Fall in Love with Being Supported
Welcome to the UnCloned® insider audio newsletter. My name is Audria Richmond, and I am your marketing and launch
Audria Richmond®:strategist. I work directly with my clients to show them how to build uncloned brands and launch profitable marketing campaigns. We are the brand that you come to when you want to become or remain the obvious choice of your industry. Hey, y'all.
Audria Richmond®:I really do pray that you had an amazing weekend. I'm actually pretty excited this week because my birthday is Saturday on July 20th. I'm really excited about my birthday. But this year, I don't have no, like, huge extravaganza or anything going on like that. But on my birthday, we have unclone day, and we also have the, I wanna say, 4 year anniversary of my book, Uncloned Marketing.
Audria Richmond®:So whoop whoop. We got a lot of cool things. Normally, we do Uncloned Con in July, and we do these huge events, but this year, I just really wanted to kinda relax and really rethink some things and go into that. Right? So I'm really excited about my birthday.
Audria Richmond®:Even though I don't have any plans, I am happy to be alive and, Lord willing, I'll be seeing my birthday on Saturday. Right? Okay. So I wanna talk about falling in love with being supported. And there's so many ways that you can be supported.
Audria Richmond®:Right? You can be supported with, your family. You can be supported with a team member, business, clients. It's so many ways to be supported. Right?
Audria Richmond®:But I'm more so today talking about your business and what does it look like to have and receive and get support. I think that as solopreneurs and as small business owners, we actually wait too late to get business I mean, to to get support, to get help. We, like, wait so long. And the truth of the matter is I pray that you don't do what I did, you know, try to master every single skill in your business, learn how to do everything in your business. And even though it has some pros, it definitely have a lot more cons.
Audria Richmond®:And what I mean by pros is that certain skills have allowed me to not always have to outsource and look for people to do things for me. And so one of the things that I hadn't outsourced before that I currently am outsourcing now is our funnels that we recently are getting built. We recently hired a new agency and the agency been kicking out all of these new funnels. And for a long time, really since I've been online, I've been the one that was responsible for creating all the web pages and all of those things. And I had already started to get graphic design support for a while.
Audria Richmond®:I was able to get, Facebook ad support for a while. I've I've paid some people in the past to do some content repurposing, for me, even copywriting. So but I do feel like there comes a time where you have to really embrace being supported, not just like one off stuff. Right? And then there there are seasons where you wanna do that.
Audria Richmond®:But for the most part, you really wanna start being supported, you know, long term ideally. Right? Because there will be a season where, you know, for me, my mother passed away a few years ago, about 2 years ago. And the thing the thing with that was my business was pretty optimized. Right?
Audria Richmond®:So we people could still come to my shop, they could still buy digital products, they could still buy stuff from me and so that worked pretty well. But I still had clients that I was coaching, right? And so at that time when she passed, I didn't really have a full coaching staff that could support with helping me with clients and stuff like that. We you know, even today at the time of this recording, I have one coach that supports me inside of the lunch circle And, you know, lately for us, because we have such high standards when it comes to our clients, it's been very difficult, to find coaches who not only wanna learn, but also wanna stick around to learn the things that we're teaching them. Right?
Audria Richmond®:And so, you know, when you when you have a whole brain about being different and being uncloned, it's very hard to, support people in unlearning a lot of things that they know so they can embrace and do things differently for our clients and to support them in that capacity. So that's something that I'm still needing support with, but in the meantime, I've been able to create a certification program. I've been able to create a lot of resources to support with that. And so I wanna talk about the first time that I personally received support in my business and really what it felt like. And I'm gonna talk about the time where we planned, like, a a retreat.
Audria Richmond®:It was basically a retreat for our community, and it was like a business and marketing retreat and I was gonna, you know, I rented this really nice Airbnb and we were gonna cater food and you could stay there and it was gonna be like a business sleepover. Right? That's the vibe we was going for. And so we had quite a few people to sign up for and it was super cool. By the way, I probably should do that again.
Audria Richmond®:But nevertheless, we had this, like, Airbnb and everybody came. We had such an amazing time, like, oh my god. So much fun. But this was the first time I ever hired, like, an event planner. And, this event planner, she did everything.
Audria Richmond®:When I say everything, she found the the bloom she found the bloom people. She found the, the the cookie lady. She found the decor person. I mean, she did everything. I did not have to think about anything.
Audria Richmond®:And even when all the planning was done oh, she found the shelf? She found everybody y'all. And I don't know if you've ever tried to assemble something, but if you've ever tried to assemble a group of people, a group of things, a group of anything where there's a lot of moving parts. I know you understand what that takes. Right?
Audria Richmond®:So, we did not have an event planner for uncloned launch live. I pretty much planned that event, and that was cool. Right? If you've been to uncloned launch live, you know it was great, But I do believe that, you know, it helped that I had an event planner before because I knew how to navigate things. But, anyway, I said all that to say, that was the first time I ever was like, I could enjoy my event and I didn't have to think about where I'm a get chairs from, where I'm a get seating from, where I'm a get food from, where I'm a get like, I didn't have to think about none of that.
Audria Richmond®:And I think that you wanna be careful when you're always sticking your hand in the pot and always feeling like it has to be you that find the solution. It has to be you that find the answer. Because when you put yourself in that predicament, you do not allow yourself you 1, you won't even have the vision to be able to see people to help you because you'd be so gung ho and doing it yourself. Like, oh, I'm a do it myself. I got this.
Audria Richmond®:And, I feel like, you know, the the more the older you get, right, the the more advance you get in business, the more you're gonna have to be supported and the more you're gonna have to trust people. Because as your business, you know, grows up, you're not gonna be able to see and touch every single thing and you have to pray that the vision and the systems and the processes that you put in place are governed by the people who who who who have authority over working in in working your vision for you. So hopefully y'all get that, right? So I wanted to go over some things to consider when seeking support. So number 1, you know, what do you need help with?
Audria Richmond®:What are some of those things in your business right now, that you need help with? Because you cannot be supported if you don't know what you need help with. So begin to make a list of, like, what do I need help with? Who can I get to support me? Who can I get to you know, who can I hire to really understand what it is that I need?
Audria Richmond®:Right? Like, what do I need? Do I need a project manager? Do I need someone to help me coach these clients? Do I need somebody to write emails for me?
Audria Richmond®:Do I need someone to do graphic design for me? Do I need someone to build funnels for me? Like, who do you need and why do you need them? And when do you need them? Right?
Audria Richmond®:So once you make a list of who you need, then you can begin to be like, okay, I know what I need. I know what I want. Here we go. Right? So that's number 1.
Audria Richmond®:Number 2, what's your budget for this help? Because I think a lot of the times when we think about help, like, we be thinking like, oh, I need help. I need help. I need help. But then we try to be cheap with it.
Audria Richmond®:Right? And so I want you all to embrace the idea of having budgets y'all. Like, I don't know who told y'all and I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you right now. You cannot build a business for free. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Like, you just can't. And I think the the issue with that is I think social media has kinda like what do you call it? That it's for us because there was a time where you could just, you know, put use social media to get whatever you need and you really didn't you didn't really need to pay for anything. Like, you could get free leads, you could get free awareness, you could get free engagement and stuff like that. And he created this this community of people who just think everything should be free.
Audria Richmond®:The courses should be free. The coaching should be free. The advice should be free. Everything should be free. And it's just y'all, people ain't gonna work for free.
Audria Richmond®:That's number 1. Number 2, you're gonna have to embrace the idea that, okay, if I need help, if I need support, I'm a have to have a budget. Now I didn't say you need to have a a ridiculous budget or a huge budget, but you do need to have some type of budget. Okay? I mean, that's why we have sites like Fiverr and Upwork and all of these places where you can be budget conscious, you can be budget friendly or whatever the case may be, but you cannot have a $0 budget.
Audria Richmond®:Because then that puts you kinda into the bottling system and, you know, I lost almost one of my best friendships due to bottling. So, you know, do you really wanna be bottling with people and and doing all of that? Like, just pay people what they're asking for. Savage you know, save the relationship and do what you need to do. Right?
Audria Richmond®:So, that that's number number 2. Right? Like, what's your budget? Now I will say this, if you have a small budget, consider platforms like Fiverr and Upwork and working with companies overseas that could support you with a task, you know, one task at a time. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Alright. Number 3. It's okay to hire for task and or one off projects. So So what do I mean? I wanna give you a hack.
Audria Richmond®:Right? So when I was automating my business, one of the things that I needed help with is somebody to come in and and put all of these emails reminders for our membership at the time. Because we send reminders, to our members whenever we have calls. Right? And so that was something that I needed.
Audria Richmond®:And we were doing, monthly calls. And so we typically send out 2 to 3 reminders per call. And so I needed someone on my team, and not necessarily on my team, but I needed someone to, like, take all these emails and write these joints. That was a lie. Right?
Audria Richmond®:Because, you know, I wanted to make sure that my client delivery was automated. I wanted to make sure everything was solid. Right? And so I remember asking my community like, hey, is there anybody here who can write this many emails and set up this many reminders? And I was able to hire somebody within my community who actually went off to be one of my, like, right hand people for many, many years.
Audria Richmond®:And I found that person right with them in our community. But one thing I learned is that when you hire somebody to do, like, a bulk task for you, it saves so much time because you ain't gotta worry about having that person on forever. You like because it becomes, easily quantifiable. Right? So it's like, hey.
Audria Richmond®:Can you write 50 emails? Can you write 20 emails as opposed to, hey, can can I hire you and I pay you every month to write one you know what I mean? So, like, if you know the exact task, you know, everything you need, you can bulk hire people, to help support you with that. Right? So, that's number 3.
Audria Richmond®:Number 4, should you hire agencies or work with solopreneurs? This is gonna be a tough one. I have no problem working with solopreneurs who are service providers. If, and this is a huge if. Okay.
Audria Richmond®:I'm talking about this if is huge. They have to be business savvy. They have to have really stellar operations, and they got to know how to run a business. And so if they don't know how to run a business, if they don't understand how deadlines work, if they don't understand how crucial it is to be a team player or any of those things, I personally would prefer to work with agencies. And the reason I love working with agencies is because you're hiring a team of people, not one person.
Audria Richmond®:So typically, let's just say, you had a budget for $3,000 a month for a service, for an example. Right? Let's say you had a $3,000 a month budget for a service. Do you wanna hire Sally who just works by herself and she doesn't have any team members? She's doing everything by herself.
Audria Richmond®:Or do you wanna hire an agency who has a team of 20 people on the team? Right? I'm going with the team of 20 because if Sally decides that she don't wants to do her work today, right, I hope that's the same name I just used, but, anyway, y'all get what I'm trying to say. If this person decides that, like, I'm not really feeling it today and your deadline is tomorrow, you you pretty much screwed. But when you're working with an agency, they have multiple people that can do that same task, and it can help you save your project.
Audria Richmond®:So should you hire solopreneurs or or agencies? It it depends on where you are in business. I think early on, I worked with a lot of solopreneurs. And when solopreneurs start having agency prices, I started working with agencies. Ain't no way I'm gonna pay you 1 person, 1 team person, you know, 1 person team with with no support, no help, the same amount of money I would pay an agency.
Audria Richmond®:Let me pull up at this agency. You know what I mean? But anyway so should you work with solopreneurs or agencies, that's something you gotta think about and you you can make that decision on a project by project basis. Right? And so number 5 is a new idea that I'm considering.
Audria Richmond®:I wanna say about this new idea I'm considering. So I haven't done this yet, but one of the things I'm thinking about doing is, hiring people and doing, like, workdays. And so multiple at multiple you know, different meetings and this and the third, I thought about bringing everybody in for, like, a you know, for a couple days. So let's say one day, 2 days where I bring them in, I fly them in if they're not local, or I invite them in and I rent out an office space and, like, let's say this person responsible for emails, this person responsible for social media, this person is responsible for building out the funnel, this person is responsible for recording the video. So, like, if I could, like, hire somebody at one time, like a group of people at one time, and we all work on the exact same project with the goal of walking away with the project done, I think that'd be a more efficient way to work.
Audria Richmond®:Right? And it's probably not a new idea. It's just something that I would be new you know, doing new with my business. So that's something to consider. Right?
Audria Richmond®:So, like, think about hiring somebody and just banging the workout in one day or 2 as opposed to hiring somebody month in, month out, or keeping someone on retainer. Because think about it like this. Right? Sometimes we put people on retainers when really we only needed them for a few hours. So why am I paying you for, you know, 2, 3 months, if you will, when I only needed you for 5 or 6 hours?
Audria Richmond®:Let me just pay you for the 5 or 6 hours and be on my merry way. Right? So, hopefully, you all are getting a lot of ideas from this, but the overall premise to what I'm saying is I really want you to fall in love with being supported. Fall in love with asking for help. I really wish somebody woulda told me this.
Audria Richmond®:I wish I wish I wish somebody would have told me this and not just told me this, but really press upon me the importance of being supported. That way I don't run myself righty. Right? So we're gonna do a quick recap. Number 1, you know, what do you need help with?
Audria Richmond®:Who do you need to hire and make a list? Number 2, what's your budget for this help? If you have a very small budget, they consider using platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. Number 3, it's okay to hire for tasks and one off projects. You do not need people for long extended periods of time.
Audria Richmond®:Number 4, consider if you should hire solopreneurs and agencies if you have the budget and if you're finding that it costs the same amount of money then go with an agency. And number 5, you know, considering hiring people for one day where y'all get together and y'all do a work lab or a work session where y'all can get all the work done in one day. So I really do pray and hope that you enjoy today's audio newsletter. I really do wanna know your biggest takeaway, and you can do you could give me that biggest takeaway by coming inside of our free Facebook group and letting me know. I truly love and appreciate when you all come in a group and let me know your biggest takeaway.
Audria Richmond®:And then until next time y'all, let's go live an UnCloned® life and build an UnCloned® brand. Bye y'all.
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