32: Jessica Lorimer: Pivoting in your business – Leadership and thought leadership. What does it mean?

Today I am talking to Jessica Lorimer. We are having a very interesting conversation about pivoting in your business. We talk about leadership and thought leadership and what that means, as well as the fact that she’s an award-winning podcaster, who has two very different podcasts with two very different results, we talk about why that is.

So, if you are having conversations about your marketing, or should I niche down or how can I pivot my messaging in my business, this is going to be a great conversation to listen to.

In the last year, Jessica has made an interesting pivot in her business, going from working in general with service-based entrepreneurs to now helping service-based entrepreneurs sell to corporate organizations. She’s been teaching her clients one-on-one and privately how to sell to corporations ever since she started her business, but it wasn’t something she wanted to go public with until 2018.

The responses she got were quite different, from- oh my God, what are you doing to- this is new and different, but we are interested. She did lose some of her clients when she first started, but she was expecting that. According to Jessica, you have to look at the context in which things are coming up. Your content will not work for everyone and that’s okay.

Negative feedback is just one of those things that you’re going to get if you put yourself online. But it’s usually from people who are not generally successful in their businesses because people who are successful don’t have the time. Jessica believes we have to have a boundary and we have to draw a line as business owners between what we’re willing to accept, and constructive feedback is something that’s great to accept if it’s coming from qualified places.

When you layout those boundaries and when you are transparent in communication with your audience, what happens is that people actually respect your decision making a lot more and they are supportive of what you go on and do, whether or not they follow you into that.

Today I am talking to Jessica Lorimer. We are having a very interesting conversation about pivoting in your business. We talk about leadership and thought leadership and what that means, as well as the fact that she’s an award-winning podcaster, who has two very different podcasts with two very different results, we talk about why that is.

So, if you are having conversations about your marketing, or should I niche down or how can I pivot my messaging in my business, this is going to be a great conversation to listen to.

In the last year, Jessica has made an interesting pivot in her business, going from working in general with service-based entrepreneurs to now helping service-based entrepreneurs sell to corporate organizations. She’s been teaching her clients one-on-one and privately how to sell to corporations ever since she started her business, but it wasn’t something she wanted to go public with until 2018.

The responses she got were quite different, from- oh my God, what are you doing to- this is new and different, but we are interested. She did lose some of her clients when she first started, but she was expecting that. According to Jessica, you have to look at the context in which things are coming up. Your content will not work for everyone and that’s okay.

Negative feedback is just one of those things that you’re going to get if you put yourself online. But it’s usually from people who are not generally successful in their businesses because people who are successful don’t have the time. Jessica believes we have to have a boundary and we have to draw a line as business owners between what we’re willing to accept, and constructive feedback is something that’s great to accept if it’s coming from qualified places.

When you layout those boundaries and when you are transparent in communication with your audience, what happens is that people actually respect your decision making a lot more and they are supportive of what you go on and do, whether or not they follow you into that.

Another great point that Jessica makes regards free content. In the online space, people get so caught up and once you give them something for free, people can get into that habit where they want more and more and more for free from you. And Jessica spent a lot of time in the online space catering to other people’s opinions just to realize that her free content is hers. She’s the one who’s creating it from the good of her heart. She’s the one who’s giving up her time and knowledge and information for free for no other reason than because that’s what she wants to do. People who want her to jump through hoops so that they can justify their decision as to whether they later go on to invest with her or not are not a client-material for her. She doesn’t want them to pay her so that you can treat her like that, just like she’s not going to accept behavior for free.

Jessica is also a host of two very different podcasts. She started Selling to Corporate podcast, which is about sales psychology for entrepreneurs, about nine months ago and The Smart Leaders Sell podcast has been running since 2017. With the pivot she knew that she wanted to take last year, she wanted to put out a podcast on selling to corporates. She started with one episode a month and she didn’t do any promotions for Selling to Corporate podcast, everything went towards promoting Smart Leaders Sell. Only thing that she was promoting in Selling to Corporate was the first ever Converting Corporates event in November 2019. First five episodes of Selling to Corporate podcast came out before an event and those five episodes sold $25,000 worth of tickets to the event. Selling to Corporate was outperforming the Smart Leaders Sell, based on percentage and has produced over £170,000 worth of revenue to date. We talk about big numbers so often and everyone feels like you need to have a huge podcast and a huge following, but you don’t. Jessica’s podcast has about 1,000 listeners a month with 2 episodes per month. Her other podcast Smart Leaders Sell has exponentially more listeners and you would think that the sales would be very different and they are, to a degree, but when you look at it in terms of percentages of sales made, Selling to Corporate is outperforming. In Jessica’s opinion, one of the reasons for this is that she started very differently- she was very upfront from the beginning that she is prepared to give 30 minutes a month to people for free and if you want any more than that, then take you come to an event or pay to buy the program. She doesn’t believe that the success of her podcast has anything to do with the topic. She believes it’s all about your expertise and finding your passion.

According to Jessica, there is no more time to hide. She believes a lot of people have been able to do that for a very long time online, they’ve been able to hide behind creating only fee content- I don’t want to be sleazy, I don’t want to be salesy, I only want to make an impact. And we don’t have time for that anymore. Telling yourself that helping people for free is a way of making this big impact in the world is just keeping you feeling comfortable and feeling safe. Because when you tell yourself that you don’t have to sell, you can justify why your business isn’t making the money you want it to make or you can justify not having to be sleazy and sell you all the time. And the reality is that if people don’t invest, they do not implement. If we are showing up and we’re only consuming and we’re not contributing and we’re not investing time, money, energy, what happens is we just get stuck in that consumption cycle, and nothing changes. If we really want to make an impact, we have to be responsible for revenue and that has to be at the forefront of our business strategy.

An action step for our listeners: You should be selling every single day. Make that your task, make it your quest. The reason being is that your business without sales is just a very expensive hobby and that’s not what it deserves and it’s not what you deserve. So, every day, whether it’s going out and creating a podcast episode or you’re putting a PS in your newsletter or whether it’s you reaching out to people and inviting them to buy an offer, every single day you need to do one sales activity. If you just do one every single day, you will be able to make money consistently, repeatedly and predictably for the rest of however long that business lives.

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode make sure you subscribe so you never miss new episodes. And if you have a business bestie, who needs to hear this message go share this with them. See you in the next one.

Love and Magic,

Maggie