Okay, Jordan, thanks for coming on the podcast. I was super excited to invite you on when I heard a little, a little bit of what you've been up to since we've been talking last. And so you're, you're, you're, what you've been working on is transitioning from freelancer in the weeds, doing the execution work, maybe even a narrow Portion of it. Email was one of your main specialties to more of a strategic capacity. And so, you know, there's signs of life that you're headed in those directions.
And I was really curious about how that's been going. You've also been exploring a niche and I wanted to talk to you about that as well, because there's a lot of people that are looking to transition out of done for you freelancing services, being one part of a greater, you know, one cog in a greater machine and to, to really think at a more strategic level and to operate at a higher level.
That's a big part of what compelled me to talk to you as well as the, this idea of what you're niching into. So maybe you can give us a quick background on maybe where you were, say a year ago, you know, just a snapshot of that and what, where you are in that sort of transitionary path towards more strategic work.
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm really stoked to be talking to you, Kevin. you you've been instrumental. Your advice has been huge and just. Changing how I am approaching my, my business. I've been, independently employed, for six going almost seven years now. I went, I left my job, my last job when I was right, right before my fourth child was born, born in the home and more flexible, we were starting homeschooling and such, And so I was just freelancing.
I had kind of come from just a generalist background and communications with nonprofits and kind of did some of that, that tapered off after a while, and then really sort of found a niche in, Email marketing, it, which, which was really a result of just what was working for me on Upwork.
I, I had, you know, I was doing, You know, web development, WordPress kind of stuff, but, but email really is what set me apart in Upwork and I grew my Upwork profile, that, that really took off well, you know, at this point now I'm, I'm over six figures just in Upwork, so it was a, it was a legitimately, you know, fed my family from it, but, the kinds of clients I was working with, there, there've been good clients that I've stuck with, but.
Others that were just like, what, like sort of like almost a shame to like, tell my children who I'm writing email emails for. know, it's just become kind of a joke, but you know, it's, it's what fed them. So I guess I can't bite that hint. so I was doing that work was kind of slowing down. I didn't have like a full roster. I didn't really know every month.
Like what I would be doing and I was having, it was stressing me out just not really being able to plan my week and, it was disruptive when, when I would get, you know, a job come in, it was like, kind of just shuffled everything in my family and my, my, my plans for the week. so that's kind of where I was a year ago. I was, I was, I was. Grossing, maybe between 60 and 70, 000 a year, just doing that kind of stuff.
I had a few regular retainers, doing newsletters and things like that, which have been good and I continue to do, but I was getting more sort of dissatisfied with, email and I was having trouble scaling that. so like I thought I would launch a service that was kind of more of a, even more focused around email. just like just doing newsletters. and I, I've, I've been with a couple of different coaches, Kevin, and before I came to your community.
and it's funny, they've really mapped onto, I think, like just stages of, of development. The first one I tried was like very infantile and very prescriptive in terms of like, you got to do, you got, got to get into like local Google ads and, and manage managing companies, you know, Google profile. So like his advice was to like change my business entirely. and that just wasn't really a fit or what I was going to do. The next coach I had was awesome actually.
And, but he was really big on this, kind of mass market, figure out your, your service and your offer and just get it out there and, and. So he was really big on optimizing the offer and things like that. and it being very, kind of a small discreet portion of a company's overall marketing budget. so that, so that was focusing, I was leaning more into focusing on. Email newsletters and just having a, you know, a full end to end process to do that as a service.
and I just wasn't having much luck with that. and in your community, Kevin, I think I was doing some spitballing with you or some other people in the community. Even, I think it was you who said, like, it is kind of hard to, be just a portion of a marketing team. if, if they're hiring a consultant, it's much easier, just an easier mental model to just think about Jordan is our marketing guy and he's our point or our one point of contact.
And we don't need to worry too much about like managing all these, all these freelancers that make up our marketing team. and, and that resonated much more with me in terms of where I wanted to go. you know, be, to be more of a leader and, and be kind of higher up in the. just the thought process of how companies can market and not just be the guy who takes the orders and does it. so that's, that's really, that was really compelling to me in it.
So. I started kind of looking for opportunities to just present myself as the marketing guy. and, that's, that's where I've, I've, I've started seeing, some, some major changes in my, in my business. including, sort of coming into a niche that I, I'm like super excited about,
so let's, so there's, first of all, lots to unpack in that intro. Thanks for that background. And it's been interesting to hear the story. And I think we all go through some kind of version of that story. We, we do one particular service. Maybe we start to add on a couple more. Then we started to feel like, you know, we're not really solving the business's problem of say growth, which is what they're really hiring you for.
And then you sort of feel frustrated because you're, and this is how I got started in advising too. I was doing someone's website. And maybe some ads or SEO or something, but I could, I was witnessing them making all kinds of other mistakes in other, in all the other channels, hiring the wrong people, turning over the, you know, just doing things ineffectively.
And that's when I started getting the wheels turning and saying, what if I. What if I started, what if I just sort of was your de facto marketing manager for a while until you're ready to hire someone and build you this team, because I have all these great people that would be great fit for what you're doing and help be the orchestra, you know, the, the, the mastermind behind your marketing. And that's how I got into it. So it sounds like you're sort of following a similar direction.
You also landed on a bit of a niche here. So I'd love to hear about, you know, how, who is your target market shaping up to be today and, and how did it end up being them? Where did that come from?
Coming into a niche has been something I've really been wanting to do. and sort of just struggling with the client roster I had and, and the way that I, the channels I had for getting clients was through Upwork. And so it was kind of like what's available.
but, I, I live on a small home instead, with some livestock and, and, My wife is a health coach and we're kind of just very much in kind of this functional health world real food kind of kind of Culture and so I thought you know, my wife's a health coach. I know health coaches.
I can talk to health coaches I can help health coaches So kind of went into sort of that that health world looking to help people and I had a whole bunch of just kind of free advising calls for health coaches, and learned a ton and gave some good advice, quickly learned that beginner health coaches don't really have a budget. and so as I started exploring kind of the food side of it, which is kind of what I'm more into. There's a website called real, or it's called goodfoodjobs. com.
And I had looked there on occasion and you can toggle it to look for remote part time job openings and, and I saw one for a remote, growth marketing manager and thought, okay, that's, that's within my wheelhouse. learn that it was, it's, it was. A job for an Amish farm in kind of an Amish group of farms. and Yeah, had a conversation and, and, and got that role and just, you know, set it up as a client relationship.
And it turns out, you know, I mean, Amish aren't generally posting, job posts on, on websites. so who they actually had someone else who was helping them, who was kind of, definitely a golden goose within that niche. Who has been awesome. So she, she facilitated this, this relationship, was helping this farm find someone for this role. And, so ultimately I got into that role and then, and she's sent me two more since then. and so she, she's just been awesome. Super knowledgeable.
Super well connected
just to use that term real quick. Sorry. When you say golden goose, we have a strategy called the golden goose strategy, which is instead of looking for your end customer, the golden eggs, look for the golden goose, look for the people who have an audience or access to that target market, build relationships, get in front of them, and then they can help you find slash produce the golden eggs. So just to use, just to understand where that terminology comes from.
And so that's working for you, Jordan. So you've, you've now had a few other referrals and they started just to sidetrack you there. But yeah, that's so that's that's a great strategy. And so tell me more about that. How's that going?
It's I mean, it's going great Yeah, and and to be clear, I I didn't really seek out the golden goose. I just kind of lucked out to cross paths with her. Working with Amish have, has been so fun. I just, I have, I, you know, I, I'm kind of their, I mean, I am their, their marketing guy, but I'm also just kind of their guy with a computer. And so we talk on the phone a lot. I'm, you know, most days, there's a whole bunch of farmers that I get to talk to.
And every time I hang up, I just, I go to my wife, like, I just, I love these guys. It's just it's such a good fit. And it, you know, it's, it's taken me almost seven years, I guess, to feel like that in my business. but, you know, I've had clients that I adore. but I, I haven't had really that sweet spot of, of, clients that I really relate with and, and adore, but, and also a business model that. That I want to be marketing. Yeah, that's huge.
I mean, part of it, I think when we're picking a niche is, is an identity factor. So like when I was getting into the coworking world, you know, I thought to myself as a consultant, I thought, do I want to be the coworking guy and does it really match with my identity or not? And there were these kinds of questions that I liked the industry and love it and all that stuff. But was that what I wanted to be sort of known for because it wasn't, it didn't neatly fit my identity.
I wasn't like, you know, enthralled with coworking spaces. I mostly worked from home, you know, that kind of thing. and where you're kind of in an adjacent world, you know, you have a homestead, right? And so that's not the same as being Amish, but it's, it's sort of, it's in an, it's kind of an adjacency in a way. Does, does that resonate?
Like, does it feel like there's an identity factor that lines up, even if it's around values or Some other things are just like living in the country, you know, I, have deep appreciation for their world, you know, raising livestock, the way that they're raising livestock, Part of the arrangement is that I, you know, I have in person visits a handful of times a year. And right, right away, you know, my first question is like, what can I bring?
You know, one kid, one of my, one of my kids, you know, every time I have five kids. And so, you know, I could cycle through them and, and it'd be a, you know, very special, you know, road trip. And then also kind of this almost cross cultural experience of staying with some Amish families overnight and eating with them and their family. And, and to them, that's like, Well, of course, like that's, that's just, that's how we do things, you know, and, so yeah.
And then, you know, just sharing, you know, the, the faith element as well. I'm very like Anabaptist sympathetic and, love with kind of love what they're doing. So there's a lot to learn from the Amish.
Yeah.
I'm learning a ton just as I work with them too.
Yeah. Wow. What a great, what a great alignment. I feel like that's what most people are lacking and they struggle. It either feels like, and you know, maybe this isn't the right terminology, but it either feels like you have to be, have run a missionary business, meaning you have to just sort of love it. And regardless of making money, you're kind of in it for the love and the passion, or you're sort of a mercenary.
Where you're kind of like, look, I, I don't, you know, I don't even want to tell my kids what I'm writing emails about. you know, but I'll do it because the money is good and it feeds the family and whatever, right? Obviously that's an overstatement. but you've managed to find both. You've managed to find a profitable situation in an area that aligns with your identity, which is so hard to do.
And that's one of the reasons I love mentoring marketers because while it's not as profitable as my consulting business, it's, Very enjoyable and gives me a lot of energy. And I just get to, there's an identity factor and alignment there. So it's great that you've stumbled into it. It sounds like it was kind of by accident and yet here you are. Right.
And I think it's really important to kind of pay attention to what are these signals of, you know, if I find some work, do I love working with this kind of person and maybe follow that thread to get into that form of a niche versus trying to arbitrarily pick something, which is much harder, but it's great that you've kind of lucked into. Both probably on PR. I never want to say it's pure luck.
Cause you, you had instincts, you had a thing, and then you led, led to a conversation, there's an obvious match personality wise, that led you to meet this person who can introduce you to more people. Well, let's talk more about that. So how, so now that you, so you've got your first client, right? And so now are you basically their marketing manager on a fractional basis? Is that how that's working? And then how did it lead to more after that?
Yeah. So, Well, this is the other cool thing is, is it's, it's kind of a fractional thing, but it's also, performance based. So I have kind of a base, you know, monthly fee. But then it's, it's a 3 percent of all revenue that we generate in the month. So I feel like that, that's my first time with that sort of arrangement. And that's been really energizing because, we all benefit from it. is that all
revenues or attributable revenues?
It's all revenue.
Okay. So let's talk a little bit about this one first business. What are they selling and to whom?
so they, yeah, it's, it's milk, meat, eggs and all
local, like, or are they doing e commerce or, I mean, you can't really ship milk across the country. I
mean, you can, it's, it's expensive, and, but yeah, so shipping is expensive, but it is all e commerce. That's all it is. So, so it's all attributed through the website that I'm managing. Yeah, so that's how that works.
So it's, it's all, it's all revenue and that that's kind of how this particular farm has structured their compensation for the whole team, including the farmers, which they're great mindset because, you know, they just, they lack, they don't have ego or they actively fight against egos.
That's so cool. I love that. And it creates an owner mentality, right? If everyone's kind of chipping in, maybe there's, you know, a base thing to make sure your needs are covered and then everyone kind of is compensated for the greater pie. What an amazing way to do business. And so you're doing e commerce. Did they have any commerce to begin with? I suppose they had something if they were looking for a part time person.
Yeah. yeah, they had, they were on this really antiquated, piece of software that wasn't working very well. there, at least there was no good way to measure, how things were working and no good way to like follow up with customers. So that, that was one of the early projects was to move them to kind of, there's a, there's kind of a Shopify version for farms who are shipping. Perishable goods, which is kind of a niche software need, called grace cart. It's really, it's great.
By the way, not to interrupt, but that is a perfect alternative example of a golden goose for whom you could potentially reach out and say, Hey, I specialize in this niche. Can I do a training for your customers and do live webinars? I've done that. And that works really, really well.
Find the software that serves the types. Yeah, exactly.
It works extraordinarily well, especially in my niche. I've done those for all the different coworking softwares. And every time I do one, at least one person kind of follows up after and inquires about my services. So yeah. And now the Amish may not be the first to join a webinar. So factor that in, but they're communicating with them somehow. So something to keep in mind, even like a teleconference, you never know.
Oh yeah.
So, okay. So you have this and you help them transition. So now you're doing the marketing and are you executing the marketing or are you mostly managing it?
I am executing. yeah, so it's, it's still a lot of, writing emails and doing social media and so, but, but I've moved from kind of taking orders to, to just, I mean, right, right off the bat, they're like, they told me, we know, we know how to raise really good food and we love to do that and we're going to raise a whole bunch of it. We have no idea what we're doing when it comes to selling it. so they're like, we just want you to do that.
And. Like we, you can ask us questions, but, for the most part, we want you just to run with it. So that's also really kind of fun to have a ton of latitude and trust. we do talk, you know, at least once a week to sync up on, you know, what, what's going on on the farm, kind of seasonal kind of things, you know, what's the inventory, what should we, you know, put on, on sale, but yeah, it's super fun.
That sounds like such an exciting niche to work in. And I guess I'm just, my head is spinning with all the ways you could market them. And we should do a sidebar conversation sometime, but yeah, that's, it sounds so it sounds like a great, a great area to work in. And so you're doing that. So you're managing it.
So you're very much a fractional manager, which by the way, if assuming you're compensated well enough, having at least one anchor client in that way is a great starting point where, especially if you're, if it's worthwhile financially for you, and it doesn't take up all your time, ideally no more than say 20 percent of your time. And then doing more leveraged offerings, more advisory in nature, more, you know, I'll hire the team and I'll manage them to do certain things.
Maybe I'll stick, I'll still continue to do communications and email, but then I'll have an ads person who's the right price that can do all my client ads and whatever.
Yeah. I'm kind of reaching that point where, I'm realizing it would be awesome to, I don't really have a great network of people that are independent in doing those. Kind of ancillary services, but I'm at that point where I'm thinking about that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And when you find that, so the transition there is, okay, so I'm going to manage it. I'm going to do it for you effectively. The middle ground isn't going to manage it for you. So I'm not going to do much execution, any execution work. I'm going to charge separately for, if you want me to pencil in that I'll do your emails fine, but it's going to be an extra fee of X, but generally I'm going to manage. So we're going to need an ads person.
A writer, a designer, and a web developer that I'll have access to that I have in my network, and it forces you to find these great people. And essentially I will manage the ship. I'll make sure we're sending the right emails at the right time to the right people. I'll, I'll strategize and help implement the. The automations, whatever else down the road.
And then eventually you don't manage anymore, but in the Amish culture, you might end up managing more unless you got so big that you needed basically another freelancer to be the manager. Right. But that would be, and then you kind of advise them, but you're so far away from needing that right now. So, okay. So you've got this one client that you're doing it, then you, so who's this golden goose person that, and how did you come across them
they were the one who was kind of facilitating this relationship. they had done the, the post on, on good fruit jobs. com job posts. So yeah, I connected with her, had a few calls with her and then with the farmer. And then started work with this, this farm brand and, and then she, she does trainings at conferences where a lot of grazers and farmers are at. And, and, and she also works with, she, she does growth marketing actually.
And, but for kind of, Like one of the enormous Amish farms in the area. so she, she's, she's like, I'm just not taking more clients. and so she, but she gets this pretty steady flow. So she has sent me two, two more since that time. That one, I'm doing a, just a website for, and then the other one, I'm, I'm doing something very similar, kind of growing fractional,
right? Awesome. So you're getting, and also when I, what I'm noticing as well as, you know, two out of three of these are retainer clients. And often, by the way, when I used to do web design, That was the thing that led into my other services. So people would come looking for new website and stick around for the marketing. So it's, it's great lead gen, if you can position yourself to do websites as well. But what you're doing is you're building retainers.
Cause one of the things you said earlier was, you know, it was like work came along and it was sort of derail, whatever plans you had that week or that, you know, the next little while, but it was not great. Consistency were probably not sleeping. I mean, you with five kids, you're not sleeping anyway, but you weren't sleeping as, as well as he could be, knowing that like your income was variable, right? And that's, that's a scary proposition.
Do you feel a little bit more at ease with two sort of anchor retainer clients? And then this new additional project, how does that differ from where you were before?
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, totally. So I have a couple of other retainer clients. so now, now I, yeah, I feel like I don't need to go out looking, to stir up work every month. I think that's somewhere I'd like to get to, to, you know, keep my marketing going, for my audience, but, But yeah, it is such a relief to just have a roster that I, you know, I know what I need to do.
I have a big white, you know, four foot whiteboard next to my computer and I, I can plan my week and it's just, that's, that's super nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's what it's all about. And because I think to me, like my clients stay with me on average about two years. So the, so to me, my marketing efforts, I just try to keep a consistent flow. I call it a program. So just try to keep the few irons in the fire. I keep rotating or keep getting information out there and keep marketing myself, building relationships.
Now on the consulting side, a lot of, a lot of it's moved to biz dev and you're actually Discovering yourself that, Hey, biz dev might be your primary marketing strategy in the sense of these relationships, maybe then speaking at conferences, if they're, if that's where they're attending and, and then meeting some other people, you know, talking to the owner of this e commerce platform and, or whoever the marketer of that, of that platform, trying to do a teleconference series, maybe, which
would be. Super cool. If you could do a series for them, not sure they do it, not sure that's a thing, but yeah, you're starting. So you start to learn, you know, eventually if you have these retainer clients, you're not turning them over that much. So what ends up happening is you've got your, I think no more than seven. And so when clients come along right now, I've got a mini waiting list of three people that are like kind of circling that I'm, you know, trying to land in the new year.
As availability, I expect opens. And so it's a good place to be because it allows you to say like, look, my price has started this. So because you know, you have a little bit of an oversubscribed factor, right? You that, you know, even when you don't need clients, you want to be marketing yourself so that you have. Yeah, you can maintain your price premium because that's what's going to lie to work with fewer clients and do great work and not be stressed out, right?
And that's, that's the biggest factor is that mental, the mental load, if you will.
Yeah, that's
so, yeah. So what's next for you now? So you've got these three, you've got these three clients, two of them are on retainer. Are they getting good results that you feel like it's a profitable situation for everyone? I know it's probably early. So,
yeah, it is. It is early. One of the farms is brand new. so a lot of that is just helping him find traction. the one that's a little more established, that's, that's going great. move, move them over to the new platform and we can track everything now, hitting a groove, finding those levers that are working well for them.
Are you doing any local marketing? Can you get people to stop by on their way home and pick up some milk eggs? What have you is, or? Yes,
one of the, so you can order, you know, a box of meat and milk, which is pretty expensive to ship. so one, one of the things is just, you know, for pickup. So they'll, they'll, drop coolers off at various locations where the customers know to go and. They'll grab their orders that way. But that's, that's the cool, that's a whole thing too, is, is the local marketing and finding those metros.
and so I, I have been doing a lot of like, and Google analytics is looking for, you know, what metros are they getting a lot of traffic from, and, you know, is, is that A day's drive away. so the Amish I've learned, you know, they don't, they don't go very far within a horse and buggy. so they're actually like huge users of Uber.
Oh, really?
Yeah. And they, you know, hitch rides with people who are, You know, going to the same place, but
I love it. And so, yeah, I mean, there's so many ways if you ever want to talk about some of these ideas, let me know. Cause I can nerd out for days. I can imagine like sending a whole like freezer load to someone like stocking up for the year of, you know, various products and whatever you can't do that, obviously with everything, but. That's great. So you've got, so you've got these clients. And so, you know, you're on the path, you know, you're, you're still in.
So what my model is, you're going from doing to managing to advising to teaching is kind of the, the spectrum. And most of us, what I originally thought was, Hey, we're going to get you free from doing and only advising. What a lot of people end up doing is they do a little bit of everything. They do a little bit of done for you, maybe a website here and there. Maybe they run some ads. They do a little bit of maybe managed services, one or two anchor clients to keep the bills paid.
That's your high profit, high value stuff, ideally. And then a little bit of advising if, if, if, and when they break that ice. And once they get into advising, that's the default thing that they sell in the future, that figured out how to get business results without having to be the one with the hands on the keyboard by being a good producer, by helping them allocate a budget and getting results. Within that budget. And so you're on that path and you're headed in that direction.
And then eventually I think teaching might be a great thing at some point, like teaching people how to do these websites, you know, and how to, or how to get clients or what have you. maybe all teleconference, maybe you send around, I guess you can't even do tapes, or CDs or, I don't know, but
would be, I mean, I think that would be super popular actually. It's over the phone. I mean, we do, we, our weekly meeting is, is on Google meet, but they just, they just call into the phone. So that wouldn't be that hard.
Can you imagine doing a paid membership that is a weekly tune in radio type thing on the phone?
That would be super cool.
I think that would be so, so cool. And I think, cause I think people want to learn, but they don't, they may not want to learn like, okay, what's the functional parts of this, but more like how do I approach marketing? What's the tactic of, it's almost like a Dan Kennedy letter. And maybe you have a printed equivalent of, you know, your. Your, your webinar, whatever that you, you mail to them, assuming, I assume they can take mail. You're right. There's no, yeah.
I can imagine that being such a cool, imagine that like someone would pay a hundred bucks. A lot of people would pay a hundred bucks for a bit of that. Anyways.
Yeah.
But that would be an example.
I was just going to say, even email. So they've received. my emails as, faxes, so that they, they might have a fax machine in their office, not in the home, but in the office and they, we'll get my emails as a fax. Oh
my gosh. This is so fun. I'm so excited for you. It would almost be, I can almost, yeah, yeah, this is, this is like. Yeah, this feels like a great thing, but this would be an example, by the way of, okay, so you've gotten good at doing the work. you've gotten good at managing. You're kind of now maybe you have some clients where you're like, look, I can't manage it all for you, but I can certainly, or you're kind of doing, you're still in the doing phase, but in more strategic level, right?
You're still freelancing and essentially you're still doing everything managing is next for you. So I won't do all the things, but I'll, I'll start to outsource various parts, ads, this, that, and the other.
And then eventually I'll only advise and then, but adding an element of teaching at some point when you feel is right, whether that's an email based thing, or a fax based thing, could be straight fax, give me your phone number, it could be a teleconferencing, but that would be an example of selling your expertise with, you know, I'm sure you have to maybe show up once, but even then in theory, you could prerecord it and just send it off via Google meet.
But. We, you know, it's not the plan right now, but so much potential for you. But that's kind of an idea of how you can focus on a niche, become extremely good at it, such that the hands work anyone can do once you have the playbooks and the ways of doing things, and then teach where, you know, advise on what, you know, manage, you know, so what's, what's next for you to think? What, where do you, where is there a bottleneck? Are you at your time limit in terms of how much you can handle?
Like, are you at your, yeah. Where are you now? What's next?
I'd say I still have a little, little bit of margin, that I could, I could take on some more work. But I think next is, is, I mean, I'm, I'm really just focusing on mastering, direct, you know, farm marketing. so I'm going to explore direct mail, and some get into some paid ads also. but yeah, just, you know, and even just education for them, for their, their I'm helping them with, with Pricing and fulfillment.
And then like the unboxing experience, you know, it's, it's just kind of a whole thing to, to research and and, and fine tune with them. so, but I think I can totally see a path to mastery of this and to where, you know, I could easily bring some other people in on this and manage from a higher, higher level, I guess. But right now I'm just, I'm having a blast. I love the visits. I get to bring my kids along and it's just, it's so fun.
That sounds so amazing. Isn't it great when you find an issue, actually you're inherently interested in, and then you can spend your time just learning inches, you know, like, okay, what does the unboxing experience need to look like? What materials should we be using that's on brand? Okay. You know, what, what, you know, like, how are we going to distribute this thing across the country? What's, what are some, what are some other ways people are doing?
Maybe we need a fulfillment house, one state away. So we can then have a different radius that fulfills frozen, say meat product or what have you. And then you develop all these, like you sub specific expertise. That's way different because you know, there's a lot of great marketers in the group and they're extraordinarily talented. Everyone is in their own unique way, but then you throw them, even me into that world and it's like, okay, we know the broad strokes of what marketing should do.
Effectively. I've got ideas that are coming, but, but to know the wrinkles, to know the nuances of that world from like a buyer and a seller mindset and that philosophy, like there's so much to know. And then that's where you become, that's where the hands work becomes irrelevant. We're having you for a couple grand to make, to babysit and make sure and be a become super valuable because you're like, look, I can't. Do all, I can't pack every box for you.
I can't grow every, you know, chicken or whatever for you. But what I can do is I can do it. I can operate at this level and I can add a lot of value. And that's the fun part. And so you're going to spend the next two or three years figuring out those wrinkles. And then over time, you're going to find yourself saying like, look, I'm at capacity, but I can help you and it's going to look like this. And I think you'll find it a natural transformation.
And it's a very much a mindset thing about, can I add value without actually being the one to execute? And it turns out you can, you just want to facilitate that. And has there been any other mindset shifts that have occurred that you're noticing that you believe, or is to be true now that informs, like invalidates what you're doing that maybe you didn't even think about or know before?
yeah, I actually, I'd say like, I think a light bulb went on, For me around the idea of, resonance. This is something you've talked about, or at least you, you exemplify it and how you market, you, you don't need to have a, like a massive following, you don't, you don't need thousands and thousands of people on your email list. and, and you don't need to talk the way everyone else talks. but to, to, to.
Just, I mean, say, say what you want to say and obviously like say it well, but all you need is, is the right people to like resonate with it. Like, I feel like resonance is, is the thing you aim for. or I dunno, another way to put it might be like, maybe you've said it this way, like optimize for relationship.
and so, I mean, I'm doing this even for my clients in their emails, but like, When I write emails, it's like trying to optimize for a reply or some way to get to know the customer a little more. you know, I've toyed with different things when I was trying to like grow this newsletter service or, you know, it was just too hard to, it was hard for me. I felt dissonance, trying to. Appeal to whoever needs newsletters,
but
to really hone in and, and, and just kind of communicate in a way that will resonate with whoever resonates with and whoever resonates with, I'd probably enjoy. so that that's been a mindset shift that as I've even like, I've talked to like friends who have their own businesses and. Who have hired their own, you know, marketing consultants. And like, they've showed me the kinds of things they're posting for them on social media. And they're like, well, like I run, like I remodel kitchens.
Why, like, why do I have to have like a happy Halloween greeting on my Facebook page? You know, I was like, you don't
like, but
what you need is like, just keep showing your work and, the people who are looking for good work and Well, you know, resonate with that doesn't really do anything. That's kind of just an algorithm game and that's not the game.
Yeah. It's funny you mentioned all of that. I mean, it's, I think part of why you're successful and I think you're going to be extremely successful in this space is because there's a certain authenticity, both in who you are that comes across in this conversation, but also with the target market and there's sort of an alignment, I think we're going back to that word identity wise. Where, you know, the Amish, you know, they wear straightforward clothing, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, you know, but it allows your marketing to be sort of plain spoken and, and just natural. Which is really imbibed, you know, imbibes the, the, the culture that they are. And so if you have that naturally and you're not trying to force it, you're not, it's not like you were jumping into like the cosmetics world where you may not have expertise trying to really reverse engineer the psychology of the buyer is like, here, you're just plainly saying, we've got great eggs.
They were raised on this pasture. Here's a photo of the chickens running around this morning, you know, whatever. Right. Like that, that may be terrible, you know, whatever, but it's, it's about, you know, If you feel it and as a, as a person, as a farmer yourself, can you just imagine the difference? And then to this point of like not having a big audience, you really don't like what, you know, yesterday I posted on LinkedIn.
I think one person liked it immediately, like within, within a few minutes and then like an hour or something went by without any engagement or whatever, which is fine. And then someone reached out from one of the coworking. software companies asking if I can contribute to their article. And I know, and she didn't even like the content, but I know it was the content that, and then someone else reached out to me, mind you, he wanted a sponsorship in the, the coworking world.
And so just like this, this idea that you need a bunch of people, if you can only take say seven clients and you are entrenched in their business. And they work with you for two years. Once you're there, it's like, you don't need UMass.
What you do, what you want is that specific niche so that you're, you're, you cut through the noise just by speaking plainly about something subspecific, and I think that's what most people lack and they, they, they feel too scared to go into that realm of subspecific where you're, you know, you're talking about if, let's say you're doing an email for the Amish community. The language you're going to use is so nuanced that it's just going to ring right through.
But if they were to then read an email from someone about email marketing in general, first of all, their eyes would glaze over. They would like, they don't like, this isn't their world. There's no nuances, no context. There's no sympathy or empathy for where they're at, what their, for their context is. So it's amazing how positioning allows you to have just clear communication and.
And more residents, I think you were mentioning, and then it doesn't take much, you know, my email list on my coworking side was like 600 people or something, and I have no problem winning business with or without that list, but they're all hyper focused and they read all the emails and so on and so forth. So. Just interesting.
Yeah. Definitely. Yep. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm super excited. It's, it's, it's helpful to talk to you and just even for you to articulate kind of what this path kind of looks like is from the perspective of having, you know, seeing people go through it. exciting and that the timeframe two to three years, man. Who knows? But that, that's, that's exciting to me.
Well, there's no reason you won't be a very well known, almost renowned speaking on stage at these conferences. If I don't know what the conference market is like, I do know there's a huge market for Amish goods. Amish furniture is a huge, a huge industry as well. Relatively speaking, but there's no reason why you can't, what I call dominate the niche, not in a way that actually dominates, but it contributes at a, as an authority in that, in that area.
if you stick with it and you may find eventually you're going to broaden to farmers in general or organic farmers, or, or like you said, direct, you know, farm to home, direct, like I buy my, my meat from, mind you, it's an organic. aggregator of, of meats from local farms. So I don't get it. It's not quite direct, but I prefer that because I know the quality is going to be there. And I think that market's only growing. And so you may end up expanding to that world.
And there's so much, like, there's so much room here. Right. And so when you go, it's like going into a niche is like Narnia, you go through a small keyhole and the door opens and suddenly the world is massive. Yeah. And the opportunities get bigger. Whereas if you try to interface. Largely, it's like trying to cut through the Amazon with a, with a block of wood. All right. It's not going to work and, it's daunting. So I love that you're on this path.
And I think the next mindset for you would be once you've done a little more of the hands work, super important time to say, okay, I've done this. Let's how do I, how do I teach it so that it becomes templates that I have documented trainings that are maybe audio based and have all these things forces you to put things into context and to think about them and to organize them. And then how do I then start to sell my advice? Right.
And my, my, the strategy and not, not be responsible for doing the implementation, but maybe, maybe you manage it and babysit it for awhile. And then eventually you phase out of that and really just help people at the information level. Once you've figured out what all these wrinkles are, how do you take that to market and say, like, I can't do it all for you, but I figured out a lot of the details and here it is.
And whether that's a monthly tele seminar or a fax letter, you know, and Or both, or products or courses or what have you. I think the world is your oyster. And,
yeah, well, thank you, man. Yeah. It's exciting.
Great. Well, anything else you think is worth people knowing who are on this path, maybe on the earlier side, they're, they're very much stuck kind of executing for clients, maybe feels like they're turning at work, but that they don't always necessarily love any kind of parting, guidance or firsthand experience you would say to someone about. transitioning to be more strategic, which I think is the net.
A lot of people are trying to crack when they're focused on say one channel, but how do you become more strategic or what business advice would you offer based on what you've learned so far?
yeah, I, I guess, I mean, a couple of things I'd say is to, to be patient. I think it's, I think it's worth it to be patient. and I understand that like, no work is, is bad work.
and, but on the other side of that, what I found to be really helpful to, to get more into the strategy seat is, and what I, what I've learned from working with the Amish, but also just, my other clients too, is, is to, get face to face with them, or like get on calls and, and have suggestions, Of where, you know, things could be improved.
mean, so, so much, I was just on a call this morning with a client who's not Amish, but, we we've done, we've been working together for a couple of months and there's a lot of back and forth through Slack and email and comments and Google docs and. It's felt sort of arduous. and we, we got on a call today and, and it's just like the process just lit up. And, and she invited me to, you know, into deeper engagement.
Cause it's just, there's something, there's something about showing up, letting someone get to know you a little bit, in your own voice, that I think just helps, helps you move into the right seat, helps them place you, you know, even. And where are you an implementer or are you thinking, do you, are you, are you bigger than that? Yeah.
Amazing. Yeah. And eventually you see yourself as a peer when you, you're like, I couldn't maybe do what you do as a farmer, but, but when it comes to marketing, I'm here and so you kind of see each other eye to eye as opposed to what you mentioned before about being an order taker. And a lot of that's very different. Like if you're on Upwork, you're going to take orders. That's the game, unless you switch to the dynamic and be expensive on Upwork and that kind of stuff.
Yeah. But I love that, especially the in real life stuff. That's one of the reasons I go to the conferences having, you know, young kids, it's difficult to get away from home. I fly and stay somewhere for two or three nights and, and I just, but I meet people, I meet my clients there. I mean, and they introduced me to people.
And I think that in real life factor is a big contributing reason as to why I'm successful in consulting and the former me five years ago would have been, I'm going to stay at home behind my computer. I'm going to write content until my fingers bleed. And now I realize that so much, there's so much more to. Business development and just growth when you get out of your house and, or at very least get on a video call like we're on, but the real life thing is huge. So that's a great mindset.
Anything else, any other parting wisdoms would you, would you say?
I don't think so. I think I've used it all up.
Yeah, that's good. Well, we don't want to get to the bottom that the well is never empty. And the more you give, the more you realize there's even more in there. So Jordan, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. And I think it's inspiring because I know a lot of people who are a little earlier, I've focused on previous. I've been focusing more on people who are in that transition from, you know, getting into advisory.
And I think there's a really a big spectrum of people doing execution and some management and some advising and some teaching. And that's kind of what I want to be more holistic about is the realization that we all do a little bit of everything. And that's a good thing. so thank you for sharing your story. Where can people go to a follow you on maybe on social media and maybe learn more about your business or, or you, should they be curious?
yeah, I, I guess maybe, maybe Twitter or X, J a mock J a M O G C K. or just send me an email at, jordanathappytoil. com. I'd love to hear anyone who has thoughts or questions or ideas.
Love it. Thank you so much. And by the way, I love that domain because I know that you've had that before you got into the niche and now it feels like it's super pressing. It feels super relevant. Does it not?
I feel that too. Yeah, totally.
That is so good. So I assume whether you've changed your website and your positioning or not, have you done, have you changed your positioning yet on the website? Or is it still so new? No,
I haven't since like 2016 or something.
So you need to start thinking about, even though your target market may not be browsing the web, so to speak, but it might be about getting on the email list, which gets transmitted to fax, or even just add your fax number if you want, or I would start getting that. Getting that going, but congratulations. I'm super excited for you. And like, I'm giddy with the possibilities that are ahead of you. So, I, I feel like you feel that too.
So it's great that you found that alignment and thanks for showing your story. It didn't really been really great listening.
Yeah. Thanks man.
Okay. So that was our interview with Jordan Mogck. I hope you found it as inspiring as I did super interesting path. And you know what? We all make this transition in different ways from the doing to the managing, advising, and teaching. And, uh, hopefully you've gained something out of this. And if you're looking to do. Similar things. If you're looking to become more strategic as an independent marketing professional, head on over to my website, Kevin dot me on there.
You'll see links to a membership that I have in a bunch of training and all kinds of stuff, get on my mailing list. And, uh, you can be notified when I do new podcasts like this, send new videos on YouTube. I also write quite frequently, short, succinct, uh, emails. to my audience of independent marketers. And so you can learn more about that and everything else that I have going on over at kevin.me. And that's it for now. I'll see you in the next episode. As always, thank you so much.
And be sure to watch one of these other videos and be sure to follow the channel if you're not already. See you in the next one.