bring in work? The second email that we started sending is the dream client email. And that is something like, you know, thinking of you or loved working with you, that's what you would include in the subject. And hey, client, I was recently updating my portfolio and came across the work we did together. I wanted to thank you once more for trusting me with your project. It was, it was by far the most. And then you can insert, you know, what you felt was true about it. And it was an absolute pleasure to collaborate with you on it. I've been reflecting on my business plans for the future. And honestly, I would love more clients who are like, and then you insert the description of, you know, what would make sense there, like you. And so it got me wondering, you wouldn't happen to know just one person, someone who just like you would benefit from. And then you could say something like, tripling your website conversions, like we did for you. This sentence, I learned from Phil Jones and he breaks it down. And so why it works so well is that the first part of the sentence, you're challenging them. You're saying, well, you wouldn't happen to know which I think what, what it does in our brain is like, well, try me. Like, let me see if I can solve this one. Then you're saying just one person. So you're making the ask feel reasonable. And when you say someone just like you, you're flattering them because it's like, we want to work with someone just like you. Like if only we, all our clients were like you. And then you were reminding them of the benefit you gave them. And so we started sending that out to all our dream clients. And slowly, this took a little bit longer to get some sales calls in the door. But we slowly started to get more introductions and people sending work our way. The other interesting thing that we had happened as well was clients saying things like, oh, we thought you were like really busy. So we weren't sending people your way. It's amazing like what people assume, right? And so that reminds me that the relationship isn't over. When the project is over, it's actually just begun. And so it's really good practice to stay in touch with those really dreaming clients that you've had. Even if you're not working, not doing any work for them at the moment. And so some ideas for staying in touch is like, you could introduce them to someone you. I love doing that because you could be like, oh, I know that where I saw that you were looking for a copywriter, I actually know someone really great. Can I make an introduction? Or even like I saw that you're going on holiday to France. I have a really good friend there. I can make an introduction. Maybe they can send some recommendations. Because then what's going to happen is every time those people connect, they're going to have you in common. And that's going to help you stay top of mind, as well as you just added potentially a lot of value to their lives by bringing someone of quality into their lives. You could send them an article, a book recommendation, a podcast recommendation. You could comment on their social media. That's another way, just an easy way, just to stay top of mind. You could even share an idea that might help them improve their marketing or improve their business. Maybe you spend some time on this and see if anything comes up and then you just email the client and tell them what you think. Or schedule a virtual coffee date. Or if you can, now that things are opening back up, maybe check for opportunities to meet them life. That's what we always try and do with our past clients. The third one is connecting with potential referral partners. And I noticed that I did this very early on, sort of by accident. And so I called this the Big Fish Strategy. And I did this with Selena Sue. I don't know if you've heard of her. She's a publicity expert. And at the time, she had a lot of clients that were like, oh, if only I knew those people, she seems like she knows a lot. She might be a dream client to have or just a really good person to know because she's not at the level where she's unreachable, but she's at a level where she knows a lot of people. And so I joined her newsletter. And she and her welcome email, she invites you to reply. So I took that to start a conversation. And I always try and connect with people with no agenda, just to see if we get along or not. And even though part of me is like, well, I hope we can be friends. And I can see how we can bring value to each other's lives. I try and I don't pitch or anything. And so I started asking about the training she was doing, things like that, which got us into a deeper conversation. She asked, what's your business model? How much do you charge? I told her the fees, this is back in 2014. I charged $950 for full branding guideline book, $2,500 for website. I'm looking to work with women entrepreneurs. And she starts giving feedback of what she thinks. And then she starts talking about how she helped Marie Forleo and Daniela Port free of charge. No, no, this could go into a whole debate. You shouldn't do free work, but this is her experience. She did some work for them free of charge. And it majorly boosted her brand. And it was responsible for 100,000 worth of business. And so I thought, OK, well, that's a good idea. Let me suggest the same. So I was like, well, if you ever need anything, I would never charge you. And she ended up saying, well, there's a chance I might take you up on it. I have someone working on sales page for me, but I don't have super high expectations for the first draft. And so I ended up doing a sales page completely for free for her. I pulled an all-nighter. This was my first year of freelancing. And that helped deepen our relationship. She started spreading the word about me and what I did. But then what I think really helped then take this to a whole other level was that she posted on Facebook that she needed an assistant to help her set up an event. She was doing a two-year business anniversary party and a mastermind. And so I put up my hand up. And I was like, I would love to volunteer. And at the time I was living in London, this is an L.A., an end-paid internship for a week in-- no, not L.A., sorry, New York. And she was like, you're crazy. You're going to fly yourself over here and put yourself in a hotel. And I was like, yeah, because I think I could learn a lot from just being around you. And I will do whatever you say. And there is no task beneath me. I ended up doing things like picking up dry cleaning or going to the grocery store, things like that. But I was fine with it, because then what ended up happening is we were spending like a lot of time in her apartment. I was seeing a lot of the behind-the-scenes, and then in down times we were going for like lunches and she took me to the spa once for a massage as a thank you for like doing all the work. And by the end of the trip, she invited me to her to your business anniversary party as a guest instead of her assistant. So she's introducing me and you might or might not recognize some people in the in this photo, you know, like Jim Quick, he's the brain trainer of like Richard Branson and Will Smith and there's Louis House in the back and and they they became clients like after I met them at this party. And so I think that's like what I realized was a strategy is like connect with a big fish and then suddenly you might elevate your whole network, right? It's a good strategy. I like it. So you know whether you do work for free or reduced rate, that's up to you, but I thought like when I reflect back on it, I wonder if I didn't, if I hadn't like been up for volunteering and working for free for her, you know, I don't know, I don't know if I would have attended that party, met those people, you know, be been introduced to all those great people as like, well, this is Joanna, a really great graphic designer rather than like, this is my assistant. Can I break down that experience a little bit, a little bit more granularly for our audience? Yeah. So here's the thing, and I've recognized this about myself too. Maybe I'm a big fish, maybe I'm not, but people do volunteer to help me at all the time. And even with the amount of free work that they're willing to do, I often most of the time say no, your situation is really unique in that you solve person of influence. And you're like, you know what, I want to help this person. I will make it so difficult for them to say no, I'll fly myself out, I'll put myself in hotel. So you're taking on a lot of risk and expenses, flying out and doing this thing. But I think you recognized the opportunity for what it was, which was I get to learn as an apprentice. And this is how things were done way before jobs and job training and schools are even set up. You sit next to a master, you watch them work, you help them. I love your attitude. And you literally said to them, no tasks is beneath me. And you did all those things with a laquerity. A lot of people will be griping like, why am I doing the dry cleaning pickup? And your attitude is really what got you these opportunities that happen later on. Because if you don't go into this with the open heart and a willingness to do everything, the party probably would have not happened for you. Because people like us recognize that my gosh, this person is giving me so much. And you know, I wasn't going to share the secret, but I'm going to because there's a law of reciprocity. I feel so grateful for your help that I'm going to reciprocate. So I imagine for you, just that week long unpaid internship apprenticeship was valuable in itself. Yeah, like I would have paid for it. Yeah, well, you kind of literally did, in a way, with sweat equity, with your flight and your hotel, but the lesson that you learned, apparently is worth more than that, but you also got the invite to the party, which I thought was a pretty cool thing for her to do, not to introduce you as the assistant, but as a guest. Because you're in the room with some pretty heavy brokers of influence themselves. And so not led to all other kinds of opportunities. And I'm in a 100% alignment with this. Now, some people are going to listen to this and say, hey, are you advocating for free work? Yes. And no, when it's a big fish, when it's part of your strategic and personal development, and if you couldn't get that opportunity other way, that's the way to do it. If you're in a thriving business and you're not in that place anymore, when somebody's coming to you and asking you to do free work, without you thinking, this is really valuable for me, I would then say, no, turn that work down. Yeah. I think you also have to check in with your gut and see, like, well, is this person taking advantage of me? Are they asking me to work for free in exchange for exposure? Or, you know, does this make sense? And to me, it just, it just made total sense. And I was also in a place where I could afford that without hurting me too much. But so I was thinking, like, okay, well, how can people replicate this? How can people find their own big fish and, you know, start getting a pool of referrals coming their way through one person? And while, you know, this specific example that I gave, it was just, maybe I was in the right place at the right time or connected with her at the right time. There is another story that I would love to share, which is about Delia Monk. Now, Delia sent me that I didn't know her from anywhere, and she sends me this email. Hi, Joanna. I loved all the training tips you've been giving on Insta recently. She goes on to, like, ego boost me for a few paragraphs, like, love what you're creating at GIF Design Studios. I was recently writing a website for a web designer, analyze your website and feedback as part of my research process. Let's just say I was love at first click, et cetera. And then she transitions into an ask. But I was curious as to whether you collaborate with copywriters, or you might need some extra writing hands on deck at times. Then she goes into a pitch. I'm a qualified conversion copywriter writing personality copy with detailed attention to tone of voices my bag. I would love to offer you and your clients the same attentive process that I deliver my private clients. I am poised and professional enough to work directly with your clients, but also a team player who's happy to hang behind the scenes, making you look brilliant. You know, she's just giving me valuable information. She's telling me, well, if I work with you, I'm happy to be client-facing, or, you know, you can white label my works. This is all relevant information for me to see, like, does this align with even what we need for the agency? I have worked with many web developers and designers who have said some lovely things about me, spoiler alert. They love my wireframes. So I was like, oh, you provide copy and wireframes. That's like another plus. Then she gives a testimonial of someone who's speaking really highly of her and asks, so what do you think, Joanna? Need a hand on any projects you've got coming up? PS, if you fancy a 20-minute virtual coffee with no pressure to have a chat about how I might help you, you can book a slot here, or one of it me first, why is you can get an insight into my writing style and process by reading my three-step plan to writing websites here? Now, we've received a lot of pitch emails recently, and I do, I am curious, like, I do read them all, like, and I'm like, this is so bad. Like, you cleared it, just copy and pasted it and sent it to everyone. But this one, I remember, like, even Joanna and I were like, this is a really good email. Like, she wrote it really well. She's like, giving us all the things. And then the next step is a really easy yes, it's just like, well, let's just meet on Zoom for a 20-minute chat. And fast forward seven months, we've worked with Delia on three of our own internal website projects. We have hired her on a retainer for our newsletter. And we have referred her to, like, every single client since we've worked with her. And she, like, we were talking to Delia before this presentation. And she was like, Joanna, like, knowing you has amounted to 50,000 worth of business for me. And so, I guess, like, that's another way to create a relationship with a big fish, not to say that I'm a big fish, but seeing you that I was someone who could be a potential referral partner, right? Because I work with a lot of people who need copy, who need website copy. And she could see that our clients kind of aligned, like, and our clients have been loving working with her. And so, yeah, for anyone who's like, oh, I want to try that. Well, then you can go to the workbook. And we've created, we've, we've grabbed her email. Um, Delia and I, we turned it into a template that you can send and you can use. And this reminds me of the quote that you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And so, um, like, you might not have this luck with every big fish you connect with, but who knows? Maybe you connect with someone and you resonate with them. And then that person could bring in like $50,000 with business. Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous to your contracts, they said, what the **** are you talking about? You insane Hollywood ****. So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three months plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower about 40 gigabyte CDT. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lib Sin ads. Choose from hundreds of times. hot podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience and their favorite podcasts with Lib Synads. Go to Lib Synads.com that's L-I-B-S-Y-N, ads.com today. You love the host. You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lib Synads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience and their favorite podcasts with Lib Synads. Welcome back to our conversation. So in this case, Delia, you were the potential referral partner for her because she showed the proof and the pudding in that. She's like, I'm a really good copyrighted that can write copy that converts. And I love the little expressions and turning off phrases like it was love at first click instead of it was love at first sight. And so then, you know, she has a way with wordsmithing and crafting words and ideas and making you smile. And so you can see the structure quite clearly like what she's doing and it's a perfect way to set up the pitch and the ask and making the ask very, very small. And she also understands all the potential objections you might have and she incorporates that in a way that's fun. So it feels like, oh, you must be reading my mind and there's something about that. So it's very easy for you to see a situation where you would need this service or you would know someone who would need this exact service. And so when people who send me emails about email copywriting for us and if I don't read your email, guess what, I'm not hiring you. And so people do all kinds of interesting strategies and I do pay attention to them. The forgettable ones, I read two lines, I hit delete, but there's a couple where I actually save and just like, that's a freaking pretty good email. And so if it works on me, maybe it will work for other people. So that's fantastic. So you're saying look for people outside of your network that have common interests and alignment and complimentary skill sets. This is an important part because if she was another designer, this probably would not be so effective. But she provided something that designers need, copywriting and guess what, copywriters need designers, designers need web developers. And all of us probably need videographers and social media marketers and so you look for those complimentary relationships and it's a beautifully structured email. Thanks for sharing that Joanna. Yeah, of course. And thank you, Deelia, for letting us share as well because I just like when I read this, I was like, this is like a case study email completely, I loved it. But back to the framework. So the final thing in marketing is to communicate your credibility. And this is just to make sure that you are, you know, saying the right things, you know, in a way in her email, she communicated her credibility by giving, you know, client testimonials and showing her examples of her work. But you can do this in your website, in your social media. So it's just, it's part of like, I believe it's like one of the core things you need in one marketing. And then if we move on to the second pillar, to sell, because there's no point bringing in leads if you can't convert them into clients, the first thing we noticed that made a huge difference in us being able to scale the agency and to be able to remove myself is to package, package our services. Now, I don't know if you've, if you've read this book, Chris, built to sell? I've not. So in this book, it's, it's a fable that follows a design agency owner who's really frustrated with running the agency because like every day it's different. He's just stuck writing proposals and all the things and it's just all the pains that I think most freelancers and agency owners experience. And he hires a consultant who tells them, who tells him to package his services. And so it follows the journey of like, how he implements each step of the way. And this is a great book to read, even if you never ever intend to sell because it's all about how to like, systemize your business and optimize it for. And so what we did was we, we tried like a fun experiment. So we launched the website that was, we designed brand identities.com and it was, we doubled down on the package that we knew could work really well without me and could be really profitable. And so the whole website is really just selling this package. And it's saying everything that it includes that you would get and it's telling you like optional add-ons, little bit about us, the process and all the steps. It even is saying the pricing. Now we went back and forth and like, should we include the pricing or not? For my maternity leave specifically, I wanted to make sure that my team wasn't getting on calls where people hadn't seen the price because they're not experienced in sales. And so what we, I needed this to only be bringing in clients who were ready to buy. And then when they clicked to check out their packages, our packages they had basically the same information and more depth with some testimonials, with more FAQs, you know, a lot of our work and the next steps would be to book a call. What this did was it just, it meant that whoever went through this funnel already knew exactly what they were buying, how long it took, all the deliverables and how much it was. And so that's what we set up for it to be really easy for my team to be able to sell. The other key piece we needed in place was a process for the sale to happen and for it leads not to fall through the cracks. And so for that, we needed to implement a sales pipeline. And I would recommend everyone have one in place because we think we think like, oh, I'm not going to forget this lead that came in through the door today and asked about my work. I'm going to remember to follow up with them. But when you start to get a lot, like you probably are going to forget one or two. And had you followed up more diligently, you might have gotten on a call with them and you might have closed the sale. And so just like a quick overview and you can fill this in as well in the worksheet. The sales pipeline is basically just mapping out the stages of the sale so you've got the lead in. The lead can come in through, you know, a forum on your website or an introduction, then contact made. This is you reaching back out to them. And basically in a sales pipeline, you just move that name along like, oh, Bob introduced me to Sophie, I've contacted Sophie, Sophie's now in this column. And it's call booked. And I do suggest everybody jump on calls with people because I think you're much more likely to close a client if you talk to them on the phone, proposal sent, and then one or lost. This was one of the things that like I really geeked out on with my ops manager. We automated a lot of these things and we created templates. So she had templates for like all the emails for first contact, a template for if this email is if this person is introduced by a client, send this email, if this person comes in through the website, send this email, customize this line with whatever. And then we we used pipe drive to then sync with Calendly so that whenever a call was booked, it would automatically moved columns. We tried to like automate as much as as we could to save her as much time as possible because she was going to end up doing my job and hers. So, but some tools you can use to build a sales pipeline like you could literally just have names on Post-its and half the columns up in your wall and just keep moving the Post-its along. You could do it in Notion or Trello if you prefer or then if you want something more robust, there's pipe drive or active campaign. And then the final thing when it came to sales was, well, perform the sales call. And I'm not saying that you should put on a personality that you're not and perform, but just like a performer, like an actor would follow a script and would follow a flow. You might want to consider having a flow for your sales calls just to make sure you're in the driver's seat, you know what information you need by the end of the call. So you can, you know, lead the call in a way that it's not going to take too long. I feel like that's a mistake people make at the beginning is that they don't really know how to lead the sales call and direct the lead and so the the call can go on for two hours, and you're just there giving away strategy. And so I really loved what I learned from you, Chris, which was the why this, why now, and why me, or why us. And essentially because the leads were coming in through that funnel, that's really all she had to say. So why the new branded entity? Okay, cool, why now? And why do you think would be great fit? And they'd be like, oh, because I saw your PDF, and I loved it. And then really she was like, John, a sales call, they're 15 minutes long. Like, great, this is awesome. This is exactly what we want. So yeah, that's what we ended up doing for sales. That you've automated the process and help to that and filter out poor fits. And therefore, by the time they book the call with you, it can be 15 minutes either, yes or no, and you're done. And we get it, right? And if they can't articulate reasonable answers to those questions, then you're like, this is probably not the right time to move forward. The clients talk themselves out or into whatever it is that they want to do. But it's interesting because it works really well for that specific package. Now I'm back to taking calls with just like, especially if they're friends of our clients, then I don't want to funnel them into like, oh, well, you need this package because I want to be able to also land bigger projects. And so I'll have like a more, maybe I won't follow this flow exactly. But for my maternity leave, this is what we did. And it worked great. And even we're still getting like, even today, we got another lead from this funnel. And I just told my ops manager, 'cause I'm going away on holiday next week. I'm like, okay, well, you take the call. That's fine, I trust you. She read the PDF. So she knows how much it is. She knows, you know, she says she's ready. So you do it. And so it's been, yeah, really great to be able to like, get a lot of this off my plate. - Nice. - And so the final pillar is what we need to deliver. We need to deliver great work. But besides delivering great work, it's also about having a well oiled machine in the back, helping the delivery go smoothly, as well as creating a great client experience. And so the key three things we need for deliver is the first one, delight. Delight our clients with a great experience. Think about going beyond just deliding them with great design, 'cause unfortunately, like that's not all our clients care about. They care about like great communication as being able to keep deadlines, but also the small little things. Like we send them a postcard in the mail when they sign up to work with us. Or maybe like you jot down their birthdays and send them a birthday gift or send them a gift at Christmas. You know, think of ways that you can delight them throughout the experience. Or even just like, do what Delia does and put a lot of thought into email communication, 'cause that's one thing that I told Delia is like, every time I open one of your emails, it's like, I can't wait to read it and be taken on a journey. This is not just like, you know, oh, here's the deliverable and here's when I need feedback by. It's, yeah, they're just nice to read. Then the second thing is to document. Now we spent a lot of time doing this and setting this up in notion before I left from maternity leave as well was just documenting like every single step of that branded entity process. We created templates for the proposal. We created documents for like what happens after the proposal is sent. Well, this file, this folder is created in the drive and then this is done and then the client is sent the questionnaire and then this happens and this happens and we had SOPs for designers. We had SOPs for my ops manager in case, anything happened and they needed extra hands on deck or someone to substitute. We had all of that documented and ready for someone to take over and be able to just follow along. And the final thing and this is where like, if you've mastered all of these things and have them in place and you can use like the traffic light system like how am I feeling about, you know, how I'm packaging my service? Maybe you're feeling yellow and so you wanna focus on that first before thinking of removing yourself from the business. But we were feeling pretty green about it all, thankfully. And so the final thing is to just delegate and in delegating one, a great resource that I really highly recommend is the book Run Like Clockwork. Have you read this one, Chris? - No. - Design your business to run itself. It's written by Mike McCulloughitz and Adrian Dorison. She's not featured in this cover, but she co-wrote the book. And Mike McCulloughitz, he's the author of like, Profit First and other really great business books. And so the whole book is also about like, how to get your business to run without you. And so we read the book and we took a lot from them. We also like, ended up working with them, which was really fun because like, by the time they inquired, Adrian had had the kid at the same time as I did. We're both having our second one as all together. So we're just like, oh, yes. Like I'm excited to be working with your brand 'cause we implemented your philosophy. And this is what was what allowed me to take a maternity leave. And so a key framework that I'm gonna go into is they talk about it on their podcasts and I have their permission to share. And it's IPO. So this is what I went through with my ops manager. This is her on screen. And the idea is that when you delegate, you need to have these three things. I stands for information. So am I giving her all the information she needs to be able to execute what I need her to execute? Now, if this was something simple, like can you go to the shop and buy me some pens? Information could be, I wanna make sure that they're black. I like this type of pen or I like this brand specifically, but if there's not this brand, then I like this other brand. And you can only spend this much money per pen. This is like information when you delegate a task. In this case, because I was delegating the task of being the CEO for four months, it was a lot more information than that, but this gives you an idea. The second, the piece stands for permission. So are you giving this person the permissions necessary to be able to like fully delegate the tasks? So things like for the pens example, it could be like, if they don't have these two brands, I give you permission to pick whatever. Because the important thing is that I have pens that work and I don't wanna be bothered about it. Or permission could be like, here's the company card. You have permission to spend up to this much. In the case of my ops manager, I gave her permission to do any decision to make any decision for the company as if it was her own. At this point, we had been working together for five years and I really trust her. And I also gave her permission to call me, should she not be confident about the decision she's making? So essentially, that was the permission that I gave her. And the outcome, I told her, like, you have done your job right if we survive. Like, that's all we need to do. I don't care about profit. I don't care, you know, I just want us to survive in my absence. So that's the outcome. That's the desired outcome. But luckily, it not only survived. But, you know, like I shared the beginning, it thrived. So that is the big picture of all the things we put in place to be able to have my mater nearly. - So survival for you is just a break even. Just cover overhead and salaries, right? Don't piss off any clients. Don't alienate. Don't destroy and torture our reputation. Just to make sure that when I return, we're still alive. - Alive. - That's it. That's all we need to do. Break even is the mantra. And because you are such so good at defining basically all the key functions of your job and try to remove as much variable or variability in how you do what you do. I think Blair N says something like there's low variability in process equals low variability in outcome. And so if you want consistent, predictable positive outcomes, you really need to sit down and start to document and create processes and systems for everything that you do. And to automate as much as possible because you also acknowledge that what used to be done by two people is now going to be done by one person, right? And you want to simplify everything. So like the budget may not, like you don't need to do value-based pricing. It's a fixed fee. If you want us to do something that's going to cost this, low variability there. So you don't have to have someone be very savvy at sales and pricing the client and not the job. You just systematize the whole thing. You productize your entire service design business essentially. in Greg Hickman's kind of language, and you made it pretty easy. So now, from this, you kind of have your own clockwork formula. And just in case everybody's not paying attention, I know there was a lot of really helpful information to absorb. There are three components, and you use a iteration in all three. It's the marketing part, which is how you can maximize word of mouth referral, even for clients you don't have today. And you gave us very detailed tactical steps on the kinds of emails and the templates that you need to follow to do that. And you gave several examples. Then you talk about like when you have a lead, well, now you need to learn how to sell. And in one way that you can do this, one could argue this was also in the marketing part, but packaging up what you do. So it's very easy to understand, developing the process and then performing, meaning learning how to actually conduct yourself on the sales call. Yeah, you removed all the verabilities there as well by saying, how the person who's taking the call just asked three questions, be quiet, listen, or reflect, that's all you need to do. And the client will select themselves, meaning I want to work with you, or you're right, this was not the right time for me to move forward. No pitching, no convincing, no defending. It's a beautiful thing you've done. And last part is like once sold, the adventure just begins. And for a lot of people, we start to check out, because we want the client the exciting part. And then we start to let it fall apart. And this will ultimately hurt your long-term marketing and your ability to sell, or call upon existing client for referral for new business. So you said delight, document, and then delegate, which is a very hard thing for a lot of people. Yes. Now for you, you have a very natural barrier to your ability to do the work. You're busy being a mom. Yeah, you know, I'm thankful that I was forced to do that, because it really forced me to have to do this, because it's still uncomfortable. Right. I mean, delegating always has been. Yeah. But I had no choice. You have another human being who's dependent on you for their survival. And so that's going to take precedent over, I need to check an email, I need to do a social media post or something. Yeah. Now, you did say one thing, which I wanted to follow up with you on, but I didn't want to interrupt you, was maintain the relationships that you have, follow up with people. It's all the low cost, high touch stuff that you do, commenting on things, paying attention to what your client's needs are, if they have a new baby or they're going on a trip, if it's an anniversary, to genuinely wish them well. So were you doing some of that in the times in which you were either dealing with a baby or you had a minute to yourself, or did you just totally check out for four months? No, I was doing that a lot on the lead up to it. I see. And I was telling everybody. We checked out. I think I really checked out, you know, like it was the transition into motherhood. It was like being hit by a boss, it's like physically and mentally. I remember thinking, like, what happened to my brain? Am I going to be able to work again? Yeah. Because with the sleep deprivation and all the things the woman's body goes through, I really started questioning, like, oh my god, is the business going to have to run without me forever? I don't feel like going back into the office. And when I started to slowly, after four months, it was really hard. Like I wasn't half as sharp as I can be today. Did you have any guilt in the four months that you're away? Like, I need to get back in. Why am I doing this? I'm not being a good steward of my own business. Or are you like, you know what? They got it. No, I don't think I was feeling guilty. I was just feeling really grateful. I love that. I was also making sure that I was checking in with Joanna or Ops Manager and just being like, are you hanging in there? Is everything cool? And, you know, she could, she could have had the house on fire and she would have been like, yeah, yeah, no worries. Everything's going smoothly. She sounds like a keeper to me. No, she is. She is. And she knows that. Yeah. And it's, you know, I wish that there was a formula for that. Like, how do you find people like that? You just have to have patience and fire fast, higher slow, because it's worth waiting around for the right person, like Joanna. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's coincidence. Our name is Joanna as well. But it's one of these things that you're looking for a person who shares your work ethic, your drive, and your intelligence, and your values, and then everything else you train up. Yes. And we look at hiring people. That's what we look for. The things that are difficult or impossible to train. The skills, the technical, the how-tos, the, here's how I think. Here's, here's what I want to teach you. If they have an open, curious mind, and they have, yeah. Like a good state that they're in a positive state, an optimistic state, and they want to learn as a hungry, kind of like you, in the early days when you flew to New York just to work. If you find that kind of person, chances are they might work out for you long term. Yeah, yeah, definitely higher for the cultural fit or the values. Because Joanna didn't know, she didn't even know there were different development languages probably. You know, we had to teach her everything. But she had the right attitude and the right personality to be a good fit. So throughout this period in which I haven't talked to you in a couple of years, you've had a baby. Yes. You got another one the way you got one to have. And it's the same. How has business been for you? How are you tracking financially year to year in the last couple of years in which I haven't really talked to you? Oh, so like financially we're just keeping, we've increased our profits drastically. And we, one of the things that brought me huge peace of mind was that we got our savings to a point where if we stopped getting clients today, Chris, we could, I could pay my team for a whole other year. Wow. I know. I'm so proud. I thought so. But that's impressive. Very impressive. I remember back in 2017, I was spending so much on like, you know, maybe the year I met you in person, I was like flying myself everywhere to meet all these people. You were. And I was spending a lot and just like living almost like month to month. And then there was a month where a couple of things went wrong at the same time. And suddenly I didn't have money for salaries. And unfortunately, and this was something that took a couple of years for us to like get over. I had to fire three people on the same day. Yeah. And that was really tough. It's rough. They know I love them. And I helped them get other jobs and I sent referrals. But it was, yeah, and I was so embarrassed. I was like, I made the wrong decision. I need to never be in this place again. And so we really prioritized profit. But in terms of how we've been tracking ever since I've had the baby to me, what success looks like is for my team to be in a good place mentally. They also had, we also had a really rough year last year with a lot of very big personal things happening for each team member. It was like, what? What is happening? It's a disaster in everyone's personal life. And so we haven't really grown revenue. We've just grown profit and stayed steady. But it feels really good at this place in my life, you know. I love that. So that's going to be shocking for a lot of people to, to quite kind of get their hand wrapped around. Which is revenue has been even, but how does profitability go up? I'm going to suspect because you started to remove a lot of the variables out of this. You got your spending under control. And now you could just maintain and sustain a happy, healthy work culture where people don't have to grind. And it's not about the rat race. And you found a really nice stasis, right? Where everything has kind of been balanced. Yeah, like we have Friday afternoons off. We're trying to get the business to a place where no one's really feeling stressed. Because there were times where it was like, probably not great to work at Gift Design Studios. Because there are moments where everyone's like, wait, we have so many projects going out at the same time. So now we're charging a lot more for more than we used to per project, but taking on less. And so hopefully just like creating a nicer environment for everyone to be in. Maybe also selfishly because I want to be home at five to be with my son, you know, he's not going to be two. He's already two, like he's not going to be this young forever and is going to get to stage. You know, Chris, I don't know what it's like to have teenagers, but maybe they get to a point where they don't really care about hanging out with you, you know. So. It happens, it happens. We prepared. Well, so maybe that's when I'll focus on growing the business. Like when their teenagers all focus on like taking it to the next level, but right now it's like, no, we're good. We're cruising. Yeah, you're in the season in your life where it's about connection and bonding and lessons and together time and all that kind of stuff. But I have the philosophy that when you're in that season, when it's time for your children to do their own thing to become their own person. As much as you want to, it's actually unhealthy for you to hold on because it'll be this relationship where they won't know who they are. And like the way you set up your business, you want to set up the people that are response that you're responsible for in a way that they can go out and be their own thing. So the next time we'll see you will be in 14 years when your child is 16 year old and you have Chris, I have the three pillars of parenting. It's permission. It's performance and it's, you know, you know, it would be like that. And we'll go through that and those would be the lessons to learn. Well, I have one more question for you. before we get out of here, which is this. You said in 2017, you made a lot of different decisions that ultimately led you to like this financially tough wedge in that you had to let go of three people. People you care about, people that you like. And I just want you to now look back. How many years is this enough? Five years later, look back and tell your younger self, don't do this. Do this instead. Think about this. I want you to advise your younger self so that you don't hit that kind of roadblock. Yeah. Well, prioritize profit and build a cushion. And you will sleep better at night and make sure that your team is safe. But also, don't beat yourself up too much if things don't go your way because you know, that's what entrepreneurship is. We fall. We get back up and you are smart enough to figure it out and and overcome it and come on the other side better and stronger. That's what I would tell myself. Don't spend all your money on like coaches and consultants and and that Chinese next strategy that you think is going to get you to that next level. Just have a little more trust that you can get there on your own merit as well. So you knew what I wanted you to say because that's what I remember you doing. You're like caught into these like funnels of funnels and building more funnels for more people affiliate marketing and and doing packages and giveaways and all that kind of stuff, right? It's kind of a mess. Yeah, it can be. It's hard, right? Because there are then because then there are really great people, you know, like what you're doing with the future and it's like, well, but do spend money on Chris, you know, like do spend money on the future and do by their courses. It will help you. But don't spend your money on all the other, you know, it's like, where do you draw the line? Because they do. I do think that I wouldn't be where I am without having hired so many coaches and and and invested in courses. But, you know, you need to like, there has to be a line. And this is where we started to put budgets in place. Like, if we make this much, I'm allowed to spend this much on courses. Yeah. I mean, we're not saying education is bad. No, we're not saying coaches are bad or consultants are bad. It's a question of what is it you need right now? And are you immersing yourself into more courses and coaches to delay and avoid the thing that you need to do? And a lot of them do do a really good job of hyping up this kind of amazing lifestyle and selling you in a dream. I hope that in in the years in which I'm doing this up to this point and into the future, that don't become one of those people to hype you in easy, no skill required, no money down solution to achieving your dreams because I believe in the opposite. Yeah. It's going to be a lot of work. Yeah. sleepless nights, a couple of tears. You have to say goodbye to a few people that you really care about not in a life death situation, but you can no longer afford to keep them. It's going to be a grind and you're going to want to quit. And life is going to suck for a while. But stick to it. Because as my friend said, the easy way is the hard way and the hard way is the easy way. It takes hard work to get things that you don't have to do things other people have not done. Yeah. Joanna, thank you so much for doing this. And I have to also let people know that your Instagram post that you shared with me as a guest post is still one of the highest performing posts on my feet. It's because you put a ton of work and thought into it. And I'm not usually one to talk about quality over quantity because I'm a quantity person because I want to I want to learn and explore. But yours was a really high quality post and has resulted in thousands of followers for me. And that's why I never sent another one. I'm like there's no way I can ever beat that post. I'm doomed. You can. I know you can. You're capable. I believe in you. You're like I tasted the the the the joys of victory. I have the heavyweight belt around my thing. Yeah. And I just retired. Well, you know, I got 10,000 followers overnight and people don't still today. They don't believe that that was possible. It is possible. Um, but yeah, it was just a really good post. It is a freaking really good post. I talk about that post. I share it with people. I'm like, this is what it takes. Look at how much work. Like you put more work in one frame of one image. Then what people would do in the entire like 10 posts that they make. It's thoughtful with intentional strategic and it's well put together. It makes a great argument. I don't know how to end it, but let's end it right there. Joanna, thank you for doing this. Let's not wait a couple of years before we talk again. No, let's not. I think you were super generous. Very clear. And I just want to prompt people one more time. If you want the workbook, we'll include it in the show notes in the description below. If there's a description below, check that out. And we'll also include all the socials in case we need to where do people find out more about you, Joanna. Well, I would love it if people reach out to me on Instagram. I still hang out there daily and reply to every DM. That's Joanna Galvon design. I'll be somewhere below as well. I think that's the best place because all our websites are under construction at the moment. Grab the workbook. There's some other ways we can connect on there as well. Wonderful. Yes, it's spoken like a true designer creative. Everything is under construction. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Chris. I am Joanna Galvon and you are listening to the future. Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The future podcast is hosted by Christo and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode and thank you to Adam Sandborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reading and reviewing our show on Apple podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me. Head over to thefeature.com/HeyChris and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefeature.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. You love the host. 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