Live Call: 1/15/24
Professionally Handling Clients that Have a or Develop a Sense of Entitlement so it does not continue. In this video we break down the Framework I use to handling these difficult entitled situations. We dive into what entitlement really is, handling entitled past and current clients as well as 5 foundational rules I use to stay centered and grounded. Definition of Entitlement: #1- the fact of having a right to something. #2- the amount to which a person has a right. The amount of entitlement one has is equal to what they’ve paid for. #3- the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. 5 Foundational Rules I use to keep me grounded in these tough situations of dealing with Entitled Clients #1 just because someone spends $$$ with you does not make them entitled to access to you. #2 Money is not worth your sanity or peace. #3 Do the right thing so you can sleep well at night knowing you did the right thing and you did your best. #4 You cant make everyone happy. #5 There are a lot of amazing people out there who are wonderful to work with. If you allow a bad egg to stay in the barn/your community- it’ll drive the other good ones away cause they stink. Don't let that happen.
Live Call: 1/8/24
Topic #1: Choosing the social media platforms that give you the most ROI on your time Do I have to use _____ social media? NO! In fact in the beginning, you’re better off to identify- I’m better at writing, video, audio and then choose a platform that compliments your preferred and best style of media. Or you may look at it from- what has the biggest potential ROI? Thats going to be video because of how the platforms are pushing video content. That doesn’t mean written content doesn’t have as much reach- I believe it just has to be that much better to get the attention which means if you’re good at writing you can rise to the top and cut through the noise. At the end of the day- It never does any good to spread yourself too thin. Writing- FB & IG Short Video- TT, IG, FB, YT Shorts Long Forum Video- YT primarily. Videos under 10min can be uploaded to FB, IG, & TT as well. Some of y’all are creating VIDEO offers like courses, memberships, etc. In those instances I highly encourage you to create a little more video content because it can familiarize your audience more with you and prime them for those offers. On Facebook specifically- Kathleen asked about using a personal versus professional business page. Can you build a following from your personal account- yes. Your settings will need to be very public and its not as easy for folks to follow you there so your audience capture rate won’t be as high. Doing this is a decision of saying ‘I’m just going to use this personal account as my business account’ which means you kinda give up the luxury of having a personal account that’s a bit separate from your business if you so desire. Using a business page can be beneficial as FB has made it easier for folks to follow pages as they need to keep up with growth of IG & TT. Using a biz page you get analytics and the ability to retarget audiences later if you choose to run ads. Downfall is the organic reach isn’t always great with biz pages which is why I recommend you share your content from your personal page as well. This is why I also recommend free Facebook groups offered as a lead magnet so you can corral your followers into a group, get email addresses and be able to reach them more consistently. Any questions on making those critical decisions on what platforms to focus on to get the best results you’re after in your own business? Topic #2: Standing out above the crowd Last week we discussed the impacts AI is having on consumer psychology - creating a lot of skepticism and distrust. And we discussed how we can use longer forum videos to help create deeper relationships with our audience to build stronger likeness and trust while also taking advantage of the massive opportunity to build [...]
Live Call: 11/20/23
How to maximize your time doing what you want while efficiently doing what you need With the holiday season, a lot of us are trying to figure out how we can spend more time with our families and enjoying the season without sacrificing our profitability While there may be some time-sucking tasks that you should cut out of your daily routine or outsource, there are other areas that could be made more efficient and would save you time (and maybe even money) in the long-run, far past the holiday season For most of us, the hands on tasks of taking care of the horses is the largest time investment of our day. This often leads us to not having as much time for our second biggest time commitment, office/admin tasks. So today we’re going to talk through some simple tasks both in the barn and in the office that could be more efficient. We’ve talked before about a time-audit and getting really clear about how you are spending your time. If you haven’t completed a time audit or if your day-to-day has changed significantly sine you last did one, it’s worth reproaching to get a clear idea of how your time is being allocated. This could also be a time to evaluate if there are more cost effective ways to get your daily tasks done. This is not to tell you to drop your current schedule spend the next 2 weeks researching and price shopping every part of your program! This can be a gradual task that you work on each week Keep in mind: sometimes the long-term efficient option takes more money upfront - that is why we often avoid it and stick it on our “one day when I get around to it” list. For us and our hay example, we had to buy nets and hay rings, not a small upfront investment. But now that we have them, we are on the upside of saving both time and money on our hay. Key point: Don’t let the upfront cost deter you from making the change that is going to save you money and time in the long-run. Replace your broken stuff! Yeah like that manure fork with 4 missing tines or that hose that is leaking in 3 areas making a mess everywhere or the wheelbarrow tire that won’t hold air. - Sometimes we deal with things because we are trying to avoid the COST of fixing it yet oftentimes we’re losing way more than we realize because of how much that broken thing is slowing us down or creating extra work for us. Since we’re on the topic of upfront costs, let’s also talk about buying items that are built to last. This is another area where it may cost you more upfront, but in the long-run you’re going to get more use and not waste time trying to rig it up and repair it when it breaks because you went the cheap route. [...]
Live Call: 10/9/23
Evaluation Scale- this is a way to objectively analyze where a horse or student is at in their journey. What I’m sharing with you here is a system for more clearly communicating standards and results as well as conducting evaluations. Ultimately by creating a standard scoring system- this backs up the standards in which you have for your program and does so in a quantifiable way that can be understood by other people. How do I know my system works? The ultimate test for me with something like this is: “Does it work for me? AND is it able to be used by other people aka my students, employees, followers etc?” If something only works for me then its not scalable and an evaluation system like this needs to work for you and them so that way others can adopt it, use it and gain value from your system. So what can it be used for?? This can be used for in the moment feedback to know where they are now based on your standards. To track daily/weekly/monthly progress during training or lesson sessions To create requirements/benchmarks that must be achieved before _____ Leaving training Selling a horse Moving to the next stage of training Moving up in difficulty for a lesson student What makes a system like this successful? Your system should be: Simple Balanced Thorough Easy to understand to the general public Steps: 1- Decide the specific things you will be evaluating. 2- Determine scale at which you will be grading on. 3- Determine within each specific area you are evaluating what the standard is for each particular bench mark in your grading scale. 4- Put to use. When creating a system you’ll be ‘forced’ to define what makes something terrible/poor, what makes that same thing average and also what makes that same thing GREAT. Defining these things gives yourself and others straight forward guidelines to be able to accurately use your scoring system. Tip when figuring out this piece: I start with the WORST (lowest score) and the BEST (highest score) definitions/examples. Then I work inward from there defining the difference between what is GREAT versus what is GOOD versus what is FAIR. Our Scale: works from -3 to +3. -3 being worst/couldn't get any more terrible. +3 being couldn’t get any better. REMEMBER - This is a scale that should be attainable for your students/horses. Black belt mastery example - once you learn the process, you can go through it again with a more well-defined perspective and begin working on the nuances. When utilizing this with Training Horses we’ve used this on a daily basis for our own record keeping but then uploaded weekly averages for progress reports for clients to see. This can showcase an upward trend in training without them freaking out about a horse potentially having a ‘bad’/off day sometime during the week.