When you think about cold pitching, do you start to shiver?
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Hey, I get it. You definitely need clients to build your business, but it can feel suuuuuuper intimidating when you’re out there trying to get people to say yes to you — especially when they’re total strangers.
That’s why this week’s episode of FreeMamaTV takes a completely new and different approach on how to cold pitch.
You’ll learn:
📨 How to stand out in a crowded inbox.
🔥 What you want to do with cold prospects BEFORE the pitch
💥 The ONE THING most freelancers FAIL to do (and how you’re going to get it right!)
Plus, I’m going to share a couple of real-life cold pitches that got my attention and talk through exactly what those freelancers did to impress me.
If you’re ready to learn how to cold pitch a prospect, then get yourself over to the YouTubes for today’s episode of FreeMamaTV.
Back in December, I got an email inviting me to speak at Career Day at my high school — which also happens to be the last place I worked before I became self-employed. In fact, as part of my role, I had actually planned my share of these Career Days, so this really felt like my life was coming full circle.
At my all-girls Catholic high school, Career Day is called Pass the Pearls, and here’s the description they sent me:
Pass the Pearls is really a combination of Career Day and College Scoop in a virtual format and a more linear conversation.
Linear? Life’s path isn’t linear! Well, as if anticipating my disbelief, the invitation went on to explain that the students had requested to combine the two days into a single discussion, because they envision their lives laid out before them as a series of step-by-step instructions — go to college, choose a major, graduate, get a job in that field, and so on.
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That’s SO cute.
As you and I both know, mama, life is most certainly NOT linear. In fact, I’d say it’s generally more like a roller coaster.
Check out my journey.
I was a political science major with a Spanish and theology minor.
I went to New York City to move in with my boyfriend and got accepted to Teach for America.
I quit Teach for America halfway through the summer training program.
I worked at a boutique in downtown NY and got to live my best life pretending I was Carrie from Sex in the City. (Yes, I did get to wait on some pretty cool celebrities.)
We moved to Arizona, where I worked as a banker. Seriously, WHAT? I was literally 22 years old, and I should not have been doing that whatsoever.
We moved back to Kansas City where I talked my way into a job at the Kansas City Star, which was a straight up Devil Wears Prada situation where I got paid essentially nothing to work all the time.
We wanted to start a family, which required Justin and me to occasionally be in the same room at the same time, so I left the Star and got a job at my former high school, where I flourished, where my first boss believed in me and invested in me, and where I learned the skills that would ultimately lead me to living the freelance life.
Does ANYTHING about that path feel linear?
Of course, once I became a freelancer, I still didn’t follow any kind of linear progression.
I started as a social media manager, and became an online business manager (even though, at the time, I had never actually heard that term), and somehow wound up as a business coach — another thing I didn’t even know existed.
All of this is to say… maybe you started out on a path because it served a purpose for you. You started climbing the mountain. But you realized at some point that you didn’t want to be on the mountain anymore. Like, it was taking you to a place (BANKER, anyone???) that you did NOT want to be. So, for the right reasons — and that’s the key here — you got off the path and found a new one.
Now, if you’re just chasing after shiny objects for your whole life, you’ll never get anywhere.
But.
If you started out on this path to have an online business, it makes a LOT of sense to start as a virtual administrative consultant.
But since the path isn’t linear, you And now, a few months or a year or more in, maybe you’re thinking about shifting to higher value work that can earn you more money?
If I told you to put time and energy into creating something your clients would go bananas over, and then give it to them for free, would you think I was nuts?
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Today on FreeMamaTV, I’ll walk you through my favorite strategies for creating and sharing high-value content that gets clients noticing — and hiring — you.
I know, it does sound a little out there. But high-value content is what will draw your ideal clients in, and turn them into raving fans. Then, you become a client magnet.
And giving that content away is actually a pretty smart strategy. Those potential clients will see the amazing value you’re gifting them for free and think, “OH MY GOSH. I NEED TO SEE WHAT SHE CHARGES FOR!”
Join me over on YouTube for some high-value content that you’re going to love and make you a client magnet. (See what I did there?)
If you’ve been paying attention the last few months, you may have seen a change in me, mama.
Being at home all the time, being still, not racing around all the time, gave me some space. I started to see and feel things I never had the time to notice before. I’m paying attention to the cyclicality of my hormones, my mood, and my output. I’m feeling my feelings.
Basically, I’ve become… a little bit woo.
To help me on this journey, I’ve hired the amazing Jillian Bolanz as a coach. And one of the things she and I are working on is reprogramming — rewiring — my brain.
I’m a highly logical person. And Jillian Bolanz has shown me that I try to bypass my feelings and go straight to a logical justification. That’s good — to a point. It keeps me moving forward and focused on my goals. It keeps me from getting mired down in sadness. But it’s not good to never allow yourself to feel.
So I’m learning to feel things, even when those feelings scare me.
In my first year of business, someone tried to use a trademarked term that I owned. I thought that the other business owner and I could solve it amicably between ourselves, but it turned into a legal kerfuffle that cost me around $15,000 — money I absolutely did not have at the time.
Every time I see this person’s name online, I have a visceral, emotional reaction. Up till now, I dealt with it by shoving that feeling down and plowing ahead.
via Rosanna Pansino on GIPHY
Jillian is making me linger in those feelings and explore them. I felt angry, because I was scared. I let that fear keep me small in my business for a long time.
A question Jillian often asks me is, “What’s the opposite of that?” I, being the logic lover that I am, go straight to the thesaurus and look up antonyms of words until I find one that feels right to me.
So I’ve created an affirmation and chose each word in it with great purpose and deliberation:
In this moment, I am safe and calm. I choose to live my life with unwavering conviction, certainty, and clarity.
Here’s the thing.
Entrepreneurship is the greatest personal development course you’ll ever take.
It’s usually not what we plan on when we start a business. We’re thinking about cash flow and systems, or about freedom and time. But suddenly, we’re face to face with mindset and rewiring our brains. And that’s actually the most important part.
You can be successful even if your cash flow is limited.
You can be successful even if you are building a business in limited blocks of time.
You can be successful even if you don’t have a college degree or you live in a small town or you’ve never done this before.
But you cannot be successful if you aren’t willing to do the mindset work. It’s an absolute requirement for success.
One of the first mindset shifts I made for myself was to consciously reject false choices. Family and finances. You can haveboth.
When you hear me talk, you’ll rarely hear me say the word “but.” Whenever possible, I replace it with the word “and,” because I believe firmly in the philosophy of “both, and.”
I’m still learning how to live this out everyday. I can be highly logical and deeply feeling. I can be a hard worker and surrender. I can be brand new to something and be qualified to do it.
If you’re ready to start shifting your own mindset, give it a try. The next time you feel a “but” coming on, see if you can replace it with “and.”
Do you ever just stand in front of your refrigerator thinking, I CANNOT DECIDE WHAT TO EAT?
Do you ever stand in your closet and decide it’s easier to stay in your pajamas than figure out what to wear?
Do you ever just say to your significant other, “I DO NOT CARE, JUST MAKE A DECISION.”?
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You, my dear mama, may be suffering from decision fatigue.
It’s a real thing, and decision fatigue is costing you a LOT of time, money, and energy, and taking you away from the things you WANT to be doing.
Fortunately, in this week’s episode of FreeMamaTV, we’re covering ways to cut out all that non-essential decision making so that you can focus on the things that actually matter.
We’re going to review six strategies that you can start using immediately to avoid making the decisions that wear you out and keep your energy for what’s really important.
Decision fatigue is costing you. So don’t think about it. Just head on over to the YouTubes. There. I decided for you.
Now that I live in Kansas City, my parents get to hang out with my kids a lot more, which is AWESOME.
A couple of weeks ago, my mom bought a new car seat so that she’d be able to take Audrey places without having to switch car seats and reinstall them all the time.
I am not what you would call a master furniture builder, mama, so I left the task of assembling the car seat to my father.
Which turned out to be a bad choice.Why do we do this to ourselves?
From the moment the car seat was out of the box, my dad was in his element. Cursing under his breath, muttering to himself, insisting that the car seat was defective, and that we should take it back to the store.
This thing is ridiculous! he finally shouted, at which point, Justin joined him.
Now there were two men, cursing and muttering as they tried to put together a FIVE PIECE car seat. I could hear them arguing. I watched them struggle to install one arm for a good seventeen minutes.
They got nowhere.
Afraid for the tender ears of my children, I finally interrupted. “May I please try?”
The menfolk insisted that I, a mere woman of inferior strength, would not be able to make any sense of this complicated machinery.
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I mean, that’s not quite what they said. What they actually said sounded more like,
MMMRRRSPHDGDF SDFHEUER BLASTED SHDEYSSAPWYE MMMSDYEXDHFG, which I took to mean that they felt they had the situation under control.
Let me paint you a picture. The two of them had taken over the entire living room floor at this point. They had a screwdriver and a HAMMER, and they were trying to REMOVE an armrest, because they were CERTAIN it should not have been installed at that point in the process.
Have you ever, EVER had to use a HAMMER to put a car seat together?
(Confidential to Grumpa: THE ANSWER IS NO.)
This was when I could no longer contain myself, and I picked up the instruction manual for the car seat.
STEP ONE: INSERT THE ARMEST, said the manual, with a helpful illustration.
And while my father and my husband were trying to align to pieces perpendicular to each other, the image clearly showed that the pieces should instead be horizontal.
Within about one minute, I had the armrest properly in place, and about three minutes after that, the car seat was assembled.
(My mother clapped for me. My father and husband did not. I have noted this and will adjust my love for them accordingly.)
I literally followed the instructions created by the people who already knew how to achieve the end goal, and I was able to get there faster, and with far less frustration.
Bless it. Does that sound like anything you’ve experienced, mama? Why do we do this?
Look.
You want to build a business? You can do it the hard way. Get your hammer and screwdriver and bang on things. Mutter a lot.
Or.
Check out my free training on freelancing, where I literally walk you through the process that is PROVEN to get you to the outcome you want.
You DO NOT have to figure it out on your own. You DO NOT have to wonder, WHO MADE THIS DAGNABBIT THING? You DO NOT have to work yourself to a frenzy and make yourself nuts.
Keeping up with your business is taking a lot of your time lately, mama.
As you’re growing, there are more and more tasks to do, and you’re starting to feel overwhelmed. And you see these other business owners talking about VAs and teams, and you’re starting to think that maybe it’s time to grow your team.
via Everything’s Gonna Be Ok on GIPHY
Look, I’m all in favor of outsourcing in your business — when the time is right.
If you start too soon, all you’ll do is create an even bigger headache for yourself, and that’s the last thing you need.
So, today on FreeMamaTV, we’ll walk through four solid reasons to start outsourcing in your business. You’ll be able to take a look at what’s going on in your world, and determine whether outsourcing is the best next step for you — or if it’s going to turn into a setback or a time suck.
If you’re curious if it is time to grow your team by outsourcing, then be sure to tune into this week’s episode of FreeMamaTV.
Early in December, I broke. Like, ugly crying, temper tantrum, yelling at everyone around me, BROKE. I felt like a failure.
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After our move, it just all got to be too much. Homeschooling the kids meant that I had no time to myself. No more babysitter meant no time for my business. No time for the gym. No time to breathe, think, create, reflect.
I was constantly frustrated with my kids, my husband, and myself.
And then I felt guilty for feeling frustrated, for wanting time for myself, for wanting time for my business, for wanting time to pee.
I’m guessing you’ve been there once or twice.
When I thought about “quitting” homeschooling, I felt like a failure. Sure, I could logic my way out of that super-fun dilemma, but I’m working on feeling my feelings these days, and HOLY GUACAMOLE was I ever feeling the feelings.
Which is when I had the epiphany that what if what’s best for me is actually what’s best for my family?
Right now, Audrey neeeeeeeeeds to be around other kids, to learn social skills, to play age-appropriate games with peers. To learn to wait in line, to take her turn, to assert herself in a healthy way, to argue with other kids — all of it.
ALSO, when I’m honest with myself, having her at home while I’m trying to work with the other two is making me LOSE. MY. COOL.
Daphne misses the rigor of school days. She thrives in a classroom environment surrounded by friends. At home, she droops.
I can objectively tell you that I’m pretty sure my kids need to go back to school, and at the same time, I can tell you that saying those words out loud makes me feel like a failure.
Now, mama, I am extremely anti mom-guilt. It’s against my religion, you might say. But tell that to my achy-breaky heart, which is FEELING all kinds of mom guilt.
Is it selfish to want to go to the gym? If you asked me, I’d tell you OF COURSE NOT! But when I ask myself, it feels selfish. And that makes me feel small.
Isn’t it amazing how we can do this to ourselves?
Like, let’s say you made a decision about your business that felt like exactly the right decision in the moment. But fast forward a few months, and you’re miserable. And yet, you’re afraid to change direction, because that would signal failure.
Today is SUPER special, mama. We’re celebrating the 100th episode of FreeMamaTV. Can you believe we’ve been on the air for two years already?
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Running a business takes work. It takes time and dedication. It takes money. And as you grow, it takes a team of people who are committed to your vision.
In this week’s episode, I want to do something really special. Something that would have helped me a LOT if I’d had it back I was getting started.
I’m going to take you behind the scenes of running a 7-figure business — but for real.
Today, you’ll see our profit and loss, our recurring revenue, and our expenses. If you’ve wondered how much I pay my team, how much I spend on ads, and where else my money goes, you don’t want to miss this episode.
Check out today’s special behind the scenes episode of FreeMamaTV for a real, unfiltered look at running a successful business.
If you had told me a year ago that right now I’d be living on a farm in Kansas and homeschooling my children, I’d have thought you were smoking cocaine.
SIDE NOTE: I do not actually know if cocaine is a thing that you smoke.
But I definitely would have believed that you were on SOMETHING because this is absolutely a thing I could never have imagined a year ago.
And that’s the thing about a year, you know? You have no idea where it can take you.
We overestimate what we can do in a day, and we underestimate what we can do in a year, and here we are. We finally made it.
I don’t know about you, but I really could not have imagined this in my wildest dreams.
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And I know that this year has been devastating for many, but I want to take a few moments to focus on 20 things that made me extremely happy this year.
Some of these are things that happened to me, some of these are things I did, some of these are things that we created in our community, and some of these are — well. You’ll see. Come along.
In January, which was approximately 8 years ago, I went on a cruise with my family, hung out with Russell Brunson, and took a few minutes to celebrate this amazing community we’ve built.
I earned a 2-Comma Club award, a major achievement for my business. It took me some time to be able to say that publicly, but I’m owning it. I’m super proud of it.
When the pandemic hit, we created Free Mamas Unite, a huge, free event, where we came together and learned from some of the smartest people in the world. We pulled over 40 speakers together in a matter of days, and I’m so glad that we did.
When the world went crazy, we were able to Elevate Black Voices, because this community has ALWAYS been a place where Black lives matter, where BIPOC women are welcome and celebrated, and where we will always stand up for what we believe in.
We launched the Free Mama Squad to create support and accountability for women in our community.
My family and I went on an 8-week RV trip — a thing we thought we might “one day” do when we retired. We made that dream happen.
We got to see so much of this beautiful country. We had a chance to show our children how we live our values. We got to stand in the streets of Washington, D.C. and speak our truth.
When we were forced to suddenly change our plans, we had the ability to be flexible.
When we needed to be with family, we were able to be with family.
Over two dozen students told us they left their day jobs.
We launched Free Mama Radio on my birthday.
We spent time with our kids. SO MUCH TIME.
We replanned Free Mama Live as a virtual event that exceeded everyone’s expectations. We brought together world-class speakers and spent two full weeks learning, growing, and doing.
We planned a major move, packed up a house, and got it all done while I ran a 2-week live event from an AirBnB.
We celebrated the first ever Free Mama Awards Ceremony. 13 Free Mamas shared with us their first $5k month in business in 2020. 6 made over $100,000. Some even made over $300,000.
We put a woman in the White House. A woman of color. IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
We got a dog.
We live near family again.
We launched the Inner Circle for Life and re-launched the Free Mama Squad Membership.
I got to wake up every day and serve you.
It’s been a year but we finally made it, mama. And while I can’t say that I loved every minute, and while there were certainly dark days — for our country, and for the world — there were also a lot of really good moments, and I’m humbled that you choose to share so many moments with me.
