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#dogoodwork is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
Hey, welcome back to the podcast today.
I'm talking to Will Stevens.
Will is the founder of Gain Growth
Consulting, where he helps start and
scale ups, go to market, and grow.
If it's managing growing pains or avoiding
them altogether, Will works across
systems and strategies to help companies
develop and integrate cultures of
performance to achieve profitable growth.
And you know, we're all about
that here at the podcast.
And Will is on a mission to
clarify the layers of go to market
strategy to give companies peace
of mind in their profitable growth.
I'm excited for this convo.
Hope you enjoy it.
Ever since Zoom updated all of their
stuff, I can't find the recording
button, but Will, here we are.
Here we go.
Yeah, platform jumping, Zoom,
Hangouts, Teams, God knows what else.
AirChat, what's the new one,
AirChat, the one that came out?
The buttons are always in the
different places, so yeah.
Oh my gosh, I heard, I read
a comment like, Hey, podcast
because of the chit chat?
I'm like, this is why people listen
to podcasts, because of the chit chat.
So welcome to the pod.
It's relatable.
Chit chat.
Thanks for having me.
Great to see you again.
I'm excited to have you, man.
We're going to talk all things,
fractional solopreneurship, diving
into sales marketing, go to market.
But I'm really curious and
I want to really go into the
heart of the meat of the matter.
You meet with a lot of solopreneurs.
I've met with a lot of founders,
fractionals, and I think what
there's a common thread of.
I do a lot of scope, but it's not like
I have a definite specific niche or a
definite specific outcome that I help
people with, even though my specialty
is an X or my specialty isn't Y.
I want to dive into how you honed in
into your specialty and go to market.
What does that actually mean?
And how have you, I'm not sure, vertically
or horizontally niche that down?
Let's do it.
Let's dive into it, man.
Can you tell us a little bit more about
why doing what you're doing right now?
Yeah, it was an organic path for me.
So I have been in digital agencies
for over 10 years And I've always
served in integration roles.
So I've been a marketer and I've been a
salesperson and I've even, had stints of
SEO and content and performance marketing.
So just the environment of an agency, you
wear a lot of different hats as cliche
as that is, but like you really do.
And depending on, the environment of the
agency, it's not a hat, it's a helmet.
So I've been hands on, executing
campaigns, helping create content.
On the phone, all that stuff, but I've
also zoomed out as in like more, senior
leadership positions to connect those
dots and make sense of the bigger picture.
So for me, like how go to market is
applied, it's fairly interchangeable
with sales marketing, customer
success, even product, the big
picture for what the business needs,
not what does one function need?
We know what they need.
Sales needs, Closed one,
where do they get it?
Usually the leads marketing
has coming in and stuff.
So it's just like diplomatically
organizing those different revenue
functions to be one big happy revenue
family so that there's, eyes on
the business goal as contributed
by functional teams, but everybody
sings from the same hymn sheet.
It's actually rare in my opinion to
see a marketer who can also take phone
calls, to be honest with you, like it's
usually the other way around, or if it's a
creative marketer, like they really don't
aren't able to do sales conversations.
And that's a, it's a really
big plus on your end.
One of the things that are interesting,
maybe this is just the size of
companies you're working with, but
budgets, especially for marketing,
usually it's the first one to get cut.
I don't even know why.
Frankly, I don't even know why
shoot yourself in the foot.
But anyways budgets cuts are being cut.
Marketing is usually the
first to get cut on that end.
Usually there isn't a lot of money to
quote unquote, wait and see nowadays.
I'm curious to see how are you approaching
that in terms of strategy, in terms
of deployment, the right not just
strategies, but deployment, the right
teams and energy and initiatives with
leaner budgets in order to come up with.
The Holy Grail ROI as quickly as possible.
Like, how are you seeing that?
How are you navigating through that?
What are you working through on that?
Yeah, I wish that wasn't the case, but
it's like all too prevalent and you're
right for I don't want to say for
whatever reason because sometimes for
good reasons marketing is let go first.
I think sometimes out of habit and
out of not necessarily understanding
what they might be doing that
might be marketing's fault.
They might not, it might
not be able to translate.
What they're contributing to the
business and the language of the
boardroom speaks so that's a challenge.
I say this like with all sensitivity
because I've been laid off.
Lots of teams have been laid off,
but a host layoff environment
lends itself to a lot of attention
because it's traumatizing for
It's a business event and not a great
one, but it presents an opportunity to
give attention to what I would call like
the quote unquote, right things, which is
where are you spending marketing dollars
and why, how big is your sales team
and what are they incentivized to do?
And how does that model back
into what the business needs?
So yeah when there's higher
interest rates, higher
pressure, you shorter timelines.
The good news, the silver lining is
that it tends to demand the attention
in a very don't break your focus type
of a way on the stuff that should work.
Easier said than done because I
think a lot of organizations still
just are hunting for silver bullets.
Give money to paid ads.
Give it to Google.
Google doesn't need your money
as much as you need your money.
But develop a plan for why you're
giving it to them and, have targets
that make sense to the business,
not just MQLs for the sake of it.
Now sales is just, they can't
close anything, but it looks like
marketing is performing well.
This goes back to the big picture
revenue plan of getting everybody, like
we are one collective team culturally,
I think that could be really hard too.
Sometimes teams just don't communicate.
Sometimes sales leadership
and marketing leadership.
Don't get along.
And it's more of a culture problem
than it is a performance problem.
Some of that goes above my pay
grade and we'll go into different
areas like people leaders and
organizational designers and stuff too.
But that's another big, I'd say just
hot button that's out there because
teams don't feel psychologically safe.
They've seen wave after wave of layoff.
They don't want to be the next round.
So yeah it's behaviorally and culturally
there's hurdles trying to execute
strategy in a lot of organizations
today to want to put my finger on that.
And I know this is a little bit risky
with a time and place recorded podcast.
Obviously five years from now, things
might be different, but the nice thing
we're human and we typically don't change
that long and like for thousands of years.
So this is something
really important because.
The environment right now, shorter,
shorter shorter budgets, like
smaller budgets, but higher sales
cycles is at least what I'm saying.
There's just something happening.
I don't know what, how to,
what a name it, what a call it.
It could just be a cycle could be just
something that we're going through,
which is normal, which is fine.
But the question is around
a leadership perspective of
how are you leading the team?
How are the teams feeling because of it
and the right amount of pressure that is
a healthy pressure versus the right amount
of pressure, which is very unhealthy.
And people take it home and they drag
and they're actually underperforming.
I don't know what the call that, but I
think that's something that I haven't
had anyone else call out specifically
or read a lot of content around.
I think that's something to be said.
On leaderships or even departments.
And everyone wants to make a return.
No one wants to fail.
No one loves sucking at their job.
Because sometimes we're not
in control of the output.
Can you speak to that?
Like how much in control of
the actual output are we?
And is control an illusion when
it comes to predictability?
Cause I noticed people's Oh, this
is the most predictable path.
Is it really though?
Is that the most
predictable path of control?
Like we can control certain things, but
I don't want to talk in circles there.
That's a big question.
Yeah, I think.
I think the phenomenon of luck
probably plays such a dramatic variable
in, in frankly, anything like you
and me talking today we got lucky.
We found each other.
We hit it off.
We've connected, but like how many
millions and millions of lottery tickets
did we have to win to cross each other
and then be here today in the first place?
So I think the phenomenon of luck
that's out there is probably.
Yeah.
You can't sell that to the board.
You can't sell that to the team of
Hey, just go out there and get lucky.
It's no, you have to say, go
out there and do your best.
What can you control?
But yeah, I think it's one thing that
we probably don't talk about enough of.
If you and I started at, we did
everything that Apple did, everything
down to the molecule, it probably
wouldn't work for us today.
Look, Apple's a phenomenon, and they
worked hard, and they had incredible
products and all that stuff.
But even if they did it all over again,
who's to say it would work for them too?
So I think there's this like
undertow of luck that's out there
that you can't measure it, you can't
observe it, you can't see it, smell
it, feel it, but it just exists.
It's like all of the invisible hands
that shape a category, shape the that
the lending environment, like it's harder
to buy, it's harder to buy in software,
like hundreds of thousands or million
dollar pieces of software, whatever.
Why?
So many factors, none
of us are controlling.
We can try, we can speak to
some of the objection handling
and those types of things.
But yeah, I think with the end of the
other side of luck is just like ominous
feeling of nobody really knows what
to do and what's going on out there.
I sympathize with Leaders like it's
never been harder to be a ceo right
now because a lot of them don't know
what to do That this is a lot of them.
This is their first time at life
too and the most tenured experienced
executives, they may have cut their
teeth in a hot market selling a
very in demand product or service.
So on their resume, they can honestly say,
Oh yeah, I was on a rocket ship unicorn.
I've sold billions of dollars.
That doesn't necessarily translate to
they can repeat that performance in a
down period with a struggling product
in a very competitive saturated space.
So yeah, I think the phenomenon of
luck is unfortunately out there and
we can't talk about it cause there's
nothing anybody can do about it.
Yeah.
I've been meditating on that actually.
And it's I think this is, I love that
we're going here because I think it's
very important to identify what can we
actually do in terms of our profession?
What can we actually do in
our businesses as founders, as
entrepreneurs, as colleagues, as.
Fractional leaders, if that's what you
do but it's I think it's a gift, right?
I think that a lot of those things
happen and a lot of people call it like
you create your own luck or whatever.
And I think that there's a
sense of pride to that, which
is healthy in a sense of it.
Sometimes it can be unhealthy, but I
think you have to be the right kind
of person taking the right kind of
behaviors, thinking the right kind of
things, thinking the right actions.
And that becomes difficult in
the way where your response is.
negative, meaning the outcomes
are not always favorable, but
you're still pushing through.
And it's easier for me to say that
here on a mic than to actually live
it out because I'm living it out.
And it's it's a day, it's a day by
day thing where every day you got
to say, okay, I'm going to do it.
We're going to execute.
We're going to do well.
But I have to be that kind of person.
I think that's all we can control.
Are we taking the right behaviors?
Thinking the right things, being the
right kind of person so that we can put
ourselves in situations or situations
can happen where maybe we're prepared
for, they know that swing of grace,
that swing of gift, you call it luck.
But like the whole idea is that's
what we can really control.
And now going back to what's
the, what about the KPIs?
What about like our revenue report?
What about I've done that.
And I know that I was in 22,
I was in house helping a team
scales as a leader, see our own.
The naming that was used back then is
wartime CEO, like wartime leadership.
And I'm like, yeah, it's not fun, bro.
Like even just thinking about that.
And I think that can also wear off
because you're also leading other humans.
But on the on, in that note, going
back to the bigger picture of
empathizing for the team, understanding
what can we actually control.
And then let's translate this now,
like into some of the business aspects,
because we usually tend to go to
quote unquote lowest hanging fruit.
It's just easier to execute, but it
could be just spend money on ads.
We always know ads work,
spend money on this.
We know this works.
Tell me more about how you're seeing
what we can talk about that point
of being the right kind of person,
but then also translating that
into activity within the business.
So one thing is just an audit.
So I like to look at current
actions and desired outcomes.
So if, a company is saying we are
customer centric and they're, like,
customer service records would prove
that they are not, it's okay You either
are or you are not customer centric.
So if you sent, if you're saying that
you are, we know what to focus on.
We need to develop the,
customer success team.
We need to be a bit more friendly with our
terms and conditions and our contracts.
We need to be a good
partner to them, not just.
We are the center of the universe
and everything comes to us.
So it's just mapping what do you need
to do and what are you saying you want
to do and what are you actually doing?
I use a lot of like health
and fitness analogies.
So if someone is like, Hey, I
want to get in shape for the
summer, I want to lose 30 pounds.
It's like that.
Great.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Health is important.
Talk to me about what what are
your habits and lifestyle like?
I eat pizza and cake and ice cream.
All day, every day, and I
don't get off of the couch.
It's okay, are you serious
about losing that weight?
If you are, there's behavior
modification, habit modification,
you gotta do some hard stuff.
If you're willing to do that hard stuff,
now we can go to the whiteboard and
develop a plan where okay, a reasonable
amount of weight to shed might be X
over Y days, and now we just execute.
So great.
Go to the gym tomorrow.
Try and, not eat so much pizza,
cake, and ice cream, and we'll
check in, we'll see how it's going.
So it's looking at what
are you actually doing?
And what do you need to achieve?
Sometimes just coming in as a third
party, that stuff can be obvious of,
yeah, we are spending a ton of money
on a booth at an event that we don't
have any buyers even going to, we go
to it cause it's like a party for our
team and we have a big happy hour and
so spend the money on a happy hour.
Do you know you can save the
a hundred K on the booth and,
reinvest that into anything else.
Whatever you want.
So yeah, it's like determining state
of the state and then mapping out,
what are some small moves and next
steps towards the things that you're
saying you want to do, or having a
more honest conversation about what
will we prioritize we should do.
So if we're going to be customer centric,
if we see that as our big bet and a high
leverage, activity for the organization
to focus on, we need to act like it.
How do we act like it?
We developed this plan to get off
the couch, stop eating pizza and
be friendly around support calls,
resolve help desk tickets within
a reasonable amount of time.
These obvious things, once you break it
down, but sometimes you need to come from
it from the outside and from a different
angle to reveal some of those things.
I often see as change as a wavelength,
like the imagery of change, like
it's very shaky in the beginning
and it starts fine tuning over time.
The one thing though, and I'd like
to get your experience on this is.
You come in, set the plan, execute on
that plan, but then how much do you,
maybe the term is it negotiate, but maybe
it's around, maybe it's even haggle, but
like sometimes the team or the founder
or the lead that you're working with
directly, it says, okay, we'll do that.
But what if we do this?
How often do you, are you malleable
to shift and adapt to that?
Cause sometimes I've seen this
personally where I've shifted too much.
And then now we're following their
plan again, and it's not working.
No, we got to get back.
Up here, but we already lost
maybe 60 days into the engagement.
So how do you manage that with being
strict to the quote unquote diet, but then
also adapting to changing circumstance?
Yeah, that's a tough one.
And I have crashed and burned.
doing all the wrong things on that because
in one of my first clients, I wanted to
make them happy, which meant sometimes
given the personality I was working with,
it meant just saying yes to things and
doing stuff that like I had a feeling
was not in the best interests of the
team or the client or the performance.
But this person was
paying me and I messed up.
This was a learning experience for me to
be like, that's why that intuition exists.
Honor it and try and have those
conversations in this environment.
You couldn't have those conversations.
That was another red flag.
But yeah, I think sometimes it's
diplomatically and generously asking
them questions like, okay, why
do you think that sometimes it's
going to be because I said so, or
because the board needs their money.
that the investors need their money.
All right.
I get it.
That's a rational reason that is
otherwise irrational to execute.
It might not feel good, but it's I got it.
That's just the reality
of the business and stuff.
So I think being honest and like showing
a clear path about why, how I'm doing it.
Thinking about here's this execution plan.
Here's what the 90, 90
days might look like.
Yeah.
Sometimes founders come back or
whoever, and they'll say, okay,
but what would happen if we laid
off two of those salespeople?
And this is where strategy and execution
have a very intimate bidirectional
relationship because it's like
that's going to change the amount
of activity we do, the amount of.
leads that, leads per rep can handle.
It shakes things up.
You've moved the pieces on the chessboard.
So we need to now play it differently.
It's having your cake and eating it too,
where it's yeah that all sounds great.
Can we do it for a third of the price?
Oh my God.
Yeah.
If, and guess what, if we could, don't
you think I'd be recommending that?
Yeah.
Yeah, this isn't to just
inflate all the budgets.
This is to be bootstrappy and
shoestringy and, or sometimes it's
making the business case of what would
happen if we scaled, what would happen
if we hired five more salespeople?
Talk to the investors.
What would that cost?
And now CEO in your next board meeting,
have that conversation and show what
we've forecasted, what we've modeled.
It's not a, it's not a guarantee, but
we feel strongly that, and then this
will require X amount of additional.
dollars in funding, we think that will
have a payback in this amount of time.
So we can get a bit mathy, but
sometimes it's negative of that,
where it's okay, we're cutting budget.
We're cutting head count.
We're cutting timelines.
This is just really not going to work.
But sometimes it's developing the business
case on the other side for growth to
scale to go back to the investors to
get more money instead of having budgets
pulled and the C suite is floundering.
So it can go on both sides of it.
I completely agree.
And I don't want to just like name names
without saying this is in full empathy,
but sometimes there is like that.
And this is not in a bad sense.
Like it's sometimes Oh crap, we got to
actually cut costs, but it's, it could
come out of a scarcity mindset versus
what's the actual opportunity here?
But then sometimes when those
opportunities may not pan out,
circumstances, outcomes, whatever, outside
of the control, it may seem like we gotta
go back to the the negative on the costs.
This is building a business case of it's
always been important when I work with
clients that we make sure that we build
the right case when we're pitching or
we're working internally, et cetera.
Even when like it's working with
the board or like you're trying
to, this is why this can work.
And this is how confident
we feel about that.
How would you approach that on both ends?
Like when you're working with clients,
like here's the business case of why this
makes sense and how do you strengthen
your business case, like in any argument
with clients or with internally for them
and their leadership teams cause I think
this, it's never been a more important
time to be able to articulate clearly
what we need to get done, why it needs
to get done and what's the actual value
and outcome towards that kind of want to
know how your brain thinks about that.
Yeah.
Maybe this is a good
illustrative anecdote.
This was years ago.
I was at an agency and one of my clients
was a a FinTech company and they wanted to
compete with NerdWallet for the amount of
content and how that content was ranking.
Like NerdWallet, it was
just like a content machine.
And like at the time they were just owning
all of page one for every imaginable term.
And the serious ask from the client
was, we want to fight NerdWallet.
So what would that take?
And I was younger at the
time, and I remember thinking
like, this is so ridiculous.
This is going to cost so much money.
This is going to take so much effort.
So me and my team, we just looked
and it was like, okay the net
was NerdWallet has something like
200 full time writers on staff.
So then multiply that for what a good
writer can ship in a given month to
just show you're paying top dollar for
these good writers and they're busy.
They're churning this out.
So it's just like quantifying
this universe of what we could
share back to the client.
I remember at the time.
To call them out for how ridiculous
we thought this would be.
The takeaway was we presented this
to them and they were like, okay,
we'll talk to the executive team.
So what we put on the table
was like a tens of millions of
dollars, developing business case.
And at the time I was like,
this is so ridiculous.
Who can they do that?
Yeah, it was cheaper interest rate, the
borrowing environment was different then,
but they took that to their investors.
So I would say don't let your own
expectations on how like absurd a
business case might be Jade, you and
the recommendations you might make,
because for all, like this FinTech
client back in the day, they were able
to go and have just a very serious
conversation with their equity partner.
to the tune of tens of
millions of dollars, right?
So I had never, given recommendations
on that magnitude before.
To this day, I'm sharing it
now because it's still just
like such a crazy one for me.
So I think, yeah, don't allow
your benchmarks to constrain some
of the audacity with some of the
recommendations you might make,
or frankly, just to show them.
The magnitude and therefore
the absurdity of look, like you
guys are you're bootstrapping.
If let me put this in the context for
you, you're going to need to spend 20
million this year just on, on the content.
If that seems absurd to you, let's agree.
We don't do these absurd exercises
anymore unless you do have a new,
investor partner in which case
tell us and we can consider that.
That was one of my big
takeaways of be honest about it.
And in this case, it was like,
it felt preposterous, but it was
received very well of thank you.
This is what we need.
We'll go have this conversation now.
But I was almost feeling, I felt
it was ridiculous because I hadn't
had the experience dealing with
those types of numbers before.
And the client did, the client had.
Probably hundreds of millions
that they had available to them.
So it we inhabited different worlds and
it was a very eye-opening experience
for me to understand their world.
So try and understand your
client's world as best you can.
And I think that's interesting
'cause it does mirror a lot of
what the client believes can
be possible and is impossible.
And this was the, the unusual case where
they believe more than us crazy marketers.
So how do you know, because
sometimes, frankly, I just direct,
sometimes the client is maybe.
Unaware of possibilities
more than you are.
And sometimes I don't even
understand how marketing works.
Sometimes there might be too
analytical and close to the
financial sheets closer than you.
And they're very careful with that.
How do you model your business
case towards the founder?
Especially if it is a growth requirement,
which most cases it is where we need to
spend a little bit more to make a little
bit more, not because we want to spend
money for the sake of doing it, but
because sometimes things require extra
effort, more personnel or more energy.
Yeah, it depends on
what the business needs.
So at the moment, this profitable growth
is now in vogue because companies need to
act like companies and have net margin.
So sometimes, the business is
just look, we need to have.
We need to bring our 2 percent margins
up to six or something and say,
okay, we know we're not necessarily
looking exclusively at new clients,
like new acquisition and stuff.
We're probably better off looking at
existing clients and retaining them.
So now we're at least isolating
where this is coming from.
It's on the other side of closed one.
That's a paying customer.
Hopefully it's recurring revenue.
Where are your whales?
Where can you grow?
And monetize and cross sell upsell,
who do you need to retain and
what's your timelines for that?
So I think it's coming back and isolating
okay, what does the business need?
Does it need more revenue?
Then we know we're not probably
looking at the total bottom
line of the balance sheet.
We worry about that another day.
Or is it?
Then we're probably less focused
on frantically trying to convert
every possible new customer.
We should still be mindful of
that, but we'd have a lot more
opportunities looking at the cashflow
already coming into the business
and how the business is handling it.
So I think it's understanding what
the business needs and then trying
to isolate it on the balance sheet.
But then in context of
the teams, the category.
Even things like consumer behavior,
less so in B2B, but I've done like
e commerce and B2C agencies too.
And you need to just have hard
conversations of look, the
entire category is contracting.
I had a denim client, this is over
COVID and it was like, high end denim.
People are wearing sweatpants for years.
No one's wearing their cute
denim out to date night.
There's no date night.
Restaurants are closed.
You have to face the reality of what's
going on at the level of like spending.
And then, consider that with
your own business model too.
I like the, without using the
cliche term holistic, but I really
appreciate the three dimensional
view, not just in the business, but
also financially, but also category
or what's happening in the market.
Whereas behavior and consumer behavior
have like changing and shifting.
I think that's very important.
What do you, what's the one thing
that you wish all of your clients did?
What's that one unique thing that
everyone should be doing, but they're not.
Wow.
I'm
processing.
Cause that's a huge question.
I think seeing the big picture,
this is easy for me to say, right?
Cause I don't have investors breathing
down my neck, but that does become
the job of a CEO and someone who like
might've accepted funding or whatever
is setting expectations that could be
lofty, but not so lofty that you've.
The term Pyrrhic victory comes to mind
and that's you've won the battle, but
you're Army is so physically defeated that
they can't go on to fight another battle.
So it's almost that win wasn't a win.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like on, on paper, that was
a win on paper last quarter.
You, you scraped by what
about this quarter toast.
So thinking beyond the immediate term.
And then I think thinking beyond
the one little bubble that they see,
it's like we just talked about a
holistic view, even, psychologically,
what might be, what might your
prospects be feeling in your category?
You look at some software categories,
it's saturated with not very good options.
And a lot of them look the same,
sound the same, homepage reads the
same, they're indistinguishable.
Put yourself in your buyer's shoes and
like people don't want decision fatigue.
They want clarity.
So give them that clarity.
Stand out, position yourself
and differentiate yourself.
So like you have a chance of winning.
Otherwise we've all seen those corny
charts where it's like a 10, 000
martech vendors or something like that.
It's do you think your buyer
wants to go through this?
Of course they don't.
So don't make them be
a little bit different.
It'd be a little bit more generous in
how they buy from you instead of just
thinking how you want to sell to them.
I appreciate that thoughtful response.
That was a couple things.
I think you asked for one.
I might've just No, but it stemmed from
the main, it stemmed from the bigger
picture, which I it's easy, like you
mentioned to say, but I think it takes
an exercise or at least maybe a couple
of days of reflection to make sure
that we can see that bigger picture.
Switching gears briefly, and I
think this is gonna be pretty fun.
You have the unique Vantage of
speaking with a lot of solo founders
and then going solo yourself.
What's like the one big aha moment
that you learned by doing that you
didn't learn by interviews and then
the second flip to that one is.
What's your biggest I wouldn't say
takeaway, but suggestion or piece of
advice for other solos as you learn
that one big aha moment and you talk
to a bunch of people too before that.
That's another really good one.
Something I learned by
doing kind of all of it.
That's like an unfair answer,
but I've never done this before.
So I'm doing a lot of things all for
the first time, something more specific.
And this is ongoing for me is.
Just how hard it can be to niche
and message and position yourself.
And I got very caught up in following
influential voices like out on
LinkedIn, who I think are great.
They're brilliant.
A lot of them are product marketers
and they tend to give advice.
to service providers as if
they're products in spirit.
I agree.
Like in, in principle, I get it,
but in practice, we're not products.
We, it is not like a feature
benefit page of will versus other,
Fractional leaders or whatever.
Does it make any sense?
That's where relationships and personality
and these things do come into play.
I've had debates.
Some people disagree that like
personality isn't a differentiator.
I think it totally is.
People want to work with cool people.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Show me who you're friends with, right?
Like you're friends with them
because you enjoy their company.
They're cool.
You've developed trust.
There's parts of their personality that
stand out to you that you connect with
and have chemistry with and all that, At
the level of business, a lot of people
just want to do business with similar
people or even complimentary people.
Not so similar where it's okay,
we're all just agreeing with each
other, but you need to have a bit
of an attraction and a chemistry of
like how we do business together.
So I personally do think be
yourself and be true to your
personality and find people who are
attracted to that, but trying to.
Message that and trying to like, get
out the scalpel and niche that and
position that it was brutal for me and
I'm still going through it because at
the time we're filming this the market
gives you signals about who you are too.
So I work with, software companies
and technology companies, but
because of my tenure in agencies,
I still work with agencies.
So I say that on this podcast,
I don't say that on my homepage
because it would be a bit too.
Who is this guy?
Yes, startup, this is all
for startups and agencies.
What, who are you for?
Be okay with that because I
do have relationships there.
There are projects and
opportunities that are there.
I do like the work.
You don't need to put
it on your billboard.
You can still do that stuff and it
doesn't mean, oh my gosh, I'm such, I've
done such a terrible job at niching.
You can still plant your flag and say
who you're for and what you do and.
Mind your own business and
do some other projects.
So to me, I felt very conflicted
doing that stuff, but then
you just live with it.
So I guess that may also be my piece
of advice of honor your feelings and
what feels like good work, get to work.
You can't just do that forever.
You're like, Oh no, I'm not ready yet.
I have to really.
Refine my, this personal positioning
statement until I get it so perfect,
you know what, it's going to change.
First of all it's not going
to be like that forever.
So advice is put together one.
That's good enough.
Test it in the market and get to
work and then just be open to the
signals for what the market might
give back to you and try and.
Price them back into what you
might offer back to the market.
Dude, that would have been so
useful for me, like three years ago.
It's brutal.
It's brutal.
So you'd be even, so I think
that's almost and if you're going
through it it's going to be okay.
Like you've acknowledged
you've been through it.
I think everybody I've spoken
to says the same thing.
It's really hard.
So not everything has to feel good.
Yeah.
Don't feel good.
Don't feel good.
Like for a little bit.
Keep, keep pushing through
and you'll figure it out.
No, I love that.
For everyone listening, where's the
best place for people to one, thank
you for being on and learn a little
bit more about what you're up to.
Yeah.
Thanks, man.
I'm on LinkedIn.
I'm pretty active there.
You can search me by name,
Will Stevens, founder at Gain.
You can tune into my podcast,
Solo Printer Stories.
I have great guests like Raul, who's
graced the the microphones and come on.
You can check out my website,
it's Gain Growth Consulting.
LinkedIn profile.
So I'm out there on the internet.
Yeah.
No, no places where I probably can't
be found, but check me out on LinkedIn.
That's where I'm the most active.
Yeah.
I love it.
I'll put those links on the show notes.
Will.
Thanks again, brother.
Thanks so much.
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