Episode 511. In today’s episode, Tersh and Jeffrey talk about 6 MUST DO’s for you to succeed when starting your own small business. Our Deep Dive~ Stand out by being different Answer unasked questions Learn the emotional triggers of your clients (look below to learn HOW to learn these emotions!) …you’ll have to listen to the rest of the episode for these juicy details! “It’s a phenomenal thing when you think about it…like, not only did Starbucks get us to rethink paying three bucks or four bucks for a cup of coffee, but now let’s pay for it one hundred dollars in advance before you even drink it.” -Jeffrey Shaw RESOURCES Get your free resources here SelfEmployedBundle.com Pick up your copy of the book by visiting https://TheSelfEmployedLife.me Learn more about Tersh by visiting https://serviceemperor.com Connect with Tersh on social media @tershblissett Have you ever wondered HOW to target your perfect client?!? It’s EMOTION…EMOTION is what sells, and this link is how you learn your client’s emotion for free… visit https://admanity.com/SBM/ to get this free share that I (Tersh) stand behind 100%! “If you know how people will emotionally react, you have an advantage more valuable than all of humanity’s innovations.” Thank you for listening to another episode of the Service Business Mastery Podcast!
Show Notes
Tersh talks with Jeffrey Shaw, the author of The Self Employed Life!
“But that’s in fact, what made me different than all the other photographers is that I actually forgot it was a product. I always said I was selling the intangible you know, the result was photographed and in my case are very large portraits to hang on the wall, major art pieces to hang in a room. So, I mean, the product was a significant result, but I succeeded because it was never the product I was selling, really.” -Jeffrey Shaw
Jeffrey has been a portrait photographer for 36 years, and he knows more about how to serve clients and how to be self-employed than most. This fact alone could be enough for most people to visit www.theselfemployedlife.com!
If you are looking to journey out into the entrepreneur world, check out this episode because we cover topics across the board that will help you start your business.
In today’s episode, Tersh and Jeffrey talk about 6 MUST DO’s for you to succeed when starting your own small business.
Our Deep Dive~
- Stand out by being different
- Answer unasked questions
- Learn the emotional triggers of your clients (look below to learn HOW to learn these emotions!)
- …you’ll have to listen to the rest of the episode for these juicy details!
“It’s a phenomenal thing when you think about it…like, not only did Starbucks get us to rethink paying three bucks or four bucks for a cup of coffee, but now let’s pay for it one hundred dollars in advance before you even drink it.”
-Jeffrey Shaw
RESOURCES
- Get your free resources here SelfEmployedBundle.com
- Pick up your copy of the book by visiting https://TheSelfEmployedLife.me
- Learn more about Tersh by visiting https://serviceemperor.com
- Connect with Tersh on social media @tershblissett
- Have you ever wondered HOW to target your perfect client?!? It’s EMOTION…EMOTION is what sells, and this link is how you learn your client’s emotion for free… visit https://admanity.com/SBM/ to get this free share that I (Tersh) stand behind 100%!
“If you know how people will emotionally react, you have an advantage more valuable than all of humanity’s innovations.”
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Service Business Mastery Podcast!
Learn more about Tersh at https://ServiceBusinessMastery.com
Transcription
Tersh Blissett: [00:00:06] Hello, everyone, out there in podcast world. Hope you have a great day. You were listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery Podcast. I’m your host Tersh Blissett today’s episode. We’re going to talk about the self-employed life. And I’m super excited because, hey, I’m self-employed and we’re going to talk a little bit about that dove deep into it. For those of you who don’t know, this is your first time listening to this show where you just kind of stumbled upon this, or one of your really awesome awesomest friends recommended the show to you. This is the Service Business Mastery Podcast. It’s a podcast focused on service business owners, managers and technicians who are considering becoming business owners themselves. My goal with this podcast is to help answer the unasked questions. Or maybe you just you have a service business that you’ve had for several years. Maybe you inherited it and you just have some burning questions that you want answered. My whole goal is to help answer those questions. With that being said, today, we have Jeffrey Shaw coming on the show, and I am super excited to talk to Jeffrey today, below podcast host. He has the Self-employed Life podcast. Check it out. If you haven’t if you don’t know of it already, check it out and then also has a book coming out. And so, you know, modest Jeffrey, he’s not going to talk about that too much. But I am I’m going to definitely pull it out of them. I want you to go get this book is on preorder by the time you listen to this. If you’re listening to it live, then it’s going to be ready for you to preorder and you need to pick it up. But with that being said, that means that. Jeffrey, welcome to the show.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:01:38] Hey, Tersh glad to be here with you. Thanks for having me.
Tersh Blissett: [00:01:40] Absolutely. My pleasure. So tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and what makes Mr. Jeffrey tick.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:01:49] Yeah, so I’ll start to start from current and kind of move backward. So today I am a small business consultant, specifically focusing on helping small business and self-employed business owners to develop themselves personally, you know, to work with personal development, as well as really innovative business strategies so that they can have success in life. They want my background. I’ve been a portrait photographer for very affluent families for 36 years now. I do far less of it now, with very little photography. But it was my mainstay, my main income for 25 years until I kind of started switching to coaching, consulting, speaking, et cetera. So, you know, your show is so meaningful to me because I’ve always been in service-oriented businesses. And I would say 95 percent of the businesses that I coach today are service-oriented businesses as well as I do find service. I don’t I work with some companies that develop products.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:02:50] But, you know, they tend to be in a very that’s an important component, I think, of being self-employed. Yeah. We are in service-oriented business relation-based businesses. And that makes the experience different than what we see often from other brands.
Tersh Blissett: [00:03:08] Yeah, absolutely. And it’s and the fact that you are the life of that business people, what’s the best way this? People can assume that it’s a product-based business. Your product is your commodity, whereas, in reality, it’s the relationship you have. So we know that we provide a, you know, above-average air conditioning service, and to someone who isn’t used to dealing with service industries, they may just say, well, all air conditioning companies are the same who’s quickest when they can get out here or, you know, all of them that have four-star or high reviews on Google, they’re all the same. And so it’s it is wildly different. And I’m excited to hear what you have to say about just the life in general of being self-employed.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:04:04] Yeah. You know you raise actually a really good point. And it hadn’t really occurred to me how quickly I identified my business experience as a photographer. I mean, I said, you know, it’s a service-oriented business. The fact matter is the product. Right. But that’s in fact, what made me different than all the other photographers is that I actually forgot it was a product. I always said I was selling the intangible you know, the result was photographed and in my case are very large portraits to hang on the wall, major art pieces to hang in a room. So, I mean, the product was a significant result, but I succeeded because it was never the product I was selling, really. And to be honest, Tersh it was even more than the service. You know, it was something I often say in my keynotes is that.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:04:51] Serving your clients is giving them what they’ve asked for, a deeper level of service is, as you use a photography reference, is seeing people and often as an expert, what that means is that you particularly you know, you ask business, any of those businesses that it’s known what people need that they don’t know to ask for. Yes, right. That’s the difference is like, you know, if I have a problem with my AC or something, it’s like, you know, I think I know I just need a new filter. I just need this. Like, guess what, dude? You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re not the expert in it. Right. So an expert shows up not to just serve their clients and give them what they asked for, to look for what they don’t know to ask for. And that’s what separates you.
Tersh Blissett: [00:05:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. And it’s so true because to get for me, I feel like the five-star rating is overrated or it’s overused probably is a better way of saying it because of what you were saying about. So they requested a portrait, a family portrait and you could have just taken them and just set them down on the couch, took their picture. You know, basically what I would do with my iPhone and, you know, here, here’s your family portrait, but that’s not what you did. You provided an experience with them and you make that moment. And that’s the same with air conditioning like it’s the full experience there. And that’s what deserves five stars. If you just go there and fix the air conditioning unit, you just go there and take a photo, a photo of the family. If you just go there and do the bare minimum, then that’s honestly like a three-star service, because that’s. That’s a satisfactory level. To get to a five-star, you should really be doing Phanatic work.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:06:44] And the fact matter is that, you know, if you meet people’s expectations, they say nothing. Right. And people have high expectations today. So if you meet their expectations, they’re satisfied. They won’t they won’t blast you on social media or in reviews. But they’re also not going to say anything, you know, but we know how quickly people will respond if they’re dissatisfied. Right. But, you know, I would even challenge I lately these days, I’m challenged a notion of experience a lot because.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:07:13] You know, first of all, I think to really win over your clients today, it is to make them feel like you get them, like you get their lifestyle. What makes them tick their emotions? Right. What I often say is that the goal in marketing today is to get your customers to say, wow, it’s like you’re in my head because that’s a home run. So the notion of experience can be confusing because, you know, one person’s experience is another person’s nightmare. You know, I went to a resort not too long ago and it was, you know, a high-end resort in Hawaii and all that nice stuff. And the travel agent picked it. And I actually hated the experience because I don’t like people to dote on me. I don’t like the fact that every time I got up to jump the pool, they straightened out my towel like I felt invaded like I just wanted to jump in the pool, come back, and my town was all crumpled up where I left it. I don’t want it fixed every time. I don’t want my drink. So I felt like there were these mysterious people coming out from behind the rocks and refilling my water. And I actually don’t like that. So one person’s experience is another person’s nightmare. And so who are we as a brand in our business to decide the experience that people want to have? What I suggest, what I think is more important is to really understand what people value, what’s important to them. You know, and if you’re dealing with some if you’re in a service-oriented business and you’re in some way involved in people’s homes, be it their AC or plumbing, anything that’s there, that’s the biggest investment in their life.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:08:46] Right, I spoke a while back to a consult with a company that the pest control and worked with the rebranding and, you know, they were just like every other pest control company when they were talking about a pest, you know, killing bugs, what separated them. What we did was separate by tapping into the emotions of what it feels like to protect your most important asset. Right. So that’s how you separate yourself from the competition. And we all have competition no matter what industry. Yeah, right. But, you know, as a homeowner, it rarely means I don’t care about how you kill the bugs. Right. What I care about is likely that you understand that it’s bigger than that. It’s about protecting my biggest asset. It’s about doing it in a way that I know any time I’ve ever had pest control has to come into my house. I’ve always had to ask, is it safe for my dog? So I wonder why it isn’t a pest control company. Just tell me that upfront, because if they tell me that and their 10 competitors don’t, I’m going to choose them. Right. If I know that upfront on their website because that’s a big concern. If you’re going to be spraying the foundation of my house or the interior walls, I want to know that my dog is safe because he’s going to lick everything. Right, right. Right. So that’s that to me is what it means to do more than serve, but to serve at a deeper level.
Tersh Blissett: [00:10:12] So what I hear and correct me if I’m wrong here, is tapping into emotion, figuring out their emotion and the emotion behind the reason they called you or reached out to you.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:10:28] Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, I actually refer to it as emotional triggers. Right. My previous book was called Lingo and Lingo was a brand marketing strategy, brand messaging strategy. And it was to understand somebody’s lingo is to understand them at such a deep level that it’s almost like they’re you’re speaking to their hidden emotions. The lingo is not jargon or jargon. It’s like industry jargon. But lingo is that really tapping into unspoken emotions.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:10:58] So that’s that is that that’s how you stand out. Right. And the reason this is so important, particularly for self-employed businesses, is that. We tend to be, especially if it’s a service-oriented, self-employed business, I mean, you’re entirely relation-based. Yeah, right. And I’ll give you a classic example. We see all the time in businesses where businesses that offer deals to new customers only. Honestly, in a relationship business, that’s one of the worst things you can do.
Tersh Blissett: [00:11:30] Yeah, I’ve always said that it’s. And what about the guy that’s been here religiously, has always been here, and done supported your small business from the get it?
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:11:43] I mean, do we understand why? Yeah, but it never sits well with an existing customer. I actually, you know, in my book I talk about there’s a whole chapter on loyalty and retention and how to increase that. And one of the things that every business, particularly a service-oriented business, should always have some kind of a loyalty program built and some benefit for being a customer, hopefully, more than just a punch card. You know, five coffees, you get one free, like hopefully something more substantial than that.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:12:09] But to always something that they find out about. Only after they’ve become a customer, it’s not even useful to something like that. Yeah, so, I mean, I’ll just I’ll use my photography business as an example again and again. The key is, is that this is not a marketing ploy to get the customers. It’s when you get them, how do you keep your product right. And in a service-oriented business, you want to be the go-to person always. So what we did in my photography business, we introduced what was called a priority client prepay offer now addressed it addressed a very specific need in the peak years, my photography business, which was I had an eight-week waiting list, which sounds great. But the problem is it was all the clients that that hired me in my early years, the people that stood behind me when I had no name. They were used to getting a photoshoot in a week or two. And now they’re calling my staff. So they’re not even getting through to me immediately. And they’re now getting staff and the staff is telling them eight weeks, that’s not going to sit well and nor should it because they’re the ones that built up my business in the first place. So what we do is we introduce this priority client prepay offer where we offered clients to prepay in February for a session that they wanted to do any time in the future.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:13:24] Now, most people thought a year ahead, but it could be five years in advance because they know the child is going to graduate high school, whatever, because it was a deposit, it wasn’t contingent to changing prices. So they would pay a deposit.
Tersh Blissett: [00:13:36] Okay, so it didn’t it didn’t lock them into that price?
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:13:39] No, no, so it was purely a deposit that they paid. You know, they paid money upfront. It saved them a little. We gave them a little credit, their account. It wasn’t discount-minded. It was more because it was high-end. So it was more upgrade-minded. So they paid a deposit. We added twenty percent of accounts to be used any time in the future. Right. But the big key was and it wasn’t about the savings of money. Truly the big driver was. The reason we did it in February is that there was a slow season. We told them we would be in touch with them. We would ask them, when did you want to do your photoshoot? And we would be in touch with them three months before their desired photoshoot time so that they had priority scheduling before our typical curve of the eight-week waiting list.
Tersh Blissett: [00:14:27] And you could also you could plan out/budget your schedule.
Tersh Blissett: [00:14:32] So we know now, all these years later, I guess the only I don’t take on new clients. I only work with people that let me know in February that they want to do a shoot that year so I can plan my life accordingly. The cool thing is, is that, you know, as a photographer, I photographed entirely on location in the Northeast. There’s no photography January through April because the weather’s horrible in the Northeast. Right. So Fabricius all cash flow. These are just clients, I mean, which is a huge cash cow. So we’re turning out to be a huge win for my business as well. But that was a major emotional hook for people. Right. And just made them.
Tersh Blissett: [00:15:05] How do you figure out that hook, though? I mean, because I pondered and we do some things like that also. But I’m just wondering, like, if you’re listening to this episode, like and you’re in a completely different industry, and you’re like, man, like,
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:15:21] Well, I tell you where I got the idea for this was from Starbucks, honestly. So when Starbucks is going back years ago, but when Starbucks first introduced their own, you know, credit card, if you will, like, you would go put money on it. Now, you know, this is going back probably the early 2000s, you know, when they came up with this idea and I was fascinated by it. So the idea was they introduced this card that you could instant in the back in the day. People weren’t giving as a gift as much. They were used to using it for themselves. So imagine just due to the psychology of it, people were putting fifty bucks, one hundred bucks on a card to buy their future coffee. Yeah, right. There was no discount benefit for that, by the way.
Tersh Blissett: [00:16:05] I think that. Right. And I remember I remember now thinking that I’m like. And there wasn’t a discount for it.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:16:12] No discount. It’s a phenomenal thing when you think about it like not only did Starbucks get us to rethink paying three bucks or four bucks for a cup of coffee, now let’s pay for it. One hundred dollars in advance before you even drink it. Yeah. What’s the psychology behind that one is that it had a cool factor, right? So somehow you felt like you’re part of a club of a brand that you liked. So that’s something a brand can think about. Like how do you make your customers? That’s why we called it the priority client prepay offer. Right. We created a club among our most high is valued clients. Any business can do that. It had a convenience factor to it because you didn’t worry, but you’d have to worry about the cash with you. So again, convenience factor by paying ahead of time, they didn’t have to worry about the scheduling. They were handing me over control, which they love. Right. So there’s just the underlying psychology that can be adapted to the business. I also will add to it that another way that any business and any industry can really level up and making their clients feel special is to remember the details. So I’ll give you an example. This worked in my photography business, but I also worked with a hair salon and we told them to do the same thing.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:17:30] And you can systematize this sort of thing if you’re in a business where people tend to cancel appointments, find out why they’re canceling. Right. They’ll probably say something like, I’m really sorry, I have to change my haircut appointment because my son’s soccer team made it to Nationals or something. Mark that down the next time that person Reebok’s when they called to rebook. Or what with his hair salon, what I loved is that it was put into a system, so the hairstylist always check that system. So when they are, let’s say in this case, the woman sat down the chair, the hairstylist who wasn’t the person on the phone said, by the way, how did your son’s soccer game go? Yes, that’s mind-blowing service. Right, because they’re wondering, how did you even know that? Yeah, right. All it took was the person on the front line taken the calls to make a note. The stylist having a pattern of just checking the notes, the client’s notes. But it’s as simple as that. But what a mind-blowing experience it is for somebody to have an experience with a business, a service-oriented business that knows those details.
Tersh Blissett: [00:18:37] Yeah, it’s so it’s funny you mention that, because part of our process is to gather that incognito information constantly, all like each person who touches you as a client, they are required to get as much information as possible without it being sound like a creeper. One of the questions that are supposed to be asked whenever you make the phone call to make the appointment is some kind of way in the conversation. Ask, you know, if there’s and I’m paraphrasing this because I’m not the person who does this every day. So they do a lot more gracefully than I do. But just what’s something that is under 20 dollars that you just couldn’t live without? What’s the first thing that comes to mind? And they would snicker and say, like a taco or what’s your favorite thing to have under 20 bucks? And they say like a candy bar and three or four visits later, one of our service experts will show up with that candy bar like that. Whatever brand, the candy bar that is. And same with Pet’s name. So Pets’ names are always marked in our system so that every single time a service goes out there, Service Emperor goes out to the house. We know the pets’ names. We know how many pets they have, children’s names, favorite sports teams. And so it’s just something that’s just in our culture that we constantly gathering that information. And that’s something that I think I learned from mythology. Maybe. Yeah, yeah. So it’s awesome. It’s just one of those things that are just built into our culture in general.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:20:12] Yeah. And I think things like that are even more important today because of health concerns. Right. So when I was working with the pest control company, we were rebranding due to, you know, what needed to be reconsidered after the covid. And, you know, if they’re entering people’s homes, you know, we suggested finding not only let people know your protocol, your safety protocol but find out if there anybody in the house of higher risk and how are you going to navigate that? Is there a grandmother? Is there an elderly person living in the house so that you can minimize their risk? And it’s just really important to show up with that level of sensitivity today and know that this is an area where your client base overall is going to be so split. You’re going to have some people like I happen to be, you know, one of those people that are extremely cautious and quite honestly, Tersh, you know, otherwise healthy. I don’t worry about dying from it, but I’m really busy. I can’t afford the three weeks of being sick. You know, I just look at it that way. It’s like I’m pretty sure I’ll survive the illness, although I don’t want to take that for granted. But I got a book coming out like I can’t afford the time off, like, so stay away. Keep me safe. Right. Because I just I’m all about being productive. And that is one of the factors of being self-employed. Right.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:21:31] What if you’re self-employed, even if you have a staff, it’s the effect on your business if you’re out of commission for, you know, a few weeks, which is why part of my work is is around self-care, you know, I mean, that’s part of the messaging behind my work as well as, you know, how are you taking care of yourself to maximize your productivity as well as how are you taking care of yourself? Because without you, there’s a really good chance that your business can’t survive. Not in the long term.
Tersh Blissett: [00:22:03] Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you can put the policies and procedures in place, but when the cat’s away, the mice will play.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:22:10] Yeah, it’s nice that it’s and it’s such a dichotomy when on one hand, as you know, as an author and the work that I do, it’s a bit of a paradox because on one hand, I feel like I’m often encouraging people to scale their business in a way that they don’t feel like they hold the weight of the world is on their shoulders. Because if that’s the case, then you’re limited by how much weight you can carry. Right. So there’s that. What can you do? But there’s also the harsh reality that it is a self-employed business and you are that you are the face of that business. You are the leader of that business. And without you, there’s going to be a huge effect. So it’s important. I said just I think empathy is sort of the word in business today that the. The more we can expand our empathy and understanding that people are in different places for their own reasons, the we need to stop the fighting and the thinking that everybody should be alike. The reality is you don’t know who you’re encountering that has a genuine risk, you know, and how they need to take care of themselves.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:23:11] Or I have a friend who has a son who’s significantly at risk for other health reasons. And, you know, so it’s the role of the whole family to keep him safe because it would definitely put his life at risk.
Tersh Blissett: [00:23:25] So and you have to think about this also not to go off on a tangent just about this pandemic in general, but just that that family member, not the one that is the super health adverse, can actually get sick. But the other family member, they can’t come in contact with anybody either, and they can’t come in contact with somebody who’s come in contact with someone. And it’s just it’s a domino effect that you have to be very, very cautious of. And like our service experts, we have a couple of them that are more on the commercial side and they’re used to being on the rooftops and stuff like that. And so whenever they get in a residential situation early on, they were like, well, they didn’t ask me to put a mask on. I don’t care if they ask if you need to put a mask on. Our policy is that we are masks, we’re gloves and we have shoe covers on and they’re disposed of after each call properly. And, you know, that’s our protocol and that’s what we share with everyone. So that’s why they call and trust us. They don’t have to ask you to put anything on it. We ask you to put it on. And so it’s that wrapping your head around that mindset of just like you said, I mean, exactly like you said, you know, it doesn’t matter if they think differently than you think or we think. It’s just having empathy for everyone in general.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:24:48] Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s you know, I’ve been in business long enough to have lived through a few crises, you know, 9/11. And I was living in New York at the time so. Well, and my clients were primarily Wall Streeters, you know, so that was a really significant event. And then, of course, there’s the Great Recession. So I always feel like, you know, it’s kind of like my third rodeo with dealing. And the fact matter is sold by nowhere near be the last. In fact, I would expect disruptions to our lives and businesses to come along at a more rapid rate. You know, it’s one thing to say, you know, every ten years something is going to come along, you know, what or whatever it is, whether it’s political unrest or economic unrest or a pandemic when you’re self-employed, that is honestly, Tersh, that’s the foundation of the book and the foundation as to why I wrote it, because for years I have asked every self-employed person I’ve ever met like, why? Why are you self-employed? And everyone has the same some variation of the same answer, which is they wanted to gain control, they wanted to control their destiny, their future. They wanted to control the hours they work and to which I reply, and how is that going for you? And everybody laughs alike. Yeah, what a myth that turned out to be. So but what I’ve realized is and I am a guy that likes to systematize everything which you can probably tell. But what I realized is that I had the answers. I had a lot of the answers to this because of my depth of experience.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:26:19] And what I know is that when you set up the right environment, what I refer to in the book as the self-employed ecosystem, and I look at it as an environment with three components, which are personal development, business strategies and daily habits, and mindsets. So these three components that make a thriving self-employed ecosystem with the right guidance, which is what I offer and what this book does is and what I do for clients on a one-to-one basis. The goal is if you can set up that environment, you’re giving yourself a 90 percent chance of it working. The problem in businesses and the reason why it feels so out of control is that if any one of those elements is off, it’s affecting everything. And that’s why I call this ecosystem, because it’s no different than nature. Right? If one element in a natural ecosystem is off, whether it’s the introduction of bacteria or here in Florida, I live in Miami and Python seven have invaded the Everglades. Right. And it’s a huge problem like it that can dramatically affect the entire ecosystem of the Everglades. So it’s because one element is off and that is what we need to that’s how you gain control so you can gain control by what you can control is the environment that you set up for your success. We actually can’t control everything that’s going to come along. But you know what? If your business is set up well, as mine is when something like a pandemic comes along, I look at it in what I refer to the book is the business model of multiples. It’s a bunch of levers, right? Income streams, different levers. So when something comes along, you’re in control to decide this lever is going to get yanked down as a professional speaker. That lever got yanked down so quick. Yeah, right. But fortunately, I have other levers like brand consulting and small business consulting, everybody trying to figure out what’s next. Right. That it actually is a great environment for me to succeed. So what I do, I ramp up that lever. That’s how you gain control. So my goal of this book and in all the work that I do is to help self-employed businesses gain is far more control than they have ever had or believe they can have. And also the strategies to manage what they can’t control. And that’s where daily habits and mindsets come in, because it’s you know, I make a comparison of the book that sometimes we when we’re self-employed, we put everything on the line. And in the end, sometimes we feel like a shirt hanging on a clothesline being affected by the wind. Right? Yeah, but you can gain far more control and you have to learn how to deal with what you can’t control because it’s going to come along, but you don’t want it to derail you. That’s where the goal is sustainable success. How can you even out the ups and downs which are inherent?
Tersh Blissett: [00:29:14] Sweet, I’m taking notes like a madman.
Tersh Blissett: [00:29:17] Where can we where can we pick up a copy of your book? And this episode is it’s being released, what, March the 3rd 2021. So if you listen to this, as soon as it’s being released live on all your podcast catchers, it’s going to be released on March 3rd of today’s March 3rd. As of right now, where do we go to pick up the book?
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:29:38] So it’s kind of a cool double whammy. So the book is currently for Preorder and Preorder for the paperback as well as, you know, e-book. The audio version will come out later. But by treating yourself to a copy of this book, I’ve also put together, which I’m really excited about the book, but I’m almost more excited about this. I’ve put together a two-day online summit called Self-employed Summit, and you know it Tersh. I did this because it doesn’t exist. When I started writing this book, know, I did my due diligence, I looked for what other books are out there for self-employed business owners? There aren’t any none that actually makes sense. The only books out there are things like, you know, taxes when you’re self-employed, and who cares? It’s not our biggest issue. It’s an issue, but not the biggest issue. So I also realize there’s just no events. Right. So I pulled together this two-day online event with ten of my most awesome speaker friends that get paid tons of money normally. And they’ve willingly done this because they care about the mission. They care about the mission to help sell existing self-employed businesses. And the other thing and this so fits into your show, we have the highest rate of unemployment since the Great Depression. With the highest rate of unemployment comes the highest rate of self employment.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:30:59] There are masses of people trying to figure out how to get control of their life again because they lost their job. They have families to feed. They they want to do something with their life. They’re going to be turning to self-employment to the extent that predictions are by 20, 30, 50 percent of the US population will be self-employed. Wow. It’s phenomenal. I mean, and not only you know, and I also think about the people incorporate that may have they may still have their job, but they’re relooking at their life and thinking, but I don’t want this job. I want to do something more meaningful. If you haven’t learned that life is short in twenty twenty, when are you going to learn it? Exactly right. So we have this mass exodus towards self-employment and there’s really no vehicles out there. And that’s why I pulled together this summit. So with the preorder of the book that gives you direct access to this two-day online education called Self-employed Summit, the place to get the book, what you can buy from your typical online retailer is that I recommend going to the self-employed life me. The reason being is that there are actually nine online retailers. You can buy the book. And I did that very intentionally because I didn’t. Hey, I wrote a book for self-employed business owners.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:32:12] I didn’t want all the money to just go to the big behemoth. All right. Right. So there are online retailers where when you purchase the book through a smaller online retailer, a portion of the proceeds go to independent bookstores, things like that. So I want to walk my talk. So the self-employed left me is great access for that. The other thing I think would be really sweet for your folks is I’ve actually put together a whole bundle of graphics from the book. I’m a big believer in visuals and allowing them to support you and they can grab that as a https://selfemployedbundle.com, it’s my gift to your listeners.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:32:49] https://selfemployedbundle.com It’s got marketing graphs, you know many of the things in the book. So it’s a great companion to to the book as well. It also stands on its own, too. You’ll as an explanation of what the different things mean. Sweet. Yeah, it’s a good tool. It’s a great tool for people.
Tersh Blissett: [00:33:06] I love it. That’s awesome, man. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate everything you’ve mentioned here because there have been tons of golden nuggets that were just littered throughout the entire conversation. Is where’s the best place for them to learn more about you? Like, are you on one particular social media more than the other?
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:33:27] Or I’m pretty much on all of them.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:33:29] But honestly, if you you know, I am, as you can tell a lot about relationship building and relationships are best built when you get something from me first, which is why I suggest grab self-employed, bundle dotcom, because, you know, I’m going to make sure that you know, where how else we can stay in touch if you choose to live. Right. So I’m on all the platforms. I’m active on all of them, even clubhouse, which is the new way to kind of figure out what that’s all about. It’s actually kind of cool. It’s kind of it is as a podcast or it’s I can get into it. We’ll just see where it goes. There’s also a lot of fighting, so we’ll see where it goes.
Tersh Blissett: [00:34:04] And also, don’t forget to check out your podcast, The Self-employed Life podcast.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:34:08] Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, it’s you know, for yourself. All of us. That is self-employed. It’s a crazy life and it can be a lonely one, I really don’t think anybody can understand our existence who’s not self-employed. Yep. I just you know, and I’m not saying having a corporate job is easy. Mm-hmm. Although I don’t think it’s as challenging as being self-employed. I mean, I really don’t. I’ll be honest. Like, I just I this is a tough road and we need each other. And that’s why I do the work that I do. It’s like I am. I want to be the hero for self-employed business owners and that to my dying days because it’s all I’ve known. I’ve never actually I’ve never received a paycheck ever like since the age of 14. I’ve been finding my own way. I sold eggs door to door when I was 14 years old and have never stopped. So this is what I fight for. So I’m excited for your listeners for sure.
Tersh Blissett: [00:35:01] Yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Jeffrey, for coming on the show today.
Jeffrey Shaw: [00:35:04] Thank you. Tersh, I appreciate it.
Tersh Blissett: [00:35:05] Yeah. And if anybody has any questions at all, don’t forget https://selfemployedbundle.com. Definitely go check out there. https://theselfemployedlife.me pick up your copy of the book before it’s released. And if you have any questions over and above any of that, feel free to reach out to me. Tersh Service Emperor Dotcom. That’s my personal email address that comes straight to my cell phone. You will get an autoresponder that tells you that I only check my email twice a day, but I will get back to you as soon as humanly possible. With that being said, thank you again, Jeffrey, for coming on the show. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Service Business Mastery Podcast, the podcast focused on service business owners, managers, and technicians who are considering becoming business owners themselves. Have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe out there.
