Podcast Episode - Stephen Larmer Shares Branding, Alignment, and Purpose-Driven Business Wisdom

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01)

Stephen, welcome to the Motivate Collective podcast.

Stephen (00:06)

Thank you. It's really wonderful to be here, Melanie.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:09)

I appreciate you taking the time, and I know that a form of balance or near balance is very important. I'm curious, how do you explain to everybody what you do now and what you previously did in your work?

Stephen (00:26)

Sure, so now meaning within roughly the last 10 years, I work with mission-driven founders, often mission-driven coaches, and I guide them to building profit-driven brands that are aligned with their soul. Prior to that, spent, been in that line of work for about 35 years. So prior to that, I spent about 25 years running my own agency where we serve primarily the Fortune 100 and doing very similar things for them in terms of, you they already had established brands, but we were continuing to build on, you know, their brand with additional communications.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:16)

So, you've helped so many different types of brands. What's something that everybody needs to know about branding now?

Stephen (01:29)

I think what everybody needs to be more conscious of now is that there was a day when, like I said, I helped brand Fortune 100s. I helped brand businesses. I think now it's much more about the personal brand and branding.

You know yourself, even the big brands are out there now, with the CEOs of those big brands showing their face on podcasts and showing their face on YouTube. So I think the humanising of the big brands and no, or no matter what size your brand or business is, I think the humanising of it is critical, especially with, you know, what's happening with the revolution of AI and where AI is headed and where, you know, automation is headed. think the human element, the human touch, is going to be more important than ever. It's moving forward.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:27)

It really is. I've been thinking about this a lot because I looked at personal branding for so many years in different ways. And there was a time when the way we were expected to present ourselves, be it in corporate or some other spaces, there was a slightly generic expectation to it. And maybe perhaps the big tech bosses who were showing up in

jeans and something else, they helped to relax everybody a bit. But, but have you seen professionals evolving from having to fit into needing to stand out?

Stephen (03:08)

Yeah, you know, of the things that I've been really leaning into lately is this concept or this thought around how important it is, especially for, know, a small entrepreneur, small business owner, founder, know, solopreneur, even, you know, those of us with small teams up to 10 or 15 people, I still think it's really critical that as a brand and as a person, that you make that bold, brave decision to actually what I call fly your freak flag, you know, kind of get out there in the marketplace and, really not be afraid to kind of bury your soul or bury your truth. think what by your soul, what I really mean is your truth. It's identifying those core principles, those core values that you have, your truth and speaking that truth in the marketplace. And the interesting thing about that is that feels very risky. Like us as humans, you know, taking something like you think about the fine artists, you know, one of the hardest things as a fine artist is you pour your soul onto the canvas, and then you have to step back and let everybody judge it. It's a very similar thing here. You have to be brave enough to do that. The reason is that when you look at it through the eyes of marketing or through branding and marketing, the reason why that's actually the safest move possible is because it creates distinction in the marketplace. There is no other uniquely human Melanie on the planet or Stephen on the planet. So when I lean totally into who I am or into who you are, it can't be duplicated. AI can't duplicate it yet, but AI can't duplicate it. Right. So it's really important to be brave and be bold because it's actually the least riskiest thing to do. think most people think, Oh, this is so risky for me to get out there and really share who I am and share what I believe in and share what my brand is all about and what my mission is and what my vision is. But those are the things that actually create distinction. And when you resist that, you blend in, right? When you try and mimic what other coaches or other founders or other entrepreneurs are doing because you're like, oh, this is what I see out there. What AI is telling you is the thing to do. That's kind of a homogenised version of what's out there. It's actually the riskiest thing you can do as a marketing person because you end up being vanilla. You end up blending in, and when you blend in, like nobody's going to remember you. Nobody's going to come looking for you. Nobody's going to line up for your service or product. So I could talk about that for hours. I'll pause there for a minute.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:39)

Okay, and we could talk about that a lot. There are so many ways to interpret that, but I think that's crucial. And let's emphasise here that the podcast is about looking after yourself, but that includes professionally. And I feel very compassionate and concerned for any professionals that I have cared about or looked up to who came from the old-fashioned view of being scared of standing out or not wanting to ruffle any feathers. And the reason why I can have a lot of compassion for that is I came from a weird contradiction where everybody knew presenting a talk, you need a personal story, just like in an advertisement, anything like that, you'll have a story about a family or whatever it might be. But people also said, Keep your skeletons in the closet. Don't air your dirty laundry. And there's this sense of you are meant to sort of never complain, never explain, but still be relatable. And for goodness sake, this is why I have so much sympathy for the British, got to say. But it's impossible. Now we are, I think, this is the best decade to live in because everybody is realising that we have to be more human. And so what do you say to the old-fashioned

Stephen (06:50)

Okay.

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:05)

bosses who they might not be 80 years old, they could be half that age, but the old-fashioned style, I've seen some lovely, lovely humans who are just sticking with what they know. What do you say to the ones who are sticking with what they know and need that current-day

Stephen (07:06)

Yeah.

So, yeah, so a couple of things. Well, three things. The 80s were actually a pretty awesome decade as well. might push back on now's the best time. The 80s were a good decade. So, I would say for me, one of the things that I think about in terms of relating it to also the health of the business owner.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:36)

I'm I almost had it set to decade.

Stephen (07:51)

When you operate your business from that place of alignment with your true self, alignment with your soul, alignment with your truth, when you're operating from that place, it's the healthiest place you can operate your business from because it removes an enormous layer of, pretending maybe is not quite the right word, performing, you know, so I'll share my story. I'll pull a little closet, a little skeleton out of the closet as you mentioned. I spent a lot of years performing, right? I spent a lot years in that business trying to be someone I wasn't. What's up?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:29)

What's the instance that looked like?

What does that look like? How did performing look like in your world?

Stephen (08:34)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, what it looked like was I was in a role because I thought that's the role I had to be in or should have been in, you know, so 20 some years ago as a designer, I was working, had my own you know, agency, but also was working with some other big agencies in New York and Philadelphia. That's where I was located at the time; it's where I was born and raised. And it looked like doing all the things that I was supposed to be doing on that career path, you know, to advance myself or grow the studio, which was chase the big clients, chase the big contracts, chase the big money, the big boardrooms full of decision makers. And while I met some wonderful people along the way and I had some really exciting, fantastic projects to work on, it wasn't how I was wired. I was wired for a more one-to-one intimate experience with people who were really innovating and really taking risks and had this wild crazy idea and didn't quite necessarily believe in themselves enough, and you really needed some support, someone to come alongside them and say I think your business idea is fantastic. Let's get you some focus, let's get you some packaging and let's get you out there in the marketplace and test it so that you can live a life that's true to who you are. So, like now, I was able to step into a role where I was really supporting people chase down their dream and profit from it, as opposed to helping a big tech or big soap company or big fashion company, just an insurance company, just make more money and be more greedy and rip more people off. And there's a lot of great companies out there too, but like, like they don't, I didn't need to be in that role for those companies to keep moving and keep succeeding. So, for me to think that that's where I belonged because that was going to serve me well in making me more money and serving my family more.

It just, you know, I finally had the, what I was talking about earlier, bold enough and brave enough to put my own free flag out there and pursue my dream of working with who I wanted to work with in the way in which I wanted to work with it. I was also really tired of the agency model. The agency model is, it's just, it's old. It's just, it doesn't take six months to build a brand like I build a brand for people in three days. Three days. I do it in three days, you know, the old agency model of building it in six months is just ridiculous. So, so I flipped a lot of those things on, you know, on their heads in order to build a business that was aligned with who I was and how I wanted to work. I have five children, wanted to spend time with my kids, you know, wanted to construct a business around a lifestyle that I was pursuing as well. So, you know, I think all of those things were, you know, especially when I made the decision to do this, you know, many years ago, none of those things were the norm, none of those things were accepted. But I learned a lot from that, and really anything that I'm doing for my clients is really just what I did 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, turned into frameworks, and now I'm just helping people execute on that same thing for themselves. So I think that answered your question.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:48)

Yes, it really does.

It brings up a lot. And I want to ask about the agency model in a moment, because that was a branch off that I'm curious about. But the universal thing is that you are essentially supporting large companies that could have their own purposes, their own set of values. And you decided at some point in life that the work you are doing, the value and abundance that you are creating, could be contributed towards people and purposes that align with your values and could be improving the world more.

Stephen (12:31)

Absolutely. Yeah. No, like, you know, when I introduced myself in the beginning, I say I work for mission driven founders and many of them are coaches. I went through a period of time where not only was I running that agency I was referring to, which at time was called Pixel and Pulp. I also had another agency called Blue Pond that I had a partner in. And then we had a data company called Minds and Motives where we were helping those big Fortune 100 companies segment their data, the lists that they were reaching out to according to cognitive style. And then I had a research company called the New Temperament that was gathering the data on cognitive behaviour in order to inform those algorithms that were dividing those lists. So I had like four different companies going and was completely train wrecking my life. I was trying to create financial freedom and time freedom. And instead, I had no time. I was working 70 hours a week, know, working weekends, working nights.

And I wasn't making money, I was investing money, hundreds of thousands of dollars into these companies to keep them going when it all started to fall apart and my wife said to me, you've got a choice to make, it's either all these companies or it's me and your kids, it's your family. And I was doing all this for my family. And that's when I realized, okay, I need to take a step back. I exited those companies. We actually sold our house in the suburbs of Philadelphia and moved here to Florida, St. Florida.

You know, that's when I restarted, and that's when I started doing the work for coaches. But the funny thing is, is the reason why I did the work for coaches was because it took about a team of 10 of them to help me over time, break my mindset, break my habits, break these different things and start to create a life where I trusted myself and I leaned into, you know, that fruit flag being, you know, bold enough to put my signal out into the world. So as a result of that, I realised what an incredible community these coaches are that are out there helping people do what I did. So that's one of the reasons why I really have a into helping mission-driven founders and a lot of them are coaches is because I want to give back to the community.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:48)

This is transformational, seriously. This is a big shift for everybody because I think some of the learning curves and mindset shifts, as we call them, that I've noticed in other people and myself, and we can learn from you. Firstly, there's the leap from essentially contributing to build someone else's empire to then creating something for yourself. And I'm wondering if you felt more comfortable when you were under the umbrella of large brands, sometimes, especially in agency days, or when you were building something that was a high quantity with the data. And then when you were shifting into doing something as an individual, did you have to find more courage to simply be you, the individual and create something at a different scale and have the confidence in that?

Stephen (15:51)

Yeah, you know, so it's, think like everything there's polarity there, you know, there's both sides of the coin. found when I was doing the work for the big agencies and even when I had and see that I was doing work for big clients, it's very exciting to work with those big brands and get that kind of recognition and have those kind of budgets and exciting projects. If he's your ego, at least, right? It feels good to be able to brag and tell other people what you're working on. But it's also, I also found it not very fulfilling and not very rewarding at the same time, because I did want to help the people that I felt more connected to, the individual. know, so, you know, it was definitely a mixture of both. And then when I leaned fully into, you know, running my own business, but only working with, you know, small businesses, founders, solopreneurs, it was definitely a little scary at first, because I thought, Am I going to make enough money? Am I going to be able to support myself and my family doing this?

You know, because it was contradictory to what everybody told you to do right? We told you to chase the big clients and the big contracts. You know and and there's always you know, there's always the self-doubt that comes along with it again That's what some of that coaching helped me with was like really trusting yourself really believing yourself really going all in on the thing that you want to do because You know not to get too woo-woo But if that's what you're here for if that's what the universe wants from you and you're avoiding it then it's not gonna work anyhow. It's not going to work until you step into alignment with your soul. You're just you're swimming upstream. You're not in flow. So when you get in flow, those things actually just work. So definitely takes courage. Definitely takes hard work. I mean, there's no sugar coating the fact that when you run your business, you wear a ton of hats, you put a ton of work in, but over time, you can systematise, you can grow, you can scale, you can do things, but it's a lot of hard work. But the phrase that I've attached to it was what I was doing previously was painful. What I'm doing now and did to get to this place was also painful, but the difference is it's meaningful pain.

It's pain that's worth suffering for because I'm invested in it, because it's so connected to who I am. So that's something that gives you that resilience to push through the pain because you know, it's, it's your vision. One of the things I help my clients do is the very first thing we do is we craft a vision statement, which is that huge hundred thousand-foot. That's, know, it's your why, know, why are you here? I'm here to help other people live in alignment right now using my business to do that. If I'm not using my business to do that, I'll find another way to do that because that's what I feel compelled to do. So does that help answer that question?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:49)

Purpose.

Yes, yes. You identified that purpose is a key element, and this is becoming very philosophical, and it fascinates me because you came from data and advertising, and let's just acknowledge that for a second. How many people saw Madman and assumed that advertising is old draper and we're getting philosophical and real here. So I think that's really awesome. But the purpose is something that we need to be reminded of and everybody has a different spiritual view but but what I saw in that is we're all built in different ways and you're saying that if we're going to live in alignment it could sound woo or it could be how am I built and how can I use my strengths to contribute to the world the strengths that I am gifted to have

Stephen (19:47)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. mean, it comes down to, I mean, there's multiple, you know, assessments out there that you can take the different personality testaments and the strengths tests and, you know, all of those things. And honestly, you know, if you can do a battery of those and come to me and share those results with me, we will work all of that, you know, into your brand because it's really critical. I, one of those companies I was working for that I founded and launched 15 or so years ago, was a self-assessment company, much like Myers-Briggs. developed our own assessment as a 72 question assessment and it bucketed you into one of the four main cognitive styles or temperaments and then that could be divided into four subcategories of 16 temperaments and I still use that knowledge of how people are kind of innately wired and how that affects then how they're going to roll the brand out and roll the business out and create those relationships right because any business is just about relationships between people so when you understand who you are and how you're wired can lean into that and build that into your brand. So that's a very important part of this because again, when you try and operate outside of that, you're just creating so much friction in your life that it's just going to slow you down. I tell people all the time is that alignment accelerates.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:12)

Okay, alignment accelerates. I'm curious about how your relatability has helped with the clients that you have. Did they feel like they can be more honest and real about their realities and their needs because they know you are being authentic?

Stephen (21:28)

We end up developing really close relationships. Mean, at this point, I would call myself friends, you know, with just about every client I've worked with. There are dozens of them over the past few years. Again, mostly coaches. And, you know, we get very close because that's the space I create. I create a safe space, you know, for people to become really, really open about who they really are and what they really want and who they really serve.

My business is built on three principles, which is alignment, clarity, and profit. And profit really is interpreted as focus. That's what creates profit. But the clarity part of that is built on three things, and that's knowing yourself, knowing your client, and knowing your value. So when we're doing that portion of the work, after we do the alignment portion, we do the clarity part, where we're putting the language around their alignment, we're putting language around their truth, right? So the alignment part is figuring out their truth. The clarity part is how do we now articulate all that? And I think for a lot of people, you sort of know your truth. You sort of have this like, this vague feeling about who I am doing, but when you go through that process of finding the language to articulate it at the highest level of clarity that you can find it, it becomes incredibly powerful and incredibly moving.

Obviously we wanted it to do that in the marketplace, but even to the founder, even to the person that I'm working with, it's often becomes a very deep and emotional kind of journey and experience because, you know, when they give me on the input and then I translated into things and I put it back in front of them and they read it, I get that reaction often where they sit back and go, wow.

Yeah, like that's me. You know, that sounds like me. That feels like me. You know, so it's a, a, it's a beautiful moment. It's a beautiful experience. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:34)

You said focus connects with profitability. How does that happen?

Stephen (23:38)

Yeah.

Well, I have a framework for that too. know, the, the, thinking behind that, and it's not original thinking, you know, any seven-figure, you know, coach or founder or any figure of business person out there will tell you the way to get, you know, to that type of profit and that type of revenue is to have singularity.

It's to have focus, and there's a principle out there called the five ones, and it's about having one target market, one problem that you solve on one platform, and you do it for one year. And if you can stay disciplined and you can stay focused and you can do that, you can have your first million-dollar year. And then from there, you can do those other things of serving maybe another set of ideal clients or launching other products or other things or moving into other platforms. But the biggest problem I see with every early entrepreneur is just that lack of focus. You're trying everything. You're on all the platforms. You're launching tons and tons of offers. You're, you know, you're just, you're kind of all over the place. And that's, we feel like that's the way you figure stuff out, right? It's like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Like, let's see which one sticks, but it's now, you know, it's, yeah, there's a little bit of that. But when you start to find something that sticks, you got to stick, you got to let it stick. And what happens, I think, think, I figure what the stat is like 80 % of solopreneurs or ADHD, you know, I get it. I'm extremely distracted. That's why I have four companies, you know, going at once at one point. So, you know, focus.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:15)

wasn't really going as effectively as you wanted it to. So it was counting, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that. Next shiny thing, next bright shiny object, but then it was not actually thriving.

Stephen (25:20)

National

Not at all. Mean, it completely and almost destroyed my entire life and family. You know, it put me, you know, over half a million dollars in debt, and it almost blew apart my family, which was, you know, is, was at the time and is the most important thing to me. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. It doesn't work. I tried it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:50)

You tried

it. You're teaching people through your experience. And this is, I think this conversation is one of the best master classes in the podcast on what to do, what not to do. Oh yeah, both learn from not what to do. And we can all even look at our own past experiences and see, right, this is where I could have done things differently. But the not overloading.

Stephen (26:02)

Would not to do.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:19)

we need to keep that in mind. And I'm wondering if you find that you need to keep focus even beyond work. My version of that, and some people might relate to it, it's that you might want to be helping community or you might want to be, I don't know, having all these hobbies on the side or whatever. And although it's good to look after yourself, do you think that people can overwhelm and overload themselves in any form?

Stephen (26:48)

Absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, I can, I can, I can share, you know, around that as well. You know, during that period of time that I had those companies going, was also living in a 200-year-old house in the suburbs of Philadelphia up on the side of Valley Forge Mountain, which is, you know, across, the street from George Washington's, know, headquarters and some of the soldiers,‘ old soldiers homes and stuff. So it was this beautiful area. But we were ran into you know, entire house and building an addition, building and outloading and doing all this stuff creative, you know, so I tend to look at those projects and go, I could probably do that myself. You know, why hire a professional contractor? You know, I can rip out the floors and redo the floors and tear out a bathroom. And we did, we did all of that. We refinished everything, did electric, did plumbing, flooring, all kinds of stuff. And I'm in another old house now, almost 100 years old, St. Pete doing the same thing. I spent this weekend remodelling one of the bathrooms, but it's really easy to also over-commit to all of those things, which I was doing at that time, you know, as well. was over committed to those things. had young kids who were in sports and the arts doing things, you know, so it's constantly, know. Well, the kids, I have five children now. My oldest is 31 and my youngest is about to turn 20. She's 19. But at the time, you know, they were, they were young, you know, they were anywhere from,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:01)

with a

Hang on, how old were the kids?

Stephen (28:20)

to 15 and then over that 15 year, 10 year period of time, you're moving up to 10 years old to 20, 25 years old.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:28)

Okay, let's just map this out. are you telling me that, so this is when you had four companies.

Stephen (28:34)

Yeah, we four companies, we five children, and we were schooling them at home as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:39)

my goodness. Okay, this is actually the best story I've had on the show. And I loved the Emmy winner and the person who did acting and so on. But this is the best

Stephen (28:42)

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:52)

because inhalation there. Okay, so you are telling me that you had four companies, including major big scale work with data and brands.

You had four companies, you were renovating with your two hands, a 200 year old house. And you had at the time, children ranging from newborn to 15 years old.

Stephen (29:20)

Yeah, which we were schooling from home. Now homeschooling, yeah. I mean, they were in a public charter school that, I mean, they were doing it from home and we were helping. So, you know, I have to give a huge, huge shout out to my wife, Kim, who, you know, I've been married to for 35 years and has been my life partner, you know, raised the kids. And it's also been my business partner through a huge portion of this up until about a year or so ago. So.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:25)

I'm schooling as well.

Stephen (29:50)

You know, I didn't do it alone, that's for sure, but it was pretty much the two of us. So yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:57)

Did that help? must say that you are so lucky because I'm not partnered and I envy the creators who have a life and business partner to support them in what they do. But you can guide the people who are going to plan out their future and find someone later or the person, the people who are with someone now who needs to realize, hang on, you need to be a team. Do you think that that teamwork has really made a difference?

Stephen (30:24)

absolutely made a difference. There's no way I would have made it through all of that if her and I weren't, you know, side by side in alignment.

35 years together, we've had our moments for sure, where it's been difficult between us. But overall, most of that has just been my fault. She's been fantastic in supporting me and all the craziness that I've pursued over the years, the different businesses and the different ventures and the houses and the kids and all of it.

Yeah, because that was actually the third house that we did that to. And this is our, this is our fifth. So, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:08)

What did you try to renovate all of them?

Stephen (31:11)

We did, we renovated all of them. that was our biggest one because we were there for 18 years and it was, you know, I think close to 6,000 square feet. yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:24)

And 200 years old, that's heritage.

Stephen (31:26)

So.

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:29)

Over here, if something is

that old, it's normally protected with some sort of regulations.

Stephen (31:36)

Yeah, yeah, I mean it was a historic home. We didn't have it registered and protected that way, but it was a historic home, ⁓ you know, because of where it's located and what went on there. ⁓ But yeah, you know, and same thing with this house. This is one of oldest homes in St. Pete.

A couple of them on the block are historically protected. And we have a passion for that. We have a love for that. But absolutely having a partner to go through all of this with has been the foundation and the safety net that has allowed us to take big risks and make huge mistakes and bounce back and keep going. So, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:19)

curious through either your experience or through stories from people you talk to, I'm wondering, there ever moments where both partners have their own very independent career goals? And how do you balance that out when it's like you are steering a ship in two different directions? Or do you just support both?

Stephen (32:47)

Yeah, well, I can't speak from experience on that. Her and I have always been in alignment with the same goals and the same paths to get there. It's only until recently now that our kids are moving out of the house and moving on with their lives. And that, like I said, she just phased out of being my business partner in this business about a little over a year ago because she's launching a business of her own. You know, so she now has a very definite path that she's headed and I'm headed on a very definite path, but they're still in alignment with each other in terms of serving.

bigger goal of creating the lifestyle that we want to have. And for maybe other couples out there that have more differentiated approaches in the way in which they're doing life, I don't necessarily have a plan or advice around that because I haven't experienced that. So I don't want to speak outside of my own experience.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:44)

That's okay.

So we'll pivot to how to work. And part of why this is such a valuable conversation is because you saw great marketing and advertising at a great scale, but also, you know what people need to do now. And I can only draw upon a bit of experience there and learn from your expectations.

learning from your expertise, I think people need to know what not to do and what to do with this as well, because the agency approach that's, think everybody is becoming their own me agency these days. And I'm wondering what you think about that. A lot of people get a VA and a lot of people will maybe bring someone in to do design. And I, you can disagree with this entirely, but I had a bunch of months working for, for a marketing agency.

And the challenge I had, maybe it was the ADHD brain, but they wanted me to just do writing. And it's like a different person is doing the graphics and a different person is having the conversations with the clients. And then someone else is doing the writing and it just felt so separate, so segmented. And there was very little, whatever conversations with everybody combined, it was mainly just, okay, what are you doing? And you have 10 seconds to say, I'm getting this done today. And then that's all. And do you think there's something very

fragmented about how marketing used to be done. And I'm wondering whether there's any benefit to that now, or if people need to find a way to keep things a bit more unified, how should people handle marketing these days?

Stephen (35:25)

Well, yeah, there's like a hundred different questions kind of all hiding inside that thinking. No, no, it's good, but it's a good, I think the basis of the question is like, what do do now? What do we do now to get our signal out there?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:30)

Sorry.

Stephen (35:42)

It's, I had not been inside of an agency in a number of years. So I don't really know how all agencies are necessarily working now. The way agencies used to work was yeah, definitely fragmented. Everybody had their expertise and you did, you know what you were expert at. I think the agency model is not necessarily broken or a bad model, but there was definitely a right way to run one.

I what you're speaking about when things are too segmented.

When the team isn't unified, you know, that comes down to kind of a management problem, not necessarily the creatives on the team problem. ⁓ I also think that creatives and management work in two very, very different ways. A really good manager's day is completely filled with 20 minute increments of meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting. Here's all, here's 10 people I need to check on today. I've got 10 meetings lined up for my day in 20 minute increments. They're all back to back. I'm really efficient.

wasting any time. The creative person needs four hour blocks of deep focus, completely uninterrupted. So when a manager says to a creative, hey, do mind if I just pop in and we talk for 20 minutes at 10 o'clock? Well, you just blew that entire morning for that creative because their four hour block in the morning.

by the time they just start to kind of get into flow, they've got to start prepping for the meeting, do the meeting, then react to the meeting by the time they, you know.

cool down from whatever the meeting was about, there's no time left in that four hour block for to actually accomplish anything. So if they have two meetings scheduled that day, it actually blows their entire creative day. And then that's why the creatives would kind of instantly fall behind. So I think for the managers and the creatives to understand there's two very distinct and different ways of working and scheduling your time accordingly. I think that would really help the agency models work better. ⁓ The other part of your question you're asking about though is

you know, as business owners, I think we have a passion, right? least the business I'm working with, right? They're passion-driven businesses, you know? So the coach wakes up one day and says, I want to coach people. I survived this trauma. I survived this thing and I learned something from that and now I have this experience I want and this knowledge I want to go share with the world and monetize it and make money doing it.

And that's fantastic start. You start there. You start with your passion. You start with your product. After your product is developed, your product could be your service, whatever it is, your six month coaching package. Once that's developed, your business model now shifts from creating a service or creating product to becoming a media company, to becoming a marketing company. Like I don't think a lot of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs realize

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:18)

Yeah.

Stephen (38:44)

That's the game, that's the business you end up in, because if you've got a really incredible service and nobody knows you exist, you'll be out of business really fast. So you have to learn how to play that game, which then means figuring it out yourself, wearing all those hats. We're finding the people that can support you to do that work with you and for you. And as far as that goes, I think it's incredibly important for to find people that you can do. Like I said, the work that I do with my clients becomes very personal, very connected, because that's when the most authentic work is going to rise to the top. That's when the most powerful work is going to rise to the top, and that's when it's going to be effective. I think the scattered, fragmented, non-connected, surface-level stuff tends to be tactic-driven, and you can try tactics. You can get certain tactics to work for you, but unless you've that foundational brand work done underneath it, the tactics eventually are going to fail and actually often fail very quickly. You can get any tactic to work if you understand those foundational brand elements of getting into alignment, getting clarity and focus so you can create a profit by knowing yourself and knowing your clients and knowing your value. You get those things in line, you know, then YouTube can work, then social media can work, then your website can work, then your workshops can work, then your launches can work.

But you've got to get that foundational stuff done right.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:17)

Yes. And for those who didn't come from the marketing world, the tactics are the very practical, small detail implementation. But the other end of that, this strategy is, what would you say it is? Is it the, I mean, I have, of course, thoughts about what it is, but do you think it is the, where do I want it to end up? Does it also include who do I want to serve and some people who are trying to visualize their ideal customer will picture one person and it's kind of like when someone is talking to an audience and they are imagining they are just talking to Fred from Philadelphia or whatever or you know they pick one person and imagine okay this is the life this person is living do you zoom in that closely or do you think about a whole group or are there other things in the strategy that are crucial?

Stephen (41:16)

Yeah.

Yeah. So take a half a step backwards, I think, to also address what you're talking about. There's a big difference between branding and marketing, right? Like branding is knowing who you are. Marketing is telling everybody who you are. So, yeah, so that's the simplest way to look at it. So first thing you got to figure out is like, who you are, you know, which means, you know, as a brand, as a business, as a person, all of those things, knowing yourself, knowing your client, knowing your values. So what I really mean by that is knowing yourself is what we were talking. We've talked a lot about that already.

It's your values, it's your character, it's your cognitive styles, it's all of those things that become that unique position in the marketplace because there is no other Melanie, there is no other Steven. So when we figure out what all those things are, and a lot of people have not taken the time to really learn those things about themselves, to really peel away the layers and get inside and figure those things out. So when you do that, you know yourself, right? And then we can craft the language around describing that and weaving that into.

knowing your client is exactly what you're saying. It's your ideal client persona or your avatar. There's a lot of people out there who use lot of words for it. But what I look at it as is, it's one person. We actually name the person. When we go through the exercises, and we do what we do with our clients.

We don't just do it based on demographics. We want to understand that ideal client the same way we do the work on understanding ourselves. What are their character traits? are their values? What are their principles? You know, not just their demographics, not just where do they live and how much money do they make brands that they like, but we've got to get inside, you know, their cognitive style, their personality, their temperament, know, understanding all of those things about them. So yes, it becomes a big worksheet, you know, with a bulleted list of all of those types of things. But then we actually craft a story around a day in the life of, and we name them. So, like my ideal client is Karina, I randomly named her Karina. But now that I understand who Karina is, I have a whole story that has captured who Karina is. So now, when I wake up and I'm about to send out an email or post something on social media or create a variation of my service or my product or add value to what I'm doing, the question becomes, will this serve Karina? Is this something that's in alignment with Karina and her values and what will really help her? So understanding her her pain and understanding her challenges, understanding her frustrations, right? As like point A and then understanding her desires, her goals, her dreams, and what she wants her life to look like. And then knowing to get her from point A to point B is me. Like I'm that bridge, I'm that person of transformation that's going to come alongside her. Like my ideal client, coach, you who's got this great idea and is bumping into all these marketing problems and whatever. And they come to me and they say, I'm in pain, you know, because my marketing is not working. And I tell them, you don't have a marketing problem, a brand problem. You don't know yourself, you don't know your client, you don't know your value. So when I help them, it moves them from that point A to point B. So that's part of what I hope my clients understand is knowing who their ideal client is, being able to understand even better than they understand themselves so that when you're out there in your marketing, in your using that messaging and that language, people see it and feel seen and heard and recognised and connected with. You have to build trust, right? That's what marketing is really all about is building trust. And then the knowing your value part is what I was talking about. It's understanding what it is that you do that gets them from point A to point B. So for me, it's that framework that I've been sharing here during our conversation. know, so like for some of my other clients, they've come to me and they say, " I don't know, you know, what my framework is or how I create transformation. So that's part of the work that we do together is we uncover that because I tell them you have a way of doing it. You just haven't taken the time. And once again, you just haven't taken the time to look at it, to break it down, to document it, to put language around it and to name it. You know, so that's what I help them do. We break it down into a three-step process or a five-step process or three key principles or something so that then that can be communicated out there in the marketplace because people need to know you like you trust you, but once you've built that trust, they also need to know what they're buying.

You know, so there's the, you know, we're all making emotional decisions when we make purchase decisions. So you have to create that emotional connection through all that messaging. But at some point, you also have to kind of give them the rationale that backs up the decision they already made emotionally. And that's when, you know, I help my clients create that core offer and create that framework because confused shopper doesn't buy. So the more clear we can get in understanding what it is I'm about to purchase, you know, the more like is somebody's going to commit more quickly to you. I think I went off on a tangent on that one. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (46:22)

No, this is, this is brilliant because first of all, we all can look after ourselves by selling something to someone. We're living in an economy where that's where it's all heading, but also we need to be able to look after the people we are serving. And you talked about visualising someone's day. I don't want to steal Karina's name. So we'll, we'll pick a different name, but I think

The specifics and the reality of that, I think you are showing people how we can see the real, authentic situation for the people we are helping. It's beyond the surface level because the surface level means, let's think about the textbooks for a second. How many people, so many people do a business degree, okay. And it's so different to what you do. There's a difference between what you did in your work and just getting through a business degree. The textbooks.

Stephen (47:03)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:22)

said that the demographic of 30-something females who are in a single-income something, and it's all very demographic-based based but the reality that I saw locally is for example, that people are feeling massively time-poor, and they might be overwhelmed with the reality of an actual local small business owner is that they are looking after their family

Stephen (47:40)

Okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:51)

And that is taking out time at particular times of the week. They can't even think about anything part of the week. They are trying to work for other people and for themselves. And so the reality, think that marketing is feeling a lot like talking to an audience in a way, because what I tried to often tell people about talking to an audience is, it's not just what can they learn from you.

Are they at the end of their day and physically exhausted, and have they been sitting for five hours, and they just want to move around, and then they have to hear from you? How are they doing physically and emotionally? And do you get in people's head that sort of way when you are trying to figure out an audience of do they just want a convenient fix for something because they're exhausted? Does that come into how you're trying to connect with your students?

Stephen (48:39)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think when you're developing the ideal client persona, you have to humanise it, right? That's been kind of the essence of what we've been talking about here, you is that you have to see that person as a living, breathing, human with feelings and emotions and all of that. You know, crafting your offer, you know, how you provide your value, then is again in alignment with that person and the pain that they're in. So, exactly what you're talking about. So if you look at my offer as an example of what I offer to my ideal client, Karina, who is overwhelmed, frustrated, exhausted, all of those things that you talked about, because she's got this business, it's going pretty well, but she's wearing too many hats. She's trying too many marketing tactics. doing all these things that aren't working. And she knows that she has something bigger inside her, deeper inside her that she wants to get out into the marketplace, but she doesn't know how to get it out there. And she needs help. And when she looks around to get help, she gets all inundated with all this stuff on social media with all these tactics to try, try Facebook lives, try this, try this, try that. And she's trying all these things and ⁓ completely overwhelmed. And then I put my offer in front of her, which says, stop it all, settle it all down. We're gonna recalibrate. We're gonna get focused. We're gonna do our five ones. We're gonna figure out our one target market, our one problem, our one offer.

And we're just, we're going to take a breath and we're going to simplify. And it's not going to take us six months to do it. We're going to do it in three days. Like that's a huge breath of fresh air because I understand my ideal client really, really well, experiencing they don't want a six-month commitment they don't want tons and tons of homework, it's a done-for-you service right like I could you know and I have this but you know you could go out there and say hey here's my course you can DIY this whole thing well to someone who's already overwhelmed, they don't want to DIY all of it. They just want to say, here's my mess, help me clean it up and give it back to me all packaged and beautiful. I'm ready to put out into the market and start, you know, signing up clients and making money. So that's why I created and crafted my offer the way I crafted it was because I understood my ideal clients so well. I mean, that's probably the most important thing is it's product market fit, right? Like they're my market. That one person is my market.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:57)

They don't have time.

Stephen (51:27)

and I have to create an offer, a product, a value, service that fits exactly who she is and exactly what she needs. When I get that right, is when you actually have clients.

So yeah, it's not about talking to the masses. It's about talking to one person. You could be talking to the masses. You could be talking to one person on social media, and you've got 5,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 people following you, but you're still talking to one person.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:59)

That is crucial. And you are speaking to the social media generations here, because even, even I had people asking, and anyone will ask how many people are following you, and well, that's really not the point. And everybody can learn from this conversation. It's not entirely about how many people are following you. It's about who specifically can you help?

Stephen (52:27)

Absolutely. I have someone that I know that had an enormous following, like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people following her. And she made a product and didn't sell it to anyone in her following. It was, yeah, I want to give specifics because I don't want to give who this person is away, but just in theory, it was just amazing to see that you can have an enormous amount of followers, but still not have an actual market to sell your product to. And on the flip side of that, I've seen people with very, very few followers and a very small audience have a very healthy, sustainable business because the people that

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:44)

Wow, what was it? What sort of product?

No. The consumer is saying... Thank you.

but not so.

Stephen (53:14)

they are connected to are their ideal client. They are the people that really need the help.

So I think you're going to see this more and more as we move forward. know, it's not follower count is not the metric, you know, to base your effectiveness of your marketing, your business on, you know, it's about what are the percentage of people out of who are following that are actually truly connected to you that are raging fans, raving fans. And, know, when you put an offer out there, they buy, you know, so you can, you can have a very healthy business with a thousand people in your audience. You don't need that thousands and thousands or millions of people. Now if you're a $10 product over and over and over and over again, if you're selling Coca-Cola, yeah, so you've got to have millions of people because you're, you know, you're making pennies on the dollar, you know, type of thing. You need a bigger audience and bigger things. But if you're selling, and this is one of the things I'll, my clients do is one of the first offers we put out there is a high ticket offer. It's something that's on the higher end, so that you don't need as many clients, but you can create really substantial income from a small audience and a small amount of people, it's delivering extremely high value at a high ticket. And that gives you the runway, you know, to then eventually when it comes time to scale, have a lower cost product that you can get out in front of more people. But even at that, doesn't, it doesn't take a lot of people.

really does.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (54:39)

It doesn't take a lot of people, and you gave such a great example with Coca-Cola because no product of any sort is for everybody. I don't think I can think of any product that's for everybody. I haven't drank Coca-Cola in years. I'm not judging people who do. I'm not Coca-Cola's customer. Folks, I'm the health nut. Whereas, of course, there are some people who vow to never drink a green smoothie, fine to each their own. And even with water, some people want the Mount Franklin because it's convenient. Some people want the filtered water and they want a bottle that has the filter in it. Even the way we drink water, we're all living our lives differently, and there's a different offer for everybody. So it's absolutely about knowing who you are for, and a very zoomed-in example, I'll be vague to be kind, but it was actually about a year ago that someone very local realised I have a bunch of people following me on social media. It's not heaps, but that person asked if I got you to share my brand online, what would happen? And I said, well, a lot of people following me are in other places and not over here. And this is a very local brand. So that doesn't even align. They are somewhere else. They could love the look of it, but it's not in their right space. So I'm guessing you would also be looking at, where are those people? And when you zoom in, are you saying that people can just serve a few people initially? beyond coaching, what does that look like? Do you think that there could be very localised businesses who start off with either something ultra-local or even online, just finding the people who share their values wherever they are.

Stephen (56:39)

Yep, just finding these people that share values. know, my clients are international. They're all over the world.

10 to 20 clients a year. Most of the coaches, the packages that we build for them, they don't need more than 10 to 20 clients a year to have a very substantial, sustainable business, multiple six-figure when I tell them, be afraid to get really, really specific about who your ideal client is because there's ... I don't know what we're seven billion people on the planet so I think out of seven billion people we could find 20 of them that are going to be your client you know so don't be afraid right to get really really specific about who you are and who you want to serve because they're out there. They are absolutely out there. If we had to find 20 of them a year, over 10 years, that's 200 people. If we can't find you 200 clients over a 10-year span of time, we're definitely doing something wrong.

It's, it's, it's when you do the math, I think, is when like the light bulb goes off and you're like, Oh, right. Okay. So yeah. You know, if my package is worth 10,000 or my package is worth 35,000, and I have 10 clients at $35,000 package, then I'm making $350,000 a year. How hard is it to find those 10 clients? Not very hard at all. Not if your brand's right and your messaging is right and you know who they are and you know the pain they're in and you know the value you're delivering things right, you can find those 10 people. And you don't have to do it necessarily by, you know, being on social media three times a day, seven days a week. You know, there are other ways to, you know, get clients. I mean, with that small of an amount of people you want to win.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:30)

Rides.

Stephen (58:37)

You can do it through networking, just with people you know. You can do it through speaking. I speaking is one of those undervalued ways to get in front of your ideal client and sign people up for what it is you're doing. Yeah, it's one of those things people are afraid of. People are afraid to niche, to really niche down into that really like, you know, microscope level of focus on who you want to serve and how you want to serve them. But again, that's part of what I hope people do, is realise now that's, that's like being bold about who you are. You also have to be bold about who you want to serve because we've all heard, you know, your brand is a magnet, you know, your message is a magnet. And yes, you want it to attract that exact client that you are perfectly suited to serve. as a magnet has two sides, you're also going to repel a lot of people just like Coca-Cola repels you you know you're gonna repel a lot of people and that's you don't want to be working with those people anyhow I've had bad clients you don't want them you don't want to repeat I had a, I had one of my absolute favorite coaches, Tom Bilyeu tell me that. And he basically told.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (59:54)

Hang on, you heard from Tom Bilyeau?

Stephen (59:57)

Yeah, yeah. So Tom, Tom told me directly when I shared what I was doing, I just want to help everybody, whatever. And he said to me, No, you don't. He said, No, don't. That is, he said, you are absolutely going to kill your business if you just try and help everyone. He said, you need, and I've a lot of this from him, you need to be very specific about who you want to serve and how you want to serve them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:00:00)

Wow.

Stephen (1:00:23)

Make sure that there's product market fit there for a sustainable, profitable business. Because you will just bleed all over yourself trying to help everybody, you know?

There are people out there that I want to help that necessarily maybe can't afford me, or for whatever reason, we can't work together, and I have to be okay with just saying, yeah, that's okay, I can help everybody. Now I am developing a second product because I'm further along in my business that will help other people more at scale. I'm about to launch that next month. But that's different than the one-to-one high ticket type work that I'm doing now.

The thing that I learned from being coached by people like that was that I was wasting an enormous amount of money because I love to learn, I love principles, I love concepts, but I was really bad at implementing doing the action and doing exactly what they told me. As a creative person, I was always like, that was really cool what they told me. Plus, here's my spin on that. Here's my cool way of redoing what they just told me to do my way, that's more comfortable, that I feel like doing, instead of the hard way of just doing what they told me to do. So I would say the biggest lesson when you're getting coaching from someone who has

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:01:28)

Yes.

Stephen (1:01:44)

You know, immense knowledge and experience way beyond what you have is just shut up, listen and do exactly what they told you to do. So that would be the first that I learned. I actually am still learning for sure. Still learning that lesson is just, just do what they told you to do. And then I think the other part of your question was on the flip side: how can I help?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:01:56)

Yeah.

Stephen (1:02:13)

own clients. And yeah, I think it's that same. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:02:17)

Or I think

When you are connected and introduced to people like those coaches, then how can you? Is there anything reciprocal in saying you've helped me so much, I should spread the word about what you do, or is there anything reciprocal in saying what can I do for you? Or do you just shut up and listen and then get back to what you're doing?

Stephen (1:02:41)

Yeah, I think, I think for the most part is just shut up and listen. They already have people at that level, right? People like Tom, they already have systems in place to make sure that they're going to continue to succeed in life. So they don't need me to do them any particular favour. Now, you know, out of the goodness out of my heart, I will, I will speak wonderful things of Tom because he is amazing. ⁓ I'm in one of his communities, you know, an online community, and I try to get back to that community all as much as I can.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:02:58)

You

Stephen (1:03:11)

So there's definitely that part of it. Now, if you're trying to broker a deal with someone like that, as opposed to just hiring them, then that's a different approach. And that's when, yes, you absolutely have to have something of value to be able to offer them so that it's reciprocal. And that's usually, that's a tough one, depending on who you are, if you're playing at Tom's level, which I'm not, if you're playing at Tom's level, you probably have something you could reciprocate and offer. You know, at my level, I don't think there's anything that I could offer Tom that he doesn't already have or know. I'm just on the receiving end of that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:03:53)

So do you think it's a longer journey to reach their level? It's not going to happen overnight.

Stephen (1:04:00)

Now, I used to, and that was one of my limiting beliefs. One of my limiting beliefs was it takes time. And I think, and I'm still working on this one, you know, because I've been at this 35 years and I have not reached a lot of the goals that I have had set for myself for quite a long time. So I think the thing that has gotten in the way and is probably still getting in the way is one of my limitations. It takes really hard work, and it takes a really long time. And I think that goes back to my roots of being raised, I was raised by a blue-collar dad who worked really hard, and everything in my life just kind of took a really long time to emerge. Where it was just that notion of, yeah, maybe someday see if that ever happens. And it was, it's a limiting belief I have. And, um, you know, things do not have to take a long time. And again, one of the things that Tom is doing right now with the community he's leading and with the coaching that I've been receiving, um, is the principle of how to leverage AI to speed that process up. So I think there are tactics, there are tools like AI, there are communities, there are coaches, there are people that will help you speed things up. But I also think that it's also a mindset. You can have all the tools you want, but if your mindset's not in the right place to believe that it can happen quickly and you can scale quickly and you can jump levels in your life and become someone unrecognisable to who you are right now quickly, I think you just have to believe it. Let's eat this.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:05:35)

You can believe in the leap and the focus, the thing that stood out to me, you said that people gave you ideas and directions, and you had the yes, and that stood out to me because I had that happening. I, out of respect, I don't want to write in on this recording, say which amazing coach just DM'd me weeks ago. Events are good.

And then days later, I was thinking, yes, and I could do something online. I could do that. And, and you're telling me, just shut up and do what they say and stop adding extra things on. You're teaching everybody to focus because you know, so many of us creatives are self-diagnosed ADHD. So I think the message here is to focus on who your customer is, focus on who you are and focus on the one specific thing that an expert tells you to do.

Stephen (1:06:33)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If you've got an expert, you know, guiding you, just listen to what they're doing. If you're out there hacking away and figuring out on your own.

That's okay to maybe go get some expert help, but if you don't, then I think the thing to keep reminding yourself is, yeah, keep it simple, stay focused, you know, and it's consistency, you know, like anything, consistency, builds over time, you know, but it does not have to take as long as you want. There's a, Alex Hormozi just shared what he calls the third marshmallow principle. If you've heard about that marshmallow experiment where the one kid eat the marshmallow and the other kid, you know, that they tested it, you

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:07)

Yes.

Stephen (1:07:12)

They did, they ate it right away, and kids that were able to delay gratification went on to have more successful lives because they delayed gratification. He proposes that there's a third version of that, which is the person that indefinitely delays gratification. So I fall into that third category where I'm willing to work.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:27)

my god.

Stephen (1:07:32)

hard for a really long period of time, for way too long, until I see the payoff. And what he was basically saying is, hey, at some point, like make it pay off, you know, make it happen faster. You know, definitely.

For business, know, in order to stay in business, you've got to get to that profit point, and that's why that's the third principle, alignment and clarity. Profit, you know, it's a business, it's not a hobby. So let's get to the point where it's profitable and let's get it there as fast as possible.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:08:04)

the business be a business and we'll do one more reference because we keep referencing people but I saw a video from Hormozi you mentioned him and and by the way I want to shout out that the people who I think are really awesome Rene Warren, Dan Martell everybody has to follow them but the thing from Hormozi that really shifted my mindset I don't know when it was originally published but he said that a maid visited and had tried to create a business that's in the same field that Hormozi knows. And that mage tried to be totally independent, just do it all himself. And then it closed up, and he said, Why didn't you ask for help? And the mage said, if I was going to fail, I wanted to do it on my own. And so, no, you can do things fast, but with help, right? And don't, I think what I learned from that is don't reach that point where you are closing up and crumbling. So you're saying, take the action, do the things and even with your burnout, to circle back to your origin story, you were scattered and you reached a breaking point of having to choose between work and family. In all of this, in all of these decisions, don't have some prevention instead of cure.

Stephen (1:09:23)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you're spot on with that. You know, get the help. Reach out, communicate, connect. You know, I think now more than ever.

It's so important for us as humans to stay connected with each other, to support each other. You know, you're, you, you, you become the five people you surround yourself with. That's an old principle that's been around coaching forever. And, and it's very true, you know, so, you know, select wisely, but select, you know, I think it's, it's creators too. think sometimes we tend to be introverted. Some of us tend to be introverted, and you tend to just, you know, pull back and pull back. Then the worst things get the more embarrassed you are to share your story, to share your pain, to ask for the help. And I think that's one of the things that absolutely was crushing me and almost killed me and my family at some point was I didn't get the help. And then when I did get the help, I didn't really listen. So two layers to that one. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:10:22)

So we should wind up because some of us creatives can talk all day, but what are three key actions, three calls to action that you can have for anyone who's listening, who is ready or needs to become ready to build up themselves and to the people they can serve.

Stephen (1:10:24)

Yeah.

So yeah, three call to actions. Again, we just come back to the principles that I've been sharing. know, take the time to know yourself, know your client, know your value. You know, get into alignment, get clear and get focused. You know, and then if anybody needs help with any of that, yeah, then the direct call to action would be, you know, look me up and let's have a chat about where you're at and what you want to build and how I can help you get there. So.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:11:10)

Awesome. And people can look at the show notes. We'll add some links to how people can reach out for help. Stephen, thank you so much for being on the show.

Stephen (1:11:14)

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a delightful conversation. And I'll see you. I'll see you next time. All right.