Show Notes
60% of small businesses lose money from missed calls! Janelle Sykora reveals AI solutions to turn lost opportunities into profits
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Hello, all you wonderful people out there, and welcome to tonight's episode of Pivotal Change. We've got a wonderful familiar face with us. We have Janelle Saikora of Kajabra, and we're going to be having a pretty interesting conversation about things that you're missing out on. So, Janelle, welcome back to the show where we're all about leadership and helping people find that pivotal change to success.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Thanks, Ryan. I'm excited to be here. I always love these. Love doing this with you. It's fun.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: It's very fun. And I love your genius and what you do to help businesses all around the country. So you know me, I'm a jump right into it kind of guy. So what I want to do is start off with our first question about what do certain things cost us? And in the taste conversation, you've had some really frequent dealings with some of your client base about what ultimately happens to be the cost of missing a call. So tell us a little bit about what is the cost of a missed call.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting because I work with hundreds of small businesses and have worked with hundreds and hundreds of small businesses over my, my years, and it's crazy to think about how much one missed call can cost you. But think about it this way.
Most small businesses will miss 60% of the calls. That's a lot. A lot of calls missed. Now, let me throw out a few other statistics that are a little shocking. One, the Second one is 67% of customers hang up if they don't get immediate assistance when they're calling. All right? So think about how many times you have gone through a phone tree and you just get frustrated and you're like, I'm done with this. But here's the thing. 85% of missed calls never call back. Because we live in this world of immediate gratification. We also live in a highly competitive world, right? So if you own a yoga studio, think how many yoga studios there are out there.
Accountants, bookkeepers, you name it. The competition is fierce. So what happens is if I pick up the phone and I call a yoga studio to see if they have an opening tonight and I can't get through to a person, I am not going to leave a voicemail, as most people won't. And I'll just look at the next one that's got decent Google reviews in there. They're close by. So the cost of a missed call can be very, very high.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah, those statistics are pretty shocking to me. You know, me being a numbers guy, Accountant advisor. I just think, let's just say we have a thousand phone calls a year, which that is a drastically small number for most businesses out there. And I'm missing 600 of those calls. And out of that, 85% of those, 60% of those 600 calls are not even going to try calling me back. That's a lot of money left on the table. A lot of opportunity left on the table.
Amplify that times 10, 10,000 calls a year.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: A lot. It could be hundreds of thousands. I was speaking with a bookkeeper yesterday who owns their own bookkeeping firm and I said, you know what if your average monthly fee is say 450amonth, that total, the annual value of that client would be $5,400. That's one missed call. What if you missed 10, what if you missed 30? That's a lot. So the, the cost of a missed call a lot of times I also call that kind of the leaky bucket in a business where they're missing opportunity that's literally right in front of their face.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: How much do you believe is to blame on the instant gratification? I need some type of feedback or information now versus the older style where, hey, we all expected to have landlines and leave voicemails and you're at an accounting firm and it's tax season, so I totally expect them to be busy and they'll get back to me versus one click solutions online. I don't want a phone tree. I want at least an AI assistant or a real person that I can talk to and go, go, go. Is there an increasing speed of demand just to do technology in the generations coming up?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: 100. That's it. That is it. It is that we live in that world of immediate gratification. You know, I don't have to wait to get Kleenex anymore. I can literally go to Amazon and I've got it at my door in two hours, right? Or the next day. Worst case, we don't have to wait for any.
If we're going to pick up the phone, why should we want to wait for someone to answer on the, on the other line? And I don't want to leave a voicemail. Nobody wants to leave a voicemail now. Interestingly, I had a conversation with a business owner the other day who said, well, but if I'm really interested in a service, I'm going to leave a voicemail and hope they call me back. And I said, well, you're in the minority. Most won't. We're in too competitive. Of a world.
And so that leaky bucket happens in a couple of places, right? Not only missed calls, but think about how many people also visit your website and they don't do something, right? So how can you combat that? You know, what are the solutions? So there are a couple of solutions for that. So for the calls specifically, you could use some technology that captures that caller's phone number and instantly text them back. Something like, hey, I'm on another line with a client right now. What can I help you with? And you know, AI is good enough that it can be trained to lead that person through a conversation. And how the time you don't even know you're talking to AI, that's scary, but it's also true.
But that that AI can at least allow you to pick up that person's the phone number and call them back and text them at the same time. Then you just call them back as soon as you're, you know, you're able to. Another piece of technology that's gotten like, it's blowing up this year. You're going to, if you haven't seen it yet, you're going to a lot of small businesses that have maybe one employee, two employees, they simply can't pick up the phone every time it rings.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: It's just not possible.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Right, so what do they do now? You can actually hire an AI receptionist that has a human voice and that can be very easily trained to lead that person through a conversation, answer questions, book appointments on a calendar, transfer them to somebody else. It's crazy. This is something that we've been working with a few of our clients on and it definitely helps, especially think about, like, if you're a real estate agent or you're just a solopreneur, or you've got a couple of people in your company, a landscape or whatever. Having an AI receptionist is game changer.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: I think that's fantastic. And for anybody in the audience that hasn't seen what these things can do yet, it's incredibly impressive. I've watched one, an entire demonstration video, and then I watched another one where it was a video of a guy being captured as the caller and not realizing he is talking to an AI until halfway through the conversation. And you got to think you might. This one was a guy just texting at night, just scrolling through, looking for services because he couldn't sleep. Typical TikTok, scrolling whatever clicks on a service and types in a message in his phone number saying, you know, I want to inquire. And the AI calls him and has the conversation with him tells him a little bit more about the services and books an actual calendar meeting at 1:30 in the morning. Instant gratification. The guy that's doom scrolling on social media can get your services as well. And then you mentioned some of these other people. Like what if you're a landscaping company and after 7, 7:30am you're out at the yards doing business. You have to either pay a full time human to sit at a desk in reception or you can have an AI assistant do it for you. And, and I think that's a really solid point that you're mentioning about how trainable software is. So can you tell me people are going to say yeah, but AI so expensive and it's so new. But I'm telling you what is the cost of just one premium client? Can AI offset that cost and more than pay them themselves? How scary is that for the person not wanting to spend that much money?
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Exactly. You're a natural salesperson. Right? No, seriously, if, if you were selling AI, that's the question or you know, an AI receptionist, that's the question you ask is how much is a lifetime value of a client? Not just an annual value but a lifetime value. Well balance that one client times however many missed phone calls you're having. That's a lot of money that's slipping through the cracks and going right into your competition's bucket. And versus the cost of having an A receptionist which is really inexpensive. Usually you're going to look at it anywhere. Roughly 397amonth for something that's well, well trained.
We have the technology in our company where we can create custom demos for any business type that you can imagine and train that demo on the, the prospect's business within minutes. It's crazy. So with that then you're able to. It's almost like you've got another real employee. But you're paying what 300 bucks a month versus however many thousands a year for this employee.
So that's, you know, and that's, that's really important because all of a sudden you're never going to miss another call. Now you don't have to have a receptionist, an AI receptionist that's answering it. You can also do the other alternative that I was talking about which is, you know, capture their number and send them an instant text back. Hey, I got your number, can't wait to talk to you. I will call you as soon as I'm off my other line or as soon as I can, whatever. That also will at least empower you to pick up the phone and call them back. It may not be enough, but as long as, you know, 95% of text messages are seen within five minutes. So that keeps you in front of their eyeballs and then you can call back and, and you know, answer questions or, or close the deal.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: I appreciate you bringing that point up too, because we actually train our own staff on what is the appropriate response time. So what's the appropriate response time to an email versus a phone call? Hey, please call me back in a text message and the respons go down based on the platform and what the human expectation is that like it is feasible that responding to an email is a 24 hour clock. If you sent me an email at 9am this morning, I should be responding to you by 9am tomorrow morning. Now we try to do close of business day, but it's still expectable. And then if somebody says, hey, call me back, you should be calling them back in a couple or few hours. If somebody texts you, well, guess what, that's the most instant form of communication. But I want to bounce back to your topic about the cost savings and I really, I guess the question comes down to this, Janelle. It's not can you afford AI receptionist? Is can you afford not to have an AI receptionist? So with that, tell us a little bit more before we transition in the commercial break. What are some other opportunity losses that's costing businesses out there other than just the missed phone call?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's actually even bigger than just missing a random prospect phone call. Most businesses that I work with or know are running some sort of ads out there. As an example could be Facebook ads, it could be Google Ads. It doesn't matter. What it is, is if you're running ads and the call to action is a phone number to call in that absolutely amplifies the issue. Right. So for example, I have, I work with a company where we're running some Google Ads and they're spending a lot of money on these Google Ads. And the majority of calls that call in, they're getting a lot of leads are abandoning because not a fast enough system to connect them with a human.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: You can get a good spot for me to jump in because what I want to do is I want to talk specifically, clean out these ads and these calls to action, things like that, and have an expanded conversation right here. So thank you so much. Before we cut to commercial break, we're going to be right back with more pivotal change and even better, more Janelle. So sit tight we'll be back after this message.
We are back with more Janelle and more pivotal change and we're going to keep rocking and rolling on some of these costs that missing things might be costing you and your business. And Janelle just finished talking about the cost of a missed call and gave us lots of reasons why statistically we need to make sure we're catching those calls and following up on those and gave us a lot of systems and opportunities that we can use to fix that problem. And then she began expanding into other areas that were missing that are costing us money. She started a conversation into various advertising, website procedures, you know, Google marketing, things like that. And so Janelle, tell us more about that. And you specifically mentioned having a call to action. So explain that to us and explain what not having that might be costing us.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So it all comes down to one thing and that is how easy is it for a prospect to enter your sales process if there's any friction at all, if you have a call to action where you want someone to pick up the phone and call you and they can't get to an immediate help or reaction, whether it's AI or whether, you know, like a AI receptionist or whether it's a human they're going to abandon and they're going to find a compet, right? I can give you a million examples like that. But there are other important areas to consider where that leaky bucket happens a lot. And so as you are thinking through your own sales process and how easily you can invite someone into that process, think about your website. And there are a couple of points of entry on your website or there should be. One would be having a calendar, links out there, booking links to book appointments with you. Now they don't have to give someone carte blanche access to your calendar. That's not how it works. But you should have some sort of booking link set up for you or somebody in your company that they can easily click on and schedule a consultation with you. Whether it's a 15 minute consultation or what it is, you can set up rules around that. Maybe you only want to take those appointments on certain days of the week, during certain hours.
So that's one. But the another one that's big. Just as important as phone calls is website visitors. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking, well, my website's just a business card. Well, if you're trying to grow your business, it's not just a business card. What you want to do is have a chat widget on your website and the first question I usually get is, oh my gosh, if I have a chat widget on my website, does that mean I have to sit there and constantly man it? You don't. You can have that if you want, if you want to do a live chat widget. But again, it's AI is so advanced and so smart now that it can easily be trained on your entire business, your FAQs, it can be trained to answer questions, it can be trained to engage and prompt clients on certain things. It's not yesterday's chat widget. Chat now looks like a real human is, is actually engaging and it can lead people to book an appointment. So if you don't have something like that on your website, you're missing opportunities to capture leads. And then same thing, if you're missing calls at all, you're missing a ton of opportunity to capture leads with intention. Right. People who have intention to buy, they want to learn about you.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: I like that. And I really appreciate you drawing out basically an older style of thinking, saying, well, my website is just a glorified business card when really you and I have had talks and you've turned our website, both of them, into more interactive experiences. And then having that call to action is so important because it gives your person something to do to then make the connection. But the default is you have to have some type of follow up to that connection. And we know in modern society from segment one that it's a give me, give me now type of instant gratification. So you guys set up some systems in place. I'm familiar with that. If somebody goes to my website, wants a consultation with Ryan Kahn and see his business consulting, they can drop in a name, a phone number and an email jobber will immediately fling back to them and email, hey, thanks for reaching out to us. Thanks for contacting us. Here's a link to Ryan's calendar and you can now self select one of his times. Now you knew when setting up my calendar I had some very important stuff. You said I don't have to give away my whole workload, right? I, I have these parameters. Well, I had to protect my lunches, which is the most important thing I do every day is eat my lunch. And then secondly was my jiu jitsu lessons, my martial arts lessons. I had to make sure I could block those windows out and not have people eating my time. And then very selfishly, I had to make sure that my afternoons were very light so I could cut out early. So I was able to function all of that in with just A little bit of tweaking from you. And at the same time, I'm capturing all of this information and getting instant feedback to my people without even knowing it, until something pops up on my calendar that works for everybody, not just Ryan Khan. Correct?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I would tell people, if you're not doing that, it's coming. And unfortunately, those who, who don't embrace being able to have those instant ways to pull people into their sales process are just going to lose the prospects to the competition. It's, it's competition is fierce and we live in that immediate gratification world. So what you've got to do is be able to capture those prospects at the point of interest and engage them in a conversation. And that conversation might be, you know, a chat widget on your website. It might be by booking an appointment on the calendar, and it might be by answering the phone. Whether it's you answering the phone or whether it's your trusty AI employee that, you know, you, you call it Devon or you call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter. But it's, it's not only coming, it's here. And it's going to really differentiate those who, who are. It's, it's going to make the difference in growth with some businesses and the lack of growth in others.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: I like that a lot. So for me, the interactive experience comes in with that, like your website again, reaching out. Someone's coming and they're exploring, let's say Shelton Associates and you know, can these guys do my tax return? Well, then they realized through the interactive experience that we're a lot more than a tax return. In fact, we don't want to be a tax return. We want to be an advisory relationship. She has business consulting. They're like, oh, I want to learn a little bit about leadership. But there's so much more to what goes on here. They can click and watch videos, they can get a frequently asked question page, maybe there's a chat bot that gets introduced and they can, like we're talking about, have an interactive experience. How much more compelling is it for me now to then make that the person that I choose to do business with? If I have had this one stop solution where I can get all this information instead of comparing the online business card to online business card to online business card.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Right, right. 100%. You know, we've shifted from the old school attention, the attention economy, to a trust economy. And you know, part of that trust, obviously a lot of it is educating people on our expertise. But the other part of it is being there when those prospects need us and providing them the information that they're looking for when they're looking for it. The cost of not doing that is huge. And essentially it's people are just naturally going to abandon and then find somebody who, who is able to answer their questions immediately.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: I like that. So you specifically hit trust and today my quote of the day. I've pulled out a lot of quotes from my random speeches and you know, had these aha moments. Hey, I kind of sounded cool saying that in today's quote that I caught myself training a long time ago, which was again trying to encourage kids to take on entrepreneurship was trust or truth fuels trust and trust is what builds empires. So if you lead with integrity, success will follow. And you're talking about from day one, not just capturing somebody's attention, but using these AIs, these tools, these instant follow ups say I trust this person's going to be there for me. I trust this person is going to be responsive. I trust this person is going to have the tools necessary because I can see the whole dynamic, what they offer. And now I trust you more than this quote unquote online business card that's right here on the Next interface Internet tab next to you. And I think that's really compelling for what you've done for us today is I trust you're just going to pick up the phone from segment one and that's what helps you get clients. What other areas of trust might we be missing out on?
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think once you get someone into your sales process, what you really want to do is establish yourself and the expert in whatever it is that your business is focused on. And the best way to do that is educate. And a lot of business owners used to think why I, I can't give away my knowledge. I mean that's mine. Right? They got to pay for that, that. But I always tell people be, be generous with your intellectual capital because a lot of times when you, if you, if you're an expert, you can teach people the what, but they're not going to be able to implement it and they're not going to really understand the how, they're going to need you for that. So if you can build trust by educating people on things that they have questions about that you know, they commonly ask questions about, they're going to build that relationship with you and see you as the expert and trust what you're saying. And therefore if maybe they didn't take action the first time they to your website or Maybe they did call and the phone didn't get picked up and they abandoned. But they see you on social media or on a video or on something like this talking about something, you know, and you help them understand something that they had a question about. That builds trust and it builds authority. And then by the time they get to you, you're 70% of the way through the sales process with them.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: I, I, I love that. I, I think that's fantastic and I agree totally with what you're saying is that, you know, I feel like I have amassed some decent expertise in our firms here with the amount of people we have, the culture, the pedigree of the, the people that we have. And if I were to just try to hoard all the information, well, I can't tell you that until you sign the contract. I'm destroying trust instead of, oh yes, here's your path forward. But that's going to take multiple steps of implementation, all the right documentation. And if somebody fills out this tax return or this filing wrong, then that has lifelong repercussions for your business and either can't be undone or can only be undone very painfully. You're not cost, not cost effective. And so having the expert of which you're seeing me now based on your process, I'm going to walk you through that path. I'm transparent with what it is, but the execution ultimately becomes what you pay for, plus the education down the road. I like that so much. So give me, give me your final thoughts. I want you to summarize what we did in segment one and segment two here. And I want my people to get their pen and paper out. And I want the top three takeaways from today that you're going to summarize for our people so they can write it down. Go take action today.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Plug the leaky holes in your business. Figure out a way to not miss calls using one of the strategies that we talked about in this segment. Implement one of them asap.
Also think about not just missing calls, but are you missing opportunities on your website? So think about implementing some sort of an AI powered chat widget. And then third, I would say if you have questions, need help, don't know what to do or where to go, reach out. I'm here. I will be happy to help. You can find me anytime on LinkedIn at it's just Janelle Secora. Or you can hit me up through our website, which is kajabra.com C A J-A B R A.com and I think we have a Button in the top right hand corner that you can click and schedule a few minutes with me, and I will be happy to help you. Even if you wanted to see a demo of an AI receptionist built specifically for your business, we can set that up as well.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Well, I love that. So you're telling me that Kajabra does everything that we talked about today and more. So everybody, check out Janelle. She's absolutely amazing. And in the meantime, sit tight. We're only halfway through tonight's episode. We've got another awesome gu guest coming on right after this. Janelle, thank you for your time. And we'll see everybody else here in just a couple minutes.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Thanks, Ryan.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Back. We are past the halfway point on tonight's episode, and we have our second guest. I think everybody's going to really enjoy her, so get your pen and paper out because what she has to offer is probably going to impact you in one way or another. We have Alana Reese. She is from 6S Compass, and yes, that sounds just like 6S, but it's 6S Compass, and she is a job alignment coach. So that goes perfectly what we're trying to do, which is get people to that next level, that next point of their life where they can reach that pivotal change. Alana, welcome on the show tonight.
[00:25:11] Speaker C: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here, Ryan.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. And so our guests usually watch with a pen and paper and jot some notes, but they also haven't met you before. So as far as a job alignment coach, people may or may not be familiar with what that is. So can you just kind of quickly tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and basically what do you do with backgrounds? And what I know is helping people transition.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Yes. So, and that that stems a little bit from my background as well. So after I graduated from business school, I went into brand management and loved it. It was a great career path until I pivoted from there. I became an entrepreneur. I had a brick and mortar ice cream shop, went back into brand marketing, and then again back in this entrepreneurial journey. And now what I do is I help people figure out their own career transitions. We all have a lot of interests, and so I help people focus on their career transitions. Sometimes it's just about landing a new job, and sometimes it's actually about creating some kind of pivot.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: I like that a lot. And I think people don't realize the importance. Oftentimes we've had brand ambassadors and certain types of people of that nature and that is starting to become a much heavier thought in people's minds is how to project themselves and things like that. So as you're helping people go through this change, this pivot in life, you're going to have to look at, I'm sure, several areas and do all kinds of like, you know, a little analytical measurements. Just tell us what's the first area you look? Where's the first area of attack for you when consulting and taking on a new client?
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So when prospective clients come to me and they know that they want to make some kind of transition, one of the things that we talk about is why. Why are you unhappy where you are? And usually there's, there's a yes to that. And the question is, are you unhappy because you don't like what you do, or are you unhappy because you don't like the pie people you work with? Or are you unhappy because there's been a change in the company's goals? What about where you are right now is making you dissatisfied? And that can be hugely helpful to determine what kind of pivot, what kind of transition do we really need to focus on? For example, if somebody loves what they do, but they just don't like who they do it for or who they're working with, that's a great story of let's continue with what you're doing. Let's just find another environment to do it in and vice versa. If somebody absolutely loves who they work with, loves their management, loves the company culture, but they just don't like what they're doing, sometimes you don't actually have to leave the organization. Sometimes you can actually find a pivot or transition internally to satisfy both of those things.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: I like that a lot. So it looks like you're doing a lot of resolving of cognitive dissonance. People see themselves in a certain way, a certain life. I should be living my life like this, but for one reason or another, either I'm not doing the right thing or just not in the right place. You're helping them do this self reflection and doing this, this looking into it to say how can we get you into alignment with how you want to live your life? See yourself, your skill set, ultimately the joy that you can get out of life instead of some capacity of suffering. And I think alleviating suffering is a pretty noble cause.
So let's talk about, I kind of just use the word here, kind of like a reflection or assessment type of thing. So if people are looking to pivot, pivot either a career and skill set or they're looking to just pivot out of an organization.
What does that process kind of look like? You said attacking the why. So to tell us a little more detail, what is that process of discovering the why?
[00:28:44] Speaker C: Yeah, so if somebody says I'm not happy with what I'm doing, I, I don't know what it is. I'm not really sure what I want to do. I just know I'm not satisfied it's not working. One of the things that we'll look at first is your strengths. In fact, in Success Compass, One of the S's on 6s is to focus on your strengths. If you can ident identify what projects you've worked on, what you've done well, what your strengths are, what you've experienced, you really have the meat of what you want to do moving forward. It's really actually a straightforward formula. If you write down all of these projects and tasks, what are the skills and strengths required to complete those tasks? Then let's say you circle the things you enjoyed. You can then take those particular skills and leverage them towards, towards finding your next job that focuses specifically on those areas.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: I like that a lot. I like that one. There's the six S's and we're going to get more into the other five here a little bit later. But part of that too is do you ever have these self reflection moments where people maybe have this false perception that everything in life should produce happiness and satisfaction and joy and that. I have a realization statement that I see with some of my clients. I want you to have the best job possible. But there's some part to every job, whether you're an entrepreneur in control of everything or you're the bottom rung employee, there's going to be some part of your job where you don't like that component, but the rest of it is satisfactory and good. You still got to do the lousy parts too. Do people you see, you know, maybe an age gap, generation gap, try to escape having no lousy part to their job?
[00:30:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. There is a reality there. It is a job. You do get paid for it. So the expectation that you're going to be 100% happy all of the time is a little bit nice, naive. And like anything else in life, we. Everything has their, their es and flows. But I think leaning into that and identifying which are the parts that really excite you, the highlights and also which parts are, are the low lights and are they tolerable, are they short term? I think is okay. To your point, people who've Been through a lot in life, tend to understand that life is just a lot about the ups and downs. So it is something to reflect on, but to understand it is, it is a job. You do get paid to do it. So. So we all have to do things we don't like to do. Right. Like maybe you enjoy making a really good meal at home and you don't like doing the dishes. It's part of the task. You got to do it.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yep. That's so important to hear because I know some of our audience is fairly young and maybe just on their growth journey and others may be a bit older, 55, 65 and saying, hey, I'm at the tail end. I just don't want to mess with this junk anymore. And I just want to do the cool, fun part in my twilight years of my career. And we still have to dial in expectations and reality. When you're talking with your clients and you're going through this coaching process, do you find that most of them have done very deep self reflection and very deep searching and if you find that some of them have, have they done it in any type of organized process?
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Yeah, usually no.
Usually they've identified that there's something not right, it's not sitting right. But often they don't quite know how to translate that into to the professional space. I have one client, for example, who I've been working with for a little while who was such a rock star in sales and she kept, she kept doing really, really well at work, but something just wasn't sitting right with her. And she ultimately determined and figured out that she wanted to be an entrepreneur. Something completely different, like a very, very big pivot. And so I've been working with her along that journey as she, she has started her own business and she's so excited because she gets to still do sales, but on her own terms. So for her that was a really big pivot. Her reflection was something wasn't sitting right in the sales she was doing. She kept doing very well in it. So she knew she had the aptitude, but there was something missing in the passion.
So yes, we've been able to bring it back. And figuring out how to pivot and then helping my clients during the pivot is often something that we sit down and we do together as well.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: I like that a lot. And as part of this transition journey, you're getting people ready to face resumes, face job applications, face interviews, and tell us about some of your initial stages in saying, hey, client, let's get ready for this Next phase. And we need to do these things. Walk us a little through that.
[00:33:10] Speaker C: So I actually walk my clients through three phases when they're doing a job search. The first is phase one, which is exactly getting your resume, your LinkedIn and all that upfront communication set up.
And one of the things we touched on a little bit is making sure that when you have your LinkedIn headline or your summary on your resume that you're highlighting the areas that you want to focus on that you want to do in your next job. A lot of times people will think, well, I've done this, I've done that. I should talk about all these things I know how to do because I've done them, even though I don't want to do that in the future, which is a big mistake. Because when people are looking at your resume and they're looking to hire, they're going to look at that summary and they're going to say, oh, Ryan, you're so great at this. Come on in and talk to us. Without knowing that you don't want to do that. So it's really important to highlight and put your best foot forward for what you want to do. That's all in phase one. And then phase two is a lot of mindset going through that long slog. And then phase three is really getting the interviews and negotiation going.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: I love it. I love that a lot. And I love the fact that you said negotiation because I believe most people don't know that your hiring participation is really a two way street. It's not just, hey, I'm qualified, can I have this job? Thank you. But there's a negotiation because they have a need, just like you have a need. Right? And so there's the opportunity to negotiate. And how to negotiate professionally and respectfully is really important as well. So I imagine all of these things really start to thread in there, there. And of course, mindset. I have this thing called the five M's and the first M is mindset. Everything starts with mindset and turns the rest of your trajectory in life. And so we, we have very similar characteristics here. And I like that. Can you emphasize for me, we've got about a minute left before we got to jump to commercial break. What not to promote. Can you emphasize that a little bit more for me? Because I don't think that's what people often think about, Wait, what do I need not to promote more than just, well, here's a cool part that I don't want to do anymore, but I'm going to throw it on my resume because it looks cool.
[00:35:15] Speaker C: What not to promote in terms of.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Presenting of yourself through an interview, of yourself through the job prep, the LinkedIn the resume.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: Yeah, there's, there's a lot more than one minute's worth. But I would say what not to promote are the areas that make you look unprofessional or the areas where you really don't thrive because it's not something that you want to perpetuate. So you really want to focus on your strengths. You really want to hone in in on what you're, you're good at. And most importantly, when you're talking with the other side, what can you do for them? They're looking at what's in it for me.
Give them what's in it for you. Here's how I can help you.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: I like that. I like that so much. This is a perfect stop for us to put in a pin for this commercial break. So we're going to be right back with more Atlanta and we are going to have the final segment of the night kicking off more of these issues. So stay tuned. We're going to finish strong in just a few moments. Is back here on pivotal change.
Foreign Here we go. Final segment of the night on pivotal change and we have more Atlanta Reese. We are getting ready to keep digging into success compass and how this transitional pivotal coaching goes. And she has really given us some really solid insight into what to do and what not to do and how we can transition our lives in a much more meticulous us and coach thought out way to get us exactly where we want to be, whether that's a job change, that's a skill change or that's going from worker to entrepreneur. We're getting a lot of insight here. So Alana, let's, let's carry this conversation on further and I want to jump right back into I kind of emphasized in the last segment the mindset you and I share. That mindset is very important. Cindy, can you just give us a couple of tidbits, give us some, some areas where you're coaching people on mindset and how to think about themselves and their future and the transition that they making.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Mindset is the backbone to having a good day or having a bad day all day long. And it doesn't even matter if the sky is falling. If you're ready to catch it, you've got positive mindset and it's all good. You know, you can catch the clouds, cats, rainbows and suddenly it's a great day. So mindset is the backbone for everything. And it can be a long slog. Sometimes when somebody is doing a career transition, if they're looking for a new job, it can take a long time. It can take an even longer time if they're actually doing a pivot because there's, there's a little bit more that goes into that. So with respect to that, we've got to keep strong. And how do you do that? You keep a positive mindset. And although it can be very difficult sometimes, having support, having coaching and having some tools in your toolbox can help you stay focused, can help you stay positive and motivated and to help move you to the next step.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: I can appreciate that a lot. And one of the things that I kind of heard you say is that, you know, this could be a little bit of a grind for a while. This could be a long term process. And if I came on and said, hey, I want this coach, that's going to help me transition. In my mindset, I may think two to three weeks, I'm good to go. But in reality, there's a second interview, a third interview, a board interview. It could be, especially if I'm trying to really change my life up into the rush. Right. That may require more so setting the correct expectations of what the process looks like and having the right boundaries for yourself of what you're going to not concede to, but go into and make sure you're pursuing your dreams. That's a huge portion of mindset, like you said. And then I really like kind of what you said about being ready to catch the sky. I've always told everybody, look, there's going to be a thunderstorm, but aren't you anticipating the rainbow at the end, you know, and so, you know, there's ways to control your mindset. So I love that so much.
The six S's in success Compass, you mentioned one of the six. Can you rattle off the other five for us so we can get educated about that and be able to?
[00:39:30] Speaker C: Sure. We can dig into some of them as well. I mean, Success Compass, the first one actually is success. What does success mean to you? And what success means to you may look very different from what success means to somebody else. And it may even look really different from how successful success looked to you yesterday or last year or five years ago. So success is like the number one. But it's a huge thing, is understanding what do you want, what are your goals, what does success look like for you? And then taking off of that. The next one is strategy. What are we Going to strategize? Where are we going to go? What are your goals based on what success looks like to you? So if you just want to land a job, okay, that's, that's your goals. Let's find a job. You can get a job working next door at the local retail store. You can get a job in a different corporation. It's the same goal depending on what your target is. So strategy for how to achieve that success is the second S. The third S are the steps. What steps and action steps, like actual tactical components are we going to use to make it through the process? So you've got big picture. What does success look like? What is the strategy that's going to get you that success? And then how do we actually break it step by step? The fourth S is support. Whether you go and you use a coach, whether you talk to a therapist, whether you have really great family and friends supporting you, everybody's journey really counts on other people. Nobody lives this life alone. As humans, that connection is critical. So having support in some capacity is tremendous. And of course I offer support as part of what I do for, for coaching. We also keep people motivated. So how do you stay the course? That mindset that we were just talking about and then the last one we mentioned before, our strengths. Knowing your strengths and leaning into them is really useful to getting you to the next point.
So those are, those are my successes in success companies.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: I love this so much. There's so much common ground that you and I share. You know, success. Success you emphasized. I, I put it in slightly different words. But success is a journey, not a destination. Congratulations. I just did one of those cool posters you see in the HR office with the guys rowing a team together, you know, but, but that's true. And your success is different than my success. Some people may be fine with a very humble living as long as they have a tight knit family and get all the time in the world with their kids. And other people may not even care about getting into relationship and having children and want to have a yacht. And that's two different versions of success. And they're, they're different from each other. And then the strategy, well I call that logistics. You said the word tactics.
I'm a SWAT guy, Cotton guy, my little. I got all excited because the tactics is the exact operations we're going to take to successfully accomplish this part of the mission or the whole mission. Love it. Support, so important. Having the resources, having the people, having that network. And I think that's an under emphasized area. Of not just life, but people that are really trying to accelerate and go places. You're trying to do this alone. You've got nobody to help shoulder the burden with you. Whether that's a physical burden, financial burden, emotional or spiritual burden. You got to have somebody at some point you can lean on. And I think that's so under, underemphasized. And then stay the course. Oh, my goodness. The, the importance of discipline, the importance of mindset instead of motivation. Discipline produces motivation, passion produces motivation. But my motivation, I may not have slept great last night, so I'm not feeling highly motivated today, but I can be disciplined and I can have my resources. I can my people in my action plan and my motivation will return. And I love that so much. And just, you know, the whole strengths. Are you really looking in the mirror and are you pulling out your best self and presenting that and putting that into the right areas? So this is a really holistic package that you're approaching with people. And if I were a person and I was coming to you and saying, you know, what am I missing? What are you going to do for me? What would some of those real life questions be where you'd say, well, Ryan, boom, here's my first set of interview questions.
[00:43:39] Speaker C: Well, and to break it down a little bit bigger than that, as you just said, I mean, these pieces are applicable to anything in your life. I just, I just use it in the context of job search. But I talk with many of my clients where it's really not about the job search. That's kind of an outcome and it has to do with what are your interests, inputs to get you there for you. And as you just beautifully explained, if you've got the routine, the habit, the discipline, it's going to get you there. And sometimes it is hard to get that motivation. And sometimes you need to really rely on other people to help propel you and take the steps and push you. And with my clients, what I've discovered is, I've discovered with myself as well, sometimes you're motivated, right. And you're ready to take the leap, go for the next thing. And I've got, got this, we're all good. And then there are other days where my clients don't want to talk to me because they're feeling this big. And those are the days where they have to talk with me because what, let's hold hands, let's, let's take one small step together. And when you're done, you'll be like, oh my gosh, I did something Check done.
Taking those small steps, understanding those small things can sometimes make the difference between feeling like you're accomplishing something or feeling like you're just. You're just stagnant. So having that support, relying on that, digging into that, it's going to get you so much further, faster, whether it's in the job search or anything else in your life.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: I love that. So what I'm hearing you say is that you're using these six S's, of course, in the business mindset. Let's get you to start your own job, to switch positions, to switch companies, to switch careers in general. But could this not also say, hey, what does success look like for you inside of a relationship or a marriage or as a parent? What does success look for you as a member of your faith group? What does success look for you as the person who helps out with this charity or cause and etc. Etc. And then you apply all those strategies. So if you're coaching this person in the business mindset, you're really coaching them on tools for life, is that correct?
[00:45:44] Speaker C: 100%. 100%. And that's why I tap into a coach as well, because there are areas where I need support, I need help help. I need motivation, and I can't always get that for myself.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: It's.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: It's sometimes harder to see things sort of from an outside perspective. So I tap into my own coach for that as well. Absolutely. And that applies all sorts of areas of your life, whether it's health, whether it's fitness, whether it's relationships, whether it's religion, whether it's job search. I focus primarily on job search, but it is 100% applicable to every area of your life. Life.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Gotcha. So let's do this. Let's give me three takeaways to. To tell the audience. As a result of the just the last half of this episode, we got three takeaways that says I can walk away and I can take Alana's advice and I can go and look at this right now and I can do these three things, ask these three questions, or take these three steps to get me to start making that pivot that's eating away at me.
[00:46:42] Speaker C: Okay. I'd say the first one is identify what your strengths are, what you've done, what you've done well. And actually, just to expand on this a little bit, I think we forget that things that come easily to us are actually our strengths.
A lot of times we don't give ourselves enough credit that what we're good at and what comes so naturally does not come naturally to other people. So when you identify your strengths, don't sell yourself short. If, if for you being able to have a conversation with somebody is a no brainer, know that there are people out there where that's not a no brainer, that is a strength. So number one, identify your strengths. And sometimes talking to other people to reflect back what they see your strengths are can be really useful and insightful as well. So identify your strengths, both self reflection as well as reach out to some friends or people, colleagues who know you and see what their thoughts are. So two steps in identifying your strengths and I'd say that the next takeaway as the third one is, is identify your support system, especially when you want to reach a goal or make some kind of change.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: I love that. Write that down and then answer those questions. So, Alana, tell me, if people wanted to get a hold of you, they wanted to make you their coach because what you said today had so much wisdom packed into it. How would they find you, get a hold of you and use your services if they wanted to get a hold of you?
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Yeah, they can send me an email at info@6success compass.com info success compass.com I love it.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. I appreciate every moment that we had together. For everyone in the audience out there, I want you to go out there and I want you to see the change and be the change. And we'll catch you here next time on Pivotal Change.
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