How to Avoid Burnout By Building a Scalable Business

Transcipt:

0:10
Hello and welcome again to the real Jeff Armstrong podcast so glad that you're here, as always, we're probably going to talk about something that is interesting to you today that includes freedom of lifestyle business oriented is usually some sort of self improvement stuff so if you enjoy any of that kind of stuff. Stick around, and we're going to talk about all those good sorts of things. So today, I spent about an hour and a half. In, I have a group that's easy SEO for wedding photographers where I teach SEO to wedding photographers so they can begin booking more and more in their business and I use that in order to help people be able to generate more income and in really the ideas that you know people would be able to get on Google rank on Google, and be able to increase their income that way so SEO is good for just about any business but you know I really have focused mostly for now at least on SEO for wedding photographers. So, you know, it's been about an hour and a half doing that and really really enjoyed it. and that's been. That was pretty draining I don't know if you've ever spent like a long time teaching people how to do something. And it was enjoyable had a lot of fun doing it. But man, it can take a lot out of you after you do it for a while so did that and then, you know, spend some time taking care of my. I've got these plants right as you can probably see around here, had a lot more plants in this so spent a long time actually just caring for my plants because I find it sort of therapeutic I don't know if you have anything like that in your life where you just it's just nice to have something that's sort of therapeutic that you can, you know, you just do that's enjoyable so my plants and like the way they make me feel there is one, it really is one of those things I just enjoy it. So like on yesterday's podcast, I was talking about the power of very small consistent steps right and that's something I have learned in my life over time. and I just think it's incredibly powerful when you have a long term vision that you then turn into daily fuel. Okay, so you can listen to that podcast if you're interested in learning about my philosophies on small consistent steps, but something else I want to talk about today is how like how to avoid burnout by building a scalable business. Okay. So when I say scalable because I'm gonna I'm gonna have to define that. When I say scalable—

2:36
It's best explained in the context of something that's not scalable. Okay, So let's think about a service business, a service business would be like a wedding photographer Okay, a wedding photographer can shoot so many weddings a year before he keeps taking on more and more weddings, and then it becomes less and less.

2:56
Like, he becomes less and less able to serve each client. Okay, so you can only shoot so many weddings you've only got so much time you can only be so many places so the wedding photography business, you'd have to say okay well to scale that you'd have to somehow separate the time and money and location. Restrictions right so some of the ways that people do that as they will hire like associate shooters. Okay, so you've got more people that you then have to, you have to train, and then they can be at, you know, this location and that location. And you can keep making money, even when your time is, you know, your time isn't fully invested so you can scale a wedding photography business in other service based businesses like that. But the problem is that you you know that's that's pretty high stakes still and you have to rely on other people and I'm not saying that's not a good business model if you're skilled in those sorts of things that can be a really good thing, but, You know when I was thinking about how to start building, or how to start creating more freedom in terms of my schedule. I was like, Okay, how about we think about like skit like, Okay, what is something that I don't have to be there for what's something that there's maybe there's like a, an inventory for right. And so, I actually am not going to go into every business that I've ever started here. I have started a number of businesses and they are still running.

4:25
The ones that have like the most have been digital product businesses. Okay. So when I say digital product, you could think in terms of like downloadable product, or you could even think about like courses like online education. You could also in a digital product, you could almost really loop in affiliate marketing in there so you know if you write a blog and like just something and then the person clicks the thing in your blog and then they buy it and then you get a portion of that money. I'm gonna for the sake of the conversation most pretty much loop that into, into a digital product Okay, we could go deeper and say okay well affiliate marketing should be its own thing. But again, for the sake of this conversation, digital products going to include affiliate marketing. So, the reason why I like digital products so much in terms of building a scalable product or excuse me a scalable business is because, like, let's compare them to say a physical product right if you make a physical product, you have a lot of resources that go into creating it over and over and over again. You have inventory you have shipping. You have all the other things that could go wrong return shipping. There's just so much that goes on in terms of a physical product. Now you might say okay physical products good because, like, let's say, like, supplements right like somebody eats a supplement, and guess what they have to keep buying it over and over again. So supplements are good in that sense because you have to like the customer has to keep ordering them and so you can keep making money. In theory, whereas you know like some products have like a longer shelf life and so how often a customer is going to buy them is going to be less and less and less. And so there are, in my opinion, a lot of downfalls to to physical products and trying to sell physical products and if that's what you do and that's what you enjoy. Then of course that's great, you know, and so, for me, when I was thinking about it, I almost thought about maybe I should like invent a, like I had an idea for a certain type of flash modifier and we've played around with some different ideas and I just decided against it because I was like, he there's so much time and effort that goes into manufacturing so much that you have to manage. And then after that, there's still so many things that you have to go through so when I was thinking about scaling the business I was like okay. And before I go any further, I should say, I do have one physical product ecommerce business okay so I'm speaking from experience, I do have one of those businesses, and I like it, but I also really don't like it again for the same reasons that we're talking about now. So, the event, when I was saying about okay let's do something that's really really scalable. I was really drawn to the idea of software, play around with the idea of software a whole lot, and I still plan on eventually developing a specific software have a few things in mind in software is nice because it's infinite inventory right like it's not like you have to have a warehouse then you can stick somebody in there, unless it's a CD that's kind of a whole different beast but I'm talking about like an like an application right so applications software that is even complimentary to other software, you know. So think about like even like plugins like Lightroom plugins or something like that, or in the case in the photography and in the video industry, we've got things like, lets in presets and profiles. And so those sorts of digital products like you know you don't have to have a place to put them. That's it's you make it and then people buy it, and then they've got it, and maybe might have to do troubleshooting but that's just about anything you're gonna have to troubleshoot on just certain products might have less troubleshooting than other products. Right. And so, when it comes to software, really the only downside to it is that you've got to create it right, which there's ways to do that. And even if you don't know coding right there are ways to do that.

8:30
But when it comes to something like a, a, educational course, there's a lot of strengths to that. And so that was really what I wanted to focus on was okay, how can I take the knowledge that I have and impact other people's lives in a way that makes the product that I create worth it. Right. And so, you know, I've had a passion for teaching for a number, I mean ever since I can remember, I've had a passion for education so, and I even at one point consider being like a, like a high school or English, or excuse me in high school or like college level literature English teacher or something like that. I did not become that obviously, but that's something I considered so you know I don't necessarily think that you have to be passionate about education to create an online course but if you've got something that you are passionate about. Then you can take that and, like, hope, break it down, in order to enable someone else to achieve the results that you did and to get over the problems that you have. And then you can create a packaged course, and there's ways to, you know, because okay let me say you can create a course, and maybe nobody buys that's usually the objection that I hear from a lot of people because I just, I didn't get it like understand like why would you like creating course sounds so daunting right.

9:56
But what I found is is that if you're a person that you have discovered a few of your passions. Okay, things that are specific to you. You've come overcome specific goals, or excuse me, specific obstacles, then you might have a really good opportunity to be able to create a, an online course and education market is just, it's booming right so like creating online courses, actually, probably from a financial standpoint is a really really really good idea. I really recommend if you can at least identify like three passions and then figure out which one you can that you're most fitted to be able to help others with, and then consider being able to do something to start seeing if other people might be interested in it. Now, I have a whole way that I employed, that is great, in terms of being able to test a market okay, because, again, if you don't want to put a whole bunch of work in and it just doesn't work right. So preliminary market research with the like lightest load possible I'm talking about like getting started, and it being the minimal amount of startup effort is really the goal and if you can, if you can teach something to someone and they will pay you for it.

11:19
And you, in the context of marketing like you, man, this is this is a viable idea, then I think a educational product is really really a good idea for scaling your business, whether it is just a little bit of extra income, or if it's a large amount. You know, I mean I know people that they make a whole lot of stinking money on educational products. So, it's, it's just a really good thing to be able to do and again. Once you've created it. Now, your time is not so tied to you physically being somewhere having to physically do something right now you might spend time putting it together you might spend time on the marketing stuff like that but what happens is you end up creating more freedom. You've got more, you know you've got another stream of income so you're not so dependent upon your, your you know your time based business, at the very least, I mean there are people that, that's all they do is they do their their their like scalable side of their business and that's it. And you know you can scale it and then just do that. So, burnout is something we don't want and that's when we get over extended, and then we lose the passion that we originally had about the thing that we were doing okay so I know with, again you know I shoot weddings photograph weddings and it can be very easy to just kind of get in the mode of Okay, do it, do it, do it again do it again do it again do it again do it more, do more for money. As you know, follow the trends, do it, do it and you lose your passion for the thing that, that you were doing and sacrifice for business is great because I mean, you can become your own boss, essentially, but I've just found that for me. It helped my passion alive. When I'm not dependent upon the thing that my passion is right so being able to create multiple lines of income and separate my money, income from my time is highly desirable. So, again, you can do this through a digital product, you can do this through a through an online course. You could do it through physical products I just it's not my favorite. I think there's a lot of weaknesses to doing that. But one way or another. There are plenty of ways to scale your business and become less constrained to, you know, physical space, time and everything else like that, and thereby to avoid burnout and have a scalable business. So, again, what, you know, if it's if you're struggling with, like, Okay, well what is my passion, like if you're thinking, oh maybe I could do a course or maybe I could do a even a digital product or whatever and you're like I just have no idea where to start. I usually say you want to start at experimenting. You want to experiment, figure out the things that you are passionate about. Okay.

14:11
And even just think, like, Okay, what is it that I'm kind of just maybe a little bit more knowledgeable about, I find it natural to me but other people struggle with. Okay, like the first time I realized that that was valuable was probably about, like, I don't know maybe six or seven years ago when I started started giving guitar lessons. You know, it's like the stuff that I took for granted to the degree because you know I know how to like play guitar and enjoy playing guitar and a lot of it has come, sort of natural to me. A lot of that I took for granted and didn't realize that people would pay me pretty decent amounts of money in order to teach them guitar. And a lot of it was just the basics you know like it wasn't like the most complicated guitar stuff. And so, like, I get a lot of people that are like well I just don't know if I'm, I'm really ready to to educate someone else on something, or, you know, I just don't know that I'm really in that place where I feel that I'm competent enough and I'm like, Well, here's, here's kind of the litmus test here's what you do. You say, okay, on a scale from one to 10.

15:23
Actually, let's say this, let's go from zero to 10, we're gonna add. We're gonna start at zero because there's a reason why.

15:30
If we start at zero.

15:33
Let's say zero is no knowledge whatsoever. Okay. 10 would be like you are an expert of experts.

15:39
If you're at least a five.

15:44
Then just about everybody can learn from me.

15:47
Okay, let me explain the reason here. If you're five that means zero through five can learn something from you. Okay. Because because even if five is probably gonna not necessarily know everything that you know, and they can benefit from you. So that means that 50% of a particular market might actually be able to learn something from you. And in the in this world where it's, you know, really expertise is more of I would say a bell shaped curve. So if you're a five, you're probably actually more skilled than the majority of people that are out there.

16:19
Okay, so that means that there's a lot of people that could learn from you.

16:24
And if you're a five even like sixes and sevens can learn from you maybe even eights, you know, people that are really really good at something, they realize that they can learn from just about anybody.

16:38
So, the point being is, even if you're only like a five on the skill of knowing something about something that doesn't mean that can't that people can't learn from you and you can't help with solving their problems. So, in what I found. If you have an interest in something there are ways to do market research to find problems. And then to creatively, solve those problems for people, so that you can create like a course or a product, a digital product, or even a software in order to solve this problem so it just it's really more about a mindset, than it is about anything else, like people are willing to pay for things that solve their pain, people are willing to pay for things that solve their pain. So if you are a if you have access to a group of people that have a pain point. And you're willing to take the time to understand their pain point and then solve that problem.

17:40
Then they will pay money. What the reason why I think people sometimes get unsure about okay well should I even create a course on this should I not create a course on it.

17:53
I think people in their mind think when I'm not qualified and they have something like imposter syndrome in twos, they're just like, well, what if it fails. You know, so there's all this fear and these insecurities and I get that I felt that before. Right. But what I found is that, again, there there's an answer to that, that problem right, the imposter syndrome. If you can't help someone in my world you have the obligation to.

18:23
Now I'm not saying that you should if you just, you know, if you're not willing to be held accountable for what you teach, if you can't actually teach something that's going to benefit other people's lives. Then like you shouldn't be teaching.

18:33
Right. But if you truly have the ability to help some people, and perhaps even you know if the majority of people are ones and twos and threes and fours, then maybe even help them at jority of people. Then, I believe you may actually have the moral obligation to do so. So that's where I'm like Okay, get rid of imposter syndrome. Everybody feels that.

19:00
But you can do something with it you can you can remind yourself okay I have, I have something I'm doing here that has purpose and meaning, and it's going to help people. So, just because I feel like a fraud or don't feel like I'm the best there is. That.

19:14
Buy to actually teach that subject, right, that does not mean you're not qualified to teach that subject to one degree, at least one degree. And again, if you're willing to solve the problems. Okay. And this goes back this goes back to objection number two which was, well, what if it fails right.

19:32
If you are willing to take the time to listen to people, whether it's in a Facebook group, or wherever people are congregating. Okay, and you're able to figure out what pains they have in a viable solution on how to solve those problems. Then you can create an educational product, you could create a software you could create a digital product. You know there's there's people that you know a friend of mine Dustin starkel, he created a Lightroom profile that helps people, pretty much make digital photos look like film stocks. Right. And he wasn't. He wasn't the first one to attempt to do this, but I think he's made some really significant strides right so he wasn't even the first there's other people that are done it. And, you know, I plan to have him on if he'll if he'll join us at some point, and ask him some questions because you know in a market where you think, oh there's already so many presets there's already so much like this going on, why create more stuff like this right. And the fact that he's done it and has actually made progress on it. I think is really really significant, so you can kind of ask okay what it does to do that was different than what everybody else was doing that had already created. Film matching presets.

20:55
And what I think he did different is he just, he listened to people that had a particular interest and one in a particular look, and then took it to the next logical, the next logical development. Right. And there are lots of people that are very, very grateful for that. And so, you know, just just practically speaking, if this is something that you want to do if you want to think about taking the next step in terms of okay how do I create like a, you know, a scalable business. I would say, Okay, well, what passions Do you already have, you know, if you're not really sure what other passions you have I would explore and experience experiment and figure out, Okay, well, what am I interested in and what type of people do I want to be around and serve. And then you can go and figure out what pains. Other people have and what problems you can solve. And then, if you can put that into a step by step form.

21:57
Then, you may have a very very good opportunity to help other people now you know I know like with my course. I did not create videos for a good while it was actually just.

22:11
It was in the form of being able to do.

22:14
Like one on one coaching type stuff, you know, I kind of started with one on one coaching and figured out. Okay, can I really help people.

22:22
In what ways can I really help people in what common questions pop up. You know, so you don't have to go straight to creating a whole video course. Right. But if you've got that sort of progress and you are able to help someone achieve a desired result that gets them from point A to point B, then being able to scale that on a large scale is actually potentially a very good idea. So that's, that's about all I have to say about that is always love hearing from you all being able to connect is something I definitely want to do on here so if you have any more questions or anything that you want to chat about a little bit more deeply, you can feel free to go to the the website at the real Jeff Armstrong Comm. Got a contact form on there. Also on Instagram at the real Jeff Armstrong, you know, another thing that's really good is being able to contact me on i'd love people start going to the YouTube, that is where the video versions are going to be hosted at So, you know, on YouTube, you want to go to Jeff Armstrong. The Jeff Armstrong channel, probably going to actually change that here soon to the real Jeff Armstrong so by the time you hear this. If you can't find Jeff Armstrong's channel then look for the real Jeff Armstrong, which I think makes pretty good sense right, and be sure to subscribe, and start checking out the videos there so that's it for this time everybody. Thanks again so much for, for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe. And, you know, become a member or whatever you do on podcasts I'm still figuring out this animal. And I think you can leave a review right like that's what I'm kind of seeing. So leave a review, you know those things sort of help out the ratings and help other people get the message. And so you can help others.

24:10
By helping me help others in increasing the visibility So, until next time, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll talk to you later. Bye.