Ep 109: From Stuck to Scaled: Liz Wolfe’s Proven Strategies for Business Growth Transcript
[00:00:00] Erin Austin: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of scaling expertise, where we talk to experts who have scaled their business and also have tips and tricks to help you scale yours. So I'm very excited about this week's guest, Liz Wolf, founder of Liz Wolf Consulting among other businesses. And so I'm happy and very excited to get into the details.
But before we get started, Liz, would you introduce yourself to the audience?
[00:00:26] Liz Wolfe: Absolutely, would love to. My name is Liz Wolf and I live in New York City. I've been living here years. Been, I know that only because I got married 27 years ago and I have my business with my husband. So that's my real accomplishment in life is having a business with my husband for 27 years while being married and raising a couple of children together.
And yeah, so real excited to be on here. Thanks so much.
[00:00:54] Erin Austin: we spoke a little bit about your jams that you hold in New York, which, was shocking in and of itself, I never asked you what, instrument you play.
[00:01:03] Liz Wolfe:
Thank you for asking. I'm a singer, but in bluegrass, you also need an instrument. So people don't think of your voice as an instrument. And for a really long time, I played the ukulele, which is definitely not a bluegrass instrument, but was a gateway for me. it would talk about scaling, right?
It was a gateway for me. I didn't play anything, stringed instrument, bluegrass was all string. I didn't play anything. Then I started playing the ukulele and then that helped me to then move into the guitar, which I've now been playing, maybe over three years now. so the instrument I play is the guitar, but I sing as well.
[00:01:39] Erin Austin: Fantastic. You know, recently I saw a, program by Gangsta Grass. I don't know if you ever heard of Gangsta Grass. I
[00:01:46] Liz Wolfe: know all about Gangsta Grass. It
[00:01:50] Erin Austin: was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. The audience loved it. This was a place where, I've seen Many a heads, just still, I say, you know, same venue that is near me.
this is one where everyone was, like, yeah. If you want to bring worlds together, go see gangsta grass. All right. We're going to put that in the show notes. Awesome. Well, thank you, Liz enough about that. So let's talk about scaling and expertise. Now, first let's. Talk about your expertise.
Tell us, to have, special expertise you have and how do people know, Hey, I need to go talk to Liz. What are they going through when they want to come to you?
[00:02:27] Liz Wolfe: Yes, absolutely. Well, almost to a person, when I talk to people for the first time, they say some point during the conversation, they say, I feel stuck
[00:02:35] Erin Austin: and
[00:02:36] Liz Wolfe: I have.
Taken that word to heart because I know first of all I have felt stuck in my business Many times and probably anyone listening will say yes I either feel stuck now and what do we feel stuck about we feel stuck about how to get to the next level every time you might have heard this phrase new level new devil.
Have you ever heard? Yes. Yeah. I love that, A lot of times people come to me, they're newly starting out in the business. So that's who I mostly coach are people who are. They have a business idea, maybe they haven't started yet, or maybe they've been doing it for a year or two, and they're saying what's the next level for me?
How about I want to quit my job and do this full time? How about I'm ready to hire somebody? How about I'm ready to partner with somebody or make, you know, the big six figures. It's like this mysterious number. Six figures in 60 days or whatever it is. Moving people to the next level and helping people to get unstuck so that they can do that.
[00:03:34] Erin Austin: Fantastic. And how did you come to this? what was your trajectory to get to where you are today?
[00:03:39] Liz Wolfe: Well, first of all, I grew up on a sheep farm in Western Pennsylvania. And you might think, what the hell does that have to do with anything? we were very entrepreneurial out of. The need to for survival really and when I got out of college, I started my first business and then I said, Oh, this is harder than I thought to do it on my own.
Now I'm leaving out tremendous number of details, obviously, but I. always learned how to work very hard on the farm, and I learned a lot about running a business, but I never understood how to make myself financially successful as a business person, and the first business I opened failed. So fast forward quite a few years, gained some technology skills and I ended up, this is in the 90s when CRM, customer relationship management software, was really just being developed.
I mean, when I first started in business, people still had Rolodexes, like those big fat ones where you would go through and they were keeping notes on pieces of paper. You know, we were writing our notebooks. So CRM was almost like when they invented penicillin. There was nothing like it before. And it really, really transformed businesses.
And so I got into doing CRM, which was Interesting tech wise, brought my husband in, had made him quit his job. So he's still doing that. After a while, I got more or less restless with the tech side of it. I wasn't as interested in it, but what's always interesting to me is what it takes for a business to grow, because a lot of it is mindset, a lot of it is systems, processes, all of which happens with the CRM, but I wanted to expand beyond that and get more to the root of how to help people.
[00:05:27] Erin Austin: Yeah. I've been hearing a lot about, mindset shifts as well in making that leap that it's not just, I mean, obviously we're going to talk about kind of nuts and bolts of it, but also, you know, how often do you come across like it is a mental block that is keeping people from moving forward.
[00:05:44] Liz Wolfe: Almost every single time.
[00:05:45] Erin Austin: Yeah.
[00:05:46] Liz Wolfe: Yeah, so my system my coaching system is clear vision. So you have to know where you're going, right? You don't just get in the car and start driving you put into the GPS clear vision plus purposeful or strategic action Okay. Now I'm in action. So let's say I said I'm gonna make five sales this week Well, how are you gonna make five sales?
Well, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do that. I'm going to pick up the phone. Remember the phone you would call people on the phone.
[00:06:13] Erin Austin: She has a phone people. If you want to see a
[00:06:16] Liz Wolfe: phone, watch the video. Got a dial tone in my ear. I wish I could play it for you. Right. So like people don't want to talk on the phone anymore.
So let's say the answer is you got to talk on the phone. Let's just say that's the answer. That's the strategic answer. And we come up with that. Now I've always. Excuse me. A lot of coaches stop there because they say it's all about vision and action. And to be honest, it's a very male energetic thing. I'm not saying men only, but it's a male energy like drive it forward, work hard, be disciplined, get on that phone, push through the rejection, do all that stuff.
What I have come to understand about action is it's a great Thing when you do an action and you get a result, obviously we want the result but what the greater benefit of it is, is that you're now faced with the emotional psychological barriers, the mindset barriers that you're faced with when you pick up the phone and the nervousness you feel.
if somebody comes back to me two weeks later and says I didn't do what I said I was going to do because all my coaching calls end with, so what are you going to work on? The first thing I want to ask is, well, why didn't you do it? And sometimes it's like, I forgot or, it turned out, my.
I had to take an emergency trip because my aunt was in the hospital or something, right? Cancel, cancel. We don't want that to happen to anybody. But very often it's about procrastination. Yes. They didn't want to do it. It's resisting. They tried it. It was harder than they thought. It was unpleasant. What?
Why? Because that's your mind going crazy saying this is too hard. You don't really want to do that. People are going to reject you. This is stupid. I'm launched a big event. It's related to bluegrass and it's bringing, I'm hoping to get like 150 people together to this hotel in New Jersey. Right.
And I heard in my head. After I started doing it, how dare you, those are the words like I'm in a quiet moment. I was like, Ooh, who's saying that to me? How dare you? How dare you? You nobody person dare to make this big splash in the bluegrass world. You can barely play the guitar, right? Those are all the things that are going on in my head.
And so you're going to have mindset issues that come up that's a big benefit of pushing through and doing those things.
[00:08:36] Erin Austin: Yeah, I have kind of wasted coaching, frankly, by being resistant and not being able to, you know, push through, I've been a lawyer for a very long time I know what I know, but like publishing, like it took forever for me to get talked into starting a podcast for instance, and, or to start a newsletter.
Like those things are very terrifying than, just knowing what, you know, and being a genius in the privacy of your own office, then putting yourself out there. and it is, you know, I never would have thought that I had mindset. Issues until they became like, wow, I definitely, am really resistant to putting myself out there.
So yeah, it's a big one for sure.
[00:09:18] Liz Wolfe: I always like to say that entrepreneurship is the best personal development workshop that exists on this planet.
[00:09:24] Erin Austin: You take all
[00:09:25] Liz Wolfe: the personal development workshops you want, and I have taken them.
[00:09:28] Erin Austin: Yeah.
[00:09:29] Liz Wolfe: And I will tell you that this is, we'll challenge you every day, every single day.
[00:09:33] Erin Austin: Absolutely, for sure. So you mentioned your first business and that it wasn't profitable. And one of the things that I, I've struggled with, and probably a lot of, smaller, entrepreneurs is the concept, especially when we start out billing our time, idea of profitability. Like we think about, okay, we need to hit this hourly amount because this is what I made at my jobby job.
And this is the, you know, without thinking about like what the profit is in that number. Like we're just thinking about. Revenue. We're not thinking about profit at all. How did you, like, sometimes it's clear because you can't pay your bills, but a lot of times we can pay our bills, but we're still not thinking about, is this really a comfortable profit margin on what we're billing and the work that we're doing?
Is that something that you come across with your clients?
[00:10:25] Liz Wolfe: Yeah, what you're touching on is the idea of value and the difference between what, let's use pumpkins as an example, okay, when I was a kid, pumpkins, five cents a pound, you bought a four pound one, it was 1. 25. I was in BJ's get recently, I was like, pumpkins, 10.
There was no reference to how many pounds they were, it was just like, for 10. And I thought it was so interesting to me to see how the value is. I'm able to take something home, carve it with my kids. And that's what you do at Halloween time, I wasn't thinking one of the shifts we need to make is from that hourly, that is to say price per pound value, which is Even if it's 8.
95 and I think that's ridiculous because, okay, yeah, obviously I've been, buying pumpkins for a long time, it's a shift from thinking what the effort took to create that pumpkin versus what the value is when it's before somebody.
[00:11:29] Erin Austin: This is one of the
[00:11:29] Liz Wolfe: reasons why we underpriced ourselves a lot.
I'm assuming you've had this experience and I have had too, which is, why would somebody pass up buying something for me for 4. 95, let's say? And go ahead and buy something that was 29. 95, you know, talking in the thousands here, right? I had this happen and he was like, yeah, I'm not going to do your dopey, you know, 4.
95 program, but I'm going to go over here and buy this one. Why? Because he saw more value in that price, not the value. And then later, I happened to be friends with him and I said, Hey, whatever happened with that? And he said, yeah, I didn't really get too much out of it. I was like, okay, I guess you could have saved yourself 1, 500 by my program.
And it would have been better. So I want to bring back to the idea of profit. If we're thinking about it in terms of how hard did I work, how this is the way we're raised. This is the factory mentality. How hard did you work? How many hours did you work? How many hours? How much are you getting paid?
And so at the end of the day, is that more than what you had to spend in gas to get there? Right.
[00:12:36] Erin Austin: Right.
[00:12:37] Liz Wolfe: Or the tolls or whatever it is. Versus, am I providing a service to somebody that somebody else value? I'm solving a problem for them. They value what I'm offering and they can connect with the monetary amount being something, quote, worth.
Investing into and so yeah, I don't really think of revenue so much in profit terms as I do in terms because money is really just the result of the work that we're doing that just tells us how well we're doing.
[00:13:07] Erin Austin: With what
[00:13:07] Liz Wolfe: we say that we want to create that resonate with you answering your question.
[00:13:13] Erin Austin: Yeah. Yeah. and there's two sides of it. I mean, one is obviously the value side of raising our rates, so to speak, so we are communicating the value to our customers so that they will pay us more because they see more value in it. Right. And on the other end of that, we also have. Kind of the cost when we looked at the resources, the gas and the tolls and things.
But for those of us who are experts, you know, when we think about the resources, typically that is our time, it's human, you know, we're knowledge workers. looking at how to streamline what we do, get better at delivery, better at sales, you know, using less expensive resources. Are these things that you will help your clients do?
[00:13:57] Liz Wolfe: Yeah, we want to look at everything that you're doing and we want to see how is it contributing to the success of your business.
[00:14:04] Erin Austin: Yeah.
[00:14:05] Liz Wolfe: Another example, CRM, I can always use CRM as an example because I have so much experience with it. I joined a, one of those 10, 000 programs and they had a collaboration with that, it used to be called Infusionsoft, I'm not sure what it's called these days.
It's like a major marketing program. Yeah.
[00:14:23] Erin Austin: Yeah.
[00:14:23] Liz Wolfe: And. So that here we all are, we already spent 10, 000. And then he comes in and says, well, just for another 200 and something bucks a month, look at all this stuff that can do for you. It can text your clients to confirm them. It can put them into this drip sequence that depending on what they choose, they take some down a different way.
And it was all this things. and a bunch of people. Signed up for that. And by the way, I have nothing against the software. I thought the software was great. I guess I never used it. what I noticed though was that there was this big promise for how this thing was going to grow their business.
And actually. People then ended up getting into these contracts and spending 250 bucks, but they weren't in a place in their business that they can actually use the tool.
[00:15:07] Erin Austin: There were
[00:15:08] Liz Wolfe: so many things before that, that they needed to get to. And again, I'm, sure that that software, which is named something different these days, I'm absolutely sure that many people use it very, very successfully.
It's just that that's because that's where their business is. So we want to be matching. Our spend and our investments. in programs that are where we are in our business. The same is true the other way. A lot of people will not outsource. They won't hire a VA. They won't get that help that they need.
They'll sit there on Instagram and struggle through it and they won't do that extra extension because they're trying to be conservative. I remember reading Somewhere along the line, an example of a woman that owned a coffee shop. And she thought, you know, if I hire somebody, I'm gonna have to pay them.
And, you know, at that time it was probably like 15 bucks an hour or something, 10 bucks an hour, and she's doing the calculation, but what was happening is people were looking in the window and seeing there were 10 people in line and not coming in the store
[00:16:10] Erin Austin: because she hired
[00:16:11] Liz Wolfe: somebody. And so she was able of, even at first, but then it grew from the fact that she had the ability to get more people, sell more coffee.
So we want to really be looking to balance that and see what's really going to help me versus where am I outstretching myself or not taking on enough.
[00:16:29] Erin Austin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like to say that we are the most expensive resource in our business by that. I mean, our founder, owner and when we can carve out some or all of what we're doing to a less expensive resource to continue to provide value to our clients and continue to, get the same revenue.
Our costs are going down and that is an important part of scaling as well. And it's not just about, the things that we typically think about, but it is, making our businesses run more efficiently and less expensively as well. So thank you for sharing that. So, what's coming up new in your business, anything new and exciting happening?
I know there's a big bluegrass event happening.
[00:17:11] Liz Wolfe: Jam Jersey. Jam Jersey. I'm calling it's going to be in a hotel in New Jersey. Yes. I'm currently launching and doing Facebook ads for my quiz for my CEO entrepreneur style. leadership style quiz, which is, actually an excellent resource. Number one, it helps you identify what your leadership style is, because going back to the mindset for a moment.
Sometimes we think I should be fill in the blank. I should be more spontaneous or I should be less spontaneous or I should be less of a perfectionist or whatever. So understanding what your style is will help you to see what parts of your skillsets you need. To develop and what parts you should leverage skills.
so not only do you get to find that answer out, it's a fun short quiz, but then I provide a lot of resources for you to help you to understand. In terms of your leadership style, how it can help you in your business.
[00:18:10] Erin Austin: Fantastic. So that's on Facebook. So it's Facebook, your primary. Is that where you show up the most or where your clients come from or?
[00:18:16] Liz Wolfe: Great, great question. Well, the quiz is on my website, which is lizwolfcoaching. com forward slash quiz. That's wolf with an E by the way. Oh, don't forget. I grew up on a sheep farm, last name, Wolf.
[00:18:29] Erin Austin: Interesting.
[00:18:32] Liz Wolfe: Wolf's the name, sheep's the game. So it's lizwolfwithanecoaching. com, forward slash quiz, or just go on the quiz.
I have a pop up is that where I show up the most? Yes and no. Facebook ads are relatively new to me. I've tried them before and I think this is a really good example of new level, new devil. I'm, why didn't I get 10, 000 clicks last week? You know, whatever my story is, you know, I don't know anything.
So that is where for sure that I can be found. And, but. , find me on my website.
[00:19:03] Erin Austin: And are you doing the ad yourself or did you hire someone to help you with that?
[00:19:06] Liz Wolfe: I actually, I'm doing it myself. Mm-hmm . On having taken good old courses. I took a course, took a short course. Mm-hmm . And I have some help internally.
I do have an assistant and she's mm-hmm . A, I shouldn't say an assistant, a marketing. Professional in my office who has done Facebook ads. So we're learning together and I'm working with some professionals, but, probably, you know, I'm not spending like 500 a month to hire somebody to run the ads for me.
I want to get to know it a little bit first, and then I'm going to see where I can get to go that outsource.
[00:19:42] Erin Austin: Yeah. I mean, the thing about that, because if you do hire someone, one, you got to pay for their time or however they're spending, and then you got to pay for the ads. That's right. That could be a big number.
I've looked at those from time to
[00:19:53] Liz Wolfe: time. So we talked about profit. I know we're nearing the end of our time together, but you talk about profit. So I'm okay to spend, let's just name a number, 1, 500 a month. That's a big number. And some people will say that's nothing, but let's just say, starting out, I'm okay to spend 1, 500 a month if I'm getting 3, 000 a month or 5, 000 a month.
So remember, it's not really so much what we're spending. Now, if I'm spending 1, 500 a month and I'm not getting anything, Then that's not worth it. but it's got to pay for itself. And that's why in the beginning I'm like, you know, and I just want to see how this works. the more I understand it going into it, the more that I'll be successful when I hire someone else.
[00:20:38] Erin Austin: Yeah. I will say I'm quite honestly, cause I have invested money in marketers. A number of times, because I do believe in experts and I'm now at the point I'm between them right now. And I'm like, I can't find someone who will work for upside. Like this is, where we are and, you get paid based on performance and success.
I'm kind of like looking for it. So. I'll put that out into the universe. I'm looking for someone who will, work, commission isn't really the right word, but based on performance, because I really just like paying someone just a fee to provide a service without knowing whether or not it's going to work is just a tough one for me.
So,
[00:21:21] Liz Wolfe: yeah, you're touching on something that I think is very challenging because. Obviously marketing works at the same time that probably we all have stories of marketers or programs that we've bought or things that didn't work that well, or we didn't, we spent a lot of money for my husband getting his website up and it was all about long form blogs and all that stuff.
back to the phone.
[00:21:45] Erin Austin: I will say, I don't know how I've done that. How many times I've had a consultation with people who've never been to my website? Like, I mean, it's easily 90 percent easily because they're from referrals.
[00:21:58] Liz Wolfe: by the way, I want to make sure that everybody listening knows this, because I think this is one thing that's very frustrating.
Everybody has an answer. Anybody you talk to has their answer. Is it the right answer for you? And if you hate being on facebook or social media Or you spend all your time on it. Or if you love networking events, or you could join a BNI, or you hate that because you have to show up, etc. Like you gotta find what works for you.
And so there is no answer. they always make it sound like there's an answer. Always gonna make you sound like there's an answer. And the way my coaching works is more to help you find what your answer is, so that we can see what you can leverage to make your business more successful.
[00:22:42] Erin Austin: Excellent. Well, that you answered my last question, which would be one tip for everyone who is listening. And that is excellent point to end on agree. 100%. I have actually had to take a pause from listening to everyone because everyone had good. They're all good ideas, frankly, they know, you know, but it's, you gotta, you gotta.
Just, yeah, dig in at some point. So thank you so much, Liz. This has been fantastic. We will make sure we have your website, in the show notes. I'm not sure where this is coming out. So the blue dash dream probably will have passed by the time, but, it's been a pleasure having you and,
Thank you again for joining us. I know that the audience got a lot out of today's conversation.
[00:23:23] Liz Wolfe: Thank you so much.