January 28, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of Beyond Margins, we explore the concept of calmer KPIs with guest Kendall Cherry, founder of The Candid Collective. Kendall shares her innovative metric, “Fresh Content Inked,” and how it has transformed her content creation process, business systems, and sales cycle—all while doubling her income. We geek out about how to build sustainable systems that create spaciousness in your business, reduce overwhelm, and prioritize what truly matters.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
• What “Fresh Content Inked” is and why Kendall set a goal of writing six or fewer new pieces of content each month.
• How building a content library can create a “maintenance mode” for your marketing and free up time for other priorities.
• The benefits of an asynchronous sales process and how it aligns with calmer business principles.
• Why posting less—and strategically repurposing content—can lead to better results and higher-quality client connections.
• Kendall’s personal practices for staying creatively and emotionally balanced as a business owner.
Learn more about Kendall Cherry
Learn more about Susan Boles:
We value your thoughts and feedback. Feel free to share them with Susan here. Your input is not just valuable, it's crucial in shaping future episodes.
- (00:00) - Introduction to Calmer KPIs
- (02:04) - Exploring Fresh Content Inked with Kendall Cherry
- (11:15) - Building a Content Library
- (18:01) - Impact on Sales and Business Strategy
- (23:51) - Communicating Your Value Effectively
- (24:47) - Building a Content Ecosystem
- (26:58) - Leveraging Email Newsletters
- (29:22) - Streamlining Sales and Client Management
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kendall Cherry (00:00):
I had better ideas. I had way more
(00:02):
spaciousness because of that KPIfreeing up all this time on my
calendar.
Susan Boles (00:10):
I'm Susan Boles, and this is Beyond Margins, the
show where we deconstruct how toengineer a calmer business. The
goal in a lot of the businessesI work with is to engineer a
calmer business. That's my goaltoo. And in order to do that,
you have to make calm a corevalue for your company. You have
to prioritize it, build for it,and measure KPIs, key
(00:32):
performance indicators, thathelp you make progress towards
it.
You have to make calm your newKPI. But what does that mean?
What does that look like? Well,it's different for every
business because what feels calmto you might not feel calm to
me. We're all different peoplerunning different businesses
with different services, goals,values, priorities, and that
(00:54):
means we need to measuredifferent metrics to help us
track our progress.
If you wanna build a calmbusiness, you have to solve for
something besides the default.That default is growth at all
costs, profit over people. Andthe default metrics, things like
growth rate, efficiency rates,ROI, they measure the progress
towards the default. Theybasically measure how well
(01:16):
you're doing at growth at allcosts. And that's not what we're
here for.
So if we want to build a Calmbusiness and we want to make
Calm our new KPI, we need Calmmetrics to help us measure our
progress. We need calmer KPIs,and they might not look like the
KPIs you're used to. That's whatwe're exploring in this series.
(01:37):
I wanna take you behind thescenes of businesses measuring
Callmark APIs because this isone of those things where we
actually need to see examples ofhow it can be done differently
in order to adapt our ownmetrics to be calmer. In the
last episode, I took you behindthe scenes in my own business
and how I set goals around Calmalong with my own calmer KPI.
(01:59):
So if you haven't had a chanceto check out that last episode,
I highly recommend it. Today,I'm talking to Kendall Cherry
about her calmer KPI, FreshContent Inked. Kendall runs a 1
woman content ghostwritingagency called the Candid
Collective. And this interviewactually changed my own approach
to my business. No joke.
(02:20):
After I recorded thisconversation with Kendall, I
literally went and rebuilt awhole bunch of the systems in my
own business based on some ofthe ideas that she shared with
me. Kendall's KPI, Fresh ContentInked, is an outgrowth of her
wanting to create more time forherself so she could write a
book. Fresh Content Inked is herway of tracking how many new
pieces of content she's writingeach month with the goal being
(02:43):
to write 6 or less new pieces ofcontent. We'll get into how she
makes that happen, what systemsshe's using, how she set them
up, and, nope, she is not usingAI to do it. We were chatting
about this on LinkedIn, and youmentioned that one of the KPIs
(03:08):
that you regularly measure isthis idea of fresh content
inked.
Kendall Cherry (03:14):
Yeah. So this is something that I kind of fell
into this year. So I'm acopywriter. I'm a storyteller. I
write copy for clients all day,every day, usually recurring
styles of content.
So things like emailnewsletters, LinkedIn content
are kind of my bread and butter.And I was noticing, you know,
when I would feel tired or if Ijust didn't have the creative
(03:35):
spark, especially earlier in theyear. I did this little
experiment. I wonder what wouldhappen if I went back and used
my, like, greatest hits content,threw it in a Google Doc. All of
my content is strategicallyselling.
It's subliminally selling. It'snot super bro y, in your face,
cold pitch y, but it's also notkind of what you see on
(03:55):
LinkedIn. So I got reallycurious after a season of like,
okay, I really wanna expand. AndI decided I wanted to not only
render client services, butactually move toward becoming a
self published nonfictionauthor. And so I was like, I
gotta get my time back.
It was truly like just anexperiment. Like, I wonder what
would happen if I just sat forlike 6 hours, combed through 3
(04:18):
years of content, picked my beststuff. And then what ended up
happening was I had this 83 pagedocument that I now have my VA
schedule for me on LinkedIn thatowns, again, the greatest hits
of the sales content. Itconverts into sales. It's market
validated, all of the things.
Ran it for a 6 month trial justto see what would happen, and
(04:39):
ended up closing, like, some ofthe biggest deals I ever have in
not only less time, but I'm nowno longer actively writing the
content. I did that forLinkedIn. That was like test one
check. And so now then I waslike, I wonder if I did my
Monday sales emails. Like, if Ijust spilled a little content
make of that, like, what wouldhappen?
And so then another test checkof, you know, the only content
(05:02):
now that I'm really writing ismy Friday newsletter, Flower
Fridays, which is fresh originalcontent. It's about storytelling
and sales. But everything elseyou see from me on the Internet,
spoiler alert, it's in alibrary. It's in a big Google
Doc that I don't write freshanymore. It's probably some of
those pieces have hit theInternet, like, 6, 7 times.
(05:24):
And every time they go out, mymy audience is only growing, and
it gets more engagement, moreconversions. It's I feel like I
hacked the the content system,and I'm like, thank the lord.
Because I can now I'm I'mworking on a second career on in
the background as an author.
Susan Boles (05:40):
I love that. And I love the I wonder what would
happen question because that'sone that I use very frequently
as well is I wonder what wouldhappen if I didn't do this, or I
wonder what would happen if Idid this in a different way. And
I think it is such a criticalquestion to be asking when we're
(06:01):
thinking about, like, how do Imake things calmer? Because so
many of the ideas we have aboutbusiness and what we're supposed
to do, and particularly around,like, content and marketing, is
it's all telling us we have todo more. And you had mentioned
that one of the metrics aroundFresh Content Inc is actually in
(06:24):
how few pieces you can publish.
Tell me
a little bit more about why thatbecame the goal. I'm not only
writing whatever comes out frommy byline. I don't have a team
of people. So I'm a quoteunquote agency and then I write
for clients, but I havebasically my ops support. So
things like a VA, a marketingcoordinator.
Kendall Cherry (06:44):
The only person ghostwriting on behalf of
clients is me. So I'm not onlywriting my content, but my
client content. And so I reallytook a look at, okay, if I want
my best creative energy to gotoward the stuff that I really
care about, my WallflowerFridays newsletter and my client
work, and then the book that I'mwriting, it really stemmed from
(07:04):
this place of, like, I'mdefinitely more of an evergreen
sales style. I hate the thelaunching nervous system freak
out. Like, I've heard people whoswear by it or they say, you
know, I really like the highrisk, high reward.
And I'm like, I don't see anyreward. And if you don't hit
your numbers, like, that to meis the biggest risk you could
put on your business, on yournervous system. You have to
(07:25):
recover emotionally from that.Like, I'm just not here for it.
And so running this evergreenbusiness model, I decided Fresh
Content inked was I'm stillwanting to be connected to this
business and what I'm creatingon behalf of it.
Again, I'm a writer. Butwouldn't it be cool if I didn't
have to feel like every singlepiece of me, every single week
(07:47):
needed me to be not just at acreative output for my clients,
not just at a creative output towrite a book, but also having to
then write the content that's,you know, selling my services.
And so that's really and trulykind of where Fresh Content Inc.
Stems from. So the KPI is 6pieces of content quote unquote
or less a month.
If I have 5 weeks in a month,that's 5 email newsletters right
(08:09):
there. If something crazyhappens or I have a really great
client story and I feel likewriting something about it, then
I might pen something for that.But otherwise, it kind of forces
me to stay in this, almost thisenergetic ceiling of, like, what
I have is enough. This is allvaluable. It's already been
market validated.
Like, I don't actually need tokeep fueling this, like, not
(08:31):
enoughness that tends to runreally rampant, especially on
LinkedIn. I don't know. I juststopped believing in that
narrative. And what'sinteresting is not not only am I
winning my time back, but thedeals that I'm closing from the
content, because I don't dosales calls, my business runs
primarily from the contentconverting. People know they're
they wanna work with me.
There is no, you know, greasysales call. It's hot inquiry.
(08:55):
Person's a perfect fit. Let meget you into my schedule. I just
kind of really took a look atwhat do I need to feel
creatively fulfilled when itcomes to my work and the work I
do on behalf of clients andletting that be the magic and
cutting out anything that justdid not fuel that style of
energy.
Again, it not only freed up myschedule, I think I doubled my
(09:18):
income this year. Like, youknow, we've got a very, very
profitable business. I'm writinga book on the side for God's
sake. I'm feeling pretty danggood with where I'm sitting. So
Susan Boles (09:30):
I have 2 questions. One, how do you feel it's
impacted you creatively?
Kendall Cherry (09:37):
Oh my gosh. The the thing that's interesting, I
was really afraid to do it atfirst. It's a big swing because
you have to trust, like, didwhat I created in the past work,
but it had to have workedbecause clients came from it.
Again, I've never really had todo any cold pitching. I've never
really had to do any, like,reaching out virtual coffees,
any of that stuff.
It's very much come throughinbound leads from the content
(10:00):
itself. And so it was thismoment of sitting with like,
okay, do I trust myself enough?I know I have the proof points
in the past, but, like, can Isit with this when it's a slower
sales cycle? Or maybe I've beena little bit lower energy
because I have personal stuffgoing on. Like, can I still hold
that that this is true for me?
And then the other thing as faras the creativity, it only made
(10:21):
me more creative. I had betterideas. I had way more
spaciousness because of that KPIfreeing up all this time on my
calendar. Not only am I writinga book, but, you know, to fuel
yourself as a writer, goodinputs create great outputs. So
I'm reading 2 hours or more aday of very random content.
I don't read a lot ofnewsletters. I don't read a lot
(10:43):
of LinkedIn content, pretty muchreading fiction, and I'll say
the outside content to fuel thethings that I'm writing. But the
writing has gotten stronger. Thesales process has tightened up.
I feel more creatively connectedto the work because I'm more
present while I'm doing it.
And so I see no negatives to thethe kind of calm KPI in my
(11:07):
business. And I just wish morepeople would just stop believing
this lie that everyone else isportraying on the Internet
because it's actual bullshit.
Susan Boles (11:15):
We're gonna take a quick break to hear from our
sponsors, but when we come back,Kendall is gonna give us the
nitty gritty details behind howshe actually implemented this
system for herself. When youcame up with the idea of
(12:16):
creating this library, talk methrough the logistics of how you
actually went through anddecided what to include, what
you didn't include, how youactually went about building
this library.
Kendall Cherry (12:28):
Yeah. So the first thing that I did, I moved
on to LinkedIn. I quit Instagrampretty much without notice,
which is where I built mybusiness in April. But I had
this repository of some contentthat I'd created over the years.
And then we'd started writingsome for LinkedIn as well that
I'd been posting there.
And so I truly was like, okay,we're gonna just see what
(12:48):
happens. And I'm a sprint stylegirly. Like, I do not I just
can't do it. No. It's it doesn'twork for me.
My creative style is is not likethat. I sync my business to my
menstrual cycle. Like, it'sjust, it's a very well oiled
machine. And so I just got thisenergy surge. Started at 8 PM, 1
(13:09):
night.
It was like a random Wednesday.And I was like, okay. I guess
we're doing this. And so Istayed up until like 1 or 2 AM,
just like listening to my music,vibing, and I just started
combing through the content fromover the years and looking at
the the one metric I I gavemyself because I knew I didn't
wanna do the, like, post aselfie of myself with, again,
(13:30):
the lame b to b story about sellselling or whatever else. So I I
knew that the content, the onething I looked for was, is this
selling my services?
Yes or no. I did some quickedits to make sure some of it
was maybe 80% of the way there,so I did a quick cleanup. But I
I knew the services that Iwanted to be selling. I knew the
offers that I wanted to have. Iknew what I didn't wanna be
(13:52):
attracting in and what messagingI I wanted to kind of comb out.
And so I just did this reallybig, like, okay. This is the
future vision for the businessfor the next 5 years. Like,
we're good. We're at a premiumrate. Set the the foundation
there.
I was, like, sitting on mycouch. We're gonna just do this,
I guess. And I ended up justcombing through old Instagram
(14:13):
captions, old emails. SometimesI'd have stuff in my notes app
on my computer that I'd likehalf finished. And so I just
took the time to just see what Ialready had created that I also
again, I knew it was selling.
It wasn't just a story, quote,unquote, but it was a very
strategic story that always ledback to, you know, here's what
(14:34):
I'm here to sell. And that is iskinda what came through in the
document. So I I will caution ifanyone's thinking like, oh, I'm
gonna do the same thing with thecontent library. Like, if your
content is not strategicallyselling, it's not going to work
and you could really like, thisis, like, the big red sign
beforehand. Like, don't proceedforward unless you know it's
(14:55):
selling.
Why the library works so well?Everyone's creating this content
very much in the moment. Oh, Ineed a post today, so let me
write it today. And the thingabout the calm KPI and and
emotional regulation, if you'rewriting from a place of
scarcity, lack, you're thinking,you know, you need to make a
sell, so it's coming in. It'sgetting picked up in what you're
creating.
(15:15):
All of that's gonna just getcontained in the content that
you're selling, which is anotherreason a content library works
so well. If you're in a slowseason or, you know, you just
had a really weird clientinteraction or whatever else,
you're not writing from thatplace. You're writing from your
most magnetic, your mostauthentic, and that becomes the
thing that gets kind of bottledup and, you know, put forward to
(15:37):
sell. It's not, well, I couldn'tthink of anything, so let me
just slap something togetherjust to get something out. It's
I I just picture it as like thisassembly line or a machine, and
it's slow and steady, baby, butthat's that's what creates the
consistency when it comes tosales, not the one post that you
bought in a course that'ssupposedly gonna make you a
$1,000,000.
Like,
Susan Boles (15:55):
sorry. It doesn't work
Kendall Cherry (15:56):
like that. I work in content. No piece of
content is that high converting.Hot take.
Susan Boles (16:01):
I think that's underrated, though. I think the
idea of slow, consistent,regulated effort is undervalued
because we do get the messagethat, you know, you just gotta
hit 1 viral post, and you'regonna do it. And at least from
personal experience, every postI've had that's gone even a
little bit viral is completelylike, it is one where
Kendall Cherry (16:25):
it's just unrelated. Unrelated to what
you're selling. There's athere's an avatar that I talk
about a lot in my body of workcalled the DIYer never buyer.
All of the viral posts that yousee on the Internet. Yeah.
It's great. You get all thisengagement. Guarantee you are
attracting people who quoteunquote, love your content, but
they are never gonna pay you adime. Like they're just not
(16:46):
going to. They're the people whodownload the freebies that live
in their downloads folder.
These are the people that leavecourses unfinished. Like, these
are not people that are payingfor high ticket or premium
services. And so virality isgreat, but show me a viral post
that led to actual dollars wonor dollars earned. Most of the
time, it's very low value, lowbid audience members. But if
(17:08):
you're here to build a businessthat's sustainable and lasts for
years, you know, the viralposts, like, it kind of loses
its luster a little bit.
Susan Boles (17:16):
For sure. I love the idea that this content
library is a consistent processthat you build one time, you can
improve over time. But it is areally good example of what I
call maintenance mode, which isthis idea that you just set
something up and it just existson maintenance mode, and you can
(17:37):
spend the rest of your time,your energy, your effort
experimenting or doing fun sideprojects or fixing something
else in your business, focusingon something else. And
eventually, you can come backand improve and iterate, but it
can be kind of running in thebackground. I am very interested
(17:58):
to hear about how that impactsyour sales cycle.
You mentioned that you don't dosales calls. What is the impact
of this content system on theactual sales process in your
business?
Kendall Cherry (18:09):
Yeah. So the really great thing about this is
I'm not a scarcity marketingperson. I'm not an urgency
person like that. Those are just2 practices I'm very much not. I
just don't think it's a greatway to sell.
It doesn't feel aligned for me.And so it really cuts out this
need to have this again, coldDM. You need my offer right now.
(18:29):
Most of the time, in reality,customers are waiting on, is it
the right time for me? Do I havethe budget?
And or do I have the rightresources or team to actually
execute the thing that I'mdoing? Like, it's one of those
three things. So it's not myjob. I can put all the pressure,
all the scarcity, all theurgency in the world. If it's
not the right time for thecustomer, it's not the right
(18:51):
approach to try and sell.
So I take a very kind of laissezfaire backseat approach to the
sales process, which is why themaintenance mode style of this
content ecosystem works reallywell because it's basically the
customer decides, am I ready toreach out or inquire? They're
kind of on their own buyer'sjourney. You know, I just
picture, like, all of mycustomers on treadmills that are
(19:12):
all next to each other. Like,one person's 10 miles an hour,
just, like, flying ready to go.You got someone on point 1.
They just started theirbusiness. I love the idea of
everyone's kind of on theirbuyer's journey. It's not about
me. It's not about my business.I'm just here to serve.
At anytime I've tried topressure or, you know, even if
someone gets ahead of themselvesand maybe over invests too soon,
(19:33):
it never is a good match andit's never a good mix. And so I
think it's so much more aboutreally setting someone up so
that they have a successfulexperience with you. You enjoy
the process so much work becausethey're ready for the magic that
you create. And that's me atfrom a sales cycle perspective
too. There can be a little bitof, you know, feast and famine.
There's some things I do in mybusiness where I have a certain
(19:54):
set retainer amount that I havefor clients and I run a wait
list model. My, quote, unquote,maintenance mode from a revenue
perspective is I try to have,you know, a certain just
recurring revenue. That's justsmart business to having that in
place. So I'm not if the skyfalls or we didn't have a client
come through or whatever else.And then also on the the other
side, there are very, very fastseasons in my business or bigger
(20:17):
seasons.
So if I hit several months whereI'm 2 and 3 times over the
quote, unquote need for themonth, stocking some of that
away because I I know there willbe slower seasons. So having
some of a cash buffer, but Idon't really do the whole, like,
revenue spreadsheet. Let me workand reverse engineer backwards.
How am I gonna create my, youknow, 20 k months or whatever
(20:38):
else? I don't personally do thatbecause I've had clients you
know, I've had offers.
People this the market's notright. So I try to sell those
things and they don't work. Andthen here here comes my dark
horse who's like, ready to drop30 k in 5 seconds. Outside of
the actual content marketing,having some just business model
revenue structures in place, acertain number of recurring
(20:58):
revenue. And I think premiummessaging, at least with the
content where the clients thatare coming to me, they're they
know the value of what they'regetting when they work with me
versus maybe some of the otheroptions that are out there.
Susan Boles (21:15):
Tell me about the actual process that you did go
through to set up both thesocial media content library and
the actual evergreen newsletterversion, essentially. Take me
step by step through the wholeprocess.
Kendall Cherry (21:30):
Yeah. So I actually have this mentality
around things where your contentkind of works like a funnel. So
you have some client contentthat's maybe top of the funnel.
It's for people that are newer.Then you have stuff that's
bottom of the funnel.
It's directly communicating whoyou are, what you do. It's all
storytelling, but some posts aresalesier quote unquote than
others. The one thing, if I I Iwish I could scream this from
(21:54):
the rooftops because I don't seeanyone doing it. You need to be
posting a client case study,period. Doesn't matter if it's
email, doesn't matter if it'sLinkedIn, every 2 weeks like
literal clockwork.
This is, you know, how Morganclosed $50,000 in sales in 24
hours, which is one that's in mybank that just kinda cycles
through. Maybe one's about how aclient saved time. You need to
(22:17):
be telling the story of thebefore and after transformation
of your client and directlycommunicating the value that
that whatever process ortransformation you created, what
you were able to create withthat client
Susan Boles (22:30):
every 2 weeks. That is the bones. Thanks so much for
calling me out. Sorry.
Kendall Cherry (22:34):
I'm down late. I know. I know. It's because
everyone thinks and approachescontent about transformations
and testimonials as if it's awebsite. Everyone thinks, oh,
well, I gathered mytestimonials.
I'm gonna post the photo of theperson and the 5 gold stars, and
I'm gonna copy and paste the,you know, what they said about
me, and they're gonna justunderstand how valuable I am.
(22:57):
The problem here is you'rebasically leading the witness.
You are expecting somebody tounderstand what you mean and
what value you create and whatthe offer is. There's a lot of
assuming going on and all ofthose assumptions are leaving
tens of 1,000 of dollars on thetable in revenue every year, if
not more. I would argue at least10% or more of your annual
(23:18):
revenue if you're not includingthose client case studies.
There's 10% for next year. Youcan instantly add that back in
because people wanna not onlysee the results that you
created, they wanna understandyour approach. It's the easiest
way to communicate. Here's howyour mind works. Here's what's
important to you.
Here's what the process is gonnalook like. Are they gonna make
me do some crazy shit? Is thisgonna feel aligned for me? There
(23:40):
can be such a challenge,especially in service provider
world, where you don't reallyknow how a service provider is
gonna approach your problemuntil you're in the contract.
It.
Yeah. And you're locked in, andthere's so much guessing, or
it's not what I thought it wasgonna be or whatever else. And
that's the easiest way to kindacall that out and detract people
(24:01):
that maybe aren't the right fitfor you, but it's also the best
way to communicate what it isthat you're here to do. There's
a million and one ways tocommunicate quantitative and
qualitative results in a storyformat. But I think everyone,
mostly because there there'sthis, like, secret little shadow
where it's like, I wanna behumble.
I don't wanna be too braggy. Youknow, all of these things, but
(24:24):
people really doubt the giftsand contributions that you bring
to the table, which, you know,most of the times my clients are
like, please tell this story.That was freaking crazy. I want
you to have more people like me.I've never had one client be
like, I don't want you to tell,you know, this story of how I
Susan Boles (24:40):
things of how
Kendall Cherry (24:40):
how we made all this money together. Yeah. Like
there, that's just not the case,but it's it's this interesting
little shadow that I thinkhappens. And the thing is with
the content bank, right? If it's6 months, every 2 weeks, we're
talking about 12 case studiesthat you just have.
They can sit on your website. Ialso use them in my sales
process. So if someone asks me aquestion during the process,
(25:01):
maybe they wanna know a littlebit more information. I just
send them a link to the LinkedInpost or to the case study
saying, here's how Morgan usedthis experience. So I don't have
to get on a call.
I don't have to repeat myself.Someone doesn't have to feel
like I'm badgering them on acall. They can make the
assumptions for themselves. Tome, it's a more humane, a much
calmer way to communicate whatit is that you you do likely
(25:24):
like breathing, but a lot of thetimes you're either too close to
it or it's it's hard tocommunicate the value at least
in a story format. But that'sreally and truly like there's
other, you know, hacks andgimmicks.
But like to me, if you don'thave that, you're leaving so
much money on
Susan Boles (25:40):
the table. Adding to my own content library.
Kendall Cherry (25:43):
Yes. Yes. Yes. Trust me. That that was one that
I liked.
I just like zoomed out and I waslike, what what are people
doing? Because I just startednoticing. I'd be on LinkedIn and
I'm like, I'm posting the goldstar stuff. Like, what's
happening? And I noticed my userbehavior on social media when I
would see those.
And so I'm I was like, oh, whenI see those I just keep
scrolling. So it actually is theopposite effect of what you
(26:05):
want. Like you you think it'slike a website. I'm letting
people know. No.
You're literally training youraudience to stop reading your
content. If you get nothing elsefrom this podcast, stop the gold
stars. Like there that is you'retraining your audience to stop
reading what should be sellingyour services. And then the flip
side of that is you end uphaving to go super manual sales
process, cold DMs, sales calls,when it could be much much
(26:28):
simpler. But, yeah.
If you get one thing out of thispodcast, no no gold star
graphics, please. Please.
Susan Boles (26:41):
So there's multiple metrics here. You've got fresh
content inked, but as part ofthat, you also have one client
testimonial every 2 weeks. Whatelse is in the systems?
Kendall Cherry (26:55):
There's more of just an ecosystem and a process
that I like to follow. So I I ampro email list, and I know email
newsletters are a really hottopic right now. Everyone's
trying to monetize a newsletter.Hot take. I think it's kinda
trendy thing.
I prefer using an emailnewsletter as a sales pipeline
builder. So I have my WallflowerFridays newsletter that I post
(27:19):
every Friday. That's one of theentry points into my business.
My best lead magnet is myservices guide. That's where I
give you the pricing.
I hide my pricing from mywebsite. If you want the
pricing, here's the documentthat you have to, you know, give
me your email, you get on thelist. And I find that using that
as the entry point into theemail newsletter, not everyone
(27:39):
needs my services, but it's thebest way to nurture people over
time. It's a very calm system.It's very automated.
You can have this email welcomeseries that's letting people
know who you are and what youdo. It's a really great way to
nurture a pipeline over timewithout feeling the scarcity or
thinking, I've gotta connectwith 20 people. The email
(28:00):
ecosystem works extremely well.I see everyone and their mom
talking about how to grow anemail newsletter. A lot of times
the quality of the content'sreally low.
It's not converting into actualsales or there's some low bid
course on the back end. My emaillist for many, many years was
like under 500 subscribers andclosing a 100 to a 150 k,
(28:22):
sometimes 250 k now in revenuedirectly from the email list. It
wasn't a referral basedbusiness. These people were
coming from email for the mostpart. And I I think you don't
have to have this huge audiencethat everyone thinks you have to
have.
You can have a really lucrativesmaller audience that is full of
leads and customers for whateverit is that you're offering. But
(28:43):
I would say don't sleep on emaillists as a nurture tool for a
sales pipeline. Again, hot take,it's not this, like, let's have
a self liquidating offer orwhatever else on the back end.
Like, there are a 101,000,000ways to to build a business, but
I prefer email. People get theemails, they can be automated.
You know, we send up salesemails specifically selling my
(29:04):
ghostwriting services onMondays. Fridays, we have
Wallflower Fridays, which is mynewsletter. I'll talk about all
kinds of stuff. You know, I justsend a a Monday email from the
content library, my Fridaynewsletter that I write fresh
every week, 2 emails a week aswell. That's another KPI for
you.
Susan Boles (29:22):
Love it. So how do these processes and these
metrics integrate with the restof your business approach? Are
there other processes or systemsthat either relate to these
things or that you have built inorder to make these work?
Kendall Cherry (29:40):
The thing that I I love about this so much is
most of it can be executed by myteam. So for example, like
LinkedIn, all of the schedulingof the content, the content set,
my VA schedules it. I I mean, Ilove her, but I, like, never
talk to her because she knowswhat to do. But so, like, that
totally off my plate. Like,that's not even something I
worry about.
(30:00):
The emails I schedule myselfjust because I like to make sure
it's really updated. And then atthe bottom, I post my capacity
and when my next openings arefor projects or for retainer. I
like to schedule my emailsmyself just because I, I know
the latest and greatest onlycapacity and it's too hard to
try and communicate my creativecapacity to someone else. So I
(30:21):
do it based on a gut feeling.But for the most part, like the
administrative side of thebusiness, very, very, very lean.
There's not a bunch of bells andwhistles. Like, it's pretty
streamlined. For some projects,we'll do a kickoff call, but
even for retainer clients atthis point, we don't do project
kickoff calls anymore either. Mybrand questionnaire, very
similar to my inquiry form asfar as, like, the depth of what
(30:44):
level I go to, but thequestionnaire really takes the
place of a kickoff call or asales call so that I'm getting
the qualitative data preserved.That's the first part.
But then I'm also as aghostwriter, I'm seeing
someone's sense of humor.They're telling me stories. I'm
seeing what's their writingstyle like? What's their flow
like? I'd say I graduated out ofneeding to be on kickoff calls
(31:05):
all the time or even sales callsall the time because after a
while, I started having the sameconversations.
Lot of frequently askedquestions. So my services guide,
like, there's I think it's like4 or 5 pages at the back where
just like FAQs FAQs. I I try tobottle up or preserve anything
that I can in the business toleverage as much as I can.
Sounds like the ideal. Exactly.
And so I just I just startedlooking at it and I was like,
(31:27):
again, kinda wouldn't it be coolif my favorite question, like,
wouldn't it be cool if I didn'thave to be on all these calls
all the time? Like, I'm awriter. What could I do to make
my life easier? And sorefinement and kind of retesting
and iterating to where now itjust it works like a charm. And
I I get my time back.
My clients get better output andproduct from me that I'm
cranking out. Can't lose,really.
Susan Boles (31:48):
I'm actually interested in this because this
is a discussion I've been havingwith folks. Because like you, I
would love to eliminate themajority of all kinds of calls.
Because if I have a call or Ihave to do multiple calls, that
is the end of my day. I'm notdoing any actual work that day.
I have to have, like, protecteddays where I don't have calls in
order for my brain to think.
(32:09):
But the flip side of that is theidea that some people get
psychological value out of faceto face calls, which is one
where I'm like, when I'm workingwith consultants, if I can get
the results and I never have totalk to you, the designer I work
with literally, I can send herone sentence in my ClickUp and
(32:33):
voila, things magically appear.And that's my favorite thing.
But there is this idea that somepeople get a lot of
psychological value. Like, thevalue that they perceive comes
from the live interaction versusthe actual results.
Kendall Cherry (32:50):
Yeah. I think it depends on on your customer.
But, like, for me, for example,people care that the output that
they're getting from me, thewritten word, feels like them
and is selling. Like, that's thevalue of the product I create.
So to create some more, like,psychological ties with my
clients, for my contact clients,I have a a system where they can
send me voice memos.
(33:11):
2 to 3 minutes, we transcribeit, and then it magically gets
baked into their content. But Idon't know. I I find that they
don't necessarily need the faceto face interaction because the
written content is so pure.Like, the number of times I've
heard people be like, oh my god.I'm hearing this in your voice
and then you sent me a voicemail and it's exactly how I
pictured you sounding.
Like, that is ghostwriting.Writing. And so I think that's
(33:33):
the point or at least the valueof what it is that I do, where
you don't have to be on video oron you know, to choose your
medium if you don't wanna be.Love that. That is my hypothesis
as well, but
Susan Boles (33:47):
I keep getting pushback from other people where
they're like, no, you'remissing. They don't feel the
value because they don't havethe touching. And I'm like, no,
it's so much more valuable tonot to not have the interaction.
Kendall Cherry (33:58):
Yeah. Who what kind of people are telling you
this?
Susan Boles (34:01):
Is it
Kendall Cherry (34:01):
people trying to sell you something?
Susan Boles (34:02):
No. Extroverts. Yeah. That's how I guess it is
purely it has purely beenextrovert because to me, value
equates to how much value canyou provide me with the least
interaction from me? Becauselike you, like, I very much
value my time.
I value having a lot of whitespace both in my day, in the
(34:26):
type of work that I do, andanything that I can do to be
creating that spaciousness isinherently valuable to me.
Kendall Cherry (34:34):
Sounds to me like your idle client's not an
extrovert. No. For sure. Not.Yeah.
And which is fine, which meansthat your process doesn't need
to appeal to extroverts. I willsay, like, right before
Thanksgiving, I had an inquirycome through from someone. And
if you send an inquiry to me,they'll do a proposal. I will
walk you through it in a Loomvideo, but we don't have to
schedule a call. We don't haveto do the whole rigmarole.
(34:56):
It's a oh, a new inquiry.Kendall builds a proposal. It's
very, very easy to follow. I'lleven give you a walk through and
a diagnosis of why I think thisis what you need. It's very
modular as well, so I don't, youknow, I don't just try and throw
together a huge proposal to tryand close a big deal.
It's like, at minimum, this iswhat you have to have. Here's
what I think would be great.Very respectful of the budget. I
(35:19):
had this inquiry come through,build the proposal, send the
Loom. She goes, oh my gosh.
This is amazing. She sends me aLoom back with a couple
questions, but we manage theentire sales process through
Loom videos, closed the client,like, never had to get on a
call. I think she converted in,like, 4 days. We hadn't even
been connected on LinkedIn, butshe was like, this is exactly
(35:40):
what I need. And she actuallysaid, she was like, this sales
process felt so good because Igot to stay in my flow.
I could look at it when I wasready. And so it's it's this,
like, you know, extroverts cansay what they wanna do.
Extroverted or introverted, Idon't care. I care about
efficiency. Why book a 30 minutecall or a 45 minute call?
You know, maybe for, like,coaches, you probably wanna do a
(36:01):
a little vibe check, make surey'all are a good fit. But, like,
for what I do, if you pass allmy very rigorous inquiry form
with a lot of prequalifyingquestions, like if you're a yes
for me, like, I'm gonna take youon. So why would I book a 30
minute call? Like, why why wouldI spend 30 minutes doing that
when I can do 1, maybe 2 emails,a 10 minute video walkthrough,
(36:25):
call it a day? That is the thingis you don't have to do
everything in real time to haveearned it.
And I think that's the thing asa level of maturity in a
business that I think to be alittle bit more established or
or having something that's moresustainable for in in timescales
of years, not in quarters or inmonths like what a lot of
earlier businesses are. It'sthat mindset shift of like, I
(36:46):
don't have to sit here and be atmy computer running the sales
process all the time, or I don'thave to sit here being on calls
with people or whatever else.Like, it really is up to you to
decide the energetics of howyour business is gonna run, and
then deciding and then holdingthat. So I decided, I don't
wanna do sales calls and be on abunch of calls. I decided that,
you know, my content writing andand style is selling whether
(37:08):
it's, you know, more direct ornot.
And I just decided that's howthis business works because if
it doesn't, that's a lot of timethat I'm not dedicating to
things that are important to me,which are client services, which
is how I pay my bills, andwriting books. Like, that's the
the two arms of the business.That's what we're doing for the
next 10 years. That's the vibe.
Susan Boles (37:28):
I am with you. I do actually think part of it comes
down to the fact thatasynchronous communication and
asynchronous team management isjust a skill that a lot of
people haven't built becauseit's a different kind of
communication style. It's alittle bit more direct, less
touchy feely, but I also thinkit's the most efficient and most
effective way. But I am curious,how do you respond if somebody
(37:53):
sends you a LinkedIn DM andsays, hey. Can we hop on a call?
Like, what is your response tothat?
Kendall Cherry (38:00):
So I I'm definitely open to calls with
people. Like, for example, Ijust had someone who they wanted
me to potentially ghostwritetheir book. So there's a lot of
the an education process aroundself publishing that needs to
happen slash a book is a majorproject. So I wanna make sure
that I even wanna take the bookcontent on. So that that is
(38:20):
like, meh, we probably wanna geton the call just because that's
a long term thing.
But the first thing that I do, Iwanna make sure that this person
has budget and they're not justlooking for, like, you know,
cheap copywriter. So the firstthing I say is like, oh my gosh,
you know, I would love to hop ona call. Let me send you my
services guide first, and thenwe can see if we're aligned and
go from there. Usually, becausethe services guide is very
(38:42):
strategically mapped out, so itkind of eliminates the need for
a sales call. People knowexactly what package they want.
They know exactly how much it'sgonna cost. They know how it
works. They know they're in theright place. Usually, people
don't have a lot of questionsfor me at this point because I
because I know that the processworks. I just say like, hey, let
me send you my services guidebecause the thing that happens,
(39:03):
they're either gonna inquire orreach back out and ask for a
proposal or whatever else, orwe'll just DM back and forth on
LinkedIn, figuring out the scopethat works for them.
But what I find is, like, let'ssay, for example, I would have
gotten on a sales call with thatperson. I would have not only
wasted my time. If they didn'tknow the pricing beforehand, you
know, maybe they're looking forsomebody who's gonna do
graphics. I don't. Like, there'sall these, you know, what ifs.
(39:27):
The thing though when thathappens is they may not be ready
for what I do yet, but if youhave the sales call, you kinda
burn the lead. I prefer to getthem on my email list because
I'm slowly nurturing thepipeline. So they can see the
services guide. They can see thepricing. If it changes, they
kind of get all of the salespsychology and this sales angles
(39:48):
around what I do specifically.
And it's again on theirtimeline, their budget, which if
they weren't ready in thatmoment to swipe their card, kind
of a high risk thing for me. SoI always prefer to just, you
know, capture the lead in thatway, but not making it feel
like, you know, okay. Let's hithim with 15,000 automated DMs
(40:08):
or, like, we have a sales repcoming in or whatever else.
Like, it can be this verysmooth, slow process that really
honors where the person's atwithout also like, it it's
awkward to say, like, oh, thisis gonna cost you 4 k and their
budget's a 1,000 or whateverelse. I just don't wanna make
anyone else feel uncomfortablewhen they they couldn't be the
right fit.
I find more times than not,there are a lot of people that I
(40:30):
work with who have what I callcopywriter PTSD. PTSD. They've
hired a copywriter, open thedoc, doesn't sound like you. You
know, you end up editing 50% ofwhat the other person wrote.
It's not selling anyways.
It's not effective. So, youknow, and everyone can tell you
didn't write it. So it's justlike shitty all the way around.
So I get a lot of people who arelike, you know, I've never
really invested in what you dobefore. I'm a little
(40:53):
apprehensive.
And so I prefer my customers tobe a lot more educated on what I
do. A lot of times, they're justused to hiring just a copywriter
and at a lower rate. And I'mlike, well, yeah. I'm a little
more expensive, but it's becauseI'm closing sales over here.
Yeah.
Susan Boles (41:09):
I mean, there's a lot of value working with
somebody who is moreexperienced, and sometimes that
value is hard to convey becauseit's way more efficient and more
effective. But those are hardthings to, like, capture versus
somebody who's just gonna churnout content. So as we are
(41:35):
wrapping things up here, tell mewhat your personal favorite way
is to make your own work feelcalmer.
Kendall Cherry (41:43):
Oh, what a great question. Okay. I I say, like,
not to I'll say, like, punpretty much intended. Like, I do
try to bookend my day as awriter, but but I try to read in
the morning, read at night. Soagain, good inputs, yield, great
outputs.
So I'm always reading something.I do it in the morning before
(42:05):
work. I do it at the end of theday to kinda wrap things up. But
even in between clients, I usethat to kind of like break off
times of my day. It's almostlike I'm emptying out my energy
from one client and moving tothe next.
But the other thing I would sayis like having more of a
practice around meditation,going deep, and just cutting out
(42:27):
stimulation. So whether that islike formal quote unquote
meditation, maybe it's going fora walk, maybe it's just turning
off your screens. Really cuttingoff stimuli is, I think, the
best way to recenter yourself.Like, every everyone's got the
big scroll race going on. Like,there's always content to be
consumed.
Like, you're you have the optionto do that, but I've actually
(42:49):
found getting away from theonline ether as an online
business owner has been, like,one of the best ways for me to
fuel back into my work, whetherthat's for clients, whether
that's for my own writing, or mybook, or whatever else.
Susan Boles (43:08):
There are so many ways that you can take Kendall's
calmer approach here and applyit to your own business. Really,
her Fresh Content inked metricis about exploring how you can
do less. What would the impactbe if you did? That question, I
wonder what would happen if, itcan be used in all different
areas of your business toexperiment with doing less or
(43:30):
doing things in a different,maybe calmer way. So I wonder
what would happen if you postedless on a particular social
channel or maybe even left italtogether.
I wonder what would happen ifyou tried transitioning to a
more asynchronous sales cycle. Iwonder what would happen if you
created that content library forjust one of your channels. Even
(43:53):
if you didn't use the libraryall the time, you could use it
when you needed a break, or avacation, or just to take some
of the load off temporarily soyou can focus on another
project. The content library issuch a great example of a system
that you can build in yourbusiness to create margin, to
build space for other projects.Whether you use it all the time
(44:14):
or not, it's there and you canalways tap into it when you need
it.
Same with the asynchronous salesprocess that Kendall described.
It's a system that's out thererunning on maintenance mode to
help create more time or morerevenue or to take the load off.
And when you take the load offof different areas, when a bunch
of the areas of your businessare running on maintenance mode,
(44:35):
that's what helps your businessfeel calmer. Next time, I'm
talking to Karen Sargent abouther client report card, which is
her calm KPI around making surethat she's working with the most
ideal clients and delivering thebest service. So make sure you
hit subscribe so you don't missit.
Big thanks to everyone whosupports Beyond Margins. If you
are a listener, a sponsor, or apartner of any kind, I couldn't
(44:58):
do this show without you. Thebest way to support the show is
by leaving a rating and areview. It really does help new
listeners hit play with moreconfidence, and you can support
our sponsors by using the linkin your show notes. All of that
helps me keep this podcast goingand growing.
So thank you for that, and thankyou for listening. Until next
(45:18):
time, stay calm.
I had better ideas. I had way more
(00:02):
spaciousness because of that KPIfreeing up all this time on my
calendar.
Susan Boles (00:10):
I'm Susan Boles, and this is Beyond Margins, the
show where we deconstruct how toengineer a calmer business. The
goal in a lot of the businessesI work with is to engineer a
calmer business. That's my goaltoo. And in order to do that,
you have to make calm a corevalue for your company. You have
to prioritize it, build for it,and measure KPIs, key
(00:32):
performance indicators, thathelp you make progress towards
it.
You have to make calm your newKPI. But what does that mean?
What does that look like? Well,it's different for every
business because what feels calmto you might not feel calm to
me. We're all different peoplerunning different businesses
with different services, goals,values, priorities, and that
(00:54):
means we need to measuredifferent metrics to help us
track our progress.
If you wanna build a calmbusiness, you have to solve for
something besides the default.That default is growth at all
costs, profit over people. Andthe default metrics, things like
growth rate, efficiency rates,ROI, they measure the progress
towards the default. Theybasically measure how well
(01:16):
you're doing at growth at allcosts. And that's not what we're
here for.
So if we want to build a Calmbusiness and we want to make
Calm our new KPI, we need Calmmetrics to help us measure our
progress. We need calmer KPIs,and they might not look like the
KPIs you're used to. That's whatwe're exploring in this series.
(01:37):
I wanna take you behind thescenes of businesses measuring
Callmark APIs because this isone of those things where we
actually need to see examples ofhow it can be done differently
in order to adapt our ownmetrics to be calmer. In the
last episode, I took you behindthe scenes in my own business
and how I set goals around Calmalong with my own calmer KPI.
(01:59):
So if you haven't had a chanceto check out that last episode,
I highly recommend it. Today,I'm talking to Kendall Cherry
about her calmer KPI, FreshContent Inked. Kendall runs a 1
woman content ghostwritingagency called the Candid
Collective. And this interviewactually changed my own approach
to my business. No joke.
(02:20):
After I recorded thisconversation with Kendall, I
literally went and rebuilt awhole bunch of the systems in my
own business based on some ofthe ideas that she shared with
me. Kendall's KPI, Fresh ContentInked, is an outgrowth of her
wanting to create more time forherself so she could write a
book. Fresh Content Inked is herway of tracking how many new
pieces of content she's writingeach month with the goal being
(02:43):
to write 6 or less new pieces ofcontent. We'll get into how she
makes that happen, what systemsshe's using, how she set them
up, and, nope, she is not usingAI to do it. We were chatting
about this on LinkedIn, and youmentioned that one of the KPIs
(03:08):
that you regularly measure isthis idea of fresh content
inked.
Kendall Cherry (03:14):
Yeah. So this is something that I kind of fell
into this year. So I'm acopywriter. I'm a storyteller. I
write copy for clients all day,every day, usually recurring
styles of content.
So things like emailnewsletters, LinkedIn content
are kind of my bread and butter.And I was noticing, you know,
when I would feel tired or if Ijust didn't have the creative
(03:35):
spark, especially earlier in theyear. I did this little
experiment. I wonder what wouldhappen if I went back and used
my, like, greatest hits content,threw it in a Google Doc. All of
my content is strategicallyselling.
It's subliminally selling. It'snot super bro y, in your face,
cold pitch y, but it's also notkind of what you see on
(03:55):
LinkedIn. So I got reallycurious after a season of like,
okay, I really wanna expand. AndI decided I wanted to not only
render client services, butactually move toward becoming a
self published nonfictionauthor. And so I was like, I
gotta get my time back.
It was truly like just anexperiment. Like, I wonder what
would happen if I just sat forlike 6 hours, combed through 3
(04:18):
years of content, picked my beststuff. And then what ended up
happening was I had this 83 pagedocument that I now have my VA
schedule for me on LinkedIn thatowns, again, the greatest hits
of the sales content. Itconverts into sales. It's market
validated, all of the things.
Ran it for a 6 month trial justto see what would happen, and
(04:39):
ended up closing, like, some ofthe biggest deals I ever have in
not only less time, but I'm nowno longer actively writing the
content. I did that forLinkedIn. That was like test one
check. And so now then I waslike, I wonder if I did my
Monday sales emails. Like, if Ijust spilled a little content
make of that, like, what wouldhappen?
And so then another test checkof, you know, the only content
(05:02):
now that I'm really writing ismy Friday newsletter, Flower
Fridays, which is fresh originalcontent. It's about storytelling
and sales. But everything elseyou see from me on the Internet,
spoiler alert, it's in alibrary. It's in a big Google
Doc that I don't write freshanymore. It's probably some of
those pieces have hit theInternet, like, 6, 7 times.
(05:24):
And every time they go out, mymy audience is only growing, and
it gets more engagement, moreconversions. It's I feel like I
hacked the the content system,and I'm like, thank the lord.
Because I can now I'm I'mworking on a second career on in
the background as an author.
Susan Boles (05:40):
I love that. And I love the I wonder what would
happen question because that'sone that I use very frequently
as well is I wonder what wouldhappen if I didn't do this, or I
wonder what would happen if Idid this in a different way. And
I think it is such a criticalquestion to be asking when we're
(06:01):
thinking about, like, how do Imake things calmer? Because so
many of the ideas we have aboutbusiness and what we're supposed
to do, and particularly around,like, content and marketing, is
it's all telling us we have todo more. And you had mentioned
that one of the metrics aroundFresh Content Inc is actually in
(06:24):
how few pieces you can publish.
Tell me
a little bit more about why thatbecame the goal. I'm not only
writing whatever comes out frommy byline. I don't have a team
of people. So I'm a quoteunquote agency and then I write
for clients, but I havebasically my ops support. So
things like a VA, a marketingcoordinator.
Kendall Cherry (06:44):
The only person ghostwriting on behalf of
clients is me. So I'm not onlywriting my content, but my
client content. And so I reallytook a look at, okay, if I want
my best creative energy to gotoward the stuff that I really
care about, my WallflowerFridays newsletter and my client
work, and then the book that I'mwriting, it really stemmed from
(07:04):
this place of, like, I'mdefinitely more of an evergreen
sales style. I hate the thelaunching nervous system freak
out. Like, I've heard people whoswear by it or they say, you
know, I really like the highrisk, high reward.
And I'm like, I don't see anyreward. And if you don't hit
your numbers, like, that to meis the biggest risk you could
put on your business, on yournervous system. You have to
(07:25):
recover emotionally from that.Like, I'm just not here for it.
And so running this evergreenbusiness model, I decided Fresh
Content inked was I'm stillwanting to be connected to this
business and what I'm creatingon behalf of it.
Again, I'm a writer. Butwouldn't it be cool if I didn't
have to feel like every singlepiece of me, every single week
(07:47):
needed me to be not just at acreative output for my clients,
not just at a creative output towrite a book, but also having to
then write the content that's,you know, selling my services.
And so that's really and trulykind of where Fresh Content Inc.
Stems from. So the KPI is 6pieces of content quote unquote
or less a month.
If I have 5 weeks in a month,that's 5 email newsletters right
(08:09):
there. If something crazyhappens or I have a really great
client story and I feel likewriting something about it, then
I might pen something for that.But otherwise, it kind of forces
me to stay in this, almost thisenergetic ceiling of, like, what
I have is enough. This is allvaluable. It's already been
market validated.
Like, I don't actually need tokeep fueling this, like, not
(08:31):
enoughness that tends to runreally rampant, especially on
LinkedIn. I don't know. I juststopped believing in that
narrative. And what'sinteresting is not not only am I
winning my time back, but thedeals that I'm closing from the
content, because I don't dosales calls, my business runs
primarily from the contentconverting. People know they're
they wanna work with me.
There is no, you know, greasysales call. It's hot inquiry.
(08:55):
Person's a perfect fit. Let meget you into my schedule. I just
kind of really took a look atwhat do I need to feel
creatively fulfilled when itcomes to my work and the work I
do on behalf of clients andletting that be the magic and
cutting out anything that justdid not fuel that style of
energy.
Again, it not only freed up myschedule, I think I doubled my
(09:18):
income this year. Like, youknow, we've got a very, very
profitable business. I'm writinga book on the side for God's
sake. I'm feeling pretty danggood with where I'm sitting. So
Susan Boles (09:30):
I have 2 questions. One, how do you feel it's
impacted you creatively?
Kendall Cherry (09:37):
Oh my gosh. The the thing that's interesting, I
was really afraid to do it atfirst. It's a big swing because
you have to trust, like, didwhat I created in the past work,
but it had to have workedbecause clients came from it.
Again, I've never really had todo any cold pitching. I've never
really had to do any, like,reaching out virtual coffees,
any of that stuff.
It's very much come throughinbound leads from the content
(10:00):
itself. And so it was thismoment of sitting with like,
okay, do I trust myself enough?I know I have the proof points
in the past, but, like, can Isit with this when it's a slower
sales cycle? Or maybe I've beena little bit lower energy
because I have personal stuffgoing on. Like, can I still hold
that that this is true for me?
And then the other thing as faras the creativity, it only made
(10:21):
me more creative. I had betterideas. I had way more
spaciousness because of that KPIfreeing up all this time on my
calendar. Not only am I writinga book, but, you know, to fuel
yourself as a writer, goodinputs create great outputs. So
I'm reading 2 hours or more aday of very random content.
I don't read a lot ofnewsletters. I don't read a lot
(10:43):
of LinkedIn content, pretty muchreading fiction, and I'll say
the outside content to fuel thethings that I'm writing. But the
writing has gotten stronger. Thesales process has tightened up.
I feel more creatively connectedto the work because I'm more
present while I'm doing it.
And so I see no negatives to thethe kind of calm KPI in my
(11:07):
business. And I just wish morepeople would just stop believing
this lie that everyone else isportraying on the Internet
because it's actual bullshit.
Susan Boles (11:15):
We're gonna take a quick break to hear from our
sponsors, but when we come back,Kendall is gonna give us the
nitty gritty details behind howshe actually implemented this
system for herself. When youcame up with the idea of
(12:16):
creating this library, talk methrough the logistics of how you
actually went through anddecided what to include, what
you didn't include, how youactually went about building
this library.
Kendall Cherry (12:28):
Yeah. So the first thing that I did, I moved
on to LinkedIn. I quit Instagrampretty much without notice,
which is where I built mybusiness in April. But I had
this repository of some contentthat I'd created over the years.
And then we'd started writingsome for LinkedIn as well that
I'd been posting there.
And so I truly was like, okay,we're gonna just see what
(12:48):
happens. And I'm a sprint stylegirly. Like, I do not I just
can't do it. No. It's it doesn'twork for me.
My creative style is is not likethat. I sync my business to my
menstrual cycle. Like, it'sjust, it's a very well oiled
machine. And so I just got thisenergy surge. Started at 8 PM, 1
(13:09):
night.
It was like a random Wednesday.And I was like, okay. I guess
we're doing this. And so Istayed up until like 1 or 2 AM,
just like listening to my music,vibing, and I just started
combing through the content fromover the years and looking at
the the one metric I I gavemyself because I knew I didn't
wanna do the, like, post aselfie of myself with, again,
(13:30):
the lame b to b story about sellselling or whatever else. So I I
knew that the content, the onething I looked for was, is this
selling my services?
Yes or no. I did some quickedits to make sure some of it
was maybe 80% of the way there,so I did a quick cleanup. But I
I knew the services that Iwanted to be selling. I knew the
offers that I wanted to have. Iknew what I didn't wanna be
(13:52):
attracting in and what messagingI I wanted to kind of comb out.
And so I just did this reallybig, like, okay. This is the
future vision for the businessfor the next 5 years. Like,
we're good. We're at a premiumrate. Set the the foundation
there.
I was, like, sitting on mycouch. We're gonna just do this,
I guess. And I ended up justcombing through old Instagram
(14:13):
captions, old emails. SometimesI'd have stuff in my notes app
on my computer that I'd likehalf finished. And so I just
took the time to just see what Ialready had created that I also
again, I knew it was selling.
It wasn't just a story, quote,unquote, but it was a very
strategic story that always ledback to, you know, here's what
(14:34):
I'm here to sell. And that is iskinda what came through in the
document. So I I will caution ifanyone's thinking like, oh, I'm
gonna do the same thing with thecontent library. Like, if your
content is not strategicallyselling, it's not going to work
and you could really like, thisis, like, the big red sign
beforehand. Like, don't proceedforward unless you know it's
(14:55):
selling.
Why the library works so well?Everyone's creating this content
very much in the moment. Oh, Ineed a post today, so let me
write it today. And the thingabout the calm KPI and and
emotional regulation, if you'rewriting from a place of
scarcity, lack, you're thinking,you know, you need to make a
sell, so it's coming in. It'sgetting picked up in what you're
creating.
(15:15):
All of that's gonna just getcontained in the content that
you're selling, which is anotherreason a content library works
so well. If you're in a slowseason or, you know, you just
had a really weird clientinteraction or whatever else,
you're not writing from thatplace. You're writing from your
most magnetic, your mostauthentic, and that becomes the
thing that gets kind of bottledup and, you know, put forward to
(15:37):
sell. It's not, well, I couldn'tthink of anything, so let me
just slap something togetherjust to get something out. It's
I I just picture it as like thisassembly line or a machine, and
it's slow and steady, baby, butthat's that's what creates the
consistency when it comes tosales, not the one post that you
bought in a course that'ssupposedly gonna make you a
$1,000,000.
Like,
Susan Boles (15:55):
sorry. It doesn't work
Kendall Cherry (15:56):
like that. I work in content. No piece of
content is that high converting.Hot take.
Susan Boles (16:01):
I think that's underrated, though. I think the
idea of slow, consistent,regulated effort is undervalued
because we do get the messagethat, you know, you just gotta
hit 1 viral post, and you'regonna do it. And at least from
personal experience, every postI've had that's gone even a
little bit viral is completelylike, it is one where
Kendall Cherry (16:25):
it's just unrelated. Unrelated to what
you're selling. There's athere's an avatar that I talk
about a lot in my body of workcalled the DIYer never buyer.
All of the viral posts that yousee on the Internet. Yeah.
It's great. You get all thisengagement. Guarantee you are
attracting people who quoteunquote, love your content, but
they are never gonna pay you adime. Like they're just not
(16:46):
going to. They're the people whodownload the freebies that live
in their downloads folder.
These are the people that leavecourses unfinished. Like, these
are not people that are payingfor high ticket or premium
services. And so virality isgreat, but show me a viral post
that led to actual dollars wonor dollars earned. Most of the
time, it's very low value, lowbid audience members. But if
(17:08):
you're here to build a businessthat's sustainable and lasts for
years, you know, the viralposts, like, it kind of loses
its luster a little bit.
Susan Boles (17:16):
For sure. I love the idea that this content
library is a consistent processthat you build one time, you can
improve over time. But it is areally good example of what I
call maintenance mode, which isthis idea that you just set
something up and it just existson maintenance mode, and you can
(17:37):
spend the rest of your time,your energy, your effort
experimenting or doing fun sideprojects or fixing something
else in your business, focusingon something else. And
eventually, you can come backand improve and iterate, but it
can be kind of running in thebackground. I am very interested
(17:58):
to hear about how that impactsyour sales cycle.
You mentioned that you don't dosales calls. What is the impact
of this content system on theactual sales process in your
business?
Kendall Cherry (18:09):
Yeah. So the really great thing about this is
I'm not a scarcity marketingperson. I'm not an urgency
person like that. Those are just2 practices I'm very much not. I
just don't think it's a greatway to sell.
It doesn't feel aligned for me.And so it really cuts out this
need to have this again, coldDM. You need my offer right now.
(18:29):
Most of the time, in reality,customers are waiting on, is it
the right time for me? Do I havethe budget?
And or do I have the rightresources or team to actually
execute the thing that I'mdoing? Like, it's one of those
three things. So it's not myjob. I can put all the pressure,
all the scarcity, all theurgency in the world. If it's
not the right time for thecustomer, it's not the right
(18:51):
approach to try and sell.
So I take a very kind of laissezfaire backseat approach to the
sales process, which is why themaintenance mode style of this
content ecosystem works reallywell because it's basically the
customer decides, am I ready toreach out or inquire? They're
kind of on their own buyer'sjourney. You know, I just
picture, like, all of mycustomers on treadmills that are
(19:12):
all next to each other. Like,one person's 10 miles an hour,
just, like, flying ready to go.You got someone on point 1.
They just started theirbusiness. I love the idea of
everyone's kind of on theirbuyer's journey. It's not about
me. It's not about my business.I'm just here to serve.
At anytime I've tried topressure or, you know, even if
someone gets ahead of themselvesand maybe over invests too soon,
(19:33):
it never is a good match andit's never a good mix. And so I
think it's so much more aboutreally setting someone up so
that they have a successfulexperience with you. You enjoy
the process so much work becausethey're ready for the magic that
you create. And that's me atfrom a sales cycle perspective
too. There can be a little bitof, you know, feast and famine.
There's some things I do in mybusiness where I have a certain
(19:54):
set retainer amount that I havefor clients and I run a wait
list model. My, quote, unquote,maintenance mode from a revenue
perspective is I try to have,you know, a certain just
recurring revenue. That's justsmart business to having that in
place. So I'm not if the skyfalls or we didn't have a client
come through or whatever else.And then also on the the other
side, there are very, very fastseasons in my business or bigger
(20:17):
seasons.
So if I hit several months whereI'm 2 and 3 times over the
quote, unquote need for themonth, stocking some of that
away because I I know there willbe slower seasons. So having
some of a cash buffer, but Idon't really do the whole, like,
revenue spreadsheet. Let me workand reverse engineer backwards.
How am I gonna create my, youknow, 20 k months or whatever
(20:38):
else? I don't personally do thatbecause I've had clients you
know, I've had offers.
People this the market's notright. So I try to sell those
things and they don't work. Andthen here here comes my dark
horse who's like, ready to drop30 k in 5 seconds. Outside of
the actual content marketing,having some just business model
revenue structures in place, acertain number of recurring
(20:58):
revenue. And I think premiummessaging, at least with the
content where the clients thatare coming to me, they're they
know the value of what they'regetting when they work with me
versus maybe some of the otheroptions that are out there.
Susan Boles (21:15):
Tell me about the actual process that you did go
through to set up both thesocial media content library and
the actual evergreen newsletterversion, essentially. Take me
step by step through the wholeprocess.
Kendall Cherry (21:30):
Yeah. So I actually have this mentality
around things where your contentkind of works like a funnel. So
you have some client contentthat's maybe top of the funnel.
It's for people that are newer.Then you have stuff that's
bottom of the funnel.
It's directly communicating whoyou are, what you do. It's all
storytelling, but some posts aresalesier quote unquote than
others. The one thing, if I I Iwish I could scream this from
(21:54):
the rooftops because I don't seeanyone doing it. You need to be
posting a client case study,period. Doesn't matter if it's
email, doesn't matter if it'sLinkedIn, every 2 weeks like
literal clockwork.
This is, you know, how Morganclosed $50,000 in sales in 24
hours, which is one that's in mybank that just kinda cycles
through. Maybe one's about how aclient saved time. You need to
(22:17):
be telling the story of thebefore and after transformation
of your client and directlycommunicating the value that
that whatever process ortransformation you created, what
you were able to create withthat client
Susan Boles (22:30):
every 2 weeks. That is the bones. Thanks so much for
calling me out. Sorry.
Kendall Cherry (22:34):
I'm down late. I know. I know. It's because
everyone thinks and approachescontent about transformations
and testimonials as if it's awebsite. Everyone thinks, oh,
well, I gathered mytestimonials.
I'm gonna post the photo of theperson and the 5 gold stars, and
I'm gonna copy and paste the,you know, what they said about
me, and they're gonna justunderstand how valuable I am.
(22:57):
The problem here is you'rebasically leading the witness.
You are expecting somebody tounderstand what you mean and
what value you create and whatthe offer is. There's a lot of
assuming going on and all ofthose assumptions are leaving
tens of 1,000 of dollars on thetable in revenue every year, if
not more. I would argue at least10% or more of your annual
(23:18):
revenue if you're not includingthose client case studies.
There's 10% for next year. Youcan instantly add that back in
because people wanna not onlysee the results that you
created, they wanna understandyour approach. It's the easiest
way to communicate. Here's howyour mind works. Here's what's
important to you.
Here's what the process is gonnalook like. Are they gonna make
me do some crazy shit? Is thisgonna feel aligned for me? There
(23:40):
can be such a challenge,especially in service provider
world, where you don't reallyknow how a service provider is
gonna approach your problemuntil you're in the contract.
It.
Yeah. And you're locked in, andthere's so much guessing, or
it's not what I thought it wasgonna be or whatever else. And
that's the easiest way to kindacall that out and detract people
(24:01):
that maybe aren't the right fitfor you, but it's also the best
way to communicate what it isthat you're here to do. There's
a million and one ways tocommunicate quantitative and
qualitative results in a storyformat. But I think everyone,
mostly because there there'sthis, like, secret little shadow
where it's like, I wanna behumble.
I don't wanna be too braggy. Youknow, all of these things, but
(24:24):
people really doubt the giftsand contributions that you bring
to the table, which, you know,most of the times my clients are
like, please tell this story.That was freaking crazy. I want
you to have more people like me.I've never had one client be
like, I don't want you to tell,you know, this story of how I
Susan Boles (24:40):
things of how
Kendall Cherry (24:40):
how we made all this money together. Yeah. Like
there, that's just not the case,but it's it's this interesting
little shadow that I thinkhappens. And the thing is with
the content bank, right? If it's6 months, every 2 weeks, we're
talking about 12 case studiesthat you just have.
They can sit on your website. Ialso use them in my sales
process. So if someone asks me aquestion during the process,
(25:01):
maybe they wanna know a littlebit more information. I just
send them a link to the LinkedInpost or to the case study
saying, here's how Morgan usedthis experience. So I don't have
to get on a call.
I don't have to repeat myself.Someone doesn't have to feel
like I'm badgering them on acall. They can make the
assumptions for themselves. Tome, it's a more humane, a much
calmer way to communicate whatit is that you you do likely
(25:24):
like breathing, but a lot of thetimes you're either too close to
it or it's it's hard tocommunicate the value at least
in a story format. But that'sreally and truly like there's
other, you know, hacks andgimmicks.
But like to me, if you don'thave that, you're leaving so
much money on
Susan Boles (25:40):
the table. Adding to my own content library.
Kendall Cherry (25:43):
Yes. Yes. Yes. Trust me. That that was one that
I liked.
I just like zoomed out and I waslike, what what are people
doing? Because I just startednoticing. I'd be on LinkedIn and
I'm like, I'm posting the goldstar stuff. Like, what's
happening? And I noticed my userbehavior on social media when I
would see those.
And so I'm I was like, oh, whenI see those I just keep
scrolling. So it actually is theopposite effect of what you
(26:05):
want. Like you you think it'slike a website. I'm letting
people know. No.
You're literally training youraudience to stop reading your
content. If you get nothing elsefrom this podcast, stop the gold
stars. Like there that is you'retraining your audience to stop
reading what should be sellingyour services. And then the flip
side of that is you end uphaving to go super manual sales
process, cold DMs, sales calls,when it could be much much
(26:28):
simpler. But, yeah.
If you get one thing out of thispodcast, no no gold star
graphics, please. Please.
Susan Boles (26:41):
So there's multiple metrics here. You've got fresh
content inked, but as part ofthat, you also have one client
testimonial every 2 weeks. Whatelse is in the systems?
Kendall Cherry (26:55):
There's more of just an ecosystem and a process
that I like to follow. So I I ampro email list, and I know email
newsletters are a really hottopic right now. Everyone's
trying to monetize a newsletter.Hot take. I think it's kinda
trendy thing.
I prefer using an emailnewsletter as a sales pipeline
builder. So I have my WallflowerFridays newsletter that I post
(27:19):
every Friday. That's one of theentry points into my business.
My best lead magnet is myservices guide. That's where I
give you the pricing.
I hide my pricing from mywebsite. If you want the
pricing, here's the documentthat you have to, you know, give
me your email, you get on thelist. And I find that using that
as the entry point into theemail newsletter, not everyone
(27:39):
needs my services, but it's thebest way to nurture people over
time. It's a very calm system.It's very automated.
You can have this email welcomeseries that's letting people
know who you are and what youdo. It's a really great way to
nurture a pipeline over timewithout feeling the scarcity or
thinking, I've gotta connectwith 20 people. The email
(28:00):
ecosystem works extremely well.I see everyone and their mom
talking about how to grow anemail newsletter. A lot of times
the quality of the content'sreally low.
It's not converting into actualsales or there's some low bid
course on the back end. My emaillist for many, many years was
like under 500 subscribers andclosing a 100 to a 150 k,
(28:22):
sometimes 250 k now in revenuedirectly from the email list. It
wasn't a referral basedbusiness. These people were
coming from email for the mostpart. And I I think you don't
have to have this huge audiencethat everyone thinks you have to
have.
You can have a really lucrativesmaller audience that is full of
leads and customers for whateverit is that you're offering. But
(28:43):
I would say don't sleep on emaillists as a nurture tool for a
sales pipeline. Again, hot take,it's not this, like, let's have
a self liquidating offer orwhatever else on the back end.
Like, there are a 101,000,000ways to to build a business, but
I prefer email. People get theemails, they can be automated.
You know, we send up salesemails specifically selling my
(29:04):
ghostwriting services onMondays. Fridays, we have
Wallflower Fridays, which is mynewsletter. I'll talk about all
kinds of stuff. You know, I justsend a a Monday email from the
content library, my Fridaynewsletter that I write fresh
every week, 2 emails a week aswell. That's another KPI for
you.
Susan Boles (29:22):
Love it. So how do these processes and these
metrics integrate with the restof your business approach? Are
there other processes or systemsthat either relate to these
things or that you have built inorder to make these work?
Kendall Cherry (29:40):
The thing that I I love about this so much is
most of it can be executed by myteam. So for example, like
LinkedIn, all of the schedulingof the content, the content set,
my VA schedules it. I I mean, Ilove her, but I, like, never
talk to her because she knowswhat to do. But so, like, that
totally off my plate. Like,that's not even something I
worry about.
(30:00):
The emails I schedule myselfjust because I like to make sure
it's really updated. And then atthe bottom, I post my capacity
and when my next openings arefor projects or for retainer. I
like to schedule my emailsmyself just because I, I know
the latest and greatest onlycapacity and it's too hard to
try and communicate my creativecapacity to someone else. So I
(30:21):
do it based on a gut feeling.But for the most part, like the
administrative side of thebusiness, very, very, very lean.
There's not a bunch of bells andwhistles. Like, it's pretty
streamlined. For some projects,we'll do a kickoff call, but
even for retainer clients atthis point, we don't do project
kickoff calls anymore either. Mybrand questionnaire, very
similar to my inquiry form asfar as, like, the depth of what
(30:44):
level I go to, but thequestionnaire really takes the
place of a kickoff call or asales call so that I'm getting
the qualitative data preserved.That's the first part.
But then I'm also as aghostwriter, I'm seeing
someone's sense of humor.They're telling me stories. I'm
seeing what's their writingstyle like? What's their flow
like? I'd say I graduated out ofneeding to be on kickoff calls
(31:05):
all the time or even sales callsall the time because after a
while, I started having the sameconversations.
Lot of frequently askedquestions. So my services guide,
like, there's I think it's like4 or 5 pages at the back where
just like FAQs FAQs. I I try tobottle up or preserve anything
that I can in the business toleverage as much as I can.
Sounds like the ideal. Exactly.
And so I just I just startedlooking at it and I was like,
(31:27):
again, kinda wouldn't it be coolif my favorite question, like,
wouldn't it be cool if I didn'thave to be on all these calls
all the time? Like, I'm awriter. What could I do to make
my life easier? And sorefinement and kind of retesting
and iterating to where now itjust it works like a charm. And
I I get my time back.
My clients get better output andproduct from me that I'm
cranking out. Can't lose,really.
Susan Boles (31:48):
I'm actually interested in this because this
is a discussion I've been havingwith folks. Because like you, I
would love to eliminate themajority of all kinds of calls.
Because if I have a call or Ihave to do multiple calls, that
is the end of my day. I'm notdoing any actual work that day.
I have to have, like, protecteddays where I don't have calls in
order for my brain to think.
(32:09):
But the flip side of that is theidea that some people get
psychological value out of faceto face calls, which is one
where I'm like, when I'm workingwith consultants, if I can get
the results and I never have totalk to you, the designer I work
with literally, I can send herone sentence in my ClickUp and
(32:33):
voila, things magically appear.And that's my favorite thing.
But there is this idea that somepeople get a lot of
psychological value. Like, thevalue that they perceive comes
from the live interaction versusthe actual results.
Kendall Cherry (32:50):
Yeah. I think it depends on on your customer.
But, like, for me, for example,people care that the output that
they're getting from me, thewritten word, feels like them
and is selling. Like, that's thevalue of the product I create.
So to create some more, like,psychological ties with my
clients, for my contact clients,I have a a system where they can
send me voice memos.
(33:11):
2 to 3 minutes, we transcribeit, and then it magically gets
baked into their content. But Idon't know. I I find that they
don't necessarily need the faceto face interaction because the
written content is so pure.Like, the number of times I've
heard people be like, oh my god.I'm hearing this in your voice
and then you sent me a voicemail and it's exactly how I
pictured you sounding.
Like, that is ghostwriting.Writing. And so I think that's
(33:33):
the point or at least the valueof what it is that I do, where
you don't have to be on video oron you know, to choose your
medium if you don't wanna be.Love that. That is my hypothesis
as well, but
Susan Boles (33:47):
I keep getting pushback from other people where
they're like, no, you'remissing. They don't feel the
value because they don't havethe touching. And I'm like, no,
it's so much more valuable tonot to not have the interaction.
Kendall Cherry (33:58):
Yeah. Who what kind of people are telling you
this?
Susan Boles (34:01):
Is it
Kendall Cherry (34:01):
people trying to sell you something?
Susan Boles (34:02):
No. Extroverts. Yeah. That's how I guess it is
purely it has purely beenextrovert because to me, value
equates to how much value canyou provide me with the least
interaction from me? Becauselike you, like, I very much
value my time.
I value having a lot of whitespace both in my day, in the
(34:26):
type of work that I do, andanything that I can do to be
creating that spaciousness isinherently valuable to me.
Kendall Cherry (34:34):
Sounds to me like your idle client's not an
extrovert. No. For sure. Not.Yeah.
And which is fine, which meansthat your process doesn't need
to appeal to extroverts. I willsay, like, right before
Thanksgiving, I had an inquirycome through from someone. And
if you send an inquiry to me,they'll do a proposal. I will
walk you through it in a Loomvideo, but we don't have to
schedule a call. We don't haveto do the whole rigmarole.
(34:56):
It's a oh, a new inquiry.Kendall builds a proposal. It's
very, very easy to follow. I'lleven give you a walk through and
a diagnosis of why I think thisis what you need. It's very
modular as well, so I don't, youknow, I don't just try and throw
together a huge proposal to tryand close a big deal.
It's like, at minimum, this iswhat you have to have. Here's
what I think would be great.Very respectful of the budget. I
(35:19):
had this inquiry come through,build the proposal, send the
Loom. She goes, oh my gosh.
This is amazing. She sends me aLoom back with a couple
questions, but we manage theentire sales process through
Loom videos, closed the client,like, never had to get on a
call. I think she converted in,like, 4 days. We hadn't even
been connected on LinkedIn, butshe was like, this is exactly
(35:40):
what I need. And she actuallysaid, she was like, this sales
process felt so good because Igot to stay in my flow.
I could look at it when I wasready. And so it's it's this,
like, you know, extroverts cansay what they wanna do.
Extroverted or introverted, Idon't care. I care about
efficiency. Why book a 30 minutecall or a 45 minute call?
You know, maybe for, like,coaches, you probably wanna do a
(36:01):
a little vibe check, make surey'all are a good fit. But, like,
for what I do, if you pass allmy very rigorous inquiry form
with a lot of prequalifyingquestions, like if you're a yes
for me, like, I'm gonna take youon. So why would I book a 30
minute call? Like, why why wouldI spend 30 minutes doing that
when I can do 1, maybe 2 emails,a 10 minute video walkthrough,
(36:25):
call it a day? That is the thingis you don't have to do
everything in real time to haveearned it.
And I think that's the thing asa level of maturity in a
business that I think to be alittle bit more established or
or having something that's moresustainable for in in timescales
of years, not in quarters or inmonths like what a lot of
earlier businesses are. It'sthat mindset shift of like, I
(36:46):
don't have to sit here and be atmy computer running the sales
process all the time, or I don'thave to sit here being on calls
with people or whatever else.Like, it really is up to you to
decide the energetics of howyour business is gonna run, and
then deciding and then holdingthat. So I decided, I don't
wanna do sales calls and be on abunch of calls. I decided that,
you know, my content writing andand style is selling whether
(37:08):
it's, you know, more direct ornot.
And I just decided that's howthis business works because if
it doesn't, that's a lot of timethat I'm not dedicating to
things that are important to me,which are client services, which
is how I pay my bills, andwriting books. Like, that's the
the two arms of the business.That's what we're doing for the
next 10 years. That's the vibe.
Susan Boles (37:28):
I am with you. I do actually think part of it comes
down to the fact thatasynchronous communication and
asynchronous team management isjust a skill that a lot of
people haven't built becauseit's a different kind of
communication style. It's alittle bit more direct, less
touchy feely, but I also thinkit's the most efficient and most
effective way. But I am curious,how do you respond if somebody
(37:53):
sends you a LinkedIn DM andsays, hey. Can we hop on a call?
Like, what is your response tothat?
Kendall Cherry (38:00):
So I I'm definitely open to calls with
people. Like, for example, Ijust had someone who they wanted
me to potentially ghostwritetheir book. So there's a lot of
the an education process aroundself publishing that needs to
happen slash a book is a majorproject. So I wanna make sure
that I even wanna take the bookcontent on. So that that is
(38:20):
like, meh, we probably wanna geton the call just because that's
a long term thing.
But the first thing that I do, Iwanna make sure that this person
has budget and they're not justlooking for, like, you know,
cheap copywriter. So the firstthing I say is like, oh my gosh,
you know, I would love to hop ona call. Let me send you my
services guide first, and thenwe can see if we're aligned and
go from there. Usually, becausethe services guide is very
(38:42):
strategically mapped out, so itkind of eliminates the need for
a sales call. People knowexactly what package they want.
They know exactly how much it'sgonna cost. They know how it
works. They know they're in theright place. Usually, people
don't have a lot of questionsfor me at this point because I
because I know that the processworks. I just say like, hey, let
me send you my services guidebecause the thing that happens,
(39:03):
they're either gonna inquire orreach back out and ask for a
proposal or whatever else, orwe'll just DM back and forth on
LinkedIn, figuring out the scopethat works for them.
But what I find is, like, let'ssay, for example, I would have
gotten on a sales call with thatperson. I would have not only
wasted my time. If they didn'tknow the pricing beforehand, you
know, maybe they're looking forsomebody who's gonna do
graphics. I don't. Like, there'sall these, you know, what ifs.
(39:27):
The thing though when thathappens is they may not be ready
for what I do yet, but if youhave the sales call, you kinda
burn the lead. I prefer to getthem on my email list because
I'm slowly nurturing thepipeline. So they can see the
services guide. They can see thepricing. If it changes, they
kind of get all of the salespsychology and this sales angles
(39:48):
around what I do specifically.
And it's again on theirtimeline, their budget, which if
they weren't ready in thatmoment to swipe their card, kind
of a high risk thing for me. SoI always prefer to just, you
know, capture the lead in thatway, but not making it feel
like, you know, okay. Let's hithim with 15,000 automated DMs
(40:08):
or, like, we have a sales repcoming in or whatever else.
Like, it can be this verysmooth, slow process that really
honors where the person's atwithout also like, it it's
awkward to say, like, oh, thisis gonna cost you 4 k and their
budget's a 1,000 or whateverelse. I just don't wanna make
anyone else feel uncomfortablewhen they they couldn't be the
right fit.
I find more times than not,there are a lot of people that I
(40:30):
work with who have what I callcopywriter PTSD. PTSD. They've
hired a copywriter, open thedoc, doesn't sound like you. You
know, you end up editing 50% ofwhat the other person wrote.
It's not selling anyways.
It's not effective. So, youknow, and everyone can tell you
didn't write it. So it's justlike shitty all the way around.
So I get a lot of people who arelike, you know, I've never
really invested in what you dobefore. I'm a little
(40:53):
apprehensive.
And so I prefer my customers tobe a lot more educated on what I
do. A lot of times, they're justused to hiring just a copywriter
and at a lower rate. And I'mlike, well, yeah. I'm a little
more expensive, but it's becauseI'm closing sales over here.
Yeah.
Susan Boles (41:09):
I mean, there's a lot of value working with
somebody who is moreexperienced, and sometimes that
value is hard to convey becauseit's way more efficient and more
effective. But those are hardthings to, like, capture versus
somebody who's just gonna churnout content. So as we are
(41:35):
wrapping things up here, tell mewhat your personal favorite way
is to make your own work feelcalmer.
Kendall Cherry (41:43):
Oh, what a great question. Okay. I I say, like,
not to I'll say, like, punpretty much intended. Like, I do
try to bookend my day as awriter, but but I try to read in
the morning, read at night. Soagain, good inputs, yield, great
outputs.
So I'm always reading something.I do it in the morning before
(42:05):
work. I do it at the end of theday to kinda wrap things up. But
even in between clients, I usethat to kind of like break off
times of my day. It's almostlike I'm emptying out my energy
from one client and moving tothe next.
But the other thing I would sayis like having more of a
practice around meditation,going deep, and just cutting out
(42:27):
stimulation. So whether that islike formal quote unquote
meditation, maybe it's going fora walk, maybe it's just turning
off your screens. Really cuttingoff stimuli is, I think, the
best way to recenter yourself.Like, every everyone's got the
big scroll race going on. Like,there's always content to be
consumed.
Like, you're you have the optionto do that, but I've actually
(42:49):
found getting away from theonline ether as an online
business owner has been, like,one of the best ways for me to
fuel back into my work, whetherthat's for clients, whether
that's for my own writing, or mybook, or whatever else.
Susan Boles (43:08):
There are so many ways that you can take Kendall's
calmer approach here and applyit to your own business. Really,
her Fresh Content inked metricis about exploring how you can
do less. What would the impactbe if you did? That question, I
wonder what would happen if, itcan be used in all different
areas of your business toexperiment with doing less or
(43:30):
doing things in a different,maybe calmer way. So I wonder
what would happen if you postedless on a particular social
channel or maybe even left italtogether.
I wonder what would happen ifyou tried transitioning to a
more asynchronous sales cycle. Iwonder what would happen if you
created that content library forjust one of your channels. Even
(43:53):
if you didn't use the libraryall the time, you could use it
when you needed a break, or avacation, or just to take some
of the load off temporarily soyou can focus on another
project. The content library issuch a great example of a system
that you can build in yourbusiness to create margin, to
build space for other projects.Whether you use it all the time
(44:14):
or not, it's there and you canalways tap into it when you need
it.
Same with the asynchronous salesprocess that Kendall described.
It's a system that's out thererunning on maintenance mode to
help create more time or morerevenue or to take the load off.
And when you take the load offof different areas, when a bunch
of the areas of your businessare running on maintenance mode,
(44:35):
that's what helps your businessfeel calmer. Next time, I'm
talking to Karen Sargent abouther client report card, which is
her calm KPI around making surethat she's working with the most
ideal clients and delivering thebest service. So make sure you
hit subscribe so you don't missit.
Big thanks to everyone whosupports Beyond Margins. If you
are a listener, a sponsor, or apartner of any kind, I couldn't
(44:58):
do this show without you. Thebest way to support the show is
by leaving a rating and areview. It really does help new
listeners hit play with moreconfidence, and you can support
our sponsors by using the linkin your show notes. All of that
helps me keep this podcast goingand growing.
So thank you for that, and thankyou for listening. Until next
(45:18):
time, stay calm.
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