Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 207 with the wonderful Laura Posey.

Laura Posey [0:08]
Hi, this is Laura Posey. You’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:13]
I can’t wait to dive into our guest’s story today. Laura ran away to Sedona and as I also, when I went to Sedona, climb Casita Rock and didn’t know my way down. The same thing happened to Laura. On her way, she had an epiphany that she’s going to share with us today. That has really helped her to create and craft the amazing business that she is running today. She is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant, and she is known as The Simple Planning Specialist for her unique ability to simply and easy laser focus her clients to get dramatic results. Her simple strategic plan is used by over 2500 companies, from startups to Fortune 100 companies, and I’m quite sure you can take a lot away. Enjoy. Well, I am so super excited to have you on the show today, Laura. Welcome.

Laura Posey [1:16]
Thanks for having me. I am so excited to be here.

Christine Schlonski [1:18]
Yeah, I love that. So I want to actually start because it’s not even, well, it’s still at the beginning of the year, let’s put it this way. And you are teaching people how to actually plan their year for success. And I’ve been through your course and I have to say I love it. I do have a plan. I just showed you it’s laying on my desk. Where all the important things are on it so I can keep daily track and not get distracted. And I know that so many people do get distracted they go for shiny objects and you know I’ve been guilty of it. I’m not going to say I’m never ever guilty again because it probably will happen. But it was such a plan that really helps you. And if sales are on the plan, then you basically can’t miss growing your business, right?

Laura Posey [2:10]
Right. And if sales aren’t on the plan, it should be.

Christine Schlonski [2:13]
Yes. I totally agree. So tell us a little bit, like how did you get this brilliant idea? And why is it so dear to your heart?

Laura Posey [2:23]
Well, I got a brilliant idea because I built a business that I hated. I basically built myself a job, and I was miserable. And so I did whatever smart entrepreneur does when they do something that they hate, I ran away from home. I did I like hopped on an airplane. I went out to Sedona, Arizona, over the New Year’s holiday, and I thought, “I’m gonna just have to figure out how to get out of this business and go get a job.” That was my intent when I left and it was hiking in Sedona and I won’t give you the whole long detailed story but I almost fell off the side of Cathedral Rock and died while I was hiking. And when I didn’t die, I got up to the top of the rock and I thought, “Well, you, you dummy. The whole reason you almost got in trouble was that you went hiking with no map. You didn’t do any research. You just went out there, you’re like, “Oh, I can hike, and off you went.” That was exactly what I had done in building the business. I didn’t have a plan, I just got up and was like, “Oh, I’m gonna go sell some stuff. I’m gonna build this business”, and it was a disaster. I sat down that night and put my first plan together and got really clear about exactly what I wanted to build and the steps I was going to take to build it. I went back and within a year I had gotten rid of the business partner who was a big problem and change just about everything in the business. I got rid of all the overhead. The business went from being horribly unprofitable to very profitable and it’s been like that for the last 12 years. I mean, I really say that plan just saved me.

Christine Schlonski [4:05]
Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. I know it saved a lot of other entrepreneurs, these mistakes, and I mean, your story so resonates because I remember some years ago I went to Sedona, I read a book by Paulo Coelho, and he described Sedona somehow, and that idea stuck with me one day, I’m going to go to Sedona and then as soon as I kind of found my own business and have my laptop, freedom, lifestyle, I started to travel. Sedona was on the map. I also claimed Cathedral Rock, no plan, no map, myself in my Birkenstocks. It’s just when you look back, it’s kind of embarrassing a little bit, that you are not prepared at all. It was a real adventure, and I also was at a point where I thought, I’m never going to make my way down here. But it wasn’t really great experience and I think when you are on top of that mountain, when you have that overview, the landscape, you realize that it’s like the entrepreneur journey with the ups and the downs and you just have to know the trail or how you can choose a trail if there’s no trail and walk it yourself. I think that’s something an entrepreneur really needs to figure out. How to sit down, get quiet for a while, make decisions, and then stick to the plan and have the focus.

Laura Posey [5:38]
Yeah, absolutely. The thing with the planning is that the biggest piece and you sort of alluded to it with your laptop lifestyle is really understanding and getting super clear about the kind of life that you want to live. Because when you know what your life vision is, and not just, how do you want to live. Do you want to be a digital nomad? Do you want to have a big office full of employees? Not just how much money but what kind of work do you really want to be doing and who do you want to be doing it with? How much do you want to be able to give back? Really getting at the emotional passionate side of how you want to live your life. When you understand that, then you can build a business to deliver that. Until that point, it’s really just a bunch of guesswork. People say, “Well, I procrastinate. I’m not motivated”, that’s all because you’re not clear about your passion. You’re not clear about what you really, really want.

Christine Schlonski [6:38]
Yeah, I totally agree. So one person or the other listening right now, they might be saying, “Well, yeah, but I’m a solopreneur or I’m just starting out. I don’t have a team. I can’t afford a team. I’m barely making the money to kind of stay alive at the moment.” What can you give people like as a piece of advice or what they could be doing to get into the position where they start to be profitable, where sales are coming in, and where they can live that bigger vision that they might dream of?

Laura Posey [7:11]
Yeah, so I think there’s a couple of different things. One piece of advice I got a long time ago that was really helpful is, save 10 cents of every dollar you earn, and just put it into an account and don’t touch it. It’s not money to be spent later. That is money so that you never make decisions out of fear. Having that money set aside, it allows you to go, “Hey, you know what, I am successful. Look, I’ve got this pot of money over here”, and it may just be a little bit to start. It’ll also make you run your business really lean. I think, saving the money piece is super huge. I also think people don’t realize how easy it is to hire other people to help you. I think they think, “Oh, I’ve got to go get an employee and that’s a full-time job, and I got to pay this person $50,000 a year. I don’t have that. I’m not even making that”, that’s not true. If you just take a look at, one of the things that we do when we’re working with plans is we get everything all the way down to the task level. What you’ll find is that there are tasks on your list that you’re really not good at, or there are things that, maybe it’s designing something, or editing something, and you think, “Well, okay, I don’t have any money. So I have to do this myself.” What you’re going to find is that when you have that task really clearly defined, you can go hire somebody just for that one little project to do that one little thing. They’re not an employee, they’re not even really a contractor at that point. They’re just a project person, they’re going to do one thing for you, you’re going to pay them a flat amount of money, and you’re going to get that off your plate. When you start to think about all of the things that you can hire somebody to do, for $10, $20 $25 an hour and you look at that time that you’re not spending on it. If you use that time then to sell. Not just go, “I’m going to go play on Facebook now.” But take that extra hour that you’ve got back and go, “Oh, I’m going to go do some prospecting. I’m going to talk to some people. I’m going to close a deal.” You realize that your time is worth hundreds of dollars an hour. It just makes sense to buy back your time for $25 and resell it for $200or $300.

Christine Schlonski [9:30]
Hmm, yeah. Everybody who starts out can basically do that. Because sometimes they’ll ask that you don’t even know how to do it. I remember when I started out, I was like, “Okay, I have created this wonderful opt-in, like, how do I get it onto my page?” I did outsource it. I have to save as a feeling that I didn’t know if I overpaid or not. I still don’t. But that’s fine. I learned things later on so I could get a better feeling of what to ask for. I think that’s also a challenge entrepreneurs have, they don’t really know how to work the help they need.

Laura Posey [10:07]
Right. Yeah. And that’s why if you get something down to a task level, and you need to understand like, what is the task that needs to be performed and what is the outcome? How will I know when this is the way I want it? When you do that, it becomes really easy to find the people that you need to do this. And, and, you know, one of the things that you talked about is how people, a lot of times, there’s the stuff that they need to do that they don’t know how to do. I want you to really think about the cost of the learning curve. How much is it going to cost you? How many hours is it going to cost you to just learn how to do this thing, not even do it well? Oftentimes, it’s 4 hours or 5 hours, 10 hours of time, that it’s going to cost you to do this. Remember, your time is worth $100 or $200 an hour. So you think about that and you think, “Okay, I’ll spend five weeks go small and say it’s gonna take me five hours to learn this thing at $100 an hour. Okay, it’s costing me $500 just to learn how to do this thing. Well, what if I could go find somebody to do it for $50 or $100? That’s a great return on my investment. Because now I can take that time and I can go sell some stuff.”

Christine Schlonski [11:26]
Yeah, yeah, I love that focus, because people get and you know, I’ve been there. They get so scattered all over the place, and they don’t know where to start, what to do, what to ask for and then yeah, sales are having conversations with people who could potentially be a partner, JV partner could promote you, or you finally create those videos for the course that you started to sell. But like all of these things that really add more value to the business and that only you can do.

Laura Posey [12:00]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [12:00]
Ego aside, sometimes we feel like only we can do it. But coming to find out, probably half of those tasks can be delegated as well. But you know, having these conversations are showing up as your brand or wherever you are on your journey. And then really focusing on this important piece, that the other person that wants to invest in your company, in your services actually can do so because you just help them to walk down the right path.

Laura Posey [12:33]
Right, I always think about, “What would my clients pay me for?” Well, they’re paying me for my advice, for my experience, for my processes, for my systems. Anything that’s not, people are not going to pay me to design something so I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be paying somebody who’s really good at that. People aren’t going to pay me to do a lot of detail stuff for them because I’m not good at that. People would pay me to write copy because I am really good at that and people do pay me to write copy. That’s a job that I keep for myself. I think you have to look at like, what could I sell and go do that and spend your time selling that and outsource everything else. It is not your job to do those things that you are not great at and that people will not pay you for.

Christine Schlonski [13:25]
Yeah, yeah. And your emails are very cool. I love reading them.

Laura Posey [13:31]
Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [13:32]
They’ve done very well. It’s always a joy seeing that it’s a very good way to teaser into like, click here and then you get the full post. If you enjoy doing that, then do it. Because if you enjoy it then you probably get better each time you write something.

Laura Posey [13:52]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [13:53]
It adds a fun piece to your life, to your business, the excitement yet often we will keep lacking if it’s the wrong task we try to do. Like maybe setting up a funnel bores you to death and forget all the links that connect with each other, Well, it’s not gonna work, it’s going to be frustrating. So concentrating on the things that are fun. Talking about fun, can you share fun fact with us?

Laura Posey [14:23]
A fun fact. So I have recently, at the very young age of 52 decided to take up playing the violin. It is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. But I absolutely love it because it’s so different than everything else I do and it’s so challenging. It’s so visceral. But I’m having a blast with it. I have a fantastic teacher who puts up with me and is very patient. I’m never going to make a living. I’m probably never going to perform for other people. But I just in love with this instrument. It’s fussy and difficult. It beats me up every day, but I really love it.

Christine Schlonski [15:14]
That’s so cool. Yeah, I love that when you have something that you are so excited about, even though you’re not good at it yet, or it seems too difficult because you just started. It’s the rule of 10,000 hours to mastery. I would say you still have time

Laura Posey [15:31]
Yes, considering I practice about 20 minutes a day it’s gonna take me a very, very long time to get to that 10,000 hours but that’s okay. This really is, enjoy the journey, exercise for me and open up different areas of my brain. It’s interesting because I play some guitar. I’m not naturally musical, but I could play some guitar and they playing the guitar is helping me in the violin in some ways, and it’s completely messing me up in other ways. It’s just fascinating to see how the brain is like, “Oh, this is music, default to guitar and it’s like no no no, this is the violin Darn it.” I’m learning Spanish as well and it’s funny because, French is my second language, German is my third but I’m much stronger in German than in French and so in practicing this Spanish my brain like goes, “Oh, foreign language go get German. Like, no, no, no, no, no if you’re gonna get something get the French.”

Christine Schlonski [16:32]
Yeah, I totally agree when I learned Spanish at university. It’s so funny because my default was French. Yes, my pronunciation was pretty bad French.

Laura Posey [16:44]
My Spanish pronunciation is French in Italian because I’ve got some Italian training as well and so I’m like, okay, I’m just gonna speak Spanish with a French accent.

Christine Schlonski [16:55]
I remember my teacher was so frustrated with me because I just pronounce French. But I think at the end of the day if you can order food, get yourself a place to sleep and yeah, you’ll be fine.

Laura Posey [17:10]
Exactly, exactly.

Christine Schlonski [17:12]
Also, I just love the first conversation with you and I’m so excited because we have set up another interview. And yes, I have a ton of questions for you and just one. I’m going to start right now and you have a little bit of time to think about it till next time. What was the first thing that you’ve ever sold in your entire life?

Laura Posey [17:36]
Oh, you are gonna love this answer.

Christine Schlonski [17:39]
Well, I can’t wait.

Laura Posey [17:42]
I’ve sold some weird stuff. You’re gonna like this.

Christine Schlonski [17:44]
Okay, cool. Well, I’m very much looking forward to this. And thank you so much for the first episode. And yeah, let’s talk soon for the second one.

Laura Posey [17:53]
Sounds great. Thanks for having me.

Christine Schlonski [17:55]
Well, what a powerful story. I just loved how Laura and I have Sedona in common to get some really breakthroughs in our lives, in our businesses and that I find super, super exciting. So if you realize that you created yourself a job, when you went into business for yourself, and you need to make some tweaks and changes, then hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Find the podcast tab. Laura’s episode number 207. There you have the show notes, all the resources, we talked about, the transcript, especially for you. So you can pick out the right questions we talked about to ask yourself. How do you want your life to be, exactly like your private life, your business life, the combination of both? What kind of simple strategic plan can you follow? Also, in the resource tab, you find Laura’s amazing gift, Daily Success Checklist Kit that helps you to keep on track. So hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ find the podcast tab. Once you’re over there, if you have not yet signed up for the empowerment notes, I highly recommend that. It’s empowerment right into your inbox, with the updates on Heart Sells! Podcast, amazing resources, and content that I usually do not share on social media. So you only find that with the empowerment notes. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Find the podcast tab, and then you are all set. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.