By now we know that what works for one, may not work for another. And in this week’s episode, I’m talking with Jessica Lackey all about business models, and how sometimes what makes sense for other people may not make sense for you and your business. Maybe the traffic-based business models that we’re sold can actually be less profitable than a lower, slower pace of business. Jessica Lackey is a strategy and operations advisor who is on a mission to radically disrupt mainstream business culture in an effort to create sustainable businesses with a human-centric approach. With a background in corporate leadership, McKinsey & Company consulting, and a Harvard Business degree, Jessica knows a thing or two about hustle culture and what it feels like to judge success by the bottom line…at all costs.
Now, she combines her deep experience in consulting, Fortune 500 operations leadership, and coaching to help businesses grow without sacrificing the well-being of their clients, team, and community.Here’s what you can expect from this episode:
- The importance of community and relationship marketing
- The “cult-ish” side of social media (in regards to online business)
- Why you DON’T need to build your business like everyone else
- Business models and the math behind scale
Relevant Links:
- Sign up for her newsletter and/or take the quiz “What’s Your Stage of Business?”
- Learn more about Jessica
Read the full transcript
Jessica Lackey 0:00
You can’t do multiple business models that each one comes with a diffusion of your attention and a diffusion of an increase in expenses potentially. And that’s where we need to think about how many do I have the capacity for at any given time, and also, which one is more important to you at this stage in your business?
Meg Casebolt 0:19
Your listening to social slowdown a podcast for entrepreneurs and micro businesses looking for sustainable marketing strategies without being dependent on social media. I’m your host, Meg Casebolt. And I have a new book coming out called Social slowdown. It’s taking all of the 80 plus interviews that we’ve done so far in this podcast series, and turned it into something that’s a little bit more easily digestible. It will be available on July 27 2023. And it’ll only be $4 on Kindle and $9 on a paperback. So I would love, love, love, if you could support the podcast by going on Amazon and buying the book. If you preorder it, I would especially appreciate that because that would help us get to a best seller status. Even if you don’t read it. That’s okay. So if you want to get your copy of the social slowdown book, head on over to social slowdown.com/book and get that today. And now let’s get back to the podcast, which is all about finding creative, sustainable ways to engage with your audience without needing to lip sync, send cold DMS, run ads or be available 24/7. Let’s get started. Hello, and welcome to the social split on podcast. I’m your host, Mike Casebolt. And I am here today with Jessica lackey. Hey, Jessica.
Jessica Lackey 1:38
Hey, Meg. So great to be here.
Meg Casebolt 1:41
I am so excited for this conversation, we were just chatting about how we have like been in the same circles for a while but don’t know each other. So if you want to take a minute, give us not your full superhero origin story. But what it is that you do in your business.
Jessica Lackey 1:56
So I’m a business operations and strategy consultant working with businesses who find themselves at a plateau in their growth, and helping them step through that plateau to the next evolution of their business by going deep on their metrics, their math, their business methods, and helping them craft the right size business.
Meg Casebolt 2:17
I’m telling you about a right sized business.
Jessica Lackey 2:19
So we think, or we’re sold this image of business should be six figures, seven figures, you should have a big team. That may be right for some individuals, and it may not be right for other individuals. So how do we set aside the vanity metric, surface level image of what a business is supposed to look like and actually design a business that works for you?
Meg Casebolt 2:41
Yeah, and I think a lot of people who are listening are more lifestyle businesses, not in terms of like, lifestyle blogging, of let me show you the toast to the ate for breakfast today. But more like, I don’t need to be a household name, I don’t need to have my books on the shelves at the airport, I want to be able to get my kids off the bus. And I want to make enough money that I can, you know, support my family, but I don’t need to have this big, giant, oversized presence where then the trolls come out. So when we’re thinking about how to figure out what a right size business would even look like? Or how much do I need the business to make? And what are my expenses and my income and my taxes? You know, how do you decide that?
Jessica Lackey 3:26
That’s actually where we start at the basics of your, you know, at the core of your mission and message in your business? Figuring out what you need to make revenue wise how big your team needs to be starts with? What do you need to take home? What do you need at home? What do you need to survive, to save and then ultimately, to serve through saving for retirement potentially giving back then we have to talk about your business model, because all those people that are household names, spend an inordinate amount of money on marketing spending in order and out of money on their team. And the secret behind the sauce is that most of those many of those seven figure entrepreneurs you see that look like household names are actually taking home less money than very profitable soloists. And so that’s where we start is really what do you need to take home? What is enough for you? What’s the role you want to play in your business? What’s the influence you want to have? And what’s the business model that means you need to be creating.
Meg Casebolt 4:32
So tell me about business models because you have a method that I really like here kind of a framework around different business models and how they work differently for marketing.
Jessica Lackey 4:41
Yes, so much of the online advice is for entrepreneurs and creators and how I make $50,000 a month as a creator, but really, that’s encompasses so many things, or I’m a freelancer that encompasses so many things because we’re all creators in our businesses. So I like to think about breaking down business models into two big buckets. Those are that are delivery based models. And those that are truly creator based models. delivery models is where you’re delivering a service either as a craftsman for Did you know people who are hands on doing a service advisor for those who are in the coaching consulting advisory space where you’re not necessarily doing the work and agencies where you’re doing the work through a team. And then we’ve got our Creator businesses, the teachers, people who a lot of people who say their coaches in the group coaching sphere are really teachers with Office Hours, we have gathers people who are building a community. And then we have the entertainers where they’re monetizing based on speaking or the books or the podcast, or the YouTube, or the affiliate marketing, those are the six different types of business models, it’s really important to choose which model you are, and understand what that means for the business activities, and the profit you’ll end up making in the business.
Meg Casebolt 6:05
And I think that there’s this sort of belief that you can do all of those things. And as you’re going through that list, I’m going oh, I kind of do a little bit of each of these, and maybe I shouldn’t be doing all those things, maybe the fact that I am, you know, both providing those advisory services, and have a small agency, and I’m doing a podcast and trying to monetize through that. And I have the book, like maybe it’s two, maybe that’s why I’m feeling burned out is because I I’m stretching myself across both delivery based and traffic based creation, and it’s too much to try to do both. So thanks for this life crisis.
Jessica Lackey 6:49
You it’s really, it can be done. But every additional, you know, an advisory agency that you know, those kind of go together. But it does, when you bring on the agency, you have to bring on the team, it also changes the amount of marketing you have to do, because you need to support a team member, whereas your if you’re a solo agent or solo advisor, you know, the man marking you have to do is dependent on what you need at your season of life. So you can’t do multiple business models, that each one comes with a diffusion of your attention and a diffusion of an increase in expenses potentially. And that’s where we need to think about how many do I have the capacity for at any given time? And also, what’s the I would I see your book both being a traffic marketing engine, but also it’s an authority building presence for your agency? Right? Which one is more important to you at this because at this stage in your in your business,
Meg Casebolt 7:46
right? And I think about like the program that we’re going to start launching here, where it’s like, it’s teaching and consulting and curating a community because there’s this group of people who are going to the program together, but it really is the teaching model versus you know, like, sometimes there is this, this funky hybrid, but I think to your point, it’s like, well, what’s the most important, what’s the and what’s the, when we think about delivery based businesses, it’s sort of like you don’t have to scale as much you can have a smaller number of clients, if you’re delivering a higher touch higher price point service than, you know having a book or having a course that you have to scale and get in front of a larger audience. And when you get into that more creator space versus delivery space, that’s when you have to have big, you know, social media following and a big audience, which you may or may not need in order to have more of a delivery based model.
Jessica Lackey 8:46
Yeah, I wrote about this in my newsletter, the second launch syndrome. A lot of times we start out as a craftsman or as a advisory, we want to then do start doing groups. And so the first group fills with raving fans. Because we have a we have a list size that is, you know, enough to fill a group. But then we go to the second launch. And everyone in our list has already seen it, the people who are going to buy the first time likely bought the first time. And if you were not building your list with the numbers that are required for a traffic base model to fill yet again, another cohort. The second cohort is harder to fill. The third cohort is even harder to fill, unless you’re doing some really big audience building and really big kind of exposure opportunities, which you don’t necessarily need to do if you’re a graphic designer who works on retainer with three or four clients at any given time. You don’t need to do that kind of traffic based marketing, right.
Meg Casebolt 9:50
Yeah. And I think that we’ve also been told this myth of well, if you want to work less So then you have to go groups, you have to do the leveraged offer, you have to do what you’re talking about where it’s like, okay, get the exposures, you can get people on your email list, so you can sell them into the program, because then you don’t have to work as hard. But guess what, getting the exposure to nurture the email list is also work. But it’s work that you’re not getting paid for, at the scope of what it is that you’re doing. When I was a graphic designer, it was like, Alright, I, you know, there was a very clear exchange of hands for the goods and services that I was providing, you get, I don’t know, three social media graphics and a banner and this and that, listen to this. And here’s the cost of that package. And when I deliver it, here’s the invoice. Versus when I started running programs, that became much more like, oh, well, now I have to create this YouTube channel for free to bring people in, and then they’re going to get the freebie to join my email list. And then they’ll join the lower program and not unlike when you build the marketing machine, the cost of the marketing machine, you’re not getting paid for it.
Jessica Lackey 11:03
Correct. It also takes you out of the zone of genius, because if you are a great graphic designer, but an average marketer, right, you’re the responsibility, the work, where it’s where’s your hard live is the hard live in the kind of delivering client work on a regular basis knowing that you quote unquote, I mean, the myth is that you can’t take time off. But that’s, that’s a myth. The other one is, you shift from the hard being in doing doing the delivery to marketing, and you have to become a exquisite marketer, and your business is about are you a good marketer or not? Are you skilled at the craft that you were delivering? The focus really shifts. And it’s so tempting, because so many of you know, if you watch the trends in the online industry, the people that are growing are the people that are teaching you how to be better marketers, and how to grow on the social media platforms and how to grow. They’re teaching you the skills of better marketing, not actually demonstrating how to be a skilled craftsman or a skilled soloist, they’re teaching you how to market.
Meg Casebolt 12:12
Yeah, it’s not the same skill set. And so many of us get into business, because especially I work with a lot of coaches and people who are in Oh, I’m not, I don’t know how I’m recording anymore. I lost you. Hopefully, just we’ll come back in a minute. Welcome back from AT and T fiber optic. Hello, Jessica.
Jessica Lackey 12:32
Thank you. Glad to be able to be back online. You know, your business operates online. And when the internet goes away, you’re like, oh, no, oh, no. Okay, cool. What now?
Meg Casebolt 12:41
I’m like, some days, it’s fine. Like my internet was being wonky recently. And I was like, great, it sounds like a good day to go weed the backyard or write something that doesn’t need to be backed up, except locally. But when you’re recording podcasts, you kind of can’t. Yeah, it’s always
Jessica Lackey 12:55
I am glad that my business model doesn’t rely on social media. Because the days when internet Instagram goes down, and Twitter does its thing, and LinkedIn does its thing. I’m like, Well, you know, a lot of my first clients came from me at a whiteboard at a co working space and being good at my craft doesn’t rely on me being good at marketing online, especially when that’s borrowed land. It’s at the whims of the algorithm. It’s at the whims of your internet service provider.
Meg Casebolt 13:29
Yeah. And I think that we’ve gotten so far away from this feeling of being in the same room with other humans who can learn from us and work with us. That it almost I think there’s there’s a myth that that is cheating, where like, if you don’t have the funnels and the marketing machine, and the the lead gen coming in from social media, then like, are you even businessing?
Jessica Lackey 13:53
That’s got to be a tagline. Are you businessing? Oh, it drives me batty is this narrative that unless you can step away from the day to day work of your business, that you’re not a real CEO until you have a team? You’re not a real CEO. I’m like, you know, if you’re making especially as you know, this replies to any revenue level, but especially its multiple, six figures, you can be so are you telling me that like a multiple six figure, high power consultant, who has maybe some works with some service providers, is in stewarding 10 to 12 clients a year is not a business. It’s not a CEO, I would question that as a concept.
Meg Casebolt 14:34
Yeah, I always wonder when people say things like, you’re not, you’re not genuine or you’re not real, if you don’t, and it’s like, well, what, who benefits from that narrative? Right? It’s people who are trying to teach you to scale their way. And that’s, that’s a dangerous place to try that. And it it definitely touches on our egos of like, Oh, well. If If I can’t take a month off, then it’s too reliant on me. But or if I if, if I have to be in the business every day, then I haven’t built the business for long term, but it’s like, yeah, well, but also like, you, when you’re an employee working for somebody else, you couldn’t just leave without a plan. You know, like, there seems to be this this myth that your business is successful if you don’t have to touch it, but like, no business is our work.
Jessica Lackey 15:31
That is very true. And that’s that is a myth because or you are stepping out of the business by exploiting your team members. So they’re working on your keeping your campaigns running, and running your funnels and running the ads and like, you’re just stepping away, because you’ve transformed yourself into a brand. That’s actually not what I want for my business. If I want to take a month off, I construct my calendar, as a, as a solo practitioner to front load projects, back loaded projects and take some time off. If you’re running one of these giant, you know, marketing machines, you have to feed the machine, you have to feed the machine. You can’t, you can’t have a team come up with your content, you can’t have it. I mean, you can they can repurpose things, but that’s not you, you are the voice you are the inspiration. And what you see is these bigger businesses where the the owners do step away, start to really degrade. Like the customer service isn’t as good. The material is rehashed over and over again. And the way that they’re continuing to grow is not by providing impeccable service or pestle experience, it’s by extracting on the land they’re at and then moving to a new population and doing strip mining of that new audience as well. And that’s not the kind of business that I want to run. But it is the business that I see those bigger machines running.
Meg Casebolt 16:50
Yeah, and just like eating up more resources, exactly. To take your sort of environmental metaphor even farther, it’s it’s strip mining it is it’s and you know, Regina always talks about sharecropping and how social media sharecropping, because it’s like, you’re, you’re working on someone else’s land, and they get to decide what outcomes it is, but you’re using up your resources. Yeah. So wow, we went to a pretty dark place here, Jessica. So if people are feeling this, if they’re like, Man, I have been told I have been fed this myth that I have to this is the only way for my business to grow is for me to become this brand and to build this machine. But I don’t know that I want to do that. Because that’s the conversation that I’ve been having with people in the unrecorded conversations in the, you know, one on ones, especially people who have been in this space for a while is I’m hearing like, I don’t want to have to post pictures of my life. I don’t want to have to post pictures of my kids. I don’t want to have to be the face that’s out there anymore. Because that’s exhausting. And there’s backlash and like, what are the alternatives? Maybe it’s not the face of the brand, but like the size of the brand of the personal brand? What are the alternatives to that?
Jessica Lackey 18:08
This is where we go back to that conversation where we started. And I hope that 10 minutes we we’ve recorded before internet. But it’s going back to you or enough figures. And then really understanding what I call the deeper business framework, which is you start with the metrics that you need not to be successful in someone else’s eyes, but to truly run your business. What is the take home profit you want? What is there for the revenue that you need? Based on that business model that you choose? How many clients do you need to have? What is your working hours based on that capacity? And then we start to go down the layers. Once you’ve identify what you’re looking for, we go down to management, how are you managing your time? Where’s your attention and focus going? And how are we not getting distracted by the things we could be doing that don’t actually generate value because they’re for the wrong business model and really focus in on what’s generating money in time for us. We go down to the methods in our business really thinking if I’m running a agency or I’m running a soloist business, I want to choose sales and marketing and operations methods that are built for that type of business model. You know, some people are like you can run a multiple six figure business without sales calls. If I’m going to be working with someone on a hands on way I want to do sales calls.
Meg Casebolt 19:29
Yeah, I want to make sure that I’m a good fit for them and that they like me and that we get along.
Jessica Lackey 19:33
Exactly. Then we go down to that business model and that price pricing and profitability model to say, does the math math, can I make the money I want to make with the business model that I want to run. And we ultimately get down to you know, thinking about what’s the impact we want to have. What’s this stage of life that we’re in it is totally available to us to run a sustainable, fulfilling this Isn’t this that meets our energetic spiritual financial capacity needs. But it requires us to not get distracted by the tools, the tactics and methods that are for other businesses that are not ours.
Meg Casebolt 20:18
But how do we not get distracted when things are so shiny? I mean, and I say this, all joking aside, like, this is something that I struggle with all the time, which is, you know, chasing things that are trendy ticket chasing things that feel good, that make our egos feel good, like there’s a really strong desire, especially when you’re working, you know, in a home office by yourself to be part of something bigger to be seen by people you respect and admire. So you kind of have to perform to an extent,
Jessica Lackey 20:51
to an extent, but there’s also have you heard of this concept called mimetic desire? No. It’s by French philosopher Rene Girard popularized recently to I brought it to my attention by someone named Luke Burgess mimetic desire is you didn’t know you wanted it till you wanted it. And being
Meg Casebolt 21:11
it’s my eight year old, looking at my six year old playing the piano, and he hasn’t touched the piano in a year. But so now that the six year old is touching it, it’s like, now it’s my turn,
Jessica Lackey 21:20
right. And being on social media has not just expanded our horizon to what you know, our neighbor does, and what our town does, but what someone in a completely different state country continent does. And so we are bombarded all the time with things we didn’t know we wanted until we saw someone else had it. And because it got normalized in the narrative. So you’re how do we get distracted by shiny objects? It’s by building community. And being in relationship with those people who have the same he talks about having thin desires and deep desires. The thin desires are the status games, and the vanity metrics and the things we didn’t know we wanted until we want them like, you know, I’ve seen the photoshoots of people with like, the red Christian Lipizzan soled shoes, and I’m like, do I really want that I don’t wear heels. That would hurt. That would hurt. But I want to, I think I’m told I’m supposed to want it. And so I kind of in the back of my mind, kind of want it,
Meg Casebolt 22:18
I see it as a sign of success, even if it would hurt my feet, right. But then
Jessica Lackey 22:23
being in relationship and community with people that have similar values, and we have similar discussions about life helps me feel belong, the same sense of belonging to those people I want to talk to you but it’s in relationship versus in parasocial relationships.
Meg Casebolt 22:40
Hmm. Unless define relationship versus parasocial relationship. So relationship is you and I having a conversation face to face because we know each other, right, there are social relationships is I saw this person on YouTube. And now I feel like I know them, right? or Instagram or whatever your platform of choice is your you know, I, there’s a celebrity who I follow, and therefore I think I know what they eat, even though all that I see is right and post on Instagram. Yeah,
Jessica Lackey 23:08
yeah. And, you know, sometimes we do want to, like, connect with people that we admire. And I think social media is a way to identify people. But what if we actually took the time to get to know them and to listen to their stories and to have real conversations I’ve actually, one of the nice parts about some of the speaking circuit getting demolished during the COVID time period is that a lot of people who I looked up to as creators, started doing online things and were in the community, I got to have real conversations with real people. I’m like, oh, things aren’t just perfect and shiny for you. There’s something deeper behind the scenes. And a lot of the circles I spend time in there being transparent about corporate contracts going away cohorts not filling, and it makes me feel very seen as Oh, this is hard. But we’re not just showing the highlight reel on social media, we’re having real conversations with real people, you and I met in a community because I wanted to be around other people who had the same outlook on life and business that I do. And it’s been a bone to my soul, because I’m like, Alright, all that over there. People here have successful businesses for multiple, you know, 1020 years. And they don’t have a YouTube channel. They might they don’t have one. Not everyone has a podcast, like gives me permission to set aside what I’m told him. So still want to tap into what I actually want?
Meg Casebolt 24:28
Hmm, I think a lot of that is needing to turn off the input needing to walk away from the places where people are, are pointing out the things that you think you could have.
Jessica Lackey 24:40
Yeah. And so especially on social media platforms, it’s both a place to potentially, you know, not spend the most potent time in your business from a marketing perspective, but it’s also stealing your attention for the profit of the platforms. And so not only are you spending time on the platform trying to perform you’re also are being influenced to want to perform by the platform’s. So it’s a double edged. It’s it’s two hits to the the time and focus
Meg Casebolt 25:08
100%. So how do people How are you marketing your business? How are people finding you to work with you? Is it still the whiteboard at the co working space? Is it the community? Is that something social? Like? What are what are the ways that people are finding you and sort of like, because I think sometimes when we have a cult, countercultural message, we can’t do that in the places that we that are the cultural norms, you know,
Jessica Lackey 25:33
almost all of my marketing is done in community and relationships, some of that in my local spaces. I’m very excited that some of my clients are people that I go to brunch with, and soccer games with in my town, and our friends in my local community. Some people are people I’ve met online, but what’s nice is that you I love to meet people online, and then I look for an opportunity to really not enough. Not enough I want to sell to you place but more of a, you’re doing something really cool. Can I get to know you? Can I learn more about what you’re interested in? Can I showcase your material you and I developed a relationship because I wanted to promote your book on my newsletter. And so I said, Can I do a podcast? Newsletter? Can I feature you on my newsletter to have you do a newsletter takeover? But it’s that relationships now. It’s so it’s joining communities, it’s being like I like you can we have a zoom chat Coffee Chat, it takes more time on the surface than cranking out a five minute social media posts and posting it online. Because every time we have a conversation, it’s 30 minutes to an hour. But those are real seeds that we’re planting. And those are the relationships that carry us forward. So I all my marketing is referrals and relationships, all your marketing of referrals and relationships. Well, I’ve started doing podcasts guest tour. But that’s also refer it’s relationship building, a lot
Meg Casebolt 27:00
of it is relationship building, or, you know, you know, you came to me and said, Can I can I, you know, want to take over my newsletter. And then also can I be a guest on your podcast? Because and the pitching happened after we already had the relationship? Right. I think that’s something that people don’t understand, too, which is sometimes you know, especially if you’re using like a PR agency to pitch you, they might already have a relationship with a host, but not the guest. But it’s always easier to get an opportunity, if you already have a relationship or a friendship with somebody who has a relationship, you know, like those. The it’s Kevin Bacon, you know, yeah, what are the degrees in which you already already working in that person’s world? Which is very different than let me just cold pitch, everyone who shows up in the Apple top 100 Marketing podcast.
Jessica Lackey 27:52
Yeah, and I don’t want to be on those shows. Because those are usually shows that are about how to grow your audience and three simple steps. Excel Oh, my God surface. So some a surface level solution, I want to have the dialogue that sometimes gets a little darker, a little deeper, because I think those are the conversations that are happening behind closed doors off camera. And I think these are some of the conversations that need to start be start bringing on camera in the recorded dialogues. Because I think that that normalizes that there are people that are being successful, to whatever success definition means to you, they’re being successful by going back to quote unquote, old school ways of doing it, even though it doesn’t scale, quote, unquote, scale like that. But it it does in the long run.
Meg Casebolt 28:41
Yeah, because you don’t have to be reliant on, you know, oh, I built this giant audience on tick tock, and I went viral, and then tick tock got shut down because of privacy concerns. And now my audience is gone. And I loved what you said about like, being able to get a little bit darker, and my gut went, but people are going to say, and this is different from, you know, two, three years ago, I would have said, but what if, and now now I’m able to come out and say, but people are going to say not I’m not I’m not having this reaction, but other people will, you know, like that, that bit of distance, that I think to an extent has come for me in the choice to remove myself from social that I’m able to give myself some distance from this feeling of, but people are gonna say that that’s too hard or that it’s scary. And I’m okay now to say, Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah, it’s scary. Not everything is going to be a simple three step solution. And not everything in your business is going to continue to work month over month and year over year. And I think in the past, I would say five years, we’ve seen probably 10 different business cycles. flythrough pandemic definitely sped that up to a great extent where everyone came online and then the market got saturated and then the E Learning People got really burned out on that. And you know, like, so much has happened. But things that worked two years ago are not working now. But people who grew their business doing that thing are still trying to promote that thing to you. And it’s just like, it’s, it’s exhausting. But if you think that it’s going to be simple, then you’re being led astray.
Jessica Lackey 30:19
Yeah. And, you know, my message isn’t for everyone. I have some people in my audience that are like, No, I want to try to do it the other way. And I’m like, Cool. All right. That’s great.
Meg Casebolt 30:29
I’ll be here when you’re ready for me.
Jessica Lackey 30:32
I’ll be here when you come back. But I think that’s the the you know, realities of it. One of the like, things I like to do is go deeper is where did these people learn from? Who are their mentors who’s the shadow behind the curtain that’s amplifying them? These multi six you know, these people have 50,000 100,000 followers on Instagram. Like, if you like, follow their accounts, and if you find out who their coaches you find out who their mentor was, who spotlighted them to help ramp up their I hate to say it, it’s like the MLM, like family tree. Like, like, oh, like, who’s your upline? Who’s your downline, when you start to trace back lineage masterminded,
Meg Casebolt 31:14
you join for 20 to $50,000 a year in order to get them to share your work in order to get the insider connections that they have. It really there are a lot of correlations. And you and I met through Michelle Mazur, and she has a podcast with Maggie Patterson all this and like kind of the cultish side of social media and an online business. So we don’t need to dive too deep into that, because I think Maggie and Michelle are doing such a good job of creating content already. I can’t believe I haven’t had my yoga pop yet. I guess I haven’t opened the space for her rants yet. But you know, like, you’re saying, this message is not for everyone. And that’s okay. Because your business model as advisory, you don’t need to have the 100,000 Instagram followers, the 500,000 Instagram followers in order to be successful, because you’re not selling sponsorship, because you don’t need you know, like, it’s just just because other people have built their businesses that way doesn’t mean that it’s the only way.
Jessica Lackey 32:22
Exactly. And that’s the beauty of having an aligned model means my mission, can match, my model can match my message can match my metrics, it can match all those things. Because I don’t need to, I don’t want to appeal to 1000s of people, I don’t know if my nervous system could handle that. Like you said, the, you know, the the haters coming out of the trolls, I don’t think my system can handle that I don’t have the infrastructure personally, to be able to be that visible online every day. And I build a business that doesn’t have to be it doesn’t rely on that as the source of value in the business.
Meg Casebolt 33:04
Okay, so you and I met because you offered me the platform of being able to do a newsletter takeover. And since then I’ve sort of dug into how you’re using your newsletter, which isn’t necessarily a direct correlation of, you know, here’s how you set up your alliance systems. And here’s how you can work with me. But really, you’re using it as a thought leadership platform. So talk to me about the goals that you have with your newsletter, because I think you’re doing some really interesting work there. My newsletter
Jessica Lackey 33:31
is not really a sales tool. I mean, it kind of is, but I have a lot of long term clients that I work with. And I want to explore deeper options of like how we run our business, like my newsletter is the opportunity for me to write some things about how I think and get my, get my thinking dialed in and share what I’m learning with people that are their focus is maybe on improving their craft and not on business as a concept. So I’m right for people that didn’t, you know, I came with a lot of privilege into this. I had went to business school, I worked at a top tier consulting firm, and I don’t have children, I have a level of access to kind of like my background and knowledge that not everybody has. And this is my offering. This is my way of being of deep service to people who may never ever buy for me. How can I help demystify debunk not just myths of like the online business but like help bring education to in business acumen and business fluency at no cost to people because I think it’s really important. Because then if people decide to come work with me, they’re going to know I’m going to tell them like it is I’m not going to hold it back. I’m not going to say well, I’m not going to tell you the secret unless you pay me because I don’t think the information by the way is in the knowledge it’s in the implementation and the integration then. And that’s where the fun comes in for both of us. But how can I bring I use my newsletter as a thought leadership vehicle, but also as a is it active service? Yeah, to public service, public service to the community that I want to be in relationship with. I also use my newsletter as a way to highlight. Pete, like, I want every newsletter if I if there’s someone who is in my audience. I mean, I say audience, it’s not that many people, but someone who I know that’s promoting something, I want to promote it because I believe in cooperation and collaboration. And really, I grew my business because someone said, put in their newsletter, Hey, Jessica is doing this thing. And they made an introduction. So how can I always be paying it forward in a way that strengthens the entire ecosystem? Versus only selling my stuff?
Meg Casebolt 35:52
Yeah, it is a service I use. I use the word service a couple times both. You know, what’s interesting is you said service zoo service with a V. And then I was also looking at opt in and it’s like surface level, you know, like, the depth of what you’re doing is the service. So Jessica, if people want to work with you, if they want to check out your newsletter, if they want to find out more of what you’re doing, how can they get in touch with you?
Jessica Lackey 36:18
They can go to my website, Jessica lackey.com backslash welcome that has links to my newsletter, a quiz that talks about your stage of business, and an overview of the services that I
Meg Casebolt 36:30
offer. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for being here with me today. This was great. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the social slowdown podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe or come on over to social slowdown.com and sign up for our email list so you never miss an episode. We’d also love if you could write a review to help other small business owners find the show you can head over to social slowdown.com/review Or grab that link in our show notes for easy access. We’ll be back soon with more tips to help you market your business without being beholden to social media Talk to you then
Please forgive any typos or errors, as this transcript was automatically generated by otter.ai