September 16, 2025 • 44 mins
When your signature skill is the thing clients line up for, it’s easy to accidentally build a beautiful trap. In this live diagnosis, Jeremy Enns, the founder of Podcast Marketing Academy, shares how his rave-review podcast audits started running his weeks (and energy) into the ground.
We focus on Business Design and Margin Mindset to keep the magic intact while redesigning delivery so results scale and burnout doesn’t. Think: fewer audits, higher prices, phased delivery, and using your audit as a kickoff to a year-long, calm growth arc.
What You’ll Learn
- Why splitting “the thinking” across multiple people weakens synthesis - and what to do instead
- A calm way to productize deep expertise: shorter delivery, phased implementation, clearer prioritization
- How to reframe audits from one heavy drop to a year-long outcomes program
- Pricing and packaging tweaks that filter for fit and reduce overwhelm
- Using “show, don’t tell” proof (full audit shares/teardowns) to communicate outsized value
Learn More About Jeremy Enns
- Connect with Jeremy on LinkedIn
- Jeremy’s site: podcastmarketingacademy.com
- Free Podcast Marketing Audit: podcastmarketingacademy.com/audit
- Newsletter — Scrappy Podcasting: podcastmarketingacademy.com/scrappy-podcasting-newsletter
- (00:00) - Introduction: The Dream and the Trap
- (00:56) - Case Study: Jeremy's Podcast Audit Process
- (05:53) - Challenges and Solutions: Scaling Expertise
- (23:50) - Communicating Unique Value
- (27:55) - Structuring Value Delivery
- (35:09) - Optimizing Business Design
Grab the Calm Service Design + Delivery Swipe File here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susan Boles (00:06):
Building expertise that only you can deliver is the
dream. It's what everyconsultant wants a skill so
unique and valuable that clientsseek you out specifically. But
here's the catch. When yourentire business depends on your
personal expertise, you've alsobuilt yourself the world's most
sophisticated track. Welcome toCalm is the New KPI, where we
(00:30):
solve for calm one KPI, onebottleneck, one business at a
time.
Imagine this. You're known asthe expert in your field. Your
work gets rave reviews. Clientstell everyone about the value
you provide. But every week,you're staring down the same
crunch, that same energy drain,the same bottleneck that keeps
(00:52):
you from growing your businessin any other direction.
That's exactly where Jeremy Ennsfound himself. Jeremy helps
business owners turn theirpodcasts into actual marketing
and revenue engines through deepdive audits that reveal not just
what's wrong with the show, butwhy it's happening and how to
fix it. His audits arecomprehensive, insightful, and
(01:15):
absolutely transformative forhis clients. They're also sort
of eating him alive. Jeremydelivered 53 audits last year
and nearly burned out in theprocess.
Each audit takes about ten hoursof deep listening, analysis, and
synthesis, work that generallydoes require his unique pattern
(01:36):
recognition skills and deepexpertise. He's tried raising
his prices. He's cut hiscapacity in half. But he's still
trapped in this cycle whereFriday afternoons mean
scrambling to deliver promisedaudits while other parts of his
business sit on the back burner.In this live diagnosis, we're
pulling apart Jeremy's workflowand business model to figure out
(01:57):
how to preserve what makes hiswork valuable while also
designing for more calm.
We're looking at the businessdesign lever of the Calmer
framework here, specifically howto structure services that scale
your expertise without scalingyour exhaustion. All right,
Jeremy. So your bottleneck isrelated to your audit process
(02:19):
that is part of your overallclient services. But can you
describe for us what that auditprocess looks like and what the
current problem is with it?
Jeremy Enns (02:30):
Yeah. So the kind of bigger picture of my business
is I work with primarilybusiness owners, some content
creators on their overallmarketing strategy, but usually
we start off with the podcastside of things. The way that I
do the audits, they're reallyin-depth. They're really
thorough, but I always kind ofcame in after having been
through coaching experiences asa a customer and just feeling
(02:53):
like the coach or consultantdidn't quite get the full
picture of my business. And so Iwas like, okay.
It's hard for me to say do thesetactics to grow your show if I
don't know that the show isinherently growable, which was
something that happened when Idid courses and cohort based
courses where it's like, here'sall the tactics. Here's all the
things you need to know. Andthen people would be like, why
isn't this working? And then Istarted, you know, doing some
(03:14):
more digging, actually listeningto episodes and realizing, oh,
there are some things that willalways make this show hard or
impossible to grow until you fixthese internal things. So that's
the kind of preface for the waythat I do these audits now.
And like I mentioned, I reallywork with people on, like,
sales, broader marketing, emailmarketing, but we always start
with the podcast. And I feellike the podcast is often
(03:35):
indicative of issues elsewherein the business. But also
people, it's kind of at arm'slength, so people feel like they
can tinker with it withouttinkering with like the core of
their overall businesspositioning or anything like
that. The way that it typicallyworks is somebody signs up to
work with me, and I add theirshow to my queue. As of right
now, I'm usually booked out,like, four to six weeks in
(03:55):
advance.
And so there's a bunch of stuffthat they can kind of work on in
the interim until I get to theiraudit, and then they're they
come up in my queue. I listenthrough usually, like, three to
five or six episodes of apodcast. That can be three to
seven, eight, nine, ten hourssometimes. I'm going until I
feel like I understand the show,and I feel like I understand
(04:17):
what the problems are, and Istop taking notes. I'm very
envious of people who do landingpage audits because you can do
that pretty quickly.
And in, like, ten minutes, youcan scroll through and be like,
okay. I understand thepositioning problem, the
headline, the whatever. Whereaswith podcasting, like, in a long
form medium, to understand thatyou just need to spend so much
time with the thing. And sophase one is kind of me
(04:38):
listening, taking notes. Theaddition to phase one is then
going looking at, like, the showpackaging.
So cover art title, description,episode titles. That I usually
do separately after I've kind oflistened through everything. And
then I kind of organize my notesand I hit record on Loom type
video and basically, like, talkthrough my notes, which usually
they started out around an hour.They now typically land between,
(05:01):
like, one and a half and two anda half hours long, the
recordings. And so they're kindof, like, very, very exhaustive,
and they speak to a lot of lowhanging fruit and then usually,
like, the bigger picture, deeperproblems with the show that also
often open up all kinds ofquestions about the business and
the how the show ties into theand probably your, larger
marketing strategy ties intoyour product offerings and all
(05:25):
these other things.
And so the feedback isphenomenal, and a lot of people
find it both a blend ofoverwhelming and also, like,
very clarifying as to why thingsweren't working. But there's
certainly a lot of time thatgoes into it on my part.
Usually, I can get to one a weekas I feel like where my mental
bandwidth is, but the reason itbecomes a bit of a bottleneck is
(05:47):
even doing one a week doesn'tleave me a ton of mental space
to focus on other parts of mybusiness.
Susan Boles (05:53):
So when you are doing the audit, talk to me
about how that works. If you'redoing one each week, what does
the workload break down as?
Jeremy Enns (06:02):
Yeah. So if all I was doing was audits and I
wasn't trying to to work on mybusiness at all in any other
way, it would be perfectly fine.Of course, that's not really how
business works. And so usually,like, the actual listening
process is fairly enjoyable. Ilisten when I'm going for walks.
I'll often, like, on a Monday,listen while I'm, like, gone my
way to go write in the morning,and then I'll go take, a three
hour walk afterwards and just,like, listen to a bunch of
(06:25):
episodes. And then I'm like,okay. I've got a good sense of
this. And then sometime later inthe week, Thursdays often, I'm,
like, sitting down the computer,then going through all the cover
art and the packaging. That'swhere it begins to feel a little
tedious for me, and it needs tobe done because that's a huge
part of what gets somebody intoa show.
But it's actually it's the stufflike sitting down at the
computer and analyzing it. Thatis just a little bit less fun, a
(06:46):
little bit more work feeling.And also then I'm starting to
feel like up against the clockbecause, like, I wanna get this
done by Friday, but I also knowhow long it takes to, like, get
my notes in order and then alsotwo to three hours to record the
thing, which usually is the lastthing on a Friday afternoon
happens. Like, I'll hit recordat, like, 4PM and be done and
and shipped off by, like, 7PM mytime in Spain. And so that's the
(07:09):
kind of flow of how it ittypically looks in a week.
Susan Boles (07:13):
Do you have a goal for number of clients you want
to get through? Is there anideal cadence?
Jeremy Enns (07:22):
Yeah. So there's there's a a few interesting
parts to this. So we'rerecording this mid twenty twenty
five. August 2023, I rolled outa beta version. I got 10 people
to go through this, and it was$2,500 for the year.
It included the audit. Theaudits were smaller back then.
They had not yet expanded intowhat they are now, but they were
still very in-depth. And thenthere was quarterly one on one
(07:44):
calls plus access to mycommunity stuff, whatever. I
launched the product with thegoal of it being a $10,000 a
year program.
I'm gonna ramp up to that. So Idid that. And then at the end of
the year, I did a price increasecampaign saying, basically, the
price is going up to $7,500 forthe year instead 2,500. I didn't
know how much demand there wouldbe, but I got, like, 40 people
signed up, which was a greatinfusion of cash, and it created
(08:09):
a huge backlog, which tookmonths to work through. And so
that was good in many waysbecause I didn't feel any
pressure then at the new priceto sell.
And so that was nice. But thenit was just that's where I felt,
like, the burnout of, I toldeverybody, like, okay. You get
added to my queue in the orderyou sign up. But, you know,
people still they're justfriendly checking in and I still
(08:31):
have to tell them, yeah, you'relike four months away from
getting your audit. And I gotmarried in the 2024 and so I was
taking time off for that.
And so there was a time when Iwas trying to through two a week
just to try to, like, getthrough as many of these as
possible before I can, like, gooff for my wedding and honeymoon
and not have to think aboutthese. Essentially, at the 2024,
I'd done 53 audits. So just overan average of one a week, but
(08:54):
there was vacations in there.There was probably a total of
six weeks that I didn't work,seven weeks maybe. So there was
a lot of weeks where I wasactually doing two a week, which
was where burnout was, like,really a present thing or the
risk of burnout.
And then after that coming into2025, I was like, okay, that, I
definitely don't want that. Theway it kind of structured the
(09:14):
$7,500 a year is there's aninitial upfront fee of $3,000
and then a continuation fee.That was for the first three
months, the audit and the followon, and then a continuation fee.
If you're happy we keep going at$650 a month. Coming into 2025 I
was thinking, okay I want to dofewer audits so how does that
look in terms of the overall feeand the initial upfront fee?
(09:37):
And so I raised the price to$4,500 for the first three
months, same monthlycontinuation price, and said,
okay, I'd like to do half ofthis. So I'd like to do an audit
every other week on average. So26 for the year. Right now,
2025, it's actually exactly onthat pace. I've done something
like 13 or 14 so far in the Juneand have a couple more booked
(10:00):
for July.
And so things are, like, good onthat front. The way things end
up going is that there's stillstuff comes up, so it ends up
being oftentimes one a week fora two month stretch because
there's vacations or conferencesor other things. And so I'm
still in my mind kind of like,really, it would be nice to do
one a month and just charge evenmuch more for them. And then
(10:23):
that becomes a matter of, youknow, all these other sales and
marketing and communicating thevalue of it. The other than
counter argument to that istalking with my sales coach.
She does a little bit on thekind of op side, I suppose. And
she was saying, you know, like,yeah, if my boss I'm an employee
and he's saying, you know, Ithink, you know, we could be
(10:45):
bringing in all this extrarevenue, but I just wanna do
less. And, like, I we have thecapacity to do one of these a
week, but we're only doing amonth and limiting it to that.
I'm a little bit as an employee,a little bit like, is this kind
of make my situation tenuous orthe business? And so I'm kind
of, like, juggling both ofthese.
I can see that argument, andthat's a kind of, like, business
(11:06):
maximalist view potentially. Andthere's more of a lifestyle
business on the other side whereI'm like, yeah. If I can just do
one a month, that's great. Andso I'm kind of stuck in between
these two things of, like, theytake a lot of time, they get
great results, but also thefinancial side of things.
Susan Boles (11:21):
Okay. Talk Talk to me about current team. Like, who
you have on your team as aresource? What are their roles?
What's their areas of expertise?
Jeremy Enns (11:30):
Yeah. So I have a assistant who does a whole bunch
of kind of different things forme. She's at around ten hours a
week right now, and she does alot of back end podcast
uploading. And after coachingcalls, kind of getting those
uploaded in the right places,that type of stuff. Research for
all kinds of various projects,like very kind of jack of all
trades or Jill of all trades cando a bunch of stuff.
(11:52):
I would say, like, she's a verycreative person. I think a
little bit less so maybe on the,like, marketing, copywriting,
things like that. All thecreative work is mainly me. She
can prep things and is getting alot better. I'm training her on
a lot more, like, automation andstuff like that.
She's not an expert in that, butis interested and curious and
all of it. And then I've got avideo editor who's mainly for
(12:14):
podcast stuff and other variousvideo things, but that's a
little bit more sporadic becauseI do kinda seasonal shows. So
he'll be very engaged withthings when I'm doing a season
of a show and then not reallydoing much when I'm out of
season. So very small team rightnow.
Susan Boles (12:28):
Which direction feels more natural to you in the
I wanna stay small and have areally nice life versus feeling
the impetus to grow for the sakeof some other goal, whether
that's more money or more teamor whatever?
Jeremy Enns (12:49):
Yeah. Definitely stay small. You know, you hear
of the type of business that'slike a maybe a like one full
time employee and the foundercan be a, you know, mid 6
figure, some even 7 figure,like, low 7 figure business. And
then you're getting into,generally, I think more
contractors, maybe a coupleemployees. But I'm like, yeah, I
would like a highly profitablesmall team business that
(13:11):
requires me to work, like,twenty hours a week or something
like that, and anything aboveand beyond that is my choice, I
think I'd become less attachedto the idea of growth.
Susan Boles (13:22):
Have you ever tried to train someone on your process
other than client? Like, I knowyou've done a lot of, like,
workshops and training. You havea lot of IP out there about how
you think and what you do. Buthave you ever tried to train
somebody to be you?
Jeremy Enns (13:43):
This gets to the real crux of this issue because
I've talked to many people aboutthis. People say a few things
very commonly. The first thingpeople say is like, well, can
you split up the audit so youonly do a part of it? And then
other people will say, can youtrain somebody to do it? I think
training is probably more likelyan option.
(14:04):
I have not tried that, and I'lltalk through both routes as I've
thought through them. So thefirst option of breaking up the
audits, I think part of themagic of the audits is that
there is a synthesis ofeverything. It's not like if I
audit the show and somebody elsedoes the cover art and packaging
and titles, then they can'treally speak to like, oh, well,
(14:26):
this isn't really what thisepisode is about. Like, the
title is not a good hook forwhat the show is. It's all just
connected.
And so that's where I have oftenthought, I don't think that that
is actually really doable. Andso that's why I've kind of
discounted or leaned away fromthat in the past. In terms of
training someone, this is whereI'm, like, very aware that
(14:47):
there's at least the potentialfor hubris, if not certainly
outright. But I had not reallyseen many people in the podcast
world who can do what I do. Ithink there's a very unique
skill in being able to see whatthe person is trying to do and
see who the person is behind it.
Because, like, podcasting is aso there's such a part of the
human that needs to comethrough. And so it's not just
(15:10):
technical. It's not just, like,follow steps. It's like, I see
what you, Susan, are trying todo at the show, and I can see
your personality, and I can seehow you're thinking about this.
And then I can see how thiscould be expressed in a show and
how it's currently beingexpressed in a show.
There are a few people who coulddo this really well, and mostly
they run, like, big agencies orwork with, like, big brands and
(15:31):
get paid lots more than I do todevelop show ideas. And so I
think it's trainable to someextent, but I think it takes a
very unique set of skills onthe, like, human empathy,
pattern recognition, technicalpodcast, deep understanding of
how that works and psychology,I'd ended up in this somehow
place of being able tosynthesize all these things that
(15:54):
are just embodied in me. Andthen I'm like, where would I
even start with finding thatperson who can do all these
things well, who could also,like, I could subcontract to or
could be an affordable option aswell. That feels like the
sticking point.
Susan Boles (16:08):
So I would agree with both of those things. I
think my brain tends to worksimilarly to how your brain
works, which is we kind ofintake a lot of information and
see connections where otherpeople don't see connections.
And that is a skill set that Idon't know that you actually can
(16:30):
train into something. Like, yourbrain kind of either sees
connections where other peoplesee none, or it doesn't. And so
I think splitting up theanalysis, I agree, really
weakens the ability to get areally solid understanding of
what the business is, what thepodcast is supposed to be, what
(16:50):
it's supposed to do.
So I would think if you weregoing to train somebody on how
to do this, probably your bestscenario would be to get
somebody very early in theircareer who thinks in systems.
Right? And doesn't have any badhabits. And you train them over,
(17:11):
you know, a long period of time,five years or whatever, where
they are, you know, digging intoall of your IP and learning it,
like, in-depth and shadowing youand listening to every audit you
do and what you're looking for.And we're listening to all the
podcast roasts to understand howyou think about cover art and
(17:31):
show packaging and all of thosethings.
I agree with you. I do think itcould be done. It's definitely
not gonna be a fast process.
Jeremy Enns (17:41):
Yeah. So my initial thoughts are that it feels like
a very long runway of investmentin this person to the point
where they are even capable ofstarting to generate income for
business. Now they could bedoing other things that might be
helpful within the business, andthis is one of their background
training things that's possible.It still feels like kind of a
(18:04):
cost center that had justwhatever that
Susan Boles (18:06):
Oh, for sure.
Jeremy Enns (18:08):
That's the first thought, which, know, not that
that's the wrong decision. Like,the longer term you look, the
more appealing that decision is.The second thing is then, okay,
investing in that person andhelping them develop a very high
value skill set, what's thenkeeping them here after three
years? They get these skillsand, you know, maybe by that
point, I'm personally charging10 x what I am now and can still
(18:30):
feed them work at my currentrate that they might not have
the client pipeline, or maybethey don't wanna be an
entrepreneur. Those are the twothings that come up to mind
first for me.
Susan Boles (18:39):
Yeah. So I would think about it as a, you're
either looking for somebody whoreally has absolutely no
interest in running their ownbusiness. They just love
podcasts. They wanna be in itall day, and this could be the
dream job for somebody. Youconvince them to continue to
work with you via really goodcompensation, and they get to do
(19:00):
work that's really fun.
And maybe there's some sort ofpotential equity play. You know,
you could think about it almostlike an exit strategy of this is
the person that you are trainingto eventually exit your business
to is one approach, but it alsocould be just somebody that
that's what they love. Andyou're like, hey. You can live
(19:21):
anywhere in the world, and youcan work flexible hours, and I'm
gonna pay you a living wage.That buys a lot of loyalty.
And in the case that we'retalking about, I think it's a
pretty intellectuallystimulating job. Like, it's both
creative and you're alwayslistening to new shows. So if
you're looking you know, this isone where I would lean heavily
(19:45):
into recruiting, like,neurodivergent folks who have
high pattern recognition skills,lots of focus on special
interests Yeah. And specificallyfilter for that kind of
personality. Not necessarily thetechnical skills because that
can be trained, but somebody whois genuinely, intellectually
(20:07):
interested in this kind of work.
Jeremy Enns (20:09):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (20:10):
I think in the immediate term, I think you have
come to the same conclusion Icome to, which is you are kind
of the only person that rightnow can do this, and also that's
a huge value. And as much as Iam not a huge proponent of like,
(20:31):
just raise your prices. Mhmm. Inthis case, I think that's the
direction. Because as somebodywho's been through the process
and has been podcasting for fiveyears and gone through many
similar kinds of solutions forhow do I fix my podcast.
Right? Like, I know I know thecontent's good. I know the topic
(20:53):
is solid. I know the packagingis pretty weak. I don't think
that's true now.
But Yeah. That's based off ofour work together.
Jeremy Enns (21:01):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (21:02):
But I've sort of known in my gut what the problem
was, but I didn't know what todo about it. And I think that is
the value of the audit and thefollow on engagement is, cool. I
can tell you that the problemwith my show has been the
(21:22):
packaging. That doesn't tell mewhat to do about it. It doesn't
Mhmm.
And you having your specificskill set looking at my show is
the value. And I don't thinkwithout spending a lot of time
training somebody else, there'sa way to get around that. Yeah.
(21:44):
And so then I think the way yousolve the capacity issue is do
less, charge more, because it isinherently very valuable, and
you are a limited resource.
Jeremy Enns (21:55):
Yeah. This is the most appealing path forward to
me and also the most elegant inmany ways. Then, of course, it
creates a sales and marketingproblem, which is getting a
little outside of your, like,operational zone of genius. But
I would be curious seeing as yourun your own business and do all
this stuff and like to nerd outabout it. You have lots of
Susan Boles (22:13):
I'm like, I had out with a lot of marketers these
days.
Jeremy Enns (22:16):
So my question to you is as somebody who's been
through it and who alsounderstands all of what we're
talking about here, what am Imissing in terms of
communicating about the value ofwhat I do?
Susan Boles (22:30):
I think you're underselling because for people
like you, sometimes it's hard torealize the exact unique skill
set that you have. No one elsein the world probably right now
can do what you do offering. Andevery time I'm in a room that
(22:51):
you're not in, and somebody istalking about podcasting, your
name always comes up. So I thinkyou've done the work to build
the reputation as the expert. SoI I don't think there's anything
in terms of packaging orpositioning or talking about the
(23:11):
offer that doesn't communicatethe value.
Because I think for the peoplethat you wanna work with, we
already know who you are. Weknow the value. I don't think
there is a problem there. Haveyou pitched it to people? And
they're like, I don't get thevalue?
Jeremy Enns (23:24):
No. I think it's there is a gap in expectation
from so what's interesting ispeople will sign up for it, and
then when they get the audit,they'll be like, oh, I didn't
realize this is what I wasgetting, which is a bit
interesting where it's like mymessaging is strong enough to
sell and to get the sales, butthere is a gap when people get
the audit and they're like, oh,like I thought I was gonna get
(23:44):
value. I got like 10 x what Ithought I was gonna get. And so
there I'm
Susan Boles (23:48):
like will agree with that. Yes. Will agree with
that.
Jeremy Enns (23:50):
That's more where I'm like, how do I communicate
that? I think part of what I'mwondering is like, it it's hard
to say, like, I'm the only onewho can do this because that's
my statement. There's somethings that you can't know until
you experience it. And so that'swhere I'm like, what do I need
to do to make this more visible?I think, like, one thing is just
asking past clients, would yoube okay if I shared your full
(24:13):
audit with my newsletter?
Susan Boles (24:15):
Absolutely my first thought is
Jeremy Enns (24:17):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (24:17):
Because you're right. I I did expect you to be
able to solve my problem. When Icame in, I knew that you would
look at the show, and you'd belike, oh, clearly this is what
you're supposed to do. Like,that was my expectation of the
value from the audit. What I didnot expect was to have that
(24:38):
feedback be a super specific andreally felt immediately
actionable.
Jeremy Enns (24:44):
Mhmm.
Susan Boles (24:44):
I didn't expect it to then trickle down to my
business. Like, we are changingthings that are building
different fundamental structuresin my business. I the mean, part
that I love is that that makesit very efficient. Right?
There's less work for me.
It actually enables my businessto be calmer in the production
of my podcast, and how it worksin my ecosystem to make things
(25:09):
like, that was completelyunexpected. I also did not
expect the video to be, like, anhour and forty five minutes or
whatever. Like, when I was like,oh, cool. The audit. And then I,
like, hit play.
And then I looked at the time,and I was like, I'm gonna have
to come back to like, I have toactually, like, set some time
aside to interpret this. So I dothink sharing audits, whether
(25:31):
that's in the newsletter orwhether it's part of the sales
process or even it could be itsown channel. You know, it could
be a YouTube show. It could be apodcast. Because I do think
there is value in seeing how ithappens.
And this is something that,like, you and I have talked
about for my own work is theshowing doe telling. Because
(25:53):
sometimes when you are like eventhough you are known as the
expert, you're the podcast guy,like, your name always comes up.
It's also difficult tocommunicate what that is,
particularly to people whohaven't been around for long
enough to know that you're theguy. Like, somebody might tell
them you're the guy, but then ittakes a while for them to
realize, oh, I'm reading thenewsletter. I'm checking out the
(26:16):
workshops, and I'm seeing how itworks.
And, he is the guy.
Jeremy Enns (26:19):
Yeah. That's good to get your validation of that
because that has felt like alikely most probable, like, path
forward in terms of, like,raising prices. And the
necessary step before that isbuilding demand and
communicating value, I I think,creates more demand, less
availability, and higherperceived value obviously allows
(26:39):
me to charge more. That actuallyfeels like the easiest approach
here.
Susan Boles (26:44):
I think it's the easiest. The only thing to think
about is it works most of thetime in most markets. Also, you
might find a ceiling because ofyour particular customer where
they are doing podcasting, but alot of the times that's
podcasting for the purpose ofselling their services or their
(27:06):
course or something else.They're not actually making
money directly from the podcast.
Jeremy Enns (27:11):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (27:11):
Which means you might run into a ceiling, and
then, you know, you may need topull in one of the other
strategies. Yeah. But I thinkyou have a lot of you you likely
have a lot of room Yeah.Particularly if you might think
(27:31):
about structuring it notopposite the way that you're
structuring it right now, butwhere you have a decent chunk of
change upfront for the audit andkind of onboarding. Mhmm.
If you start hitting ceilings,you can shift some of the
pricing to the monthly pricingand probably get your ceiling a
(27:53):
little bit higher.
Jeremy Enns (27:54):
Yeah. So let me present one other thing I've
thought about. I've alreadystarted doing this a little bit,
and I wonder if there's moreopportunity. I used to also do,
like, a basic website audit, sohomepage, podcast page, show
notes. Then I realized, like,those don't tend to be the
priorities for most people.
It's kind of, like, outside ofwhat they signed up for, so they
might not even really take myfeedback to heart. And I also
(28:17):
saw a little bit people wouldget preoccupied with the
website, and I'm like, hey. Youprobably don't have enough
traffic. Especially for showsthat have website traffic, a lot
of times they're wayunderutilizing their website.
It's like, this could be a wayto get more people in the show.
But I essentially punted that tosay, we will talk about this if
and when it becomes a priority,but we're starting with the
(28:37):
podcast. My sense is now thatthe current version of the
audit, which you went through,is everything's tight and tied
together, but my other thoughthas been, are there ways of
spacing out even any of thosecomponents into a, first, we'll
focus on this, and then twomonths from now, we'll focus on
this. Or do you feel like, no,this all felt like it needed to
go together?
Susan Boles (28:57):
I actually think that is an interesting approach
because one of the results ofhow comprehensive it was, was I
did feel a little bitoverwhelmed at like, oh man, I
like I I have a solid show, butlike there's so much work here.
(29:17):
So I think you could potentiallysplit it into I mean, kind of
what natively has ended uphappening with our work together
is there was the show itself.
Jeremy Enns (29:28):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (29:29):
And then how does that show impact the business
Yes. Piece? So the first thingwe worked on was like, hey.
Yeah. I probably need to renamemy show.
If I rename my show, I have todo new cover art. I'm gonna play
around with the format. And alot of that can, I think, be
done independently withoutnecessarily figuring out upfront
(29:49):
how to integrate that in thebusiness? So I think you could
split those pieces off for sure.And it seems like a lot of the
time when you are working on anew show, there are, like,
fundamental issues with the showbecause that's kind of your your
whole thing is that if yourshow's not growing, there is
something that is an issuebecause shows that are growable
(30:14):
grow.
Jeremy Enns (30:14):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (30:15):
You have to fix whether that's, you know, the
content or the topic or thepackaging. And so I think that
is one where it would feel lessoverwhelming. It's one where I
was coming into it. I was I hada pretty solid hypothesis of
what was wrong. You came to someof the same conclusions, and
then there were other ideas thatwe've been working on.
(30:37):
But I guess we're what, likethree, four months into it?
Yeah. And now we're startingwith, what do I need to build in
my business to now connect thisvery solidly growing show to
actual business outcomes? To me,that felt like two phases,
really.
Jeremy Enns (30:56):
Yeah. It's interesting because, like, the
audit is the bottleneck in mybusiness, but the there it's
part of this larger thing that II'm also sorting out. Because I
really started in the podcastspecific. Like, that's what we
worked on. But I always like, Ihave at least as much experience
in podcasting with, like, coursecreation and business and email
marketing.
It's just not how I'mpositioned. But, like, I can
(31:17):
speak to all of those thingsand, like, client services and
whatever, like, as good as mostconsultants in those things. I
always hate the positioning of,like, the all in one marketing
solution. So I'm, like, stayingaway from that. There's probably
a way to frame that, but, like,podcasting is the front door, so
we kinda start there.
But I've been thinking about,like, how to communicate the
flow to people in onboardingeven before the audit, speaking
(31:39):
to, like, here's the world ofthings that we can and will work
on together. We're gonna starthere. And then, like, almost
using touch points, like,framing the audit when I start
recording, saying, like, okay.We're talking about the show
here. If there's issues with thebusiness that come up, we will
work on that together.
But right now, we're focusing onthis, and then, like, almost
wrapping up the audit andsaying, like, okay, so here's
what I'm seeing with the show.We're gonna do our follow-up
(31:59):
call next, and it could be thateverything here we talked about
is not actually the mostimportant thing to work on, and
we'll come back to that nextmonth. Does that feel like
that's helpful seeding that?
Susan Boles (32:09):
So I thought it was very helpful, like, hey, here's
the realm of things we can talkabout. We're gonna do it in the
order that makes sense for whereyou are, where your business is,
what your goals are. I think theunique value that is really
powerful for me, and I think fora lot of podcasters who start a
(32:33):
podcast, almost nobody starts itwith any consideration for how
it fits into their business.Yes. No.
Or how they're gonna make moneyfor like, that's a universally
known problem with podcasters isthat like, we love podcasting.
Like, that's so much fun. Andalso consistently forgetting to
(32:53):
tell people that we sellanything.
Jeremy Enns (32:55):
Yes.
Susan Boles (32:56):
Or take that into consideration when we are
designing our show. I don'tthink you need to be an all in
one, but I think the uniquevalue is your ability to tie the
podcast to the business. Becausethat's that is a universal
problem. We talk about discoverybeing the problem, but actually
(33:16):
the problem is that nobody knowshow to make money from their
podcast. Yeah.
And because of who you help, youare uniquely positioned to be
able to make that connection forpeople in a way that is
filtered. And a lot of the timesI say that like, when we as
(33:38):
business owners are buildingservices, we try and throw
everything in. Right? Like,wanna present all of the value.
And you have a lot of stuff thatpeople can pull from the courses
and the different areas, but itdoesn't feel overwhelming.
It feels like a pick and choose,which I think is the ideal
because the one of the benefitsthen of working with you is you
(34:01):
point them to the thing that isimportant to them, and you are
serving as exteriorprioritization
Jeremy Enns (34:08):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (34:09):
Filter. Right? Like, when you point people in a
direction, they go full bore inthe direction because that's how
most entrepreneurs that's justour how our brains work. But
there is something very powerfulas a consultant to being able to
filter. Here are all thepossible things that you could
focus on.
Based on my expertise, do thisnext. Because so much of being a
(34:34):
business owner has to deal withthat overwhelm, that decision
fatigue. We're constantly tryingto prioritize and figure out
what's the next most importantthing. That's really the power
of working with any coach orconsultant, I think. Is having
somebody be like, yeah, don'tpay attention to that stuff over
there.
That doesn't matter right now.Just ignore that. Go do this one
thing. I think is very powerfuland very valuable and something
(34:58):
that you have positioned well.And I think there is the
possibility to just break outthe work from the audit into a
more phased approach.
Jeremy Enns (35:10):
Yeah. I, I have a, like, personal inclination or,
like, moral objective, it feelslike, to give people all the
answers, which I know is not themost helpful thing many times.
But I also feel like with a lotof the stuff that I talk about,
people just have not thoughtlike like you said, and they
don't know even how to thinkabout like, they need external
(35:31):
reference points. But I I dowonder if part of the audit that
gets trimmed back is, like,pointing out the problems but
not trying to solve all of them.This is kind of, like, where the
crux of it is for me.
There's a lot of things inepisode structure that could be
tightened up for most showspretty quickly. But, also,
there's things about the formatand the sequencing of your
(35:52):
episodes that probably isdictated way upstream by, like,
the show concept, which is themuch longer term heavier lift
project that doesn't really havea timeline, but is more
important. It's like once youget the concept right, that may
just dictate what your episodestructure should be and how you
should do your intros and whattypes of topics you should have
on the show. But it's kinda easyto point to a few low level
(36:13):
things that actually might bedistractions. And so maybe
there's something of sayinglike, okay, there's some issues
here, and here's a couple thingsyou can do to, like, make your
intros tighter or to do this.
We're gonna come back. There'swe're gonna talk about these
other things related to yourcontent strategy, but I'm not
gonna give you any suggestionsnow because those will be
dictated by other things we needto focus on first. And so maybe
there's a bit like pointing tosome potential problems and
(36:35):
saying, let's just put theseover here. We're gonna work on
this big thing first, and thenwe'll come back and go deep on
this stuff later.
Susan Boles (36:42):
Yeah. If you're gonna try and cut stuff out of
the audit process, I would notcut the content intake part.
Right? Like the part where youare absorbing whatever the show
is. Because that's what you needfor how you're gonna advise
people.
Yep. But I do think you couldmake the actual, like, delivery
Jeremy Enns (37:07):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (37:07):
Shorter. It doesn't have to be an hour. It could be,
here's the most visibleproblems, and you know where
people are gonna get stuck onthat. Like, you've done this a
lot of times. You know that,like, if you're saying, hey, you
have a concept problem.
You know you really can't domuch else until they decide on
what is the concept now. Andthen you're going into, okay,
(37:30):
let's take the episode. Let'sengineer the episodes. Let's
figure out how this ties in. Butmaybe the piece to shorten it is
the here's your top priorityright now, and we'll get into
the rest of it later.
Because you you still see all ofthe other problems, but some of
the choices they're gonna makeafter the audit will then impact
(37:54):
the next most logical step. Andso being able to just shorten
your time of, I see all theseproblems. I know they exist. I
know we're gonna deal with themat some point. But prioritizing
not everything that you'reseeing, but what is the next
step could shorten it.
It doesn't necessarily you youkinda have to make notes for how
(38:15):
you're gonna hold the rest ofthe information that you come to
for later. Because right now,it's all in the audit. But I
think you could certainly getthe main points in thirty, forty
five minutes. Give themsomething actionable to work on
between then and the next call.So a lot of the times with
clients that I work with wherewe're doing like an intensive
(38:37):
model or I even on my ownservices where I'm delivering
something in an intensive model,you really have to think about
where do people need pauses?
Where do they need time tomarinate, time to think, where
I'm gonna hit them withsomething that then's gonna go,
my brain hurts. I don't knowwhat to do with this. I have to
(38:58):
step back. Like, thinking morestrategically about where to
build in pauses and where tobuild in some breathing room can
be really powerful both in termsof like the results people get
because then they don't have todeal with the I now all have all
of this stuff that now is on myplate that I have to figure out
how to implement and I don'thave time to implement it. And I
have a client call next week andnow I don't have time to think
(39:21):
about that whole overwhelm thathappens when we as service
providers are like, here's allthe things.
Everybody feels compelled to dosomething about that. And I
think you actually do have anopportunity to think about where
should there be a pause. Whatparts are gonna take them longer
to either think about orimplement if you really have to
(39:45):
change the whole structure of ashow? That's gonna cause an
existential crisis. Yeah.
And I think you have theopportunity to think about that.
What goes into the audit versuswhat goes into the rest of the
work? And I would think abouthow do you shift that? Because
we're talking about the audit,but what this actually is is for
(40:07):
the most part, like a year longcoaching program with you where
the audit is just kind of thekickoff. And so you have the
opportunity to really spreadthat work out and not
necessarily front load it.
That could be another tool forreducing at least the actual
work that goes into the audit.You know? Yeah. Maybe this is
(40:29):
maybe there's a second piecehalfway through the year where
you're like, cool. Now I didthis.
We're not gonna do a coachingcall, but I'm gonna record the
second piece of this for you.You watch it. You Right. Have
time to think about it, and thenwe'll talk about it.
Jeremy Enns (40:43):
And the other thing that I I've thought about in the
past that this plays into isit's useful in terms of
retention. So after that firstthree month period of, like, are
you in for the rest of the yearor not? There's kind of a, like,
a optional if you're just like,this is not the fit for me. They
just have so much that they needto do, and often the audit has
maybe even actually shown themthat. And so they're kind of
(41:04):
like, oh, like, I'm not I can'texpect to increase, like, the
amount to pay for for thisimmediately.
On my part, I view that as moreof a marketing targeting
problem.
Susan Boles (41:14):
Yeah. Because you don't want those people using up
your capacity. I also mightconsider not giving people the
offering.
Jeremy Enns (41:20):
Mhmm. Yeah.
Susan Boles (41:21):
And just sell it as, it's a year long program.
Here's how much the cost is. Youcan do monthly payments if you
want. Like, I think that isreally important in today's
economy and uncertainty.Nobody's nobody's really walking
around with, you know, tens ofthousands of dollars just
sitting in their pocket ready toplop down.
But one of the ways you couldkind of filter out those people
(41:44):
who aren't quite the right fitand not quite ready to work with
you is to not give the off ramp.Right? Because that requires a
higher level of commitment.You're gonna get people who can
actually afford the whole thing.And I don't love doing it, but
sometimes price can serve as aneffective filter for the stage
and maturity of businesses.
(42:06):
I would think about maybeshifting pricing structure as
you're thinking about raisingprices and being a more
effective filters. About two.
Jeremy Enns (42:16):
This has been so helpful.
Susan Boles (42:23):
What Jeremy and I worked through wasn't just about
audit optimization. It was aboutrecognizing when your unique
value is also your biggestconstraint. We focused on two
key levers from the Calmerframework. First, business
design. Jeremy's challenge isn'tthat his audits aren't valuable.
They actually deliver incredibleresults. The challenge is
(42:47):
structuring that value deliveryin a way that doesn't require
him to be the bottleneck. Andsometimes the reality is that
there really is some expertisethat simply can't be delegated.
Second, we looked at the marginmindset lever and using
efficiency not just to cram morein. Jeremy's path to bigger
(43:09):
margins means doing less,charging more, and spreading the
delivery of his insights acrosstime instead of front loading
everything into one overwhelmingaudit.
The core insight here is thatwhen you have truly unique
expertise, the solution isn'talways to scale it through other
people. Sometimes the calmerpath is to embrace that
(43:31):
limitation and design yourbusiness around it. So fewer
clients, higher prices, betterboundaries. If you're having a
similar struggle here's a fewpaths for you to consider. You
could think about potentiallyphasing your service delivery.
If you're delivering reallycomprehensive services that
might feel a little overwhelmingto you and your clients you
(43:54):
could consider taking your mostintensive offering and try and
identify a natural break point,something where you could pause
or maybe slow down delivery.Maybe it's after the diagnosis
but before the solutions orafter the foundational fixes but
before the advanced strategy.That pause can give both you and
(44:14):
your client time to breathe andit often leads to better
results. You might also considernot front loading all your most
valuable insights. So if youlook over the course of your
service delivery are therepieces that could be moved
further out in the process orpotentially spread out?
Sometimes the best most valuableservice design it's not giving
(44:37):
everybody everything up frontit's giving them what they need
when they're ready for it.Thanks for listening and
remember sometimes the calmestthing you can do is stop trying
to scale everything and startdesigning around your actual
constraints.
Building expertise that only you can deliver is the
dream. It's what everyconsultant wants a skill so
unique and valuable that clientsseek you out specifically. But
here's the catch. When yourentire business depends on your
personal expertise, you've alsobuilt yourself the world's most
sophisticated track. Welcome toCalm is the New KPI, where we
(00:30):
solve for calm one KPI, onebottleneck, one business at a
time.
Imagine this. You're known asthe expert in your field. Your
work gets rave reviews. Clientstell everyone about the value
you provide. But every week,you're staring down the same
crunch, that same energy drain,the same bottleneck that keeps
(00:52):
you from growing your businessin any other direction.
That's exactly where Jeremy Ennsfound himself. Jeremy helps
business owners turn theirpodcasts into actual marketing
and revenue engines through deepdive audits that reveal not just
what's wrong with the show, butwhy it's happening and how to
fix it. His audits arecomprehensive, insightful, and
(01:15):
absolutely transformative forhis clients. They're also sort
of eating him alive. Jeremydelivered 53 audits last year
and nearly burned out in theprocess.
Each audit takes about ten hoursof deep listening, analysis, and
synthesis, work that generallydoes require his unique pattern
(01:36):
recognition skills and deepexpertise. He's tried raising
his prices. He's cut hiscapacity in half. But he's still
trapped in this cycle whereFriday afternoons mean
scrambling to deliver promisedaudits while other parts of his
business sit on the back burner.In this live diagnosis, we're
pulling apart Jeremy's workflowand business model to figure out
(01:57):
how to preserve what makes hiswork valuable while also
designing for more calm.
We're looking at the businessdesign lever of the Calmer
framework here, specifically howto structure services that scale
your expertise without scalingyour exhaustion. All right,
Jeremy. So your bottleneck isrelated to your audit process
(02:19):
that is part of your overallclient services. But can you
describe for us what that auditprocess looks like and what the
current problem is with it?
Jeremy Enns (02:30):
Yeah. So the kind of bigger picture of my business
is I work with primarilybusiness owners, some content
creators on their overallmarketing strategy, but usually
we start off with the podcastside of things. The way that I
do the audits, they're reallyin-depth. They're really
thorough, but I always kind ofcame in after having been
through coaching experiences asa a customer and just feeling
(02:53):
like the coach or consultantdidn't quite get the full
picture of my business. And so Iwas like, okay.
It's hard for me to say do thesetactics to grow your show if I
don't know that the show isinherently growable, which was
something that happened when Idid courses and cohort based
courses where it's like, here'sall the tactics. Here's all the
things you need to know. Andthen people would be like, why
isn't this working? And then Istarted, you know, doing some
(03:14):
more digging, actually listeningto episodes and realizing, oh,
there are some things that willalways make this show hard or
impossible to grow until you fixthese internal things. So that's
the kind of preface for the waythat I do these audits now.
And like I mentioned, I reallywork with people on, like,
sales, broader marketing, emailmarketing, but we always start
with the podcast. And I feellike the podcast is often
(03:35):
indicative of issues elsewherein the business. But also
people, it's kind of at arm'slength, so people feel like they
can tinker with it withouttinkering with like the core of
their overall businesspositioning or anything like
that. The way that it typicallyworks is somebody signs up to
work with me, and I add theirshow to my queue. As of right
now, I'm usually booked out,like, four to six weeks in
(03:55):
advance.
And so there's a bunch of stuffthat they can kind of work on in
the interim until I get to theiraudit, and then they're they
come up in my queue. I listenthrough usually, like, three to
five or six episodes of apodcast. That can be three to
seven, eight, nine, ten hourssometimes. I'm going until I
feel like I understand the show,and I feel like I understand
(04:17):
what the problems are, and Istop taking notes. I'm very
envious of people who do landingpage audits because you can do
that pretty quickly.
And in, like, ten minutes, youcan scroll through and be like,
okay. I understand thepositioning problem, the
headline, the whatever. Whereaswith podcasting, like, in a long
form medium, to understand thatyou just need to spend so much
time with the thing. And sophase one is kind of me
(04:38):
listening, taking notes. Theaddition to phase one is then
going looking at, like, the showpackaging.
So cover art title, description,episode titles. That I usually
do separately after I've kind oflistened through everything. And
then I kind of organize my notesand I hit record on Loom type
video and basically, like, talkthrough my notes, which usually
they started out around an hour.They now typically land between,
(05:01):
like, one and a half and two anda half hours long, the
recordings. And so they're kindof, like, very, very exhaustive,
and they speak to a lot of lowhanging fruit and then usually,
like, the bigger picture, deeperproblems with the show that also
often open up all kinds ofquestions about the business and
the how the show ties into theand probably your, larger
marketing strategy ties intoyour product offerings and all
(05:25):
these other things.
And so the feedback isphenomenal, and a lot of people
find it both a blend ofoverwhelming and also, like,
very clarifying as to why thingsweren't working. But there's
certainly a lot of time thatgoes into it on my part.
Usually, I can get to one a weekas I feel like where my mental
bandwidth is, but the reason itbecomes a bit of a bottleneck is
(05:47):
even doing one a week doesn'tleave me a ton of mental space
to focus on other parts of mybusiness.
Susan Boles (05:53):
So when you are doing the audit, talk to me
about how that works. If you'redoing one each week, what does
the workload break down as?
Jeremy Enns (06:02):
Yeah. So if all I was doing was audits and I
wasn't trying to to work on mybusiness at all in any other
way, it would be perfectly fine.Of course, that's not really how
business works. And so usually,like, the actual listening
process is fairly enjoyable. Ilisten when I'm going for walks.
I'll often, like, on a Monday,listen while I'm, like, gone my
way to go write in the morning,and then I'll go take, a three
hour walk afterwards and just,like, listen to a bunch of
(06:25):
episodes. And then I'm like,okay. I've got a good sense of
this. And then sometime later inthe week, Thursdays often, I'm,
like, sitting down the computer,then going through all the cover
art and the packaging. That'swhere it begins to feel a little
tedious for me, and it needs tobe done because that's a huge
part of what gets somebody intoa show.
But it's actually it's the stufflike sitting down at the
computer and analyzing it. Thatis just a little bit less fun, a
(06:46):
little bit more work feeling.And also then I'm starting to
feel like up against the clockbecause, like, I wanna get this
done by Friday, but I also knowhow long it takes to, like, get
my notes in order and then alsotwo to three hours to record the
thing, which usually is the lastthing on a Friday afternoon
happens. Like, I'll hit recordat, like, 4PM and be done and
and shipped off by, like, 7PM mytime in Spain. And so that's the
(07:09):
kind of flow of how it ittypically looks in a week.
Susan Boles (07:13):
Do you have a goal for number of clients you want
to get through? Is there anideal cadence?
Jeremy Enns (07:22):
Yeah. So there's there's a a few interesting
parts to this. So we'rerecording this mid twenty twenty
five. August 2023, I rolled outa beta version. I got 10 people
to go through this, and it was$2,500 for the year.
It included the audit. Theaudits were smaller back then.
They had not yet expanded intowhat they are now, but they were
still very in-depth. And thenthere was quarterly one on one
(07:44):
calls plus access to mycommunity stuff, whatever. I
launched the product with thegoal of it being a $10,000 a
year program.
I'm gonna ramp up to that. So Idid that. And then at the end of
the year, I did a price increasecampaign saying, basically, the
price is going up to $7,500 forthe year instead 2,500. I didn't
know how much demand there wouldbe, but I got, like, 40 people
signed up, which was a greatinfusion of cash, and it created
(08:09):
a huge backlog, which tookmonths to work through. And so
that was good in many waysbecause I didn't feel any
pressure then at the new priceto sell.
And so that was nice. But thenit was just that's where I felt,
like, the burnout of, I toldeverybody, like, okay. You get
added to my queue in the orderyou sign up. But, you know,
people still they're justfriendly checking in and I still
(08:31):
have to tell them, yeah, you'relike four months away from
getting your audit. And I gotmarried in the 2024 and so I was
taking time off for that.
And so there was a time when Iwas trying to through two a week
just to try to, like, getthrough as many of these as
possible before I can, like, gooff for my wedding and honeymoon
and not have to think aboutthese. Essentially, at the 2024,
I'd done 53 audits. So just overan average of one a week, but
(08:54):
there was vacations in there.There was probably a total of
six weeks that I didn't work,seven weeks maybe. So there was
a lot of weeks where I wasactually doing two a week, which
was where burnout was, like,really a present thing or the
risk of burnout.
And then after that coming into2025, I was like, okay, that, I
definitely don't want that. Theway it kind of structured the
(09:14):
$7,500 a year is there's aninitial upfront fee of $3,000
and then a continuation fee.That was for the first three
months, the audit and the followon, and then a continuation fee.
If you're happy we keep going at$650 a month. Coming into 2025 I
was thinking, okay I want to dofewer audits so how does that
look in terms of the overall feeand the initial upfront fee?
(09:37):
And so I raised the price to$4,500 for the first three
months, same monthlycontinuation price, and said,
okay, I'd like to do half ofthis. So I'd like to do an audit
every other week on average. So26 for the year. Right now,
2025, it's actually exactly onthat pace. I've done something
like 13 or 14 so far in the Juneand have a couple more booked
(10:00):
for July.
And so things are, like, good onthat front. The way things end
up going is that there's stillstuff comes up, so it ends up
being oftentimes one a week fora two month stretch because
there's vacations or conferencesor other things. And so I'm
still in my mind kind of like,really, it would be nice to do
one a month and just charge evenmuch more for them. And then
(10:23):
that becomes a matter of, youknow, all these other sales and
marketing and communicating thevalue of it. The other than
counter argument to that istalking with my sales coach.
She does a little bit on thekind of op side, I suppose. And
she was saying, you know, like,yeah, if my boss I'm an employee
and he's saying, you know, Ithink, you know, we could be
(10:45):
bringing in all this extrarevenue, but I just wanna do
less. And, like, I we have thecapacity to do one of these a
week, but we're only doing amonth and limiting it to that.
I'm a little bit as an employee,a little bit like, is this kind
of make my situation tenuous orthe business? And so I'm kind
of, like, juggling both ofthese.
I can see that argument, andthat's a kind of, like, business
(11:06):
maximalist view potentially. Andthere's more of a lifestyle
business on the other side whereI'm like, yeah. If I can just do
one a month, that's great. Andso I'm kind of stuck in between
these two things of, like, theytake a lot of time, they get
great results, but also thefinancial side of things.
Susan Boles (11:21):
Okay. Talk Talk to me about current team. Like, who
you have on your team as aresource? What are their roles?
What's their areas of expertise?
Jeremy Enns (11:30):
Yeah. So I have a assistant who does a whole bunch
of kind of different things forme. She's at around ten hours a
week right now, and she does alot of back end podcast
uploading. And after coachingcalls, kind of getting those
uploaded in the right places,that type of stuff. Research for
all kinds of various projects,like very kind of jack of all
trades or Jill of all trades cando a bunch of stuff.
(11:52):
I would say, like, she's a verycreative person. I think a
little bit less so maybe on the,like, marketing, copywriting,
things like that. All thecreative work is mainly me. She
can prep things and is getting alot better. I'm training her on
a lot more, like, automation andstuff like that.
She's not an expert in that, butis interested and curious and
all of it. And then I've got avideo editor who's mainly for
(12:14):
podcast stuff and other variousvideo things, but that's a
little bit more sporadic becauseI do kinda seasonal shows. So
he'll be very engaged withthings when I'm doing a season
of a show and then not reallydoing much when I'm out of
season. So very small team rightnow.
Susan Boles (12:28):
Which direction feels more natural to you in the
I wanna stay small and have areally nice life versus feeling
the impetus to grow for the sakeof some other goal, whether
that's more money or more teamor whatever?
Jeremy Enns (12:49):
Yeah. Definitely stay small. You know, you hear
of the type of business that'slike a maybe a like one full
time employee and the foundercan be a, you know, mid 6
figure, some even 7 figure,like, low 7 figure business. And
then you're getting into,generally, I think more
contractors, maybe a coupleemployees. But I'm like, yeah, I
would like a highly profitablesmall team business that
(13:11):
requires me to work, like,twenty hours a week or something
like that, and anything aboveand beyond that is my choice, I
think I'd become less attachedto the idea of growth.
Susan Boles (13:22):
Have you ever tried to train someone on your process
other than client? Like, I knowyou've done a lot of, like,
workshops and training. You havea lot of IP out there about how
you think and what you do. Buthave you ever tried to train
somebody to be you?
Jeremy Enns (13:43):
This gets to the real crux of this issue because
I've talked to many people aboutthis. People say a few things
very commonly. The first thingpeople say is like, well, can
you split up the audit so youonly do a part of it? And then
other people will say, can youtrain somebody to do it? I think
training is probably more likelyan option.
(14:04):
I have not tried that, and I'lltalk through both routes as I've
thought through them. So thefirst option of breaking up the
audits, I think part of themagic of the audits is that
there is a synthesis ofeverything. It's not like if I
audit the show and somebody elsedoes the cover art and packaging
and titles, then they can'treally speak to like, oh, well,
(14:26):
this isn't really what thisepisode is about. Like, the
title is not a good hook forwhat the show is. It's all just
connected.
And so that's where I have oftenthought, I don't think that that
is actually really doable. Andso that's why I've kind of
discounted or leaned away fromthat in the past. In terms of
training someone, this is whereI'm, like, very aware that
(14:47):
there's at least the potentialfor hubris, if not certainly
outright. But I had not reallyseen many people in the podcast
world who can do what I do. Ithink there's a very unique
skill in being able to see whatthe person is trying to do and
see who the person is behind it.
Because, like, podcasting is aso there's such a part of the
human that needs to comethrough. And so it's not just
(15:10):
technical. It's not just, like,follow steps. It's like, I see
what you, Susan, are trying todo at the show, and I can see
your personality, and I can seehow you're thinking about this.
And then I can see how thiscould be expressed in a show and
how it's currently beingexpressed in a show.
There are a few people who coulddo this really well, and mostly
they run, like, big agencies orwork with, like, big brands and
(15:31):
get paid lots more than I do todevelop show ideas. And so I
think it's trainable to someextent, but I think it takes a
very unique set of skills onthe, like, human empathy,
pattern recognition, technicalpodcast, deep understanding of
how that works and psychology,I'd ended up in this somehow
place of being able tosynthesize all these things that
(15:54):
are just embodied in me. Andthen I'm like, where would I
even start with finding thatperson who can do all these
things well, who could also,like, I could subcontract to or
could be an affordable option aswell. That feels like the
sticking point.
Susan Boles (16:08):
So I would agree with both of those things. I
think my brain tends to worksimilarly to how your brain
works, which is we kind ofintake a lot of information and
see connections where otherpeople don't see connections.
And that is a skill set that Idon't know that you actually can
(16:30):
train into something. Like, yourbrain kind of either sees
connections where other peoplesee none, or it doesn't. And so
I think splitting up theanalysis, I agree, really
weakens the ability to get areally solid understanding of
what the business is, what thepodcast is supposed to be, what
(16:50):
it's supposed to do.
So I would think if you weregoing to train somebody on how
to do this, probably your bestscenario would be to get
somebody very early in theircareer who thinks in systems.
Right? And doesn't have any badhabits. And you train them over,
(17:11):
you know, a long period of time,five years or whatever, where
they are, you know, digging intoall of your IP and learning it,
like, in-depth and shadowing youand listening to every audit you
do and what you're looking for.And we're listening to all the
podcast roasts to understand howyou think about cover art and
(17:31):
show packaging and all of thosethings.
I agree with you. I do think itcould be done. It's definitely
not gonna be a fast process.
Jeremy Enns (17:41):
Yeah. So my initial thoughts are that it feels like
a very long runway of investmentin this person to the point
where they are even capable ofstarting to generate income for
business. Now they could bedoing other things that might be
helpful within the business, andthis is one of their background
training things that's possible.It still feels like kind of a
(18:04):
cost center that had justwhatever that
Susan Boles (18:06):
Oh, for sure.
Jeremy Enns (18:08):
That's the first thought, which, know, not that
that's the wrong decision. Like,the longer term you look, the
more appealing that decision is.The second thing is then, okay,
investing in that person andhelping them develop a very high
value skill set, what's thenkeeping them here after three
years? They get these skillsand, you know, maybe by that
point, I'm personally charging10 x what I am now and can still
(18:30):
feed them work at my currentrate that they might not have
the client pipeline, or maybethey don't wanna be an
entrepreneur. Those are the twothings that come up to mind
first for me.
Susan Boles (18:39):
Yeah. So I would think about it as a, you're
either looking for somebody whoreally has absolutely no
interest in running their ownbusiness. They just love
podcasts. They wanna be in itall day, and this could be the
dream job for somebody. Youconvince them to continue to
work with you via really goodcompensation, and they get to do
(19:00):
work that's really fun.
And maybe there's some sort ofpotential equity play. You know,
you could think about it almostlike an exit strategy of this is
the person that you are trainingto eventually exit your business
to is one approach, but it alsocould be just somebody that
that's what they love. Andyou're like, hey. You can live
(19:21):
anywhere in the world, and youcan work flexible hours, and I'm
gonna pay you a living wage.That buys a lot of loyalty.
And in the case that we'retalking about, I think it's a
pretty intellectuallystimulating job. Like, it's both
creative and you're alwayslistening to new shows. So if
you're looking you know, this isone where I would lean heavily
(19:45):
into recruiting, like,neurodivergent folks who have
high pattern recognition skills,lots of focus on special
interests Yeah. And specificallyfilter for that kind of
personality. Not necessarily thetechnical skills because that
can be trained, but somebody whois genuinely, intellectually
(20:07):
interested in this kind of work.
Jeremy Enns (20:09):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (20:10):
I think in the immediate term, I think you have
come to the same conclusion Icome to, which is you are kind
of the only person that rightnow can do this, and also that's
a huge value. And as much as Iam not a huge proponent of like,
(20:31):
just raise your prices. Mhmm. Inthis case, I think that's the
direction. Because as somebodywho's been through the process
and has been podcasting for fiveyears and gone through many
similar kinds of solutions forhow do I fix my podcast.
Right? Like, I know I know thecontent's good. I know the topic
(20:53):
is solid. I know the packagingis pretty weak. I don't think
that's true now.
But Yeah. That's based off ofour work together.
Jeremy Enns (21:01):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (21:02):
But I've sort of known in my gut what the problem
was, but I didn't know what todo about it. And I think that is
the value of the audit and thefollow on engagement is, cool. I
can tell you that the problemwith my show has been the
(21:22):
packaging. That doesn't tell mewhat to do about it. It doesn't
Mhmm.
And you having your specificskill set looking at my show is
the value. And I don't thinkwithout spending a lot of time
training somebody else, there'sa way to get around that. Yeah.
(21:44):
And so then I think the way yousolve the capacity issue is do
less, charge more, because it isinherently very valuable, and
you are a limited resource.
Jeremy Enns (21:55):
Yeah. This is the most appealing path forward to
me and also the most elegant inmany ways. Then, of course, it
creates a sales and marketingproblem, which is getting a
little outside of your, like,operational zone of genius. But
I would be curious seeing as yourun your own business and do all
this stuff and like to nerd outabout it. You have lots of
Susan Boles (22:13):
I'm like, I had out with a lot of marketers these
days.
Jeremy Enns (22:16):
So my question to you is as somebody who's been
through it and who alsounderstands all of what we're
talking about here, what am Imissing in terms of
communicating about the value ofwhat I do?
Susan Boles (22:30):
I think you're underselling because for people
like you, sometimes it's hard torealize the exact unique skill
set that you have. No one elsein the world probably right now
can do what you do offering. Andevery time I'm in a room that
(22:51):
you're not in, and somebody istalking about podcasting, your
name always comes up. So I thinkyou've done the work to build
the reputation as the expert. SoI I don't think there's anything
in terms of packaging orpositioning or talking about the
(23:11):
offer that doesn't communicatethe value.
Because I think for the peoplethat you wanna work with, we
already know who you are. Weknow the value. I don't think
there is a problem there. Haveyou pitched it to people? And
they're like, I don't get thevalue?
Jeremy Enns (23:24):
No. I think it's there is a gap in expectation
from so what's interesting ispeople will sign up for it, and
then when they get the audit,they'll be like, oh, I didn't
realize this is what I wasgetting, which is a bit
interesting where it's like mymessaging is strong enough to
sell and to get the sales, butthere is a gap when people get
the audit and they're like, oh,like I thought I was gonna get
(23:44):
value. I got like 10 x what Ithought I was gonna get. And so
there I'm
Susan Boles (23:48):
like will agree with that. Yes. Will agree with
that.
Jeremy Enns (23:50):
That's more where I'm like, how do I communicate
that? I think part of what I'mwondering is like, it it's hard
to say, like, I'm the only onewho can do this because that's
my statement. There's somethings that you can't know until
you experience it. And so that'swhere I'm like, what do I need
to do to make this more visible?I think, like, one thing is just
asking past clients, would yoube okay if I shared your full
(24:13):
audit with my newsletter?
Susan Boles (24:15):
Absolutely my first thought is
Jeremy Enns (24:17):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (24:17):
Because you're right. I I did expect you to be
able to solve my problem. When Icame in, I knew that you would
look at the show, and you'd belike, oh, clearly this is what
you're supposed to do. Like,that was my expectation of the
value from the audit. What I didnot expect was to have that
(24:38):
feedback be a super specific andreally felt immediately
actionable.
Jeremy Enns (24:44):
Mhmm.
Susan Boles (24:44):
I didn't expect it to then trickle down to my
business. Like, we are changingthings that are building
different fundamental structuresin my business. I the mean, part
that I love is that that makesit very efficient. Right?
There's less work for me.
It actually enables my businessto be calmer in the production
of my podcast, and how it worksin my ecosystem to make things
(25:09):
like, that was completelyunexpected. I also did not
expect the video to be, like, anhour and forty five minutes or
whatever. Like, when I was like,oh, cool. The audit. And then I,
like, hit play.
And then I looked at the time,and I was like, I'm gonna have
to come back to like, I have toactually, like, set some time
aside to interpret this. So I dothink sharing audits, whether
(25:31):
that's in the newsletter orwhether it's part of the sales
process or even it could be itsown channel. You know, it could
be a YouTube show. It could be apodcast. Because I do think
there is value in seeing how ithappens.
And this is something that,like, you and I have talked
about for my own work is theshowing doe telling. Because
(25:53):
sometimes when you are like eventhough you are known as the
expert, you're the podcast guy,like, your name always comes up.
It's also difficult tocommunicate what that is,
particularly to people whohaven't been around for long
enough to know that you're theguy. Like, somebody might tell
them you're the guy, but then ittakes a while for them to
realize, oh, I'm reading thenewsletter. I'm checking out the
(26:16):
workshops, and I'm seeing how itworks.
And, he is the guy.
Jeremy Enns (26:19):
Yeah. That's good to get your validation of that
because that has felt like alikely most probable, like, path
forward in terms of, like,raising prices. And the
necessary step before that isbuilding demand and
communicating value, I I think,creates more demand, less
availability, and higherperceived value obviously allows
(26:39):
me to charge more. That actuallyfeels like the easiest approach
here.
Susan Boles (26:44):
I think it's the easiest. The only thing to think
about is it works most of thetime in most markets. Also, you
might find a ceiling because ofyour particular customer where
they are doing podcasting, but alot of the times that's
podcasting for the purpose ofselling their services or their
(27:06):
course or something else.They're not actually making
money directly from the podcast.
Jeremy Enns (27:11):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (27:11):
Which means you might run into a ceiling, and
then, you know, you may need topull in one of the other
strategies. Yeah. But I thinkyou have a lot of you you likely
have a lot of room Yeah.Particularly if you might think
(27:31):
about structuring it notopposite the way that you're
structuring it right now, butwhere you have a decent chunk of
change upfront for the audit andkind of onboarding. Mhmm.
If you start hitting ceilings,you can shift some of the
pricing to the monthly pricingand probably get your ceiling a
(27:53):
little bit higher.
Jeremy Enns (27:54):
Yeah. So let me present one other thing I've
thought about. I've alreadystarted doing this a little bit,
and I wonder if there's moreopportunity. I used to also do,
like, a basic website audit, sohomepage, podcast page, show
notes. Then I realized, like,those don't tend to be the
priorities for most people.
It's kind of, like, outside ofwhat they signed up for, so they
might not even really take myfeedback to heart. And I also
(28:17):
saw a little bit people wouldget preoccupied with the
website, and I'm like, hey. Youprobably don't have enough
traffic. Especially for showsthat have website traffic, a lot
of times they're wayunderutilizing their website.
It's like, this could be a wayto get more people in the show.
But I essentially punted that tosay, we will talk about this if
and when it becomes a priority,but we're starting with the
(28:37):
podcast. My sense is now thatthe current version of the
audit, which you went through,is everything's tight and tied
together, but my other thoughthas been, are there ways of
spacing out even any of thosecomponents into a, first, we'll
focus on this, and then twomonths from now, we'll focus on
this. Or do you feel like, no,this all felt like it needed to
go together?
Susan Boles (28:57):
I actually think that is an interesting approach
because one of the results ofhow comprehensive it was, was I
did feel a little bitoverwhelmed at like, oh man, I
like I I have a solid show, butlike there's so much work here.
(29:17):
So I think you could potentiallysplit it into I mean, kind of
what natively has ended uphappening with our work together
is there was the show itself.
Jeremy Enns (29:28):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (29:29):
And then how does that show impact the business
Yes. Piece? So the first thingwe worked on was like, hey.
Yeah. I probably need to renamemy show.
If I rename my show, I have todo new cover art. I'm gonna play
around with the format. And alot of that can, I think, be
done independently withoutnecessarily figuring out upfront
(29:49):
how to integrate that in thebusiness? So I think you could
split those pieces off for sure.And it seems like a lot of the
time when you are working on anew show, there are, like,
fundamental issues with the showbecause that's kind of your your
whole thing is that if yourshow's not growing, there is
something that is an issuebecause shows that are growable
(30:14):
grow.
Jeremy Enns (30:14):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (30:15):
You have to fix whether that's, you know, the
content or the topic or thepackaging. And so I think that
is one where it would feel lessoverwhelming. It's one where I
was coming into it. I was I hada pretty solid hypothesis of
what was wrong. You came to someof the same conclusions, and
then there were other ideas thatwe've been working on.
(30:37):
But I guess we're what, likethree, four months into it?
Yeah. And now we're startingwith, what do I need to build in
my business to now connect thisvery solidly growing show to
actual business outcomes? To me,that felt like two phases,
really.
Jeremy Enns (30:56):
Yeah. It's interesting because, like, the
audit is the bottleneck in mybusiness, but the there it's
part of this larger thing that II'm also sorting out. Because I
really started in the podcastspecific. Like, that's what we
worked on. But I always like, Ihave at least as much experience
in podcasting with, like, coursecreation and business and email
marketing.
It's just not how I'mpositioned. But, like, I can
(31:17):
speak to all of those thingsand, like, client services and
whatever, like, as good as mostconsultants in those things. I
always hate the positioning of,like, the all in one marketing
solution. So I'm, like, stayingaway from that. There's probably
a way to frame that, but, like,podcasting is the front door, so
we kinda start there.
But I've been thinking about,like, how to communicate the
flow to people in onboardingeven before the audit, speaking
(31:39):
to, like, here's the world ofthings that we can and will work
on together. We're gonna starthere. And then, like, almost
using touch points, like,framing the audit when I start
recording, saying, like, okay.We're talking about the show
here. If there's issues with thebusiness that come up, we will
work on that together.
But right now, we're focusing onthis, and then, like, almost
wrapping up the audit andsaying, like, okay, so here's
what I'm seeing with the show.We're gonna do our follow-up
(31:59):
call next, and it could be thateverything here we talked about
is not actually the mostimportant thing to work on, and
we'll come back to that nextmonth. Does that feel like
that's helpful seeding that?
Susan Boles (32:09):
So I thought it was very helpful, like, hey, here's
the realm of things we can talkabout. We're gonna do it in the
order that makes sense for whereyou are, where your business is,
what your goals are. I think theunique value that is really
powerful for me, and I think fora lot of podcasters who start a
(32:33):
podcast, almost nobody starts itwith any consideration for how
it fits into their business.Yes. No.
Or how they're gonna make moneyfor like, that's a universally
known problem with podcasters isthat like, we love podcasting.
Like, that's so much fun. Andalso consistently forgetting to
(32:53):
tell people that we sellanything.
Jeremy Enns (32:55):
Yes.
Susan Boles (32:56):
Or take that into consideration when we are
designing our show. I don'tthink you need to be an all in
one, but I think the uniquevalue is your ability to tie the
podcast to the business. Becausethat's that is a universal
problem. We talk about discoverybeing the problem, but actually
(33:16):
the problem is that nobody knowshow to make money from their
podcast. Yeah.
And because of who you help, youare uniquely positioned to be
able to make that connection forpeople in a way that is
filtered. And a lot of the timesI say that like, when we as
(33:38):
business owners are buildingservices, we try and throw
everything in. Right? Like,wanna present all of the value.
And you have a lot of stuff thatpeople can pull from the courses
and the different areas, but itdoesn't feel overwhelming.
It feels like a pick and choose,which I think is the ideal
because the one of the benefitsthen of working with you is you
(34:01):
point them to the thing that isimportant to them, and you are
serving as exteriorprioritization
Jeremy Enns (34:08):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (34:09):
Filter. Right? Like, when you point people in a
direction, they go full bore inthe direction because that's how
most entrepreneurs that's justour how our brains work. But
there is something very powerfulas a consultant to being able to
filter. Here are all thepossible things that you could
focus on.
Based on my expertise, do thisnext. Because so much of being a
(34:34):
business owner has to deal withthat overwhelm, that decision
fatigue. We're constantly tryingto prioritize and figure out
what's the next most importantthing. That's really the power
of working with any coach orconsultant, I think. Is having
somebody be like, yeah, don'tpay attention to that stuff over
there.
That doesn't matter right now.Just ignore that. Go do this one
thing. I think is very powerfuland very valuable and something
(34:58):
that you have positioned well.And I think there is the
possibility to just break outthe work from the audit into a
more phased approach.
Jeremy Enns (35:10):
Yeah. I, I have a, like, personal inclination or,
like, moral objective, it feelslike, to give people all the
answers, which I know is not themost helpful thing many times.
But I also feel like with a lotof the stuff that I talk about,
people just have not thoughtlike like you said, and they
don't know even how to thinkabout like, they need external
(35:31):
reference points. But I I dowonder if part of the audit that
gets trimmed back is, like,pointing out the problems but
not trying to solve all of them.This is kind of, like, where the
crux of it is for me.
There's a lot of things inepisode structure that could be
tightened up for most showspretty quickly. But, also,
there's things about the formatand the sequencing of your
(35:52):
episodes that probably isdictated way upstream by, like,
the show concept, which is themuch longer term heavier lift
project that doesn't really havea timeline, but is more
important. It's like once youget the concept right, that may
just dictate what your episodestructure should be and how you
should do your intros and whattypes of topics you should have
on the show. But it's kinda easyto point to a few low level
(36:13):
things that actually might bedistractions. And so maybe
there's something of sayinglike, okay, there's some issues
here, and here's a couple thingsyou can do to, like, make your
intros tighter or to do this.
We're gonna come back. There'swe're gonna talk about these
other things related to yourcontent strategy, but I'm not
gonna give you any suggestionsnow because those will be
dictated by other things we needto focus on first. And so maybe
there's a bit like pointing tosome potential problems and
(36:35):
saying, let's just put theseover here. We're gonna work on
this big thing first, and thenwe'll come back and go deep on
this stuff later.
Susan Boles (36:42):
Yeah. If you're gonna try and cut stuff out of
the audit process, I would notcut the content intake part.
Right? Like the part where youare absorbing whatever the show
is. Because that's what you needfor how you're gonna advise
people.
Yep. But I do think you couldmake the actual, like, delivery
Jeremy Enns (37:07):
Yeah.
Susan Boles (37:07):
Shorter. It doesn't have to be an hour. It could be,
here's the most visibleproblems, and you know where
people are gonna get stuck onthat. Like, you've done this a
lot of times. You know that,like, if you're saying, hey, you
have a concept problem.
You know you really can't domuch else until they decide on
what is the concept now. Andthen you're going into, okay,
(37:30):
let's take the episode. Let'sengineer the episodes. Let's
figure out how this ties in. Butmaybe the piece to shorten it is
the here's your top priorityright now, and we'll get into
the rest of it later.
Because you you still see all ofthe other problems, but some of
the choices they're gonna makeafter the audit will then impact
(37:54):
the next most logical step. Andso being able to just shorten
your time of, I see all theseproblems. I know they exist. I
know we're gonna deal with themat some point. But prioritizing
not everything that you'reseeing, but what is the next
step could shorten it.
It doesn't necessarily you youkinda have to make notes for how
(38:15):
you're gonna hold the rest ofthe information that you come to
for later. Because right now,it's all in the audit. But I
think you could certainly getthe main points in thirty, forty
five minutes. Give themsomething actionable to work on
between then and the next call.So a lot of the times with
clients that I work with wherewe're doing like an intensive
(38:37):
model or I even on my ownservices where I'm delivering
something in an intensive model,you really have to think about
where do people need pauses?
Where do they need time tomarinate, time to think, where
I'm gonna hit them withsomething that then's gonna go,
my brain hurts. I don't knowwhat to do with this. I have to
(38:58):
step back. Like, thinking morestrategically about where to
build in pauses and where tobuild in some breathing room can
be really powerful both in termsof like the results people get
because then they don't have todeal with the I now all have all
of this stuff that now is on myplate that I have to figure out
how to implement and I don'thave time to implement it. And I
have a client call next week andnow I don't have time to think
(39:21):
about that whole overwhelm thathappens when we as service
providers are like, here's allthe things.
Everybody feels compelled to dosomething about that. And I
think you actually do have anopportunity to think about where
should there be a pause. Whatparts are gonna take them longer
to either think about orimplement if you really have to
(39:45):
change the whole structure of ashow? That's gonna cause an
existential crisis. Yeah.
And I think you have theopportunity to think about that.
What goes into the audit versuswhat goes into the rest of the
work? And I would think abouthow do you shift that? Because
we're talking about the audit,but what this actually is is for
(40:07):
the most part, like a year longcoaching program with you where
the audit is just kind of thekickoff. And so you have the
opportunity to really spreadthat work out and not
necessarily front load it.
That could be another tool forreducing at least the actual
work that goes into the audit.You know? Yeah. Maybe this is
(40:29):
maybe there's a second piecehalfway through the year where
you're like, cool. Now I didthis.
We're not gonna do a coachingcall, but I'm gonna record the
second piece of this for you.You watch it. You Right. Have
time to think about it, and thenwe'll talk about it.
Jeremy Enns (40:43):
And the other thing that I I've thought about in the
past that this plays into isit's useful in terms of
retention. So after that firstthree month period of, like, are
you in for the rest of the yearor not? There's kind of a, like,
a optional if you're just like,this is not the fit for me. They
just have so much that they needto do, and often the audit has
maybe even actually shown themthat. And so they're kind of
(41:04):
like, oh, like, I'm not I can'texpect to increase, like, the
amount to pay for for thisimmediately.
On my part, I view that as moreof a marketing targeting
problem.
Susan Boles (41:14):
Yeah. Because you don't want those people using up
your capacity. I also mightconsider not giving people the
offering.
Jeremy Enns (41:20):
Mhmm. Yeah.
Susan Boles (41:21):
And just sell it as, it's a year long program.
Here's how much the cost is. Youcan do monthly payments if you
want. Like, I think that isreally important in today's
economy and uncertainty.Nobody's nobody's really walking
around with, you know, tens ofthousands of dollars just
sitting in their pocket ready toplop down.
But one of the ways you couldkind of filter out those people
(41:44):
who aren't quite the right fitand not quite ready to work with
you is to not give the off ramp.Right? Because that requires a
higher level of commitment.You're gonna get people who can
actually afford the whole thing.And I don't love doing it, but
sometimes price can serve as aneffective filter for the stage
and maturity of businesses.
(42:06):
I would think about maybeshifting pricing structure as
you're thinking about raisingprices and being a more
effective filters. About two.
Jeremy Enns (42:16):
This has been so helpful.
Susan Boles (42:23):
What Jeremy and I worked through wasn't just about
audit optimization. It was aboutrecognizing when your unique
value is also your biggestconstraint. We focused on two
key levers from the Calmerframework. First, business
design. Jeremy's challenge isn'tthat his audits aren't valuable.
They actually deliver incredibleresults. The challenge is
(42:47):
structuring that value deliveryin a way that doesn't require
him to be the bottleneck. Andsometimes the reality is that
there really is some expertisethat simply can't be delegated.
Second, we looked at the marginmindset lever and using
efficiency not just to cram morein. Jeremy's path to bigger
(43:09):
margins means doing less,charging more, and spreading the
delivery of his insights acrosstime instead of front loading
everything into one overwhelmingaudit.
The core insight here is thatwhen you have truly unique
expertise, the solution isn'talways to scale it through other
people. Sometimes the calmerpath is to embrace that
(43:31):
limitation and design yourbusiness around it. So fewer
clients, higher prices, betterboundaries. If you're having a
similar struggle here's a fewpaths for you to consider. You
could think about potentiallyphasing your service delivery.
If you're delivering reallycomprehensive services that
might feel a little overwhelmingto you and your clients you
(43:54):
could consider taking your mostintensive offering and try and
identify a natural break point,something where you could pause
or maybe slow down delivery.Maybe it's after the diagnosis
but before the solutions orafter the foundational fixes but
before the advanced strategy.That pause can give both you and
(44:14):
your client time to breathe andit often leads to better
results. You might also considernot front loading all your most
valuable insights. So if youlook over the course of your
service delivery are therepieces that could be moved
further out in the process orpotentially spread out?
Sometimes the best most valuableservice design it's not giving
(44:37):
everybody everything up frontit's giving them what they need
when they're ready for it.Thanks for listening and
remember sometimes the calmestthing you can do is stop trying
to scale everything and startdesigning around your actual
constraints.
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