Hey Reader,

We were interviewed for 2 podcasts this week. And it was such a fun experience being on the other side of the "table", since we're putting a lot of thought into being a good podcast interviewer right now.

When was the last time you put yourself in the "customer" side of your offer?

This Week's Needle Mover

You've worked with dozens, possibly even hundreds, of clients. At this point you have a clear idea of what's need to actually drive results for clients. You've probably even built a signature offer tailor made to solve a specific problem.

And then you get the question, what if we just did this one part, how much would that cost?

This is exactly where the airline analogy comes in. Almost everyone has gone on an airplane flight, they know how absurd it would be to just buy the wheels, but not the wings - because they understand how each part plays a vital role in getting to their destination.

During your sales process, it's you job to understand your perspective clients desired "destination" so that you can clearly explain for them how the parts of your offer work together to get them where they want to go (transformation &/or ROI).

What this could look like:

• Wedding photos: if you have a signature style of portraits that require 30 mins at sunset, help them understand why you require a time block on their day of schedule
• Complicated process: we had a client make an F1 graphic as an analogy to walk through all the steps (in order) and why none of them could be skipped or rushed
• Wants to skip an onboarding fee/strategy: create a (reusable) visual example of what the deliverables would look like with and without a strategy, bonus if you have stats/metrics to go with it
• Marketing packages: use a funnel to demonstrate the role each part of your package plays to drive towards the ROI for your package (sales, sign-ups, followers, etc)

The goals with a good analogy is to help people understand in a minute or less why all the parts are necessary, so you can move the conversation on to start dates, or brainstorming as quickly as possible.

The Messy Middle

Over the weekend Jo told me, "it's cool seeing you in your element".

What felt weird is it had literally nothing to do with what we do for work. As a couple that works together, more often than not it feels like we eat, sleep, and breath our business. In case you missed it we're building a community from the ground up with some pretty big dreams right now...

This is how I described my weekend to one of my friends:

And yet, I'd do it again 🤔

The university Jo & I went to puts on an Easter Passion Play that's a walking play between scenes telling the story of the life death and resurrection of Jesus in ~90 minutes. Throughout high school & college I was heavily involved in the lighting & effects side (and even scene director one year) of the resurrection scene... and then the play didn't happen for a decade.

When they brought it back this year, they asked most of the OG team to come back and help because we remembered how it worked. We spent last week in Michigan where I helped set up every evening after work, and then a rather long Saturday.

It's easy sometimes to try making our businesses cover all our interests. But then I'm reminded that there's opportunities to volunteer, go to meet ups, and have hobbies that honestly have nothing to do with your business.

Just because we, as entrepreneurs, can make our job our whole life, doesn't mean we should.

I LOVE what we're building, right now. And yet, we're also putting time into other interests this year for what feels like the first time in a long time, and it's rewarding.

Also this was like the 3rd time in under a month that someone in-person asked for a business card... clearly it's a sign that I need to order some.

This Week on the Podcast

We as a society are in an era where trust is harder than ever to build. Literally any AI tool can write a "how to..." piece of content that it feels like like the same as everyone else's content.

How do you break through the noise, connect with your ideal clients, and show your expertise?

That's where your brand story comes in. This week we interviewed Larissa of Sun Scribe Creative about her cinematic story telling framework, and how to apply it.

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Finding Your "Page 86" & Saf... Apr 7 · The Sustainable Creator 58:55   ​

​Listen on Apple Podcasts / Listen on Spotify / Watch on YouTube​

Prefer the blog version? Here's a peek:

Hitting "publish" on a deeply personal story can feel absolutely terrifying.

We talk with so many clients who understand that there is immense power in sharing personal stories to build connection with their community. But the reality is, the moment they sit down to actually write it, their nervous system goes straight into fight or flight. It feels incredibly vulnerable, and it's so easy to get stuck.

Storytelling is a buzzword that has definitely gone through peaks and valleys. Some people love it, and some have grown to hate it because it feels like everyone is constantly talking about it. But at the end of the day, it remains one of the most vital components of building a sustainable business.

To help us navigate how to share these stories strategically, without the vulnerability hangover, we brought Larissa Riley onto the podcast. Larissa is a messaging strategist and brand story architect who spent 17 years as a copywriter in corporate marketing. She shared some incredible frameworks for identifying exactly what stories to tell, and more importantly, how to share them safely without feeling overexposed.

Why Solopreneurs Have the Storytelling Advantage

When we think about building a brand...

Overheard in The Breakroom

One of our favorite things is seeing the experiments (and results) that people share inside of The Breakroom - with IG traffic "feeling different" recently we've had a few members experimenting with cross posting, and trying new marketing methods on other platforms.

Resource of the Week

In our interview with Larissa we touched on how Alix Earle is using her personal brand story of her journey with acne as the thing that connects with people as she's been launching Reale Actives over the last few weeks.

Alix posted on her YouTube a interview/vlog of the 2 year process she went through building Reale Actives:

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Do you have a specific idea from our list of 80 ideas you'd like broken down in next weeks email?

Lyndon