Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where
we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five
Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders
and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped
their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in
the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome
to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business
and Leadership. I'm your host, Sheila Slick,
and today my special guest is Casey Jones. Casey
transforms overwhelmed coaches and consultants
into essentialist CEOs, leaders who are both
CEO, officer, or the chief executive officer
of their business, and the chief experience officer
of their life. Welcome to the show, Casey. Thank
you so much, Sheila. I'm so good to be here.
Me too. And I absolutely love that title. So
I would love to learn what a chief experience
officer of your life is. Well, you know, what
I've seen is, so I work with, I typically work
with people who had a successful run in corporate
or working for other people and then went out
on their own. Usually we become entrepreneurs
with this hope of, you know, the so -called financial
freedom and being able to like make good money
and have this a great life. But a lot of us,
when we first make this transition, you wind
up actually working longer hours for shittier
benefits. Right. Like you've got a kind of a
meaner boss. And and so a lot and we wind up
often feeling like there is this. trade -off
and that you have to put the business first in
order to eventually earn the ability to have
a good life while you run your own business.
And so what I really work on with my clients
is how do you build the strategy and the systems
in your business so that you can really reach
predictable like 30 to 50k months. but without
sacrificing your life, while having a good life,
while taking vacations with your family and doing
the things that you love and having a really
kind of rich experience. So are you helping them
in the transition or once they've already taken
the leap and they've left their corporate job?
They're starting the business. It's a little
bit of both. Most of the time my clients have
already started the business, but oftentimes
they either, they're typically in one of two
places. They've either like just left and are
trying to figure out how do they build this business?
How do they do it right? Or they have been at
it for a while and they're looking around and
they think. I'm really good at what I do. Why
the hell can I not make more money doing it?
This shouldn't be so freaking hard. And so, you
know, my work is really helping them zoom out
just a little bit to kind of build the strategy
and the systems that make the work a little bit
simpler and a lot more profitable. So when you
say systems, are we talking? Software? No. Well,
sometimes it's things like automations. But when
I think of systems, what I really think about
is what are the repeated actions in the business?
So oftentimes my clients, when we first start
working together, they built a referral -based
business. So they kind of wait for someone to
come to them where they've said, hey, can you
help me with X? My client will be like, oh, my
God, of course I can help you with that random
thing that maybe I haven't really quite done.
But I'm smart. I can figure it out. And so they
go and they do that thing. But the problem is
when you do that over and over again, you basically
are always doing everything as a standalone project.
Nothing compounds. You're doing everything kind
of for the first time every time, which means
it's a lot of manual work. When those referrals
slow down or dry up, it becomes incredibly, what
do you do? If you've always, if you've done a
million slightly different things for a million
slightly different people, it then becomes when
those referrals dry up, you're like, well, dude,
I don't even know what to do. I don't know where
to go to drum up business. I don't know what
to tell people I do. Oftentimes what it is is
that we've spent so much time working in the
business that we haven't really taken the time
to work on the business. And what I often say
is a lot of my clients before working with me,
they don't realize this, but the way I look at
it is they haven't built an actual business.
They've built a full -time side hustle. It's
just a collection of a bunch of random projects
that don't really tie together. There's a lot
of missed opportunity in terms of how do you
get really clear on like productizing your offer
and having a repeatable system of how you onboard
clients and how you deliver like incredible results.
And I often think about how you can't improve
a process that doesn't exist. And so the only
way we get better at what we do or we take big
leaps forward in getting better at what we do
and making more money from it is. really building
those systems, those processes, and then doing
it over and over again and tweaking it and making
it better over time. Yeah, no, and that's important
because sometimes those repetitions is what will
get you to that finish line, but it's what gets
boring. You lose that momentum sometimes, right?
Because it's just not going at the pace that
perhaps you wanted. I know that... With a lot
of the women that I've worked with, one of the
things, and it came to mind because you said
the word referral. Yeah. Referral is really comfortable
because the work is coming to you. Oh, yeah.
But having to be consistent with that outreach,
that's a whole different arena. And it's a necessary
part, in my opinion. of any successful business
because that's how you're going to grow. That's
how you have that system where you're perhaps
repeating what's working and what's not. And
it's also where you have more control. If you're
always sitting around waiting for a referral,
you don't control anything. And that sucks. That's
just not fun at all, right? We were talking earlier
about timelines, but 20 years ago it was build
it and they will come. But the world has evolved
to the point where we do even have tools that
will help you automate some of those processes.
Now, a lot of people are using automation. So
I've been very active on LinkedIn and I changed
the way that I was trying to connect with people
being more intentional. And it really does. connect
you with the right people when you're not just
sometimes filtering to try and get quantity over
quality yeah and it really made a difference
and it just changed the way that I was connecting
with people it was almost fun rather than feeling
like it was a chore yeah it makes it more human
and I think that's the hard part about that's
the that is the trade -off with like systems,
automations, AI, all of it, is that if we lean
too hard into it, we lose the humanity and we
lose the purpose behind why we do it in the first
place. And it's like, you know, LinkedIn is supposed
to be a social network. It's supposed to be about
connection and building real relationships. And
if everything is automated, it's not. And it's,
you know, I used to really love LinkedIn. It's,
I would say over the last... three or four years,
90 % of my revenue has come from LinkedIn. But
it's not as fun as it used to be because so much
of it is automated. So much of it is AI that
it's harder to feel like you're having real conversations
with real people. And I used to accept like freaking
every connection request and I'm so much. I'm
so much less likely to because there are so many
of them where I'm like, I know I'm going to accept
this and I'm immediately going to get a canned
pitch. And I don't want that. What would be like
one key takeaway or piece of advice to anyone
listening that perhaps is waiting on those referrals
to feel more comfortable reaching out? So the
biggest thing. is look we learned we learned
10 times more and 10 times faster from taking
action than from sitting around kind of thinking
about things and the emphasis I always make is
that you know if if the challenge is or the the
goal is that you want to find that financial
freedom then you need to seize the reins and
you need to take control of that and and that
means you know that means reaching out that means
kind of building those relationships and I think
A lot of us feel like that is kind of icky or
it's too salesy. But what I always talk about
is the idea of if you genuinely believe in your
heart that your work can really add value or
help people or solve real problems, then I truly
believe you have a responsibility to make sure
that as many people that you think you can help
know about you and about your ability to help
them like sales outreach all of it when done
well it's an act of service it's not you don't
have to think of it as a purely selfish thing
it is about you truly connecting with people
who you both feel called to serve and you feel
like you really can serve and you really can
help them so how would you respond to somebody
that said, no, I'm trying to connect. And I'm
thinking of that person that's just starting
out. And I have some people in mind and perhaps
I have these conversations where one of the things
that they struggle with when they're trying to
take that leap is, well, I'm not going to have
that very same salary the moment that I start
working for myself. What are some things that
you would say to someone that perhaps isn't happy
where they're at now, but they're not taking
that leap? And maybe two, three years have gone
by and they've had that thought because you said
take action in their minds, but they've done
nothing about it. They haven't even like started
a side gig. So, okay. So I think that whenever
there is a thing I want to do and I notice I
am not doing it, I know that there are usually
two things going on. First, there is something
about that that makes me, that kicks up a fear.
or a limiting belief or an insecurity of mine.
And I need to get curious about why. What is
it about that? Why am I scared of it? What does
not taking action do for me? How does that keep
me safe? Just get curious about it. It's not
about judgment. It's not about a critic. Just
genuinely get curious and think about what are
the other things in your life that have made
you feel that way. Number two. Every single time.
Part of the reason why I am not taking action
is because the thing that I want to do feels
really big and unwieldy and intimidating and
it's just too much. So my recommendation always
is you need to break it down into the tiniest.
simplest, littlest freaking steps. So think about
what are the first three things that you could,
each thing that you could do in five or 10 minutes.
It's like, oh, I don't know, go on to godaddy
.com and buy the domain or go update, like whatever,
whatever it is. The first three things, make
sure that they are really, really simple and
really, really easy. And then start doing them.
And as soon as you come up with those first three
and you do them, you come up with the next three.
And keep making them simple. The thing to always
remember is that when you are doing something
new that you haven't done before, inertia is
working against you. You are pushing that giant
boulder up a freaking hill. And it's going to
be really difficult at first. And so you want
to make it as simple and easy as possible because
what will happen is then you'll start to be like,
oh, whoa, look at me. I'm like checking off some
of these boxes and that hill starts to flatten
out just a little bit. You build a little bit
more confidence. It gets a little bit less scary
and you start to build the momentum. The key
is find ways to just get started and also to
keep reflecting back on like, What are the emotions
that are coming up? Why is this scary? You know,
where does that come from in your life and in
your background and in your childhood? And if
you do those two things, three months, six months
down the line, you'll be genuinely shocked at
how much you have been able to move forward and
how much you have been able to do. I like that.
So where can we connect with you? So on every
social media platform, my handle is abetterjones,
but you can also look up Casey Jones, Casey with
a K, and then also essentialistceo .com. Well,
thank you so much for joining me today. Thank
you, Sheila. This was really fun. I'll leave
all of her information in the description. And
thank you all for tuning in to another episode
of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.
Until next time.