Liz Lajoie is the founder of The Zen Money Initiative and a self-made entrepreneur. She took decades of experience in the corporate world and turned it into her own online business where she coaches and teaches businesses on how to make more money and keep it, implementing strategies for financial success and health.
Episode Transcript
Josh Haynam:
Hi everyone. I am here with Liz Lajoie, the founder of the Zen Money Initiative. She’s a money coach strategist. I’ll let her go into that a little bit more so I don’t mess it up too much, but basically she’s created a very cool money quiz and has some great perspectives on online everything. So I’m excited to talk to you today, Liz. Thanks for being here.
Liz Lajoie:
I’m excited to be here. I always like to talk about business and I love what you guys are doing.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, so we were just having a quick conversation before we hit record, but we can jump back into that and just, we were just talking about online business in general, especially in this time of COVID-19 and locked down and a lot of things coming online. And how that’s affecting our businesses. And I guess one of the things that’s interesting to me is. Well, dive into your background first of all because did you start with doing things in-person? How has that translated to your online business? What’s kind of the coming of age story of the Zen Money Initiative?
Liz Lajoie:
Yeah, that’s a good question. My background is in small business management in general. So over many years, almost two decades I’ve been working in one version or another, whether it’s operations management or financial management, or sometimes wearing all the hats in various businesses. Before I moved into the online space, I spent about a decade as a partner and business manager for a local two to $3 million civil structural engineering firm.
Liz Lajoie:
So my background is with people who sell their brains for a living. And then for various reasons in 2000, what year is it now? 2016 I moved into the online space and offering financial management services, soup to nuts, financial planning, including bookkeeping, tax coordination, big picture strategic planning, which is where I really have a good time. And it turned into a lot of training and coaching and teaching unexpectedly. Because in my left brain analytical world, you just do the things in your business, you take care of your numbers.
Liz Lajoie:
We can use those numbers as a lens to figure out where to go with marketing, what to do with operations. We were talking before about potential recession. This is where getting a real handle on what’s happening in our business day to day, month over month really can help us prepare for those future things. And so I thought it would just be sort of an easy conversation. What I didn’t realize is that so many people, especially creative entrepreneurial type brains love the big idea, but the reality of pulling that down into looking strategically at a granular level was a little overwhelming.
Liz Lajoie:
And so that coaching piece kind of came organically over the course of the last four years. The conversation has evolved. I’ve written a couple of books and it’s really shaped how we work with clients now to make sure that people are really taken care of not just with this ticky tacky stuff that we all have to do to get our taxes done, right? We all know that part, but also how do we step fully into our shoes as CEO around our numbers? How do we take things to the next level if growth is our plan, if it’s not, how do we get okay with that? And how to make sure that we can build that bridge to our personal life.
Liz Lajoie:
Because I see so many people working so, so hard to grow a business. They don’t necessarily have a solid plan in place to make sure they’re getting paid regularly. And their spouse is wondering what they’re doing with their 120 hours a week they’re putting in this venture and the money isn’t coming behind it. So that’s a lot of the work that we do to make sure that your entire financial picture is really doing well. And I think for a lot of people in the online space, it’s kind of like the wild West, right?
Liz Lajoie:
So business building takes a less than traditional form for a lot of people. And I think that utilizing online tools like the quiz or something that can really engage people is a nice way to show who you are when they can’t walk in your door front.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. I think something that really just stood out to me from what you said that’s very important is that translation from the entrepreneur or the business owner that has an idea and wants to execute on something, but the actual implementation becomes very murky. And maybe murky, but also the big picture thinkers are not always the best at the actual implementation, myself included and-
Liz Lajoie:
Or the delegation. You have a great idea, but explaining that in a way that someone else can pick it up and run with it is sometimes hard to navigate to.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. And then the other picture that really stands out in my mind is so you have that side of it, so that’s your audience. But then from your perspective, you almost have the same struggle because you’ve got all this knowledge from working at that company that was doing two or three million a year and you’re doing all these things in that business, so you have this knowledge. But now you’re trying to translate it over into being a coach, offering services, that kind of stuff. How did you do that?
Liz Lajoie:
That’s a good question. How does anybody do it? Trial and effort, and failing a lot I guess. I know, I think you’re right. I think when you’re in a position to be offering support to other businesses, which a lot of us are. We’re supporting other people who are doing other things that are sort of more front-facing work. It can be hard to distinguish between what is my role supporting those people.
Liz Lajoie:
How do I make sure that my business is growing in a way that I want it to? How do I actually walk the walk then talking the talk about? And I think we do well sometimes and we fail sometimes. But in general I think it’s mostly just being honest kind of about where you’re at in the process. It was very interesting to move from established businesses, that I could help grow to starting something from scratch, which is a very different animal.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, very, very different. So what did that look like in those early years like in 2016? How did you get started with things?
Liz Lajoie:
I was in a position where I had to kind of make something happen fairly quickly for myself. And I was in a position where I knew that I had a ton of experience and you know at the very least could provide some financial management support for people, right? We can do some bookkeeping, we can do some tax coordination, we can make sure that all those I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed.
Liz Lajoie:
And as I started in the online space, I took some programs and started learning because I know how to run a business. But this was all kind of new and I needed some education, some support there. And what I was finding in those rooms, and I think it’s true still today, although the language may have changed a little bit, was that you have a lot of people because the barrier to entry in the online space is basically nonexistent.
Liz Lajoie:
It’s so, so low. You have a lot of people who want to do really good work in the world, right? They want to make a difference. They want to work with clients, they want to do fun things. They want to make a lot of money and they don’t have traditional management training. They themselves don’t necessarily have a great understanding of how money could work to their advantage. That just kind of happens to them. They’re not feeling particularly confident around it.
Liz Lajoie:
And so through being in rooms with people, through writing my books in the communities that I had gotten involved with there, things really took off in terms of how we wanted to work, how we could work, what our own offerings were and things like that. So it’s morphed and changed as anything does.
Liz Lajoie:
I think that’s one of the fun things about being in the online space is you can I think be a little more flexible in some ways. Because there’s usually lower overhead and you can play around without having that financial deficit that a lot of brick and mortar businesses are tied to because their rent is so high and the utilities and staffing and all of that.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, no, definitely. I think you’ve hit a really good point there too, that the barrier to entry is very low. So there’s this massive group that’s at the very beginning stages and you have to do something to break through. I love hearing stories about what those things were. What things took you from I’m just trying to get a couple of clients to, okay, “Now this is actually working?”
Liz Lajoie:
Other than time and being consistent in showing up and talking to people and being willing to do that. And I think we all have days where we’re feeling more open to that conversation than others. The consistency part for me, it was really writing my books that was effective. I think even when I wrote my first book, it was we were at a point where it was kind of like to be an expert you need to have a book under your belt, whether it’s self-published or otherwise.
Liz Lajoie:
And I think we’re pretty glutted from that. I do think it’s hard to leverage yourself out when you look at the online space as a whole, it can feel very overwhelming. I see my clients in this space too where there’s a disconnect between I’m working with a couple of clients or things seem like there’s traction is going. But then I look out and it’s just such a sea of faces and it feels like it’s hard to stand out separately.
Liz Lajoie:
And I think one of the things that we talk about when we’re working with clients about all this is what are the granular things that you can do today to really put yourself in the right room? So that’s always a nice place. I’m sure that you would agree with that. How do you get yourself in front of that new group of people who might be potential clients?
Liz Lajoie:
I see a lot of people spending time responding to what they perceive as competition. I don’t know that that’s particularly effective. This happens in the professional service world all the time too. Where the medical professionals will spend advertising dollars advertising in association journals who are only read by other medical professionals, right? That kind of version I think has an online sister act around it.
Liz Lajoie:
And so I think if we can keep our heads down and just say, “It doesn’t really matter in some ways what other people are doing.” I do this differently than anybody else and it may not seem like it on the surface, but eventually the right people will come through the door. And I’ve found that to be the case. And I see that with my clients as well. It’s mostly an emotional knee jerk reaction over anything else.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, I really liked something that stood out to me there was just that consistency of showing up and having the conversations even on days when you don’t feel like it. And I was just listening to, this guy’s crazy, but his name is David Goggins. He runs these ultra marathons, but he said something that really stood out. He’s like, “I don’t wake up everyday feeling motivated. People look at me and they’re like, Oh yeah, yeah.” He must just wake up and just be ready to go.
Liz Lajoie:
He’s like superhuman. Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. And he’s like, “No, I also have to struggle to push myself to start running again.” Which you know the analogy in business and I feel like in business it’s so often just having the conversations. Which is like pushing yourself to get on the phone, do your pitch again or not even pitch, just have the conversation. Like talk to somebody who’s relevant again and again and again, then eventually-
Liz Lajoie:
See if you can help them. And if you can’t, maybe you know somebody who can, right? The networking part of it I think is quite big. And I do think that a lot of people in the online space, they’re the people who are nervous and I can tell, and I’m sure you can too. You can tell when somebody’s nervous about the money part of it and about making the sale because they don’t spend time getting to know you, right?
Liz Lajoie:
It’s just the immediate buy something from me. And that works for a certain percentage of the population, the kind of work that I do and a lot of our clients do. It’s far more personal than that. So you can’t go out and just be like, “Bam, $72 buy, buy, buy.” Right? It’s not effective and it’s off-putting.
Liz Lajoie:
So I think you have to know what kind of business you’re running, where you want to grow, and what your model is to make sure that you’re positioning yourself in a way and you’re not sort of in this scarcity mindset that’s coming across as very grabby.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. I mean, that’s like the entire premise of the way that we do business to interact and it aligns so well with the people that we find actually having the most success using our product. For years, I’ve been battling with folks that come in and the quizzes that they create are just so to the point. And it’s just like, I look at it and this is obvious. You’re just trying to sell something.
Josh Haynam:
I’m not learning anything here. I’m not gaining anything from this. All you’re doing is trying to use a gimmick to sell more and that never works. But what really does work is when you just give away the farm. I’m just like, “I grew up on farms and people used to say all the time, give away the farm.” And then the good stuff comes back around in the end.
Josh Haynam:
And I think you also made a really good point that oftentimes you actually just can’t help people with your particular offerings and you shouldn’t even try to. And so then you can offer up different things.
Josh Haynam:
So that leads into kind of talking about the quiz. So how does that mindset of trying to be helpful and understand people and provide the best resources, how does that translate over into what you’re doing with your quiz?
Liz Lajoie:
I really like it as an option for us because one as a numbers nerd, like it’s really, and I know that some of your other guests have said this too. But the quiz in and of itself, depending on how you frame it and set it up, you can see where people drop off, what kind of answers people are giving. And it’s very rich in terms of data about where people are at, what different levels of business, what people are needing, which helps inform what we’re doing and what we’re offering and how we’re working with people.
Liz Lajoie:
So from my business standpoint, it’s a goldmine there. I also think it’s a really nice thing because my topic matter, the fact that we’re talking, again, we just use finance as a lens to look at the whole sort of internal health of your business.
Liz Lajoie:
But a lot of people really don’t want to talk about the money thing, right? We want it really badly, but we don’t necessarily want to talk about or learn about it effectively. And so when that happens, something like the quiz, which can make it seem easier and it’s kind of fun. And we’re set up so that we talk about financial archetypes because over the years I have noticed that we all have different.
Liz Lajoie:
We’ve narrowed it down to five standard styles as a business owner of how you interact with and approach your money and knowing that about yourself can be really powerful. Because it can let you kind of let go some of the baggage. I’ve had people say, “Great. Knowing that I’m a celebrity means that I don’t have to worry about becoming an expert bookkeeper because I know that that’s not the best use of my time. I can just let that go. In terms of the things that I thought I was supposed to learn as a business owner, I can build a team instead.”
Liz Lajoie:
Where somebody else like the architect can sit there and say, “You know what? I love taking care of this myself. I’m actually pretty good at it. It makes me call knowing what my numbers are. So I’m not worried about thinking that I have to hire a CFO because that’s not to my best interest.”
Liz Lajoie:
So that kind of information, I think it’s useful for people to know and the quiz allows people to kind of engage with the conversation in a little bit of a fun way. That is very different than just like you said, let’s meet and talk numbers immediately. It’s not very engaging.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, that’s a new perspective that I hadn’t thought about, which is making money less scary. And I always think of this quote, I forgot what it is. It’s like, “People are more willing to reveal their weight than their bank account balance,” which is two of the most things that you don’t want to talk about. But we really don’t want us to talk about our personal finances and it’s scary and a lot of us don’t know how to approach it.
Josh Haynam:
And I’ve been there too so I can resonate with that. But you’re making it less scary by using this concept of a quiz. So from kind of front to back, just to give people an overview of what you’re doing with the quiz. How’s it start? What is this? What kind of questions do you ask? What do you give people in the results? And then how do you follow up and kind of translate that over into your business.
Liz Lajoie:
Yeah. So when you come in, the question is basically what is your Zen Money style? And the whole concept behind Zen Money is that I don’t care who you’re working with, but I want you to feel better about this part of your world. It’s an important part of our world, but it also doesn’t have to be this emotionally charged place that we create.
Liz Lajoie:
So we’re looking for some kind of balance with all of this. So we ask do you want to learn about this? People start through the quiz. We ask some basic questions about how are you managing money right now in your business? Is your business growing? Is it sort of at a stand still. Things aren’t going as fast as you want.
Liz Lajoie:
We asked questions about how feeling states around, if somebody asks you about your money, like you said, a lot of us like to hide. So there’s questions around that. Just to get a sense of it allows us on the back end to get a sense of how much financial knowledge somebody already has. Where their business state is in and all of that.
Liz Lajoie:
What I like about the quiz is where we can track all of this from the question to an outcome in a really nice way, so that we can kind of cage people in. That’s the wrong word. We can put them in the right buckets in terms of their style and knowing those things. Even I think asking the questions for a lot of people is kind of eye opening because we try to make it non-confrontational.
Liz Lajoie:
It’s not like going to sit down with a banker who’s going to ask a lot of very ticky-tacky questions that are going to freak you out. It’s supposed to be very easy to do, two minutes and you’re done. But at the end of it they get put into, they get a whole bunch of information about their archetype and a lot of people told me that that’s really useful.
Liz Lajoie:
And again, if that’s all you take away from us, great. I’m happy about that. And then there’s further followup in terms of do you want to learn more about this? We always offer people additional free training. I mean at a very baseline level, we are getting people’s emails off of this. There is that part of our business structure that’s happening there.
Liz Lajoie:
But the goal for me for the quiz is not a list building machine as much as it is just an opportunity to have the conversation in kind of a fun way for people who are getting started with it. And then from there if they choose to give us their email address, then we can continue to give them content and we can continue to give them some good stuff to grow their business on. And at some point, if we can help out with learning opportunities or even long-term services than we do.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, I really like that way of thinking about it. It’s a way of starting a conversation and that’s something that I feel really passionately about. Because if you can start a conversation, then it changes the framing of what you’re doing. You’re not just selling a product.
Josh Haynam:
I mean, you mentioned that earlier too. You’re not just selling a product. You’re getting to know somebody and understand their needs and see how you can be helpful. And maybe you can’t be helpful and then you can refer them to somebody else.
Liz Lajoie:
I try to be really careful about that because our business is a little bit different than maybe some other online service providers. You know that if you’re working with somebody in financial management team, like whether that’s a bookkeeper, an accountant, if we’re using traditional ideas, most businesses have a seven-year plus relationship on average with the person who’s supporting them with their financial management.
Liz Lajoie:
So there are other business models out there who can do the I’ll work with you for a month and then we’re good and I’m not that worried about it. I need to pay attention to our long-term potential. Because if we’re going to sign up to work with somebody, we need to be a good fit for them and they need to be a good fit for us because this is a long-term relationship if we’re doing long-term services.
Liz Lajoie:
But even from a training standpoint, I want to make sure that people are getting what they need out of it and we’re not always the right combo. And I think it’s something important to know about your business model. How you want to engage and how long a relationship do you want to have with somebody.
Liz Lajoie:
Because I see a lot of times in the online space, it’s very much this like sell, sell, sell, give them some stuff, move on. But you know And I know if we’re going to talk about numbers, businesses that have an 80-90% return client rate do so much better financially because it costs so much less to get that new dollar in because we’ve already spent the marketing dollars. We already have a relationship.
Liz Lajoie:
And I think a lot of people forget that or maybe didn’t quite learn it in the online space because there’s so much noise around the sell part.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. It’s that concept of I’ve always heard it referred to as churn and burn. And it’s just so kind of gross because it literally burn like you burn the bridge. Like you’d turn that customer out and you burn the bridge because they bought something from you. They’re not happy with it, but you don’t care because you made the money.
Josh Haynam:
And then I think over the years I’ve watched this shift happen in marketing where that was just the standard because it worked. And as much as it’s sad, if something does work, people don’t really care about the relational side of things, especially economically. But as we’ve come online and the way products are recommended now is like in Facebook groups.
Josh Haynam:
It’s not on Google or in a magazine where you have no context as to who this company is. You’re only going to buy a product if all your friends are talking about it and they’re probably going to go to your friends and be like, “Hey, which products do you guys use? Who actually cares about you as the client?” Let’s talk about that.
Josh Haynam:
And so now we’re seeing this shift where people are forced to get out of that old mindset, which I think is amazing and do something new. So it’s awesome that that’s how you think about it.
Liz Lajoie:
I think that’s a really interesting perspective to talk about because it’s very much where product sale and service-based businesses meet, right? So on the one hand, I think the product sales stuff is moving toward, we’ll use your business as an example. We’ll use Interact saying you’re wanting to work with clients like me I’m guessing. Most of your clients are probably service-based people, the vast majority of them, right?
Liz Lajoie:
So you want to be able to talk with service-based clientele in the language that they want to hear that’s going to be meaningful, which for the most part is a long-term relationship, right? So that needs to change. But what happened I think on the service side is you’ve had a lot of people who have come into the online space who are providing services, who somehow thought that they had to follow the original product model.
Liz Lajoie:
So they put themselves out there in this sell, sell, sell, churn and burn, churn and turn, churn and burn kind of version. And it’s just fascinating to watch. I don’t think it’s great client service and if we provide great, great client service, then people will come back over and over and the name spreads and the recognition grows.
Liz Lajoie:
I find the internet an amazing place to just watch because there’s so many versions and you can build a business a million different ways successfully. You can make the money you want a million different ways. I think at the end of the day, you have to decide if the way you’re doing it is comfortable for you and if it feels good.
Liz Lajoie:
Because if it’s just putting a ton of money in your pocket, but it’s really kind of gross about how it’s happening at the end of the day, you’re not going to feel proud about that.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah, I think that’s the thing is can you go to sleep at night feeling good about the way that you conducted your business that day? And from a number standpoint, you made a really good point that is way cheaper to get people that are coming back to you or people that never leave in the first place if you have a membership set up and/or courses that are longstanding.
Josh Haynam:
You don’t have to be constantly going out and sell, sell, sell, sell, knocking down the door, which I don’t care who you are, that’s exhausting and it’s a tough thing to keep doing. I mean, I love that whole concept and I love that you’re using the quiz in that way. Because our goal is to make it so that from the very beginning you’re taking this approach of being helpful and being understanding and being conversational as opposed to and actually let’s talk about that for a minute.
Josh Haynam:
So what did you do prior to having the quiz be kind of an entry point? What was your previous entry point and how did those things compare?
Liz Lajoie:
The quiz got built out of the something that was included in my second book, Zen Money Map. So you write books with the hope that it gets into somebody’s hands. And the stats on that are nuts. Because something like 4% of people who download, if you’re doing it digitally. But even if you have a hard copy, they end up your entire book and there’s so much stuff out there now, right?
Liz Lajoie:
So we need the cache of having the book, but the reality is nobody actually reads it or reads it in entirety. And then you want some kind of call to action around it if you’re going to use it as a lead magnet, which many people do. And that was sort of the version that I was taught.
Liz Lajoie:
So you need in the book something to show, bring to. So my first book, we had a calculator, which was moderately successful, but again, I think it was just too much direct numbers too soon. That’s what I’ve learned over the years, right? We’ve got to massage your way into this conversation for people. And so I think like anybody, there’s various ways to connect, but having something interactive like the quiz has definitely made a difference.
Liz Lajoie:
And the other thing that I like about working with you guys is that I’ve actually and you probably have seen this, but we have like different layers. So I can use the quiz model after people come in and say, one of the things we offer after you do take the quiz is to say, “Do you want to now have sort of a done for you map for your business in terms of where you want to go dollars-wise? What kind of team you want to have? What do we want to be doing with our time?” Et cetera, around kind of a business model with a financial lens.
Liz Lajoie:
And to get that, people sign up for that, which is a paid thing. And then we take them back to another version of quiz so that we can get the right information and then pull their plan together. And that really streamlines our work, obviously, because we’re not having to do it individually.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. And that’s perfect because you’re giving away the archetype, you’re helping them understand something regardless of whether they purchase anything. And then you have this offer for, well, if you want to go deeper on this that’s something that’s going to take less time and effort so we have to charge for that one. But you know you already are getting something without that. You don’t have to do anything.
Josh Haynam:
And I think that’s so important and a different mindset than we were talking about with the churn and burn where you wouldn’t give anything upfront. You wouldn’t give something of value. You would just say you try to pitch the paid thing and then make sure that people actually do that one. But it’s just a different approach and I think builds. It builds like a positive relationship, whether or not they work with you. And I think that’s really amazing.
Liz Lajoie:
How do other people, obviously you see a million different kinds of quizzes. I’m curious how which versions are successful and what are people doing that aren’t successful?
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. So the ones that are really successful, it’s really set up the way that you have a set up. It’s first of all, writing questions that help people understand themselves. So basically asking questions and I think you did a good job with this, which is as if you were sitting on the front page of your website or your website was a physical storefront and people were coming in and you were able to ask them questions. And then you’re answering the biggest question that they have, which is what is my relationship with money? Is really what it’s just coming down to.
Josh Haynam:
And so it’s the same thing with anything. What’s my relationship with coffee? What’s my relationship with clothing? What’s my relationship with marketing? How do I relate to these things and what’s best for me? And you’re helping people understand what’s best for you. And then that’s all contained without asking for anything. And then the ask with the email is, well, I can send you more stuff over time because I don’t want to overwhelm you. So putting in an email for that, but it’s optional.
Josh Haynam:
And then in the results of the quiz where you’re giving them the outcome, it’s here’s what’s best for you. Here’s some helpful resources that are free. Here’s some information that’s free. And then if you want to go deeper and we can talk about this more, here’s some paid options. And that’s really it. It’s you’re starting a conversation and you’re helping people to answer the question of what’s best for me. You just want to find the right thing for you based on your unique situation. And you’re able to ask the questions based on all of your experience to help find that.
Josh Haynam:
And then once you help find that, you are able to give the recommendation and all of that has no barrier to entry. And then you’ve created this harmonious relationship and they’re like, “Well, I already knew I needed to pay for something because nothing good is free.” But because this person offered to help me without any strings attached, now I want to work with them. And that’s what works really, really well.
Josh Haynam:
The exact opposite is what doesn’t work really well. And I’ve seen so many flops and I can recall countless stories. And in the early days, I used to work with people very directly on building quizzes and I never won any of these battles, which I still find kind of sad in retrospect. Because I always lost the battles of let’s do it that way. And it would end up being, do you have a problem with your diet?
Josh Haynam:
And then-
Liz Lajoie:
Yes or no, or I don’t understand.
Josh Haynam:
And they’re like, “Make sure that no one gets no and then in the yes, recommend our course.” And you’re like, “Cool.”
Liz Lajoie:
I’m curious about the psychology of that. Why do you think you lost those battles? Do you think it was because people perceive you as just providing the mechanism and not having the thoughtfulness and the experience to be able to guide them on that sort of question taking? The experience part?
Josh Haynam:
I think it’s the connection between money now and money spent. Money spent now and money gotten back now because I’m sure a lot of people remember these banner ads of this one weird trick to lose belly fat, and it’s this strange image of a stick figure-ish person. I think it goes directly to a sales page about Garcinia cambogia or raspberry ketones or whatever. And then it’s like buy now and that works.
Josh Haynam:
And I’ve been around people that run those companies and it’s stupid how much money they make and it’s that mindset and it’s like, “Well, yeah we want to do that, but we also want the cool quiz thing.” And you can’t undo it unless it stops working. And so I think that’s where it’s really beautiful that people have rallied together to battle against this by talking to each other and really getting out of this vicious cycle of being siloed and almost force fed products.
Josh Haynam:
And it’s like, “No, we’re going to talk to each other and we’re going to tell each other when something is not good and we’re going to force you, business owners to be honest.” And it reminds me of the movement towards healthy eating. It’s like that only happened because people decided we’re going to pay more money to get organic food, to get grass-fed beef, to get cage-free eggs. And so we’re going to force you, manufacturers to change the way you do your business.
Josh Haynam:
And I think it’s great that we’ve done that as people and we’ve forced people to be honest, and we’ve kept each other accountable in that way. And I think it’s taken the people rallying together in things like Facebook groups and private forums and Slack channels, and talking to each other about what’s good and what’s not. To then actually change it so that that stuff stops working. And people have to be honest and they have to be conversational. They have to be authentic in order to make sales.
Liz Lajoie:
Yeah. We can vote with our money too. I was talking with somebody the other day, we were talking about the fact that my conversation around money is not the right conversation for probably 50% at least we’ve presented the people out there. Because there’s this break in mentality. You have maybe half the entrepreneurs out there, small business owners. It kind of doesn’t matter what they would do, they just want to run the business and make the money and they’re not necessarily the job.
Liz Lajoie:
And then the other 50% is the people that we really tend to draw, which are people who really are there to serve. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the other side, but I think that side tends to be aligned with the point and click and buy version.
Liz Lajoie:
And then the other 50% are looking for something more. We’re looking for relationship and are really uncomfortable with the point and click and buy. And I think it’s just a matter of understanding who you are and what you’re most comfortable with, and what avenue you want to take your business down.
Liz Lajoie:
The conflict comes, I think when people in the side of the I am my business, I want to connect, I want to do this well, I want to create something greater than myself. And they try to sell like the point and click and by people. And that doesn’t work.
Josh Haynam:
That does not work. And I can speak from personal experience from years of trying to sell Interact. And I think I made three sales over four years. I’m just garbage at it because I literally can’t do it. And I think that we have now just totally shifted the complete opposite way to where we want other people who can’t do it. And by can’t do it, I mean we can’t do the pitch. We can’t keep a straight face while we’re pitching something that we know doesn’t really fit the needs of-
Liz Lajoie:
Feels a little too used car salesman.
Josh Haynam:
Right. And it’s just a total shift in mindset and you’re going towards like I want to be helpful and here’s the ways I think I can be helpful. And then for a lot of people I can’t be helpful, but I know this other person who can, or this other product that can. And I can make an intro or actually I don’t know anybody, I’m sorry. You might have to keep looking for something else, but it’s so different, but it’s so freeing because you’re able to just again in cases where you can be helpful, you’re actually providing something that’s useful and then you’re charging for it, which great, that’s perfect. Everybody’s happy.
Josh Haynam:
In cases where you can’t, you’re not trying to force anything. And that’s the entire mentality that we want to have. And it’s amazing to be able to work with people like you that have the same mentality because then it just creates this community where everybody is just kind of giving.
Liz Lajoie:
I love it.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. Well, we’re coming up on time, but this has been amazing, Liz. I love the approach that you’re taking to the quiz, and I’m so glad that things are going well.
Liz Lajoie:
Thank you.
Josh Haynam:
Thank you so much for coming on and yeah, really appreciate your time.
Liz Lajoie:
Thanks, you too. Take care.
Josh Haynam:
All right, bye-bye.