KELSEY & ALEX — Why Inspired Idiots?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be wealthy.

We want to take our families on vacation to Monaco, to own land, and to build a food forest that we can invite people to come eat from.

We want to live wealthy lives, but at what expense?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in our business journey, it’s this:

increasing your income doesn’t feel good when you’re not really fucking proud of what you do.

What separates the greatest entrepreneurs from all the others is that they’re motivated by their impact — not just money.

We want to be rich, fit, and in love — and to show other people how to do it, too.

Imagine a world where everyone felt wealthy, healthy, and loved.

We joined the LMV program because we wanted to start by learning how to help local businesses get customers.
This taught us insanely valuable business knowledge that we’ve used to go from $0 - $15,000 / month over the last year.

Most of the time, we felt like we had no idea what we were doing. This is why our brand is called inspired idiots.

You don’t need to know every step of the process in chasing your dream. You just need to take the next step.

Step-by-Step Strategy

1. Learned lead generation and message marketing.

2. Groupon app > selected a city > Categories: Local > Shop all

3. Selected businesses that we could provide our services to

4. Visited their website to find an email address or Facebook Page.

5. Sent this,
   “Hi there, [biz owner name]. I saw your ad on Groupon and wanted to reach out— as I know that Groupon doesn’t exactly help us business owners “thrive.”
   My name is Kelsey. I’m reaching out because I specialize in marketing for small businesses, and I’m currently looking to expand my network and run some free trials for some business owners. [Your niche] is one of the industries I have results and resources for.
   [Insert example of a relevant case study].
   Would you be interested in chatting this week to see if we’d be a good fit to work together? I’m very confident my marketing strategies would get [your company] a better ROI than Groupon.
   Look forward to hearing from you.
   Thank you.”

   
   

Groupon takes a 50% cut of all sales. So, it’s safe to assume that any small business willing to take that pay cut likely needs help getting customers.

When approaching this business owner, your messaging has to be about their struggles, their potential gain — and how you have the solution for them.

A generic message won’t connect with anyone — because no one will see themselves in your messaging.

This is what we really honed in on with our Groupon strategy.

• We explain how we found their business (feels more personal),

• we gently point out that we understand their struggle (empathy), and

• we confidently explain how we can help them improve their situation (with specific examples).

People don’t want to be sold to — they want to feel that you’re here to help them.

Isn’t Everyone + Their Mom Doing Digital Marketing Today?

The term “marketing” gets thrown around so loosey goosey.

This is why it’s important to not be a generalist with your offer.

Sure, it makes sense in the beginning to dabble in different industries and learn where you really thrive. But over time, you’ll want to hone in your focus so you can keep levelling up.

Focus on something you’re passionate and knowledgable about — you’ll be more likely to stick with it!

Find people you’re interested in working with and explain to them exactly how you’re going to help their business.

Example:
“I specialize in helping hair salons rank higher on Google, get more 5-star reviews, and develop stronger relationships with their clients resulting in more repeat bookings. By setting up a simple email campaign and a complimentary Facebook ad, my strategy typically earns my clients an extra $8-11,000 per month, which you can see in the case studies I’ve included below…”

It does not matter what “everyone else” is doing — the impact you have on the people you help is what sets you apart.

Choose something you’re willing to spend time on, focus on helping people, and fucking commit to making it work.

How to Price Yourself

It’s helpful to learn what the typical market value is for your services, before you become comfortable charging what your time’s worth to you.

If someone knows they can make $1,000 / hour — they’re probably not going to prioritize a $20 / hour task.

Our first client paid us $500 per month, which felt huge! But after a couple months of getting him AMAZING results (seriously, we got podiatry leads for $4 — less than HALF industry average), we felt that we were convincing him to keep going.

This was an important lesson for us: we can only help people who want to be helped.

This guy didn’t know if he wanted to grow — he didn’t even know if he wanted to stay in podiatry!
And we weren’t down to chase someone every month for $500.

As a newbie, it’s okay to offer discounts because you’re hungry for those first clients.
Prove to them the value that you bring — and prove it to yourself, too!

But if someone really undervalues you, ask yourself…

“If I wasn’t concerned about money at all, would I agree to work with this person?”

When we started valuing our time more than money, it felt like we levelled up.

Tools + Costs

• GHL - Client management - $197 USD / month

• Later - Social scheduling & analytics - $25 USD / month

• Riverside - Recording entrepreneur interviews - $19 USD / month

• Opus Pro - Cutting clips - $9.50 USD / month

Today, we also have a virtual assistant who helps us with organizational tasks.

Landing Clients

Be the real you.

One of people’s biggest concerns about being their own boss is selling.

We have this fear of being seen as a dirty salesperson. But what does that actually look like?

Actions that prioritize the seller’s benefit over the buyer’s.

Put simply: if you know that your offer will actually improve that person’s life, then you won’t feel like you’re selling.

I don’t sell, I simply “real talk” to people about how we can help them.

When you’re talking with business owners, just be authentic.
Explain your strategy for helping them, and exactly how they’re going to gain from it.

Being real with clients + focusing on getting them great results = referrals.

Referrals are undeniably the best way to get clients.

Productivity Hack to Get Sh*t Done

What tricks have you used in the past to help yourself remember to do something?
That is the approach you should take with your business.

If I don’t write something down and set a reminder, I will almost certainly forget to do it.

Every single week, I write out all my goals:

How many sales am I going to close?
How many pieces of content will I script?
How many posts on each platform?

Then, I assign every individual task to a day of the week.

Now, I know what I’m getting done every single day. And if something doesn’t get done that day, it carries over to the next.

One Weird Wealth Habit

Stop being afraid to say you want to make money.

People often deny how much wealth they really want, because they don’t want to seem selfish.

But here’s the thing: wanting to earn JUST enough to get by it’s actually more selfish.

If you only make enough money to be comfortable and take care of yourself, how will you help other people?

You must have more in order to give more. And to have more, you need to first be willing to admit that you want it.

For Growing Entrepreneurs

1. There’s no such thing as “having no time.” You have time for the things that feel important to you. Make your wealth a priority.

2. Work on your body every single day. There are cognitive benefits to exercising, and seeing progress in both those areas feels really powerful.

3. Just take the next step. Stop worrying about 10 steps from now. Figure out the next step, then go from there. That is how you progress.

   
   

Find Kelsey & Alex’s BONUS advice in our end-of-month issue, where we’ll compare it to two others to give YOU the top takeaways!