Bouncing back from setbacks, with Joanna Lovering

Joanna Lovering 0:02

I don't regret taking the time I needed and doing the work that I needed to do with my therapist. And I also know that like, I have the ability to get up after I've fallen.

Leah Neaderthal 0:17

Welcome to this smart gets paid podcast with me, Leah Neaderthal. I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing. And when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it. And I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients. So they can feel more comfortable in the sales process, get more of the right clients, and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients who love do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in. And don't forget to rate review and share.

Hey there, Leah here. Thanks for joining me in this episode. I hope that wherever you are, wherever you're listening to this, I hope you're having a good week, making some good progress in your business and also taking some time for yourself. So a few weeks ago, I went to visit my parents in Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up, my family and I went down there for my son's spring break, which also coincided with Passover. So we went to Nashville to celebrate Passover and spend some quality time with my parents. And while we were there a few times I went out for a run in my parents neighborhood, which like was for exercise, but was also maybe to get a bit of a break. So anyway, I went for a run in the neighborhood. And much of Nashville, if you know Nashville, much of Nashville feels like the suburbs. So you know, like my parents neighborhood is in Nashville proper, but it feels a little Suburban. So picture, you know, running down like a quiet neighborhood street with some houses on either side. And as I was running about halfway through, it just felt a lot harder than usual. And I run a few times a week. So I'm used to running. And it was the same speed, I usually go the same distance I usually go. And it was pretty much the same, like you know, flats and hills. And it was gorgeous out like the perfect temperature to run. But it was a lot harder. And I kept being like, why does this feel so much harder. And later on, I realized why why it felt so much harder. It was the same run, except for one big difference. I was alone. Normally I run in Prospect Park, which is right near where I live in Brooklyn. And on my normal run in Prospect Park, there are always tons of people running, biking, walking, I mean any manner of transportation, Scooter, whatever you name it. And it's constant, like at any time of the day, you'll see people out and about, you know, getting their exercise or just getting a fresh air or just moving their bodies. And I realized that that was the difference. That was what was making these runs so much harder. There was no one running, you know, quote with me. And you know, I've always known that running in a group gives you more motivation and more momentum. Like if you've ever done a 5k or a marathon. And I felt that myself in the races that I've done and in triathlons. But I didn't realize that it's not just about you know, running in a group or running with people very close to you. It can just be you know, being around people doing what you're doing. Essentially, being in community with people, they can give you so much energy and be so motivating, even if you don't know any of those people. And even if you'd never say a word. And that's why running alone felt so much harder. And I was thinking about this when I was preparing this episode, because as you're going to hear community being around others is so important to the woman I'm talking to in this episode. I'm talking to Joanna Lovering, who's an executive presence coach and consultant. And a couple years ago, Joanna went through a personal loss that was pretty devastating. I'm not going to share too much of it, I'm going to let her tell you about it in the episode. And in the wake of that loss, she went into a depression as she grieved and she moved through that loss. And when you're a business owner, and something affects you personally, then it's also going to affect your business. And she realized several months later that the business had fallen into a really low point. And she knew she needed to make a change to build her business back up. So in our conversation, she's going to share what caused her to refocus and recommit to her business and how she rebuilt it to become an even bigger success than before.

So take a listen to my conversation with Joanna levering. And at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business. And then hopefully someday soon you'll partner with us to help you build your consulting business. And you'll come back on the podcast and share your story. Enjoy.

Joanna, I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for being here. Me too. I've been so looking forward to this. And I'm so humbled.

Joanna Lovering 5:24

Thank you. You asked me to be on this like super special podcast that seems so fancy to me. So I'm really excited.

Leah Neaderthal 5:31

Oh, gosh. Meanwhile, this is how fancy it is. You and I are sitting here.

Joanna Lovering 5:35

I'm literally in my workout clothes. You're wearing a beanie. No makeup. No fancy. We're

Leah Neaderthal 5:42

that's how fancy we are.

Joanna Lovering 5:43

We're so fancy.

Leah Neaderthal 5:44

Well, so join it. Why don't you tell the good people who you are. Introduce yourself. Hello,

Joanna Lovering 5:51

good people. I'm Joanna Lovering. I'm a New York City based presidents and leadership consultants. I've been in my business doing this stuff for about seven years, independently. But I'm a corporate refugee, like many consultants, and I'm living the life that's what we're doing right. We're living the life their production. I

Leah Neaderthal 6:13

love it. So when you say covert refugee like, what, what were you doing before you started your business?

Joanna Lovering 6:18

Yeah, I was full time in large companies, household names that you've heard of like Tiffany and Company, L'Oreal JetBlue. As as well as smaller startups, all in the world of leadership development and coaching. So I was managing anywhere between 25 and 85 people all remote. I've been doing this zoom remote thing since 2014.

Leah Neaderthal 6:45

To wasn't, that's like one beautiful thing about if there could be a beautiful thing about how business changes in the pandemic, if like people like you and I who were doing this before we were like, Okay, let's just keep going. Keep

Joanna Lovering 6:56

going. Yeah, it was not a shock. To me. It actually, I again, not a lot of great things about the pandemic, but it did expand my business worldwide, because people were so open to being on Zoom. Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 7:11

yeah. All right. So you're a corporate, corporate refugee, you have been doing this work on your own independently for about seven

Joanna Lovering 7:19

years. I mean, listen, copper and rise the name of my business, I have red hair, meat, copper rise up in your life. It was a side hustle for the first I think four years, maybe three years. And it was my other kind of creative outlet is fashion styling. And so when I first started my business, it was a style coaching firm. And then I was working in leadership development, full time at a company. It was totally nights and weekends helping people spend money at stores, but also feel better about the way that they look and the way that they present themselves to the world. And then that thing called the pandemic happened, and who the hell was getting dressed. I wasn't even getting dressed. So all I was barely putting on pants every day. So I really had to, I wouldn't say it was a pivot for my business. But it was definitely an expansion. Because I started to incorporate all of the things that I used to do full time. I wasn't working full time at that moment anymore. I was full steam ahead for fashion styling saying like, leadership development. That's my old life. No, as my old life I'm gonna put that on the shelf. Just gonna do fascist styling. And then like March 2020, who the fuck is getting dressed? Ooh, am I allowed to curse on you're allowed to curse? Yeah. Oh, amen. Okay, so who the fuck is getting dressed. And so then I just started to incorporate all the stuff that I used to do in corporate into my business. And so that's how I became a leadership and presence coach, because presence is all about how you speak how you act and how you look bed. Sorry, not sorry, but the way you show up in a room. People are looking at you, they're gonna make a judgment about you. So why not optimize the living hell out of it?

Leah Neaderthal 9:15

Right. It's like one thing I read. When I a couple years ago, I started working with a stylist. And it's one of the one impetus of that is I read something that says people, what is it you have a style because I was like one of those people. I was like one of those people like it's, you know, it's really not about the clothes or whatever. But it's people will you have a style, whether you know it or not, and people are making judgments about that, like whether you know it or not, so why don't you just take charge of that. So yeah,

Joanna Lovering 9:46

I mean, listen, it depends on what your goals are. Right? So if your goals are to stand out and make an impact on the world, then people have to notice you and people need to listen to what you're saying. And And sorry, not sorry. But we make a lot of judgments just by what we see with our eyes. And we will judge whether or not we want to listen to this person. It's true. And I'm not saying, Listen, we can go on the entire podcast episode could be about this, okay? And I know that you want to move on to like business stuff. But I will just say that. I'm not saying that I recommend everyone to conform to societal norms about what beauty is, and what fashion is, I could give a shit about fashion trends, you know that. But I do think it's important for us to visually depict our authenticity and our persona in any way we choose. Knowing that will have an impact on our audience. Absolutely. So if our audience is like a bunch of old Boomer, white sis hit men, that we got to think about how we're influencing those people. Yes, because that's the whole point. We are influencing our audience. It's

Leah Neaderthal 11:02

like my grandfather used to say, let them have your way. And that's Oh, yes. Oh, I

Joanna Lovering 11:07

love that. Hi, grandpa. Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 11:11

So let's talk about your business and how you've grown it, run it on all of that. So when we met what was going on in your business, it had, you'd go back five, six years. And at that point, I always say that when you get to that point, you're sort of past the startup phase, you're upgrading your problems, right? Not that the problems go away, but you've upgraded your problems in your business, what were the, you know, few problems that needed to be solved at that time?

Joanna Lovering 11:39

I have to tell you that when we met, I was going through some personal stuff. And I think that was actually the God when you're a solo entrepreneur, your personal shit bleeds into the business, right? So it was bleeding in remember that? Yes, while I had been in business for like five or six years, I really revamped and expanded my entire value prop in summer 2020. So in some ways, it was like I had a brand new business in summer 2020. I remember I relaunched my website, October 1 2020. So it wasn't even summer, it was October 1. And what was going on was at the beginning of 2023, I had been going through some loss in my family specifically, and I say my family, but it was my dog, my dog passed away. And he was the little guy, I'm single, I live by myself. And so he was the little guy that was with me throughout the entire pandemic. And I was just devastated. And I felt very alone. And I was definitely depressed. And what happened was the second half of 2022, I really was just like, in myself in a depressive state. And the last thing I wanted to do was put my face out there or go to events or something. And so I wasn't nurturing my pipeline for my business. So I remember contacting you, at the beginning of 2023. And January 2023, my checking account bounced. And I was money as a whole. That's a whole other podcast episode. But it was the first time that my checking account bounced. And I was like, I'm in deep shit right now, because I really didn't nurture my sales pipeline for six months. And I felt alone and stuck. And I discovered you Lea not to like to error horn. But you know, I found you on LinkedIn. And I felt like your LinkedIn posts were speaking to me. And part of the reason why I chose the Academy with smart gets paid is because I want to do the same thing that you did for me for my potential clients is whether it's on LinkedIn, or just like your general your emails, whatever, like, I felt the warmth, I felt seen, I felt heard just by your stinking LinkedIn posts.

Leah Neaderthal 14:19

Thank you for saying that. Thank you for that. So it was

Joanna Lovering 14:22

like walking the talk. Like I want to do that, too. And

Leah Neaderthal 14:26

that's so nice to hear. And thank you for sharing that. And let's sort of rewind a bit. If, of course, when you're experiencing loss when you're depressed, when you can barely get out of bed and live life and all that stuff. Like of course you're not going to be like hey, you know, posting on LinkedIn or reaching out to people it just, you know, we it's impossible. You just have no energy for that.

Joanna Lovering 14:50

You have no energy for that. And here's the good news is that I have a relatively large personality For sure. And a relatively active and large network. And so for many years, I was relying on referrals I was relying on, I would throw events here and there. And it was a great way to nurture my pipeline. But eventually, that shit runs out. That ship runs out. And when it ran out, I wasn't doing different things. I mean, I felt like I kind of couldn't, but I wasn't doing different things. I didn't even know what different things to do. Like who the hell in the beginning of 2023 wanted to go to another zoom event? Not me.

Leah Neaderthal 15:42

We were all zoomed out. Oh, my God. Yeah,

Joanna Lovering 15:45

at the beginning of the pandemic, everybody was like, zoom, zoom, zoom. I was doing these monthly roundtables. I didn't even want to do that shit anymore. Let alone did people want to come? Let's be honest. So I don't even know what to do anymore. And I felt so friggin alone. Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 16:04

And I remember you were talking to me, and you were like, This year can't be like last year, because it was at the beginning of the year. And I but I also think that you either were, I remember you saying something like, I'm ready to focus again. Right? Either you had come out of that. Or you were, you know, muscling to pull yourself out of that.

Joanna Lovering 16:27

I mean, I think I was in a depressed state for good six months, and whatever, whether you want to say like, New Year new you, I've never been a New Year's resolution person before, but the beginning of the year came around, and I was like, okay, Joanna. Okay. Now is the time if you want to focus on your business, you need a way to stop having these extreme ups and downs of like, ecstasy when you work with someone, but then the next day fear and frustration when you look at your bank account, like the waves of emotion that I was going through, that's what I meant by last year can't be the same as this year was it's these like waves of emotion where I felt like every day I was hanging on by a thread. And I was so influenced by what would happen that day in my business, I didn't feel a lot of constancy. And I needed that I needed more grounding.

Leah Neaderthal 17:37

Yeah. And I know that just not to, like spoil the punchline for everybody. But I know that you're you've really brought your business to a place. It's a lot better. But we'll get to that in a second. But I want to talk about what do you feel like were the biggest game changers when you decided to like make this change? Right? What do you feel like were the biggest game changers that got you there?

Joanna Lovering 18:00

biggest game changers? The first thing that comes to my mind is my presence on LinkedIn. Number one, LinkedIn is such an incredible generator. Of sure potential clients, but it's a way for you to become a thought leader. I was using Instagram, much more than LinkedIn when we met. Because I think it's more fun to be perfectly honest. I mean, I did is it Yes, it is. But I was putting all my fashion stuff on my red carpet pics, yada, yada, yada. And I felt like LinkedIn was like the old way of thinking about it, like only professional stuff can go on there. But you know what? LinkedIn, at least for me, and from what you've taught me in the academy, the purpose of LinkedIn is a little bit different than the old fogy only professional stuff that I thought of. And it is really helped to add a poll. It's my reputation. And just my name and my face out there. And the game changer is that you and I figured out a way for me to post three times a week on LinkedIn with not a ton of effort. That's it. The thought of writing really smart, LinkedIn posts three times a week, I was like, I'm not a writer. I don't enjoy it. I don't want to do that. But we figured out a way to use my past email newsletters, and post evergreen articles and regular posts on LinkedIn. And I'm utilizing my VA in that way my virtual assistant holy Eat fucking shit. That's a total game changer.

Leah Neaderthal 20:04

Well, the game changer. Well, there's two game changers. The first is how can you make it easy? Yeah. And the second is showing up consistently? Yep. I always say that like consistency is the only strategy doesn't actually doesn't matter. Like everyone's What thing is gonna work for me or what thing is going to work? And what they're really asking is what little thing can I put a quarter in, in the clients will fall out. And that's nothing works like that.

Joanna Lovering 20:27

Isn't that annoying? Let's be honest. So I would really love the silver bullet to go viral and become a gajillion air. But just like working out, just like romantic relationships, whatever. It's all about consistency, you have to show up and have to be present on a consistent basis. And so my virtual assistant is much more organized than I am. And so I was able to use her in in a way to keep me consistent, where I can go off and do other things.

Leah Neaderthal 20:58

Totally. And that's exactly how you should be working with a virtual assistant. Because we always talked about like, what part of the task do you have to show up for you have to show up for the thought leadership, but you don't have to show up for like pushing the buttons on LinkedIn. Right? 100% instead. And so that's amazing. So the consistence using LinkedIn in the right way. And the consistency. Yeah, what else was a would you say is a game changer for you?

Joanna Lovering 21:25

I gotta be honest, when it comes to the content of the academy, the templates that you give us, amen, and hallelujah. I'm not even religious, but man. You don't just talk about concepts. You give us copy, paste. Here is what you need to say. Insert, insert value prop here. I gotta tell you, you just made it so easy. I never feel like I'm starting from scratch. And that is what was so intimidating so often. So when it comes to things like proposals, big proposals or proposals in an email, those were huge game changers, just the fact that you gave us templates for that. And then I would also say the third game changer is this is the most active slack group I've ever seen. Yes, I've heard of a few. I've been a part of doing really annoying. This one is a not annoying, be super active and see filled with women that I actually want to be friends with. Yeah, it's you you attract people that are I don't know, that are like me that are like you even though you and I are totally different people. I don't know, just people I want to be friends with. Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 22:51

I love that. I mean, I always say it's like the best place on the internet. If you did, I'm actually not even a joiner. And this is like a group that I

Joanna Lovering 22:57

love being part of Leo, let's be honest, you and I both know, under the rug. I am not a joiner and I'm not a participator I am shit when it comes to participating. And we can talk about that. But But even as an observer, when I don't participate, the slacker group continues to surprise me. Comfort me, even if I'm not participating. Even

Leah Neaderthal 23:27

you came on a while back and you're posting like, is this thing worth it? Somebody you had gotten an invitation to be a part of something that was like this pay for play? Oh, you know, press thing that a lot of people get sucked into and you were like, is this worth it? Should I do it? And I think within an hour, somebody had said, my friends,

Joanna Lovering 23:51

I talked to my friend, I talked to my friends who did this exact thing. It was within an hour.

Leah Neaderthal 23:56

And yeah, it was like, but think about you mentioned you're in this business, right? It's like, running a business like this can be very lonely and oh my god little questions when you are working alone, like little questions can be things that you can spin out around for days. 100% and I listen.

Joanna Lovering 24:15

If you can't tell already, I'm a big fat extrovert. And so this idea of working alone can actually be debilitating. For me, the isolation actually makes me very depressed. And so I know something about myself. I need a community. And the thing is that I joined like women's networking hubs, right. But those are filled with events at certain times. So I did feel like I was a part of a community but I didn't feel like I could ping them with a dumb question. And that's where the academy community and the slack group in particular has been so helpful for me because it's like the dumb question. shines the little things the should I use red or green on this slide. That's the shit that I finally feel like I have coworkers. I mean, God, when I worked in corporate, that's the stuff where I would walk over to my friend's office or my friend's desk, and be like, should I use Garamond? Or should I use Arial? So I'm grateful because it's I have a community in the moment. Yeah, and so many different time zones, because you know, me, I work until two o'clock in the morning. And so there are people in California that are answering me.

Leah Neaderthal 25:34

I know, it's great. Yeah. And also, I think one of the, one of the pitfalls of women's communities and women's networking groups, or whatever, is that everybody will can give you advice, if you ask for it, right? If it's the kind of thing where you feel like, you can ask for it. It's like, how have you done this in the past or whatever, but it stops there. And so it's like, how have you done this in the past? Or what should I do in this situation? And then getting advice and then having being able to come back and be like, is this what you were talking about? What can you look at it again? Can you look at my second or third draft or whatever, you know, and like, you're not just going to ping, you're somebody who is like, you know, doing a favor by answering your question. They're not going to check your work. Right, exactly. And make sure it looks amazing. And so I think that there's there is something nice about what happens in this community where it's everybody like sticks with it, you know, and they want to make sure that it's perfect when it goes out the door.

Joanna Lovering 26:31

I literally have proofreaders it's crazy. But you're absolutely right. And I don't always use them for that, of course, but you're absolutely right. Like I would meet amazing women at a networking event at wherever. And it's great to like have a coffee chat. I'm never gonna say pick your brain. I'm not picking anybody's fucking brain, we have mutual benefit to our meetings. But I think everyone is really happy to talk about themselves. Like I'm doing right now. Everybody's really happy to do that. But then you're so right. I don't know if I ever really thought about it this way. But like, in the moment, I like, I took your advice, and I built my proposals this way. Can you look at it? I'm not gonna happen that but I can ask the amazing women in the academy that and so that's a huge, huge game changer for me. Yes, game changer for me. Okay,

Leah Neaderthal 27:34

so you have the the templates and the community, you've learned the LinkedIn how to be consistent. Is there anything else you that you've learned? Would you say that has gotten you to where you are, we're which we're going to talk about that in a sec. Lea

Joanna Lovering 27:50

like the way I don't know, maybe it's because we're New Yorkers, whatever, but you speak my language. And so I feel even with the stuff that maybe I was already doing, the way that you explain it, and the content, it just speaks my language. And I always glean something new. Oh,

Leah Neaderthal 28:13

that's so great to hear. And that's the thing, it's like, sometimes you might need to hear it a different way. Or, you know, also like building a business is, you know, a lot of people think it's like sort of straight line or stair steps or whatever. It's actually like, it's a spiral staircase. And oftentimes you revisit the same concepts. But you have your business has evolved, you have more data, you exactly, you know, more data, I'm

Joanna Lovering 28:35

offering different things. I'm since I met you, one of the reasons why I really wanted to work with you is because I really wanted to move my business, from a b2c business to more b2b. And so talk about like, offering different things and speaking about what I do in a different way, my entire audience is now a different audience. And so talk about a game changer, like the way that you would speak to me about a B to B business. So sure, I was already for instance, pricing for value, but pricing for B to B is very different than b2c. Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 29:16

Because you were going from working with individual clients to working with corporate clients or you know, business clients. Yes.

Joanna Lovering 29:22

And admittedly, my business now is half and half. But But it wasn't always before.

Leah Neaderthal 29:27

Well, and that's the thing. Think about how long it took to build a business the first time. Well, yeah, right. And to make the shift from b2c to b2b, you know, I want to work with somebody who was like that she wanted to make that same leap as well. And after three months, she was like, it hasn't worked. And I'm like, How long did you think it was legitimately going to take the b2b sales cycle alone can take three to 18 months 1% And oh my god, but you don't make that change as a switch. You make it you change the proportion You know, right. So you until you have the proportion that you want,

Joanna Lovering 30:05

right? Exactly. By the way, what you just said sparked a nugget in my mind, game changer and game changer in the academy. And Leah, this is just like one thing you say all the time, this whole idea or this whole concept of time? And how time is different for you versus corporate, your stakeholders or your contact in corporate? Because it would start to drive me nuts, right? Like I would wait,

Leah Neaderthal 30:36

can you just for everybody, for everybody's benefit? What what is that, that I tell the people? What is the concept, what

Joanna Lovering 30:46

it is, is that your little anxious mind is going to want something to happen really quickly. And the fact of the matter is that the folks that you're talking to incorporate, they've got a lot of other priorities. And so their time is just not nearly as quick as yours. Because your top priority is getting them to sign the contracts. Their top priority is like this, meet this sales, meeting that building of the deck, and then maybe signing your contract is like lower down on the priorities list. So your time, like, three days for you is excruciating. Three days for them is like a minute. I always say client Calm the fuck down.

Leah Neaderthal 31:34

Yeah, client time and your time are different. You know, people are like, it's been two weeks. Why hasn't why? Why? And they've got back to me or sign the contract or whatever. And like that two weeks in your world is like five minutes in their world? Yep. And when you understand that, then it's like you said, you can sort of quiet your anxious mind and focus where you really should be focusing, which if you're waiting for something to, to close, or whatever, what can you do to fill your pipeline, in fact, or who else needs to hear from you? Oh, I'm so glad you said that. It's such an important mindset.

Joanna Lovering 32:07

You taught it. I'm trying to live it. My little like anxiety minds. I'm constantly fighting it. I'm a New Yorker who the fuck in New York doesn't have anxiety? Get right. Get it when we move

Leah Neaderthal 32:19

in? Yeah. So the things that you've learned and implemented and incorporated into your business? Bring us up to speed. You know, what's, what are some of the results you've seen? Like? What's changed for the better?

Joanna Lovering 32:31

Well, first of all, if you just want to look at the numbers, I'm really happy to say that 2023 was my best year ever. Yeah, like, like dance like, yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 32:44

And I will say, just for context, because we're not gonna talk about numbers on this podcast, but like, it was a really good number. Again, not talking about specific numbers, but you were within, like, $5,000 of this really big goal. And I feel like everybody the whole community was like, on edge. I know. I made it and you made

Joanna Lovering 33:06

it. I made it. Yes. I made it. I'm saying you made it. I think I was like, $700. I know. So like, fuck it. I made it. Like,

Leah Neaderthal 33:14

you totally made it. Yeah. And I it's funny because we were on break. And I was like, I want to ask if she made it. And then I was like, no, no, if she made it like she would post or whatever, because I knew that you were like, 700

Joanna Lovering 33:24

off. I was working on it. I was actually like, I was getting on the fucking horn man. And I was like, Hey, do you need to finish out your budget for 2023? Hello. And you did get

Leah Neaderthal 33:35

some people who didn't sign on because of that they needed Yep. To be used their budget, which is a great tactic, but yeah, okay,

Joanna Lovering 33:43

so I did eventually get it like 2023 funds were paid in 2024. But I did eventually get to that big goal.

Leah Neaderthal 33:50

I did. Yeah. Yeah. It was so exciting. It was like everybody in Slack was like with a nail biter. nail biter.

Joanna Lovering 33:57

Yeah. All right.

Leah Neaderthal 33:58

So beyond beyond the money. Let's see beyond that on

Joanna Lovering 34:00

the money. Yeah. Beyond the money. There's like, definitely a mindset shift first of all. Okay, you said beyond the money, but I'm going back to money. My January 2024. It's February. It's February 14 right now. Happy Valentine's Day. Okay, but my January 2024 was like gangbusters. January has always been an insanely slow month for me like boring. Which is part of the reason why last year when my checking account bounced I was shitting a brick. But this year, my 2024 January was gangbusters insane. And I have now at least verbal like verbal Ok's verbal yeses for about 1/3 of my revenue from last year. And today is February for are teens? Amazing? Yeah, amazing. So I'll fucking take it, man. So that's great. The other game changer is I just have more systems in place, specifically around my VA, as well as my copywriter, I have more systems in place to allow the engine to run without me pressing the gas pedal. Right. So like, it just runs on its own, it's more of an electric car, right? It's just, but it's running a bit more on its own. So I'm not feeling the constant push and pull and tug on a daily basis to do all these little teeny tiny things. So then I can focus more on executing the business. I mean, I'm a coach. So I have a lot of one on one clients right now. So actually doing the thing that I love to do, and then generating new business and more business development, I was so caught in the weeds before that I really didn't have the mental bandwidth or the emotional bandwidth to fill my pipeline. And now I do.

Leah Neaderthal 36:11

Yeah, yeah. And I just want to harp on one, I want to just point out one thing you said, which is it feels like it has to, it doesn't, it runs a little bit more on its own, which is not to say for anybody listening that this is we're not talking about quote unquote, passive income, which doesn't actually exist. This is you're still doing, working with your clients, you are delivering the work. It's you're doing workshops, and all these things or whatever. But I love what you said, you can actually do that. Yeah, because you're not also doing 85 Other things at the same,

Joanna Lovering 36:44

right? I mean, but just like, for instance, the LinkedIn posts, they're now happening three times a week, and I don't really have to do anything, because my VA is taking care of it and doing the research on that stuff. Not that I didn't write them. I totally wrote them. But she's going backwards into my archives for my email newsletters and picking out gems. But she's doing that on her own. It's Amen and hallelujah. I don't know, just other things are just running more consistently. And I think there's a long with that. I think it's related. Is that I, from a from a mindset, point of view. How do I put it, I'm a little bit more optimistic, a little bit more positive about my future. My future being an entrepreneur, like listen, there, there have been so many moments where I'm like, Shit, I'm gonna have to go get a full time job, I'm gonna have to go do it. And there have been moments, there were moments last year where I literally got on LinkedIn jobs, and started looking at them and then started feeling really shitty about myself. Like, how come you can't hack it? You can't do it as an entrepreneur, all that shit. Now I have a little bit more faith. Not in the religious sense, but just like faith that this is what I'm supposed to do. Like this is this is gonna work out. Yeah. And maybe being a billionaire isn't that's not really my goal. But I do think that I live a great life. My business supports that life. I live in New York City. I mean, I don't know what else I could ask for. Right? Maybe like 50 $50,000. But who knows? Who knows what all what what will happen this year. But you know what I mean? I just have more of a confidence and a grounding that what is meant for me welcome.

Leah Neaderthal 38:40

Yeah, yes. Oh, I love that. You're talking about like the, in the past with the business ups and downs, you said that there were times that you were like, I can't hack it. And isn't that wild that we run our businesses to do a thing and to provide this value and work with our clients in this way. And because we can't do some this other thing, get the clients get paid and all of that. We're like, I can't hack this. I'm not meant to be doing this, even though nobody taught us how to do it. We never learned how to do it. And here we are. And a lot of us are doing it for the first time. And that here we are letting that dictate our whole, like, of course, mindset, ethos, confidence,

Joanna Lovering 39:20

right? It's easier for our brain to think about zero sum games. So of course, we go down the rabbit hole of destruction. Totally,

Leah Neaderthal 39:28

totally. But and then when you do actually learn how to, you know, get the clients get paid and all of that thing, what ends up happening. It's like your skills in delivery of the services are probably the same. But you feel so much better about the business. Yeah, right. Exactly. So wild to me the games that our heads play, you know, in the academy, we call it head trash, right? There's so much of it. Yep, absolutely.

Joanna Lovering 39:54

And I've been there and all I can say is sometimes I'm still there. Let's be honest. But it's less frequent. It's less acute. And I've got got a therapist, and I got Leah, and I've got the Slack community to help pull me out. Yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 40:21

Because nobody actually, you know, I talked to people who are like I'm considering, you know, either doing the academy and focusing on my business or getting a job. And when people say that, I'm like, well go get a job, right? Because your business will be so much harder. And if you're not fully into it, then it'll be a lot even harder still,

Joanna Lovering 40:40

right? Yes, absolutely. This is not for the faint of heart. No. And

Leah Neaderthal 40:43

when I say when we're having these conversations, and I'll ask people is that what you want? Is that what you want to do is go get a job? And they're like, oh, no, no, no, I really don't. Because it's, you're right. It's not easier at all, at all. Also, PS, it's actually just as hard to get hired for a job as it is to get a client.

Joanna Lovering 41:00

So I know, everyone's like, well, I could just go get a job. I'm like, in the job market today, you know, you enjoy I know.

Leah Neaderthal 41:07

All right, well, so what would you say to someone who might be finding her herself in a place that you were back then like coming out of your depression? And what would you say to her? Yeah,

Joanna Lovering 41:21

you've got a, you got to take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt only because I'm such an extrovert. And I know that many of your listeners are probably more introverted. But I know, for myself, that I am happiest when I feel connected. When I feel connected to other humans, it is when I am, I call it turtling. Like you just go into your shell, right. And I know that there are some people out there that when they feel rejuvenated, they gain energy from within themselves. That is not me, admittedly. And so what I would say to that woman, is you got to get out of bed and you got to show up. My mom used to say to me all the time, 80% of life is just showing up. By the way, my mom used to say to me, I did not know that quote was from Woody Allen. And I'm like, not thrilled about that, because Woody Allen but who is gonna say my mom, my mom, my mom used to say, it's me. I don't know who it's from. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna go with that. Yeah, thanks. But 80% of life is just showing up. But you got to show up. So I don't, I don't necessarily regret that time when I wasn't feeling great. And I was depressed because I also needed to sit in my grief. So I don't regret taking the time I needed and doing the work that I needed to do with my therapist. And I also know that like, I have the ability to get up after I've fallen. And yeah, I just know that I need a community in order to feel more connected, and in order to feel like a human. And so this community, I know I'm not. I'm not like on purpose, tooting your business's horn or something. But I am so grateful that I found the Academy and the members within it because I truly feel connected. And I don't even know where half of them live. Yeah, it's but they're like my peeps.

Leah Neaderthal 43:29

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, I'm so glad that you had that. And you do have that. Yeah. So join out where can people find you? Ah, find

Joanna Lovering 43:40

me at Copper and rise.com Copper, the metal co P er. And AMD rise ri sc.com. I'm also on Instagram, but I'm not using it as much. So find me on LinkedIn, Joanna lover ring, do a search for me and find me. Awesome. I don't know why I just started singing. Because

Leah Neaderthal 44:05

you know, the theater kid and you die as hard again.

Joanna Lovering 44:10

It's true.

Leah Neaderthal 44:12

Joanna, thank you so much for being here.

Joanna Lovering 44:14

Oh my gosh. My pleasure. Thanks for asking me these like really poignant questions that I haven't necessarily thought of before. But I really hope your listeners can gain some value out of my story and my vulnerability. How about that?

Leah Neaderthal 44:29

You brought it you really brought the vulnerability. All right. So as you heard, even though we were talking about some not so fun stuff, I had so much fun in this conversation with Joanna. And if anything join us said or shared resonated with you please reach out to her and let her know you can find her on LinkedIn at Joanna levering and at her site copper and rise.com. So we talked about community and the power of community and the support you can find in community and also you heard join us say that at the end of last year, she reached out and asked if her clients wanted to spend their 2023 budget before the end of the year. And she got some yeses, which allowed her to reach her big revenue milestone at the end of the year. Well, Joanna has generously shared the emails that she sent with our community. So if you're in the academy, you can find the exact emails that Joanna sent those successful emails that she used, so that you can use them for inspiration for yourself, you'll find them in our slack. And in our academy portal. It's just one way that Joanna and other members of the community give back and help everyone. So thanks, Joanna. And if you're in the academy, be sure to think Joanna to. So there are so many great nuggets in our conversation. And I wanted to pull out a lesson that you can apply today. And it's this idea that client time and our time are different. This is something we talk about around leading a sales process, and what we call navigating the jungle, which means being able to get the work actually sold in. And it's a really important concept to understand both for this sales process and for your own sanity. So client time and our time are different. What this means is that however much time has actually elapsed in the sales process. In our world that might feel like a lot of time and in the client's world, it feels like a fraction of the time. So for example, you might think, well, I sent that proposal and they haven't gotten back to me. And it's been two weeks, or, you know, I sent an email and it's been a while and they haven't, you know, written back to me. And so even though it might feel like two weeks in our time, it probably feels like five minutes in the clients world. So it feels like five minutes in client time. And that's because our primary focus is moving the sales process forward and getting the proposal signed. But that's not the clients primary focus. They're dealing with any number of things, you know, fire drills people, on and on and on. So it's what we're thinking about all the time, but it's not the most important thing they're thinking about. And I mean, listen, we experienced this to on the other side, you know, and things in our life, like, have you ever gotten an email and you think to yourself, I'm going to write back and I really need to get back to them, and you sort of put it off and keep saying you'll get back to it. And in your mind, you're like it's probably been what, like a week, few days or whatever. But it turns out, it's actually been like a month or longer. Okay, I know, if you're listening to this, you have probably done that before. And I know I have, I mean, we're human, because when it's not our focus time feels different. And in the sales process, client time and our time are different. So how can knowing this help you? Well, so first, it can help reduce your anxiety in the sales process. Because what can happen is that when someone doesn't get back to you for a few weeks, or even a few months, your brain starts spinning and your head trash goes into overdrive. You can start to think things like they're just gonna say no, or they've already decided they're gonna say no, why don't they just let me know? Or why aren't they getting back to me like, I must have done something wrong. Or I must have said the wrong thing or price my work too high, or they probably hate me. Or you might start to spin around and on things like do I need to send something else, maybe I'll send an email with an article that's relevant and on and on and on. And the truth is that none of that is true. It's just your head trash. I mean, I've had clients that didn't hear back from a potential client for months, and they had sort of written them off and stopped thinking about them as an actual live opportunity. And then the client finally got back to them. She explained what had been going on in the team and in the organization that had caused the delay. And she said they were finally ready to move forward. So knowing that client time and our time are different can really reduce your anxiety. And second, it can remind you that these things just take time, this is a normal part of the process. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that the b2b sales process can take anywhere from three to 18 months. And while of course, we want it to be on the lower end, like three months would be great. Most of the time, it's somewhere in the middle. You know, I've had clients who were in conversations with their potential clients for almost a year. It's just the nature of selling b2b. It's not just about whether the client has the problem or wants to solve it. They also need to be able to get the work sold in. And most of the selling happens when you're not there. It's not in the sales conversations you have or in the emails you send. Most of it's happening in conversations that are happening inside the company or inside the organization that you're not part of, and in the decisions and processes taking place inside the client. And that just takes time. So even though two weeks can feel like an eternity on our side, it's a blip on the radar for the client, and things can only go as fast as they go. So what can you do well You're waiting, focus on building your pipeline. When waiting for people to get back to you makes you crazy, the best thing to do is have more potential clients that you're talking to. So you can focus on the opportunities that are actually moving forward. It's just having more eggs in your basket. If you only have one egg, you're going to be watching it incessantly to sort of will it to hatch. But if you have a lot of eggs in your basket, you can be confident that one of them is going to hatch sooner or later. So remember, client time and our time are different. It's one of the ways we help you not only learn how to get clients, but how to stay confident and reduce anxiety in the sales process. And when you can do that you can build your consulting business in any situation, whether you are building back up after a setback, growing from a place of strength, or breaking through to the next revenue level.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai