Hey, hey, bold leaders. Welcome to another episode of The Bold Money Revolution Podcast. I’m your host, Tara Newman. Today, I have a guest with me. I have Stacey Harris from Uncommonly More who is my ride or die, who is my business wife, who has been with me for a long time, and she is the producer of this podcast. Hey, Stacey.
Stacey Harris: Hi. I’m excited.
Tara Newman: We’re going to have a conversation about money. Before I even get started though, I want to talk about why Stacey’s here, why she’s going to be interviewing me on my show, and why the next few episodes that you’re going to hear come out are in this format as well because the other week, I had a client who messaged me about chronic illness and basically saying, “I feel really isolated. I’m looking around online and it’s like everybody’s got the adrenals of an Adonis, like someone who’s an olympic athlete and I can’t keep up. Everybody’s stuff looks really shiny, happy, and good. I know you’re really struggling with your health right now. How are you doing this? What does this look like for you?”
It made me post on my Instagram stories, just saying, “Hey, chronic illness sufferer over here,” and for the last three months, I’ve barely been able to get my head off a pillow. People have been like, “Wow, I don’t know how you’re doing it all. That makes me feel almost worse,” or whatever. But what I want everybody to understand is a couple of things. One, I have built this business to be in service to my health. From the very beginning, I was already burned out whereas most business owners burn themselves out in the process of starting and growing a business but I was already there. This was out of necessity, this business, which a lot of women are building businesses out of necessity, either chronic illness, either lack of child care or lack of affordability of child care, or that their current employer works in a way that is unhealthy and is making them sick, but there’s this feeling of necessity.
One of the things that I do, first of all, my entire business is built around being easy on my energy. The strategies we teach in The Bold Profit Academy are the most profitable, least overwhelming, least adrenalizing strategies because when they work—Stacey’s just sitting here nodding her head at me the whole time—when they work, a lot of the things that move your business forward are actually quiet activities that you can do while you’re not well, creating the habits to do them to make them easier, all that jazz, but also this for me, not having to hold an entire episode on my own right now is what I need for my energy, so I’ve reached out to either people on my team or clients and I’ve asked them, “Hey, I want to have some money conversations.” I actually think they’re going to be more reached if we do them in conversation, not just me talking. I think there’s a real benefit beyond the fact that it’s easy on my energy, that’s why we’re doing these episodes this way.
Stacey Harris: Also selfishly, I just really like to get on calls with you and have conversations like this because good stuff always comes out of it. That’s my reason.
Tara Newman: 100%. All right, I’m going to turn this over to Stacey, who’s going to kick us off with asking maybe a question or two and we’re just going to roll into it.
Stacey Harris: I want to start actually not talking about money because I think there’s a really good example of you building methodology and structure around protecting and repairing your energy, and that’s SLOW. I feel like if we can start not just this conversation but these batch of conversations that we’re going to have over the next few episodes by having you walk everybody through that SLOW method because I think that you getting to the idea of us doing these episodes this way was a product of that working, so before we go into it, let’s walk everybody through SLOW so that we can literally slow them down with us.
Tara Newman: Sure, sure. Listen, everybody wants to move real fast. Everybody wants things now, overnight, quick fixes, immediate success and a lot of that has to do with how we’re being conditioned, in life in general, but specifically, to look at business with this hyper, aggressive, growth and “more is always better” and “more-more-more” and “fast-fast-fast.” I hear a lot of people who are like, “Don’t tell me to slow down. This is my natural and normal speed.” I’m like, “No, you’re a human, not a machine. That’s not true.”
A couple years ago, when I had taken my first sabbatical in August, I was having a really hard time just letting go and taking that time off, being away from the business, and stepping back. I think a lot comes up for us around, “Am I still relevant if I’m not on social media? If I don’t have a social media post today, do I still exist?” Like if the tree falls in the woods, so much of our existence, our relevancy, and our worth has been tied to our work, then you become a business owner so then it becomes your business and it becomes your revenue. If you’re doing business online, it becomes your social presence, your platform, your whatever. You start to make that mean something about you as a human being.
As I was having a hard time really taking a break, I created a framework called SLOW to help people really get an understanding of what it means to slow down. It doesn’t mean stop. It’s about what they say, “Learn to rest, not quit.” The S stands for Step back and reflect, “What’s working? What’s not working? What feels hard right now? What do I need to stop doing?” or some really good reflection questions. A brain dump. You can do a brain dump, that’s a way of reflecting on the things that you have on your plate. For me this was about okay, my work over the last three months has been to acknowledge that I am ill and to acknowledge that I’m really sick. For those of you who might not know or might not follow me, I haven’t been really talking about this very much forward-facing, but at the end of the year, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. We tried to find some remedies for it. It seems to be a little resistant, which is called resistant Lyme, then I wound up COVID, and COVID and Lyme like to party hard together. I wound up with COVID long-haul symptoms and all of that has activated my Epstein-Barr.
It’s not easy for me to admit when I’m not able to do something. I don’t think it’s easy for anybody, so my work has really been around acknowledging and saying, “I’m sick. I need help.” It was interesting because the doctor said to me, she goes, “I’m not really sure how you are functioning.” This was just when I had Lyme. She said, “I’m not really sure how you’re functioning.” I said to her, “I didn’t realize I had a choice.” Slowing down, asking myself some good questions like, “What do I need now to navigate this season of my life? How do I want to utilize my team? How do I want to utilize the assets I’ve built in my business? What boundaries do I need?” That was the S part. L is Lower pressure and expectations. My word, this is the question for everyone. Every time I ask my clients this question, it’s intense. “What do you need to do to lower pressure and expectations?”
Stacey Harris: It’s my least favorite step in the SLOW method because I’m always like, “There’s nothing. I can’t give up anything.”
Tara Newman: It’s hard, it’s hard. I put a lot of pressure and expectations on myself around the quality of work I deliver, especially in the online space because the quality of a lot of people’s work isn’t great. I really want to hold myself and this company to a different standard. I think that quality learning experiences for women are lacking in a lot of different ways. I think it’s causing harm. I think inclusive learning experiences in the online space are really lacking. As somebody with ADHD, that has been a huge challenge for me, to find learning environments where I’m accepted and where I’m not shamed for maybe being at a different pace or learning differently or just even having a curriculum that I could use. I’ve really had to look at where I’ve put pressure on myself.
O is called Own the now. “What needs to be addressed right now?” For us, right now, how are we going to get some podcast episodes out there while taking some pressure off of me so I can navigate my health? Then W, What’s next? That’s all the noise and the chatter in your head that’s like, “Do this and do this. You should do this and you should do this.” Just park it. Park all those other thoughts and go, “I’m going to handle these after I’ve owned what’s happening right now.”
Stacey Harris: I love that. I think if at any point in any conversation on this show, people feel like, “I don’t know,” they should come back to this SLOW. Come back to listening to these last couple minutes because this is the thing, I mean yes, I’m on your team and we’ve worked together in that dynamic for a while for a long time but I’ve also worked with you for a long time. It’s the thing that I come back to, probably the most often. It’s like, “Cool, cool, cool. Pause. Slow down.” Now I can enter whatever conversation comes next with a better prepared nervous system and a more open mind.
Tara Newman: What’s interesting too is at the time that people are listening to this, this will be a little far ahead but we’re actually choosing to pause in the business right now. We’re choosing to close the doors to The Bold Profit Academy for a little while. We’re choosing to slow down the business so we can really survey the landscape of a very, very quickly evolving and changing business environment, especially if you use online tools to really come up with a strategy for how we want to be moving forward, what’s the most effective way for us to be moving forward in the business. It’s like you can use SLOW for you. You can use SLOW in the business, like to press pause and to really look at some of those questions.
Stacey Harris: Yeah. I love that. Let’s talk a little bit about what is happening, what changes you are seeing because there has been a shift in your conversation. Specifically, if anyone and everyone who listens to this follows you on Instagram, they may have noticed in the last several months a change in tone on Instagram stories and the things you’re talking about. Fill us in on why those shifts are relevant now, why are those shifts happening now. Because I know, yes, you’re navigating things from a health perspective but also there’s a larger bit that you’re seeing—and that’s one of the reasons I love you is because you see these things and tell me—but what are those things that you’re seeing? Why now is it important for us to be having these conversations of both slowing down and assessing what’s right in front of us?
Tara Newman: When I first started my business, I’ve been in the online space for 10 years. I had a blog and that’s really where I really cut my teeth in terms of learning some marketing strategies, learning social media, how to use it, and how to get more eyeballs on your work. I wasn’t even selling anything. I just wanted people to read my writing. To this day, I’m like, “Please, just read my writing.”
Stacey Harris: I was just going to say, “Don’t act like that’s in the past.”
Tara Newman: “Please, just sign up for my email list and read my writing.”
Stacey Harris: “I just want to talk to you.” I think what’s funny is we laugh and we act like it’s unique but I produce other podcasts too. Everyone feels this way. We all just want to be heard.
Tara Newman: I just want to be talking to people. I want people to talk back to me.
Stacey Harris: I need both sides of the conversation, guys. You have to return the message.
Tara Newman: This is my fundamental issue with social media, is it’s not really social to really condition people to be these lurkers.
Stacey Harris: Yeah. It’s all broadcast.
Tara Newman: I understand both sides, I really do, why people may or may not reach out and start a conversation or whatever. Ten years ago, I had this blog and wanted people to read it, and I started getting tired of just writing. I put a lot of time and attention into that blog, and met a lot of great people but it wasn’t paying me anything. Then I was like, “You know what, this is just feeling like it’s not worth it to me, so I want to monetize this in some way.” Everybody was monetizing their blog by having ads, which I did not want to do. It was always like the Christian mommy blogger who had ads for Assassin’s Creed. I’m like, “Okay, can we just, for a second, check in,” or like the recipe blogger who has a very specific gluten-free allergy this. It’s like Weight Watchers bars are being advertised on her blog and it just felt so incongruent to the values of the person.
I don’t want to shame anybody for making money that way. Listen, we all make money however we can make money. I know a lot of these women, who I’m still in contact with, have gone on to make money in lots of different ways but for me, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to do it that way. Then it was sponsored posts but women were getting paid pennies back then to write these sponsored posts. They weren’t even getting paid a lot of times. Sometimes, it was like a product or whatever. I’m like, “No, you can all f*ck off with that sh*t. Pay me.” I was like, “You know what, I’m an expert. I have skills that I’ve honed over the years. I’m just going to go and I’m going to sell my services.” That’s how I really found the online space. I’m curious, I’m really genuinely curious, if you’re listening to this, I would love to know, and you can find me @thetaranewman on Instagram, how did you find the online business space? How did you get here? I’m genuinely curious how that happened.
Stacey Harris: I love that because I also got here so long ago that I’m curious how people get here now.
Tara Newman: Right. I don’t use Facebook anymore, I haven’t been on Facebook in a year, but I was using Facebook back then, so I definitely remember probably seeing an ad, then you and I wound up in the same group, the free Facebook group. Since you’ve known me since 2014, you will know that I have been horrified at the practices of online business and internet marketing since 2014.
Stacey Harris: That was the foundation of our first call. Back then, my focus was almost completely on social media. It was, “How do we do this in a way that’s not gross?” I think that was the question you emailed me for our first call.
Tara Newman: Probably because I’m watching these charlatans start these free Facebook groups where they have very little business knowledge but they’re calling themselves business strategists or coaches. I have had many calls with them not because I wanted to work with them but because I wanted to know what they knew like, “Are you really a scam artist, the scam artist that I think you are or am I being judgmental?
Stacey Harris: You’re not being judgmental.
Tara Newman: I was not being judgmental. Because my background is in psychology, they would use psychologically manipulative tactics to sell their offers. Horribly, psychologically damaging and manipulative. I felt very much on the outside. I felt like I was one of very few people who were seeing this. It shut me down in my business for a pretty long time because I didn’t know how to say the things that needed to be said. Anybody’s watching Super Pumped? Are you watching Super Pumped?
Stacey Harris: I have not seen this yet.
Tara Newman: Super Pumped is the show about Uber, about Travis Kalanick. God help the world that kid was even born. The show has Kyle Chandler, who was the coach on Friday Night Lights, as the VC guy. He’s the adult in the room. A lot of my friends and colleagues at this point are getting tapped for these startup roles because somebody needs to be the adult. He’s the VC and he’s the adult in the room. Travis is just, I can’t with this guy. They go to Vegas where they’re going to have a party, a company thing, I don’t know what they call it these days. State of the union makes me sound very old, but it’s company-wide, and they’re setting it up, they’re like, “It’s going to be fine. We’ve had them sign documents saying that they’re not going to damage property and that they’re not going to sexually harass the women, and they’re not going to do all these things.” You already know.
They wind up having to pay $25 million in damages to the hotel because tech bro’s gone wild. But Travis is up on stage and he’s doing the man behind the curtain Wizard of Oz moment that they all do, like Adam Neumann from WeWork, it’s word salad, they’re not saying anything but everybody’s really hyped and pumped, “Super pumped,” and Kyle Chandler’s character is hanging his head, his head is in his hands as he’s realizing what he has tied himself to and what he’s gotten into. The look on his face just says it all. At this moment, I’m like, “I am with you, bro. I feel you. I see you. I am with you.” This is exactly how I have felt watching this online business shenanigans for the last eight years.
He gets home and his wife says, “How was it?” He says, “Wacko.” He’s watching a cult, he’s watching this play out, and he says something about Jonestown. This was my favorite line. It’s really dark and grim but she says to him, “What are you going to do?” He says, “I’m just going to make sure the Flavor Aid doesn’t meet the water.” He’s just going to make sure that they don’t start really drinking the Kool-Aid too much. I laughed because one, I have dark humor, but that is exactly how I have felt these last few years. I can’t believe I’m saying this where this is going to now get out in the public because these are the things I’ve only said behind the scenes.
Stacey Harris: I was going to say you and I have had this conversation quite a bit.
Tara Newman: I have sat back and I have watched women specifically, because let’s be honest, this is who everybody’s preying on because they’re entering entrepreneurship and a lot of women are coming into entrepreneurship desperate. They need to work. They need to figure something out. They need to figure out how to earn some income. By the way, they’re not really entering entrepreneurship. They’re entering self-employment. They’re trying to figure out how to earn income independent of an employer. That is different from being an entrepreneur. But we’ve really done a real good job at bastardizing this term. It’s cool to be an entrepreneur. There’s a whole YouTube video by Coffeezilla talking to a Dr. Hartman from the Copenhagen Business School around wantrepreneurs and how this entrepreneurial lifestyle that’s been promoted by either these tech bros, these startup people, the web celebs, it’s become about a personal identity.
You come online looking to earn income, independent of an employer, and you fall into this landscape where it’s now cool to be identified as an entrepreneur but you don’t have a ton of business acumen, and nor should you. You’re an expert at marketing, you’re a therapist, you are a healthcare professional of some sort, you have a traditional skill set of expertise, and how small business is done or run in making money, and trying to figure out how to earn this income independent of an employer is a real vulnerability for you. They get that. These marketers are savvy. They know that you don’t know how to put together a program or a package. They know that you need clients now. They know that you’re going to have a lot of sh*t around pricing. They know you’re going to have a lot of sh*t around communicating your value in a way that allows you to charge your premium price and they know you’re tired already, so they sell you this Rube Goldberg contraption of an online business model—wow, I’m really going there today.
Stacey Harris: I’m glad.
Tara Newman: They sell you this Rube Goldberg contraption of a business model and they tell you, “Don’t worry about increasing your confidence and figuring out how to charge a price that will create sustainability in your business. You just have to sell a $47 product or thing, put all of that knowledge that you’ve created, all your expertise into something for $47. But by the way, you’re going to have to sell it to 7,011 people to actually make a living every year and just run these Facebook ads and watch all the money. Just put links in an email and watch all the money. People are just going to click on these links. You don’t ever have to sell anything because we all know women are going to avoid self-promotion and selling. You don’t have to sell anything. You’re just going to click on the link, you send them enough links, they’re going to click on them, send them enough emails, they’re going to click on them. You don’t have to do any of the work on yourself to figure out how to run a strategically sustainable business that allows you to pay yourself like the expert you are, like the salary you would be making in a nine to five, then use that to generate some actual substance and wealth for yourself and your family.”
I watched, for the last eight years, as women have gotten hammered for not having business acumen to the point where they’re overspent, they don’t have a lot of self-trust left, they’re stuck in inertia, and can’t make decisions. They’re beyond exhausted. 61% of women small business owners surveyed in a Gallup poll said that they experienced daily stress and worry, 75% of women are kept up at night with financial concerns. That’s just two data points. I’ve got tons. This has to end. It’s not about to get any easier because now what we’re seeing is these things that we’re pretty sure weren’t going to work are really not working. Sure, if you made money online in the last 10 years, congratulations. You know how to make money in a time of peace and prosperity where you basically just have to spit and make money, but that’s about to shift because our economy is shifting.
We’re seeing the post-COVID landscape, we have put out a lot of stimulus, which means the government has printed money that it does not have in large quantities. Inflation. Part of the reason why we have inflation. Another part of the reason why we have inflation is supply chain issues from being post-COVID. How do you handle inflation? The government raises interest rates. What happens when you raise interest rates? People stop spending. What happens when people stop spending? You run the risk of losing your growth in the economy. What happens when the economy doesn’t grow for two quarters? You get a recession. Economics 101 that small business owners need to understand that nobody is teaching them because the online space is going to fiddle while Rome f*ck*ng burns. I’m watching the web celebs change their business models and not say why. They’re going to change their business model but they’re going to continue to teach you the old business model. Watch. Pay attention.
Stacey Harris: I’m just going to interrupt you because you actually don’t have to watch and wait for this to happen. If you want to see what this looks like—I’m just going to jump in and get a little nerdy here—go look at any of your favorite web celebrities’ Facebook pages from 2015 and look at how they were talking about things, and look at how they’re talking about things now. Because even if you just take the last 10 years as a sample, the first five years, you had to operate differently in the online space than you had to in the second five years because we saw Facebook make changes, we saw Instagram come to be. In the last two or three years, we’ve seen TikTok come to be. You see them making these changes while selling the past expertise, we’ll call it, the experience. We’ve seen this happen so we don’t even have to wait 10 years. We can look at the evidence of the behavior so far and go, “Oh, I don’t want to participate in that.”
Tara Newman: Yeah. You got that. By the way, I actually think about what’s about to happen in the economy—I’m not going to speculate—listen, I think we’re pretty much about to hit a recession. I’d be really happy if I’m wrong. I think it’s going to be okay. I’ve been talking about this on Instagram saying, “It’s not the actual event that causes the problem, it’s the panic and fear that people operate once it’s happening.” My entire goal for small business owners is to give you the knowledge and the information to keep you calm, so you can be sure at the end of that.
Stacey Harris: You’re like driving on an icy road or you talked about it on Instagram as turbulence. The reaction to the thing is going to be worse than the thing.
Tara Newman: It’s going to be like turbulence. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. You might need a barf bag but the plane’s going to land safely. Not only is the plane going to land safely but for those of you who stay in it and engage in the right conversations, engage in the right critical thinking, and engage in the right strategic thinking, you’re going to come out of this with growth because most people won’t. They’re going to continue to buy the programs from the web celebs. They’re going to continue to buy the wrong thing.
Stacey Harris: I want us to shift into talking about some of those right things because one of the things that I really love that we have built is The Bold Profit Academy in the way that you’ve built it and the way that you’re moving through curriculum, and building habits that support, then we go and we do it again, and we go and we refine, and we refine and we refine. I want to talk a little bit about why that’s so important because you’ve really built something where you’re teaching people to be engaged in the conversations they need to be with their audience to see the results overall long term.
Can we talk a little bit about why that refinement and why that foundation piece is going to be so helpful as we talk about the turbulence? Because I think for me, I think about the steady thing I can grab onto when it’s going to be shaky in the room.
Tara Newman: The Bold Profit Academy is built agnostic of technology. I’ve said on this podcast, I have an entire episode of why I don’t run an online business. I talk about how I think about social media. People ask me all the time what marketing strategy and social media strategy I teach. I teach business growth strategies agnostic of technology. That means we’re giving you a system, we’re giving you processes, we’re giving you frameworks, then you can use whatever technology you want, whatever technology is available to you.
For example, I don’t understand this concept of online business. It’s business. Same practices, offline, online, brick and mortar, whatever, same processes, same systems, same goal, same jobs that need to be done. What’s going to happen, do I then all of a sudden own a metaverse business? What if Elon gets us all to Mars, is this now an intergalactic business? It doesn’t make any sense.
Stacey Harris: Can I start calling mine an intergalactic business now? I just really like the name.
Tara Newman: Be on trend. Be before the trends. Set the trend.
Stacey Harris: We are now accepting clients on Mars. We are intergalactic.
Tara Newman: I think that’s where so many people, especially women who don’t have a lot of confidence in their tech skills, get really messed. They come online as an expert and all of a sudden, they’re like, “I don’t know anything.” That is wholeheartedly untrue.
Stacey Harris: Hold on. You have to say that again. I need them to hear it again.
Tara Newman: It is wholeheartedly untrue.
Stacey Harris: Thank you.
Tara Newman: What we teach in The Bold Profit Academy, like I said, is agnostic of technology. It will work in any situation. But beyond that, it’s live. We’re teaching live. We’re supporting people live. I am supporting people live. I am in there teaching because I know that’s different from a lot of programs as well that you sometimes, at this point, don’t get the person.
Stacey Harris: Not just that but these aren’t like recordings from a training you did five years ago and have repurposed into a new program.
Tara Newman: Right. Because people complain, I’ve heard so many women say to me that it’s such a steep learning curve when it comes to business for them, and that’s true. My learning on business started way back when I was younger. My dad owns a business and I remember him trying to figure out how to get through a recession with the business that he had, which was not recession proof. It was an art business. Everywhere, in a recession, people are like, “I’m not touching art. Art isn’t a thing for me right now.”
What he had to do in order to really stabilize his business during these ups and downs in the economy, which historically were happening a lot more back then than they are happening now, we’re having much longer stretches of prosperity than we maybe have had in the past, so really understanding, talking through, and building those critical thinking skills, teaching women how to ask the right questions, how to think about their business, how to see what they have will already work for them, the blind spots, the biggest blind spot that women are having is this belief that leads only count if they fall out of the sky. Leads only count if they’re random through a hashtag or a Facebook ad and that they don’t count if they’re through referral or building a relationship. I cannot think of anything that is more factually incorrect at all.
Stacey Harris: Oh, by the way, I’ve had clients over the years that I’ve gotten through ads and I’ve gotten through fall out of the sky mojo. I’ve had clients who have gotten out of referrals and have gotten out of relationships. Do you want to know who my favorite clients are and the clients who last the longest are? They’re the ones who are referrals and relationships.
Tara Newman: You and I are a great example of this. I’ve been working with you on and off, mostly on, so on and off since 2015, continuous since 2018 when my business finally had the revenue to hire you on a retainer basis, but prior to that, it was more on and off. We’re not seeing this today in the online space. We’re not seeing this level of customer loyalty, which is standard and customary in small businesses. A lot of what’s being done in the online space is actually breaking the way small tiny businesses, main street businesses operate, which in my opinion is really harmful in general.
Stacey Harris: Yeah, I agree. It’s interesting. I was talking about this with somebody the other day and I said one of my biggest flex is that I have clients that I’ve had for nine years. I don’t know people who have that.
Tara Newman: Someone asked me, I just enrolled somebody in some one-on-one work, they’re like, “Well, what happens after the six months?” I’m like, “Well, the people just work with me for five years after that, at least.”
Stacey Harris: Because you evolved with them and you worked together.
Tara Newman: But that’s not good enough in the online space. That’s not flashy enough. That’s not snazzy enough to say that. It has to be that you had an x-figure launch, that you have a gazillion people in your program, that you have a social media following of however many tens of thousands of people, or you’re not seen as successful or significant or whatever and it’s all just stopping you from getting paid, which was the original intent of why you started the business.
Stacey Harris: And which is why we start people so frequently with the Revenue Goal Calculator like, “How much money do you need to make? How much money are you making? Let’s get some numbers in here so that we can decide on that next best step.” I love that.
I want to wrap us up because we’ve gone for a bit now talking about why now, what’s happening, and why The Bold Profit Academy was built the way it was. Is there anything you want to leave people with as we start this next stretch of episodes and as we wrap up our conversation today about what that next thing is for them to check in on if this episode brought up some stuff for them?
Tara Newman: We really need to figure out—well, I figured it out. You all need to figure it out or you can just have me help you figure it out—how to really make sure that your business is bringing in the income that you need so you can get that working for you in other ways. The biggest lie—god, there are so many of them—in the online space is one, it’s always earned income.
Where are the other strategies to help business owners get their money working for them? The only thing ever preached is earned income. Meanwhile, there are lots of other ways to generate cash other than earning your income. If you just were like, “Tara, that doesn’t make any sense to me,” stay tuned and join a workshop when we have them. This is what I’m teaching and preaching these days. Come find me over on Instagram.
Really making sure that their business is helping them obtain financial independence. You can have millions of dollars in net worth and not require a million dollar business. You can generate income without it being earned income. These are the things that we need to be starting with, we need to be zooming out, forget “Where’s my next client coming from?” forget “How do I find a client today?” But like, “Why do you need that client? Is your business model positioned in a way to bring you the most amount of money for the least amount of work?” Because it takes just as much energy to sell something for $297 as it does to sell something for $10,000. It takes you more energy.
Stacey Harris: I’d actually argue that it takes a little more effort and energy to sell for $297.
Tara Newman: It does.
Stacey Harris: As somebody who had a membership that costs $25 per month and now sells production services for, let’s just say definitely not $25 per month, it’s a whole heck of a lot easier to sell this.
Tara Newman: More space, more freedom, and more money.
Stacey Harris: I also work with way cooler people.
Tara Newman: That too.
Stacey Harris: We’re saying the things in this episode. I’m just saying the things with you.
Tara Newman: It’s true, it’s true. Listen, the online business teaches you to sell to a level of market maturity that most experts should not be selling to. The internet marketing model, the web celebs, they’re all about, “How do I sell to entry-level people? How do I solve entry-level problems?” whatever, because that is where they can get the most volume from because they are running businesses that require a level of volume that would make me want to vomit.
Stacey Harris: Also for their tactics to work, they need a naive audience.
Tara Newman: Why are we accepting 1% to 2% conversion? But for people who have true expertise, who have earned good money in a nine-to-five job, for people who have honed their craft over years, for people who deliver true value and results to their clients, and solve an urgent problem that they have, that’s not who most of us are selling to. We’re selling to a more mature market. My people saw I’m watching somebody launch and she’s sending three to five emails a day. Stacey’s face, that was my face when I opened my email with [inaudible] in there.
Stacey Harris: That makes me want to like, “Oogh.”
Tara Newman: My folks would not function if I sent them three to five emails a day. If I’m promoting something more heavily, you will receive one email from me a day because my level of the level of person I’m selling to in the market is just more mature.
Stacey Harris: Yeah. They’re not checking their emails three times a day to get those three separate emails.
Tara Newman: They don’t need all these crazy bonuses that they’re never going to use. No.
Stacey Harris: You talked about earlier that more is more mentality. I think you reach a level of maturity where you’re like, “I don’t actually want the special towel that comes with the Ginsu knives. I actually just want a knife that functions.”
Tara Newman: I just actually want to get the job done that needs to be done.
Stacey Harris: Yeah, I just want to solve the actual problem. I don’t need ruffles.
Tara Newman: It’s a distraction.
Stacey Harris: Yeah, absolutely.
Tara Newman: We want to be selling to the people who are not being served in this space. The people who are not being served in this space are further along, who know what they want, who have money, who can make a decision, who will have a conversation and not lurk.
Stacey Harris: Absolutely.
Tara Newman: Okay, Stacey, what was one insight that you had from what I said?
Stacey Harris: I think for me, the value in understanding that you do have expertise and that just because the small business space isn’t your expertise does not mean you need to go run down the gauntlet of, “Teach me how to build this email list with this tool and let me buy this other shiny thing.” But it does mean you need to go in and learn the habits of putting your expertise into a process, putting your expertise into a deliverable. You need to learn to do those things. That’s different from building a package in a program and learning how to sell your course to 800,000 people.
Tara Newman: Yes. Things are rapidly changing. Big tech is having a big impact on people doing business in the online space. We are seeing that our economy is about to shift, at best, get wobbly, but I think that there is a lot of opportunities that are going to be here for folks who are willing to commit time, effort, energy, money to invest in themselves and their business, to move through that economy.
Here’s what I want to leave you with. Here’s what I need you to think about. I need you to think about not getting clients today, but do you still want to be earning income, independent of an employer three years from now?
If that’s yes, it’s time to go in. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, if you’ve been feeling indecisive, if you’ve been feeling unsure or not trustworthy, trustful of yourself or like, “Is this really going to be worth it?” you need to take action. It doesn’t have to be joining The Bold Profit Academy. I would love to have you if you’re a great fit but it could be any way of investing in moving yourself forward. Inertia is not an option now.
If the answer to that question was, “No, it’s too hard. I think I’m going to go back and get a job,” that’s awesome. Please go and do that, then unfollow people. Stop listening to business building podcasts. Give yourself a break, get out of the noise, and go have a life. Go have a life. I think that you have to decide, if you’ve been having a hard time making sales in a good economy, are you willing to do what it takes to make sales, knowing that it’s not a good economy? If you were struggling to show up every day now in a good economy, are you capable? Are you equipped? When I say equipped, I mean having a therapist, having a support team, having systems in your business that help you do that when you’re not 100%. I’m not 100% ever. I get that.
Stacey Harris: Nobody is.
Tara Newman: Nobody is. But I think it’s really time that you decide if today is the day, time to stop telling yourself you’re one funnel away, do the work. It’s time for those of you to assess your level of seriousness. You might be listening to me and you might be like, “Yeah, she’s right. Amazing. I’m serious. I’m doing these things.” A virtual fist bump to you.
Stacey Harris: Come join us in The Bold Profit Academy.
Tara Newman: I don’t even care if they join me in The Bold Profit Academy but a virtual fist bump to them for being serious, for digging in, and for doing the things. If you’re listening to me and you’re like, “This is terrifying. I want no part of it. I’m out,” then get out. That’s really where I’m leaving this.
Stacey Harris: Honestly, virtual fist bumps to you if you want out, too. Go take advantage of incredible opportunities to get paid as an expert.
Tara Newman: 100%. When our second business failed, John went back and worked for somebody else, and we rebuilt financially. That’s what allowed us to come back. He’s running a business. I’m running a business now. It’s what allowed us to really grow and succeed. There’s absolutely nothing wrong if you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do this.”
Stacey Harris: I think that opting out is so often, especially in the online space, looked at as failure and like, “No, this wasn’t the job for you. Go find a different one.”
Tara Newman: If you are listening to this—now I’m going to invite you to The Bold Profit Academy—if you are listening to this and you’re like, “She makes sense. I’m serious. I’m an expert. I want to be here in three years. I’d really like to get some systems, processes, and strategies under my belt that will be easy on my energy and my wallet,” then I want you to join us in The Bold Profit Academy.
