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In this episode of Digital Marketing Masters, host Matt Rouse welcomes Jay Melone, a seasoned entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience. Jay shares his journey from being a business owner who traded time for money to creating a sustainable business model that leverages digital products. He discusses the challenges he faced in transitioning from active consulting to developing toolkits that clients could purchase and use independently. This shift not only helped him manage burnout but also streamlined his marketing and sales funnel, proving his expertise in a more scalable way.
Jay explains how he packaged his consulting frameworks into products, allowing clients to access his expertise without his direct involvement. This approach not only generated passive income but also served as a marketing tool, leading to more significant consulting opportunities. He emphasizes the importance of proving expertise and automating parts of the lead generation process to focus on high-value clients.
Matt and Jay discuss the common challenges faced by coaches and consultants in moving away from hourly work, including the fear of giving away too much value and the lack of guidance on creating scalable products. Jay shares insights on how to identify and package services into products that can be sold at higher volumes, thus freeing up time for more lucrative projects.
The conversation also touches on the role of AI in business, with Jay highlighting its use as a thought partner and a tool for systematizing and automating tasks. He shares his vision of creating tools that help business owners generate ideas for productized offers without needing to master AI prompts.
Listeners are encouraged to visit Jay's website, profitladder.net, for more resources and to subscribe to his newsletter for ongoing strategies and insights.
https://matthewrouse.com
https://hookdm.com
https://hookdm.ca
[00:00:00]
Jay Malone:
Yeah. So, like, I was building this this system where I was not enjoying the work or getting people to the work. So I started asking myself, like, okay. Like, if at least I can make the the the marketing and selling of the work easier on me.
[00:00:21] Unknown:
Digital marketing masters with your host, Matt Rose. Today's guest is Jay Melone. He's gotta wait and I work alone. He's the guy with a plan to help you go from trading time for money to building a real business.
[00:00:56] Matt Rouse:
Everybody, welcome back to Digital Marketing Masters. I'm your host, Matt Rouse. Today, Jay Melone is my guest. Jay, how are you doing?
[00:01:05] Jay Malone:
Doing good, Matt. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, anytime.
[00:01:10] Matt Rouse:
So Jay and I, we had a couple short conversations, but the the the reason that I wanted to have you on the show, Jay, is this is something that we've talked about kind of on and off on the show in the past, but we've never had anyone on the show specifically about this topic. And that is the idea of being able to transition from, you know, spending trading time for money, the idea of, like, sort of being your own hourly employee versus transferring into becoming what I would call an actual business. Right? Like, you know, a business where you have products or services that you sell that are not just you. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about your background first?
[00:01:56] Jay Malone:
Yeah. Sure. So been a business owner for 15 years. Started my first company in 2010. Company called New Haircut started as a design firm, which is where the name came from. So we used to design websites and build mobile apps and do things of that nature. And, eventually, we found ourselves more of a we evolved into more of a product strategy group doing business for great brands, Google, Home Depot, Ford, Amazon, you know, the kind of logos that you kinda dream of of getting as a a small entrepreneur that that just started a business. You could say, like, I I went into business at that point, first of all, because I got fired 2 jobs in a row. But second of all, because I just had this dream of kinda, like, taking what I had been paid as a w two full time employee, and I kinda, like, fell into building my own company The way I think a lot of entrepreneurs do is you you take a thing that you've been doing and getting paid to do, and you turn it into your own business.
And I didn't really think much about it. I was just happy to be a an entrepreneur for the first several years. But as the the novelty of that wore off, and I realized that going into business is not just showing up and getting paid to be a a magician. You have to spend at least half of your time finding the work, selling it, marketing it, getting referrals, do and then, you know, like, doing great work so that you get referred or rehired. So, you know, like, all of that, all of the other stuff that I was doing other than showing up and doing the work was in between. So in between client projects or nights and weekends, and it was not what I had in mind when I went into business. And then on top of it, I grew tired of the work, Very intense, like, high performance working with executives that are making 8 and 9 figure decisions.
So I had to show up and lead lead those conversations, design them, help groups get to the the final outcome. And, you know, so, like, I was building this this system where I was not in enjoying the work or getting people to the work. So I started asking myself, like, okay. Like, if at least I can make the the the marketing and selling of the work easier on me so that I can show up to client projects with more energy, more passion. So what I started to do was the work that we were doing at New Haircut. So we would go into a company, they'd say, hey. We're we're trying to launch this new product. Come in and make sure that it's the right opportunity for us. Make sure that there's a market for us. Help to prototype some ideas around it. So most of the engagements, 3 to 6 months. Like I said, very intense work. So I I used several frameworks to do research, to do market validation, to prototype ideas.
And I I started to take those frameworks and those methodologies and package them inside of these products where I said, you know what? Instead of hiring me, hire my tool kits. Instead of paying me 30, $50,000 to do what I do, spend a couple $100, take my tool kits, have at it, hire them, not me. That's how well, I was at that level of sort of, like, burnout and almost resentment for my market, and it worked. People started my clients, prospective clients started buying the toolkits. It wasn't my executive buyer that had, you know, access to 6 figure budgets, but it was his team or her team. He would he or she would send them to my toolkits. They'd use them. And then several months would go by, and I have an email in my inbox.
And I get into a sales call, which is typically, like, the start of an 18 month journey. And instead, the conversation went something like, hey. So and so on my team used one of your tool kits. They had great success. They used it on a project inside. We wanna hire you to do that work. We you know, like, my team is stressed out. They're they don't have time. We went through a lot of layoffs. We just want you to come in and do it right because, clearly, you're the expert. So that sentence, clearly, you're the expert. Before then, I had spent months months months of creating content and blogs and all the things to demonstrate or to try to prove to people that I was the expert. And here, I had created this thing that now any number of my prospects could go and use.
On top of it, they had paid me for it, you know, just couple $100. But in that sense, it's almost like my prospective client was paying me to educate themselves and to go through my marketing funnel. And then, like I said, a few a smaller percentage of them would raise their hand and hire me to do my 5 or 6 figure thing. So what I had actually done was to automate and simplify a lot of the the marketing and sales funnel that I had been doing otherwise. Right. Massive life old moment for me.
[00:06:53] Matt Rouse:
Right. I mean, there's there's a couple kind of key points that I wanna mention there. One of them is the idea of being able to prove expertise. That is really difficult in a world where everyone can just type something into chat JPT and sound like they know what they're talking about to someone who does not know what they're talking about. Right? I don't know how many hundreds of emails over the years I've gotten from clients who say, some company sent me this about my website or about my SEO or about this or whatever marketing thing it is. Right? About my advertising. And, you know, I can look at it and be like, yeah. That's spam.
But, you know, a defense attorney or, like, you know, a carpenter is not gonna look at that and go, you know, oh, they're saying there's something wrong with my website. Mhmm. You know? So I I like that idea of being able to prove your expertise to, you know, the people who are your clients. But I think also the other thing of, you know, automating, any parts of your lead generation is a good idea. Right? Except for the for the moment when the hand off happens, which is, like, when is it time for someone to actually talk to you versus having to have those 20 conversations before that you probably used to have to have to get to the same point. Mhmm. Yeah.
[00:08:17] Jay Malone:
Yeah. It's so that's that's a really good point. It's not only that I was previously, I was I was having 20 calls I should have never been in in the 1st place. Wrong fit. Didn't have the budget. Just putting some fillers out, wasting a ton of my time, and it's a small business that you know, I'm selling to enterprise where time is more of a luxury. I get it that people that have jobs are busy, but I would venture to guess that a small business owner who's doing all the things has less of that available time. So I was just having the wrong conversations. And then on top of it, those conversations with my my sales cycles were 12 to 18 months. So by putting my stuff and like, my tool kits were the best of what I had. I didn't hold anything back. So by putting my best stuff in my customer's hands and then going through the journey and when they were ready, by the time we got into a call, they were 80% sold. It was a much much much more productive conversation between us. I found a similar thing happened when I after I wrote my first book. I wrote a book about search engine optimization
[00:09:22] Matt Rouse:
for local businesses, and I'd go show up at a business and I'd say, oh, by the way, I brought you a copy of my new book. And now I'm the expert because I wrote the book and everybody else is just someone who has a business card and a laptop. Anytime that you have a way to prove expertise, I think you've got to win. Somebody is, let's say, coach, consultant, what is kind of the biggest problem that you think that they're facing right now as they kind of move away from this this model of, you know, hourly work?
[00:09:52] Jay Malone:
I think the biggest problem is that there's not a lot of information on how to get away from that. So what we're talking about is you went into business and you sold active services. You show up. You get paid when you do your thing. You trade time for money. It's not a bad thing. It's how it's the foundation for how a a service business is built. I think the the challenge is that when it comes to scale, you know, like, higher leverage ways where the inputs remain the same, but the outputs grow. I just don't think there's a lot of education, or I think I also think that most consultants and coaches are scared to try something different. They're scared to kinda, like, give away their secret sauce. So there's a lot of, like, limiting beliefs about what they they could potentially package up and start to to sell out to the market, and the ROI is unclear. You know, as a consultant coach, if I sell this thing, that's $10, I know that I'm capable of doing it. I'm gonna get my client success, and I'm gonna be paid for it. And now instead, you're saying you're almost making a bet that you can package that $10,000 thing into something that's more affordable, more accessible, and a lot cheaper. You know, like, the the income that you're gonna get from it is much smaller, and so you have to make a bet that you go from you go into more of a volume game. So it's getting more eyeballs on on your expertise, and that's hard to do. And then on top of it, like, how to create those productized offers is also like a it's a it's a question.
Having a second brain to look at what you what you're doing today that you could package into things that you could sell at higher volume. I when I when I'm doing this for my own business, I hire a strategist to come in and kinda, like, unpack my brain and help me figure out, like, what am I doing today that I could turn into a product? I think there's a a good middle ground. So a way to experiment for for me was instead of selling all of my consulting and coaching to package it into 1 or 2 day training workshops that I could do. So you're getting, like, a room full of prospective buyers that you're teaching what you do. And some of them are gonna go and do it and do it on their own, and that's it. You know, you've helped them for what they needed and for what their budgets are. But there's gonna be a couple people in the room that say, this guy, this guy, like, I see how not only can they do it, but they've taken it to the level where they can teach how they do what they do. They help me, like, identify pitfalls that I would have that I would have otherwise fallen into. That level of expertise, like, that's a way that you're starting to demonstrate that expertise.
And so what I did from from going from active consulting and coaching, I I created the 2 1 or 2 day workshops around the frameworks. And then because I had taught it, instead of me showing up live, I started to record videos of some of the training modules. And then I also had in the room when I was doing live training, I would have templates on the tables or worksheets. So those all became assets that I started to package into my online tool kits. So it was it was almost like my online my my package training became the foundation for what I turned into prerecorded and online materials for people to buy. And the price got more and more affordable because there was less and less access to me, which meant now I had all that time back that I can go and spend on the 10,000, $30,000 thing.
[00:13:19] Matt Rouse:
Right. I think one of the things you touched on earlier was was doing, like an analysis of your business. We actually did a similar thing at our own business recently. We looked at who are all the clients that we deal with on a regular basis and what is that kind of frequency that that we actually work with them. And what happened is is we figured out that the top 10 clients that we have, like, literally 10 different clients, were almost 90% of the marketing revenue came from those top 10%. We only spent half of our time on them. So we're getting 90% of the money from the top 10, but we're spending half our time on people who are 10% of the business. Right? The way that we've restructured our business is to say, anyone who is not in this top ten doesn't get access to the business owners like myself and Scott. They still get work done and, you know, if we need to be brought in because there's a problem, we'll still help with that. But only the top 10 get access to us and everybody else gets access to, you know, our staff at systems.
And then we determined that we could build another system that's mostly automated, handles a lot of those other tasks that we were doing, and then we could focus our attention on the people who are paying us big money to do big things. Right? The people who want stuff that takes actual creative thought, you know, get that time from us. So it's kind of a win win for everybody. Yeah.
[00:14:47] Jay Malone:
Yeah. And and, like, if you didn't have those systems, your option is you have 2 options at that point. You can say yes to work that's gonna kinda, like, suck you down into things you probably shouldn't be doing. Or if you do have a system that you can give to them, like, you can push them in a different direction and say, hey. Listen. I don't think it's a great fit. You're you know, what for whatever reason. Your our budgets are off. The way that you need us to work is not really where we're taking the business, but use this thing. It's much cheaper than hiring me to do it. Use this thing. It's great. It's helped a 100 other people. It's like you're you're you're still helping the person. You're still making a little bit of money from them without having to put a wall up to say, you're not my ideal customer. You know, go away. Well, everybody wants to talk to the owner. But at the end of the day, when it comes to most things that people use,
[00:15:36] Matt Rouse:
especially business to business wise, like, if you go to Mailchimp, you're not like, well, let me talk to the CEO of Mailchimp before I send my email. Right? I think people have an understanding that there is, you know, there there's a cutoff somewhere, right, in in who do you have access to at a company,
[00:15:55] Jay Malone:
and at what price does that access come. And I think people understand that. So Yeah. Actually, it's it's another it's another pain point because you asked about, like, where do these business owners get stuck. And I think the idea that you're cheapening your work by packaging it into something like a an ebook, a course, a toolkit, set of templates, something like that. But I think, like, what you said, most people are smart enough to realize that some prerecorded materials that you created and doesn't include direct access to to go down deep into the rabbit holes with them, of course, it's gonna be cheaper than hiring you. But the the idea is in that you're cannibalizing yourself with your own with your own packaged content. It's just a way to, like, help a person at a different place in their journey, and they'll know. They'll they'll know when it's time to bring you in. And now instead of guessing, is it gonna be what valuable? Is this person worth what they're saying?
Should I consider somebody else? You've already you you put your tools in their hands, and it makes it a much easier decision for for them to hire you. Well and, of course, you could help everyone who is in the business of whatever it is that you do. But
[00:17:10] Matt Rouse:
who is going to have the most benefit from your work as well as who is gonna be able to financially support you doing that work. Because not that everything's about money, there's a lot of stuff about do you like the work you're doing and things like that, but nobody likes grinding for an extended period of time. Right? And if you're grinding out $30 an hour projects when you should be charging $300 an hour, you're just gonna drive yourself into the ground like you said, doing stuff that you should not be doing. And it's not that those people won't appreciate the help or anything like that. It's they're not at the level to afford someone of your caliber, then you can help them with a smaller tool so that they can make money or an ebook like you said or something like that. Right?
They can work their way up, make more money, and then they can afford to hire you as a consultant.
[00:18:02] Jay Malone:
Yep. Right? Yep. My former business coach, when I met him, he was charging $500 an hour. Eventually, he got to 2,000 an hour. You know, that's not what I was paying, luckily. You know, he does coaching for, executive people sitting on the board at Porsche and things like that. But his his frameworks and his coaching has great impact. And so he looks at it and says, I still wanna be able to help people that can only spend $50 on a coaching call. So he takes all his stuff, and he creates a course or something that helps them where they are today. And who knows, one day they get hired or promoted or something, and they remember him and say, now we got the money. Now I'm at a like, the stakes are higher. I'm gonna hire this guy because he helped me where I was at at that point in my life.
[00:18:52] Matt Rouse:
Right. And I think also businesses and and the people who run those businesses are at different points in their business journey, and they may need to work out the basics before they're ready to even take on somebody who is gonna do some kind of higher level consulting. You know? They like, you can't go in and and help somebody make a souffle when they don't know how to make mac and cheese yet. Right? Like, they they need to have the basics down. And if you could teach that that stuff, right, if you can if you can package up your expertise in a good way that people could get the benefit, but then, you know, like I said, they could learn those things and they can those are your down the road clients.
And, you know, I can 100% attest to doing that. We used to do in person webinar style or, you know, classroom style courses and lunch and learns and all this kind of stuff pre COVID. And I've had people 4 or 5 years after the fact come back to us and say, hey. Can you help us? That is a long term strategy. The nice part is they give you money right now. Right? Because you're teaching something. You know, we used to do courses for email marketing. They were cheap. They were, like, $49. And but we would get a room of 10 people in there, make $500, makes it worth it, pays for the drinks and the food, whatever. Right? And then, you know, 2 of those people over the next, you know, like, one within the first few months and then one a couple years later, maybe one down the road become your clients
[00:20:24] Jay Malone:
for 1,000 of dollars a month. That is a long term, you know, and a short term strategy at the same time. Yeah. The first story I told about my first business, new haircut, so it still exists, actually. I just it's sort of, like, sitting in the background. Those toolkits that I mentioned that I had built, I built them at the tail end of 2019. I finished building I built 3 of them. I built some other content that pointed to them. I finished that work in mid 2020. I wake up several times a week today in 2024 for of people downloading those tool kits, some of them upgrading to the paid tool kits, and then a fewer of them dropping into my inbox to say, hey. I wanna talk to you about a project. And this is so four 4 plus years ago for a business that I'm not actively operating. It's like, I know that when you hear automated sales funnel, when you hear passive revenue, like, my hair goes up too on the back of my neck, but
[00:21:20] Matt Rouse:
I don't Just because of all those crappy YouTube ads.
[00:21:23] Jay Malone:
Yeah. But I I I can't think of a better example of business coming into my inbox from something I did 4 years ago that I literally haven't touched since. They're great. They're very valuable. When I built them, they I gave away everything I had in them. And because of that, they still continue to work today. Maybe in 10 years, they're gonna be outdated. I'm not sure. But they're still helping people, and when I help those people, they want they want access to more of what I've got.
[00:21:52] Matt Rouse:
And it's the Internet. Right? You can always update it. You know, it's not like Yeah. It's not like you're changing Star Wars or something. Yeah. Just the the what was that? Everybody argues about the Guido shooting first in the original Star Wars back in the day. Anyways, that's kind of an aside. Jay, if somebody wants to reach out, learn more about how they can kinda make the leap from trading time for money, What's the best way for them to find your resources and get a hold of you? Yeah. They can go to profit ladder.net.
[00:22:23] Jay Malone:
I write a weekly newsletter there where I'm constantly giving away ideas and strategies and things to help people get started, free resources to do it yourself, to figure it out,
[00:22:33] Matt Rouse:
and, access to me if you wanna talk some more about how I can help. Nice. And, Jay, there's one more question I wanted to ask you. We have talked about AI every single episode of this podcast this year, and we didn't even mention it really this one except for the one kind of chat JBT comment. What are you seeing in your business right now with regards to AI?
[00:22:57] Jay Malone:
So I use it as a great sparring partner for the work that I do. I do create a lot of content, but, also, I'm constantly asking it for help of taking what I'm doing and systematizing and automating pieces that like, giving me time back from me having to create it on my own. It's a great thought partner. What I where I'm plan to go with it is that I think that people have courses and content and whatnot sitting in them, and I think that I will probably create some tools that people can just kinda, like, plug the work that they're doing into them to generate ideas that they can turn into productized offers. You can already do that through Chat gbt. You have to just have to be smart enough with the prompts, but I'd like to package it in a way that people don't have to become the best prompt engineer in order to use it. They can just kinda, like, plug a couple key facts in and get some great ideas.
It's still surprises me to this day. I've been using AI for a couple years now. Still surprises me about, like, where my ideas go after a few iterations of having conversations
[00:24:01] Matt Rouse:
with AI. Nice. Yeah. We're a big AI shop here. We're using stuff all the time. And I think, actually, when we were chatting before the show, our our developer was asking me about, like, can they spend some money to use some API tokens? And I'm like, just go spend the money, man. Get it done. Jay, it's a pleasure talking with you today. Man, I I know as a company who had to make this decision years ago, are we gonna keep just grilling out our time, grinding it out for, you know, dollars for for time, or if we're gonna make that shift? It's a game changer for our business and our lives. So, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on, Jay. Yeah. I appreciate being here, Matt. Thanks for having
[00:24:41] Unknown:
me. This voice over used to be done by a human, but now it is synthetic. Oh la la. If you want to know if your job or business is safe from disruption, read Matt's new book, Will AI Take My Job? Predictions about AI Incorporations, Small Business, and the Workplace. Available now on Amazon. Trust me, it'll be worth it. Remember to tap like, subscribe or unfollow, to never miss a show.
Yeah. So, like, I was building this this system where I was not enjoying the work or getting people to the work. So I started asking myself, like, okay. Like, if at least I can make the the the marketing and selling of the work easier on me.
[00:00:21] Unknown:
Digital marketing masters with your host, Matt Rose. Today's guest is Jay Melone. He's gotta wait and I work alone. He's the guy with a plan to help you go from trading time for money to building a real business.
[00:00:56] Matt Rouse:
Everybody, welcome back to Digital Marketing Masters. I'm your host, Matt Rouse. Today, Jay Melone is my guest. Jay, how are you doing?
[00:01:05] Jay Malone:
Doing good, Matt. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, anytime.
[00:01:10] Matt Rouse:
So Jay and I, we had a couple short conversations, but the the the reason that I wanted to have you on the show, Jay, is this is something that we've talked about kind of on and off on the show in the past, but we've never had anyone on the show specifically about this topic. And that is the idea of being able to transition from, you know, spending trading time for money, the idea of, like, sort of being your own hourly employee versus transferring into becoming what I would call an actual business. Right? Like, you know, a business where you have products or services that you sell that are not just you. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about your background first?
[00:01:56] Jay Malone:
Yeah. Sure. So been a business owner for 15 years. Started my first company in 2010. Company called New Haircut started as a design firm, which is where the name came from. So we used to design websites and build mobile apps and do things of that nature. And, eventually, we found ourselves more of a we evolved into more of a product strategy group doing business for great brands, Google, Home Depot, Ford, Amazon, you know, the kind of logos that you kinda dream of of getting as a a small entrepreneur that that just started a business. You could say, like, I I went into business at that point, first of all, because I got fired 2 jobs in a row. But second of all, because I just had this dream of kinda, like, taking what I had been paid as a w two full time employee, and I kinda, like, fell into building my own company The way I think a lot of entrepreneurs do is you you take a thing that you've been doing and getting paid to do, and you turn it into your own business.
And I didn't really think much about it. I was just happy to be a an entrepreneur for the first several years. But as the the novelty of that wore off, and I realized that going into business is not just showing up and getting paid to be a a magician. You have to spend at least half of your time finding the work, selling it, marketing it, getting referrals, do and then, you know, like, doing great work so that you get referred or rehired. So, you know, like, all of that, all of the other stuff that I was doing other than showing up and doing the work was in between. So in between client projects or nights and weekends, and it was not what I had in mind when I went into business. And then on top of it, I grew tired of the work, Very intense, like, high performance working with executives that are making 8 and 9 figure decisions.
So I had to show up and lead lead those conversations, design them, help groups get to the the final outcome. And, you know, so, like, I was building this this system where I was not in enjoying the work or getting people to the work. So I started asking myself, like, okay. Like, if at least I can make the the the marketing and selling of the work easier on me so that I can show up to client projects with more energy, more passion. So what I started to do was the work that we were doing at New Haircut. So we would go into a company, they'd say, hey. We're we're trying to launch this new product. Come in and make sure that it's the right opportunity for us. Make sure that there's a market for us. Help to prototype some ideas around it. So most of the engagements, 3 to 6 months. Like I said, very intense work. So I I used several frameworks to do research, to do market validation, to prototype ideas.
And I I started to take those frameworks and those methodologies and package them inside of these products where I said, you know what? Instead of hiring me, hire my tool kits. Instead of paying me 30, $50,000 to do what I do, spend a couple $100, take my tool kits, have at it, hire them, not me. That's how well, I was at that level of sort of, like, burnout and almost resentment for my market, and it worked. People started my clients, prospective clients started buying the toolkits. It wasn't my executive buyer that had, you know, access to 6 figure budgets, but it was his team or her team. He would he or she would send them to my toolkits. They'd use them. And then several months would go by, and I have an email in my inbox.
And I get into a sales call, which is typically, like, the start of an 18 month journey. And instead, the conversation went something like, hey. So and so on my team used one of your tool kits. They had great success. They used it on a project inside. We wanna hire you to do that work. We you know, like, my team is stressed out. They're they don't have time. We went through a lot of layoffs. We just want you to come in and do it right because, clearly, you're the expert. So that sentence, clearly, you're the expert. Before then, I had spent months months months of creating content and blogs and all the things to demonstrate or to try to prove to people that I was the expert. And here, I had created this thing that now any number of my prospects could go and use.
On top of it, they had paid me for it, you know, just couple $100. But in that sense, it's almost like my prospective client was paying me to educate themselves and to go through my marketing funnel. And then, like I said, a few a smaller percentage of them would raise their hand and hire me to do my 5 or 6 figure thing. So what I had actually done was to automate and simplify a lot of the the marketing and sales funnel that I had been doing otherwise. Right. Massive life old moment for me.
[00:06:53] Matt Rouse:
Right. I mean, there's there's a couple kind of key points that I wanna mention there. One of them is the idea of being able to prove expertise. That is really difficult in a world where everyone can just type something into chat JPT and sound like they know what they're talking about to someone who does not know what they're talking about. Right? I don't know how many hundreds of emails over the years I've gotten from clients who say, some company sent me this about my website or about my SEO or about this or whatever marketing thing it is. Right? About my advertising. And, you know, I can look at it and be like, yeah. That's spam.
But, you know, a defense attorney or, like, you know, a carpenter is not gonna look at that and go, you know, oh, they're saying there's something wrong with my website. Mhmm. You know? So I I like that idea of being able to prove your expertise to, you know, the people who are your clients. But I think also the other thing of, you know, automating, any parts of your lead generation is a good idea. Right? Except for the for the moment when the hand off happens, which is, like, when is it time for someone to actually talk to you versus having to have those 20 conversations before that you probably used to have to have to get to the same point. Mhmm. Yeah.
[00:08:17] Jay Malone:
Yeah. It's so that's that's a really good point. It's not only that I was previously, I was I was having 20 calls I should have never been in in the 1st place. Wrong fit. Didn't have the budget. Just putting some fillers out, wasting a ton of my time, and it's a small business that you know, I'm selling to enterprise where time is more of a luxury. I get it that people that have jobs are busy, but I would venture to guess that a small business owner who's doing all the things has less of that available time. So I was just having the wrong conversations. And then on top of it, those conversations with my my sales cycles were 12 to 18 months. So by putting my stuff and like, my tool kits were the best of what I had. I didn't hold anything back. So by putting my best stuff in my customer's hands and then going through the journey and when they were ready, by the time we got into a call, they were 80% sold. It was a much much much more productive conversation between us. I found a similar thing happened when I after I wrote my first book. I wrote a book about search engine optimization
[00:09:22] Matt Rouse:
for local businesses, and I'd go show up at a business and I'd say, oh, by the way, I brought you a copy of my new book. And now I'm the expert because I wrote the book and everybody else is just someone who has a business card and a laptop. Anytime that you have a way to prove expertise, I think you've got to win. Somebody is, let's say, coach, consultant, what is kind of the biggest problem that you think that they're facing right now as they kind of move away from this this model of, you know, hourly work?
[00:09:52] Jay Malone:
I think the biggest problem is that there's not a lot of information on how to get away from that. So what we're talking about is you went into business and you sold active services. You show up. You get paid when you do your thing. You trade time for money. It's not a bad thing. It's how it's the foundation for how a a service business is built. I think the the challenge is that when it comes to scale, you know, like, higher leverage ways where the inputs remain the same, but the outputs grow. I just don't think there's a lot of education, or I think I also think that most consultants and coaches are scared to try something different. They're scared to kinda, like, give away their secret sauce. So there's a lot of, like, limiting beliefs about what they they could potentially package up and start to to sell out to the market, and the ROI is unclear. You know, as a consultant coach, if I sell this thing, that's $10, I know that I'm capable of doing it. I'm gonna get my client success, and I'm gonna be paid for it. And now instead, you're saying you're almost making a bet that you can package that $10,000 thing into something that's more affordable, more accessible, and a lot cheaper. You know, like, the the income that you're gonna get from it is much smaller, and so you have to make a bet that you go from you go into more of a volume game. So it's getting more eyeballs on on your expertise, and that's hard to do. And then on top of it, like, how to create those productized offers is also like a it's a it's a question.
Having a second brain to look at what you what you're doing today that you could package into things that you could sell at higher volume. I when I when I'm doing this for my own business, I hire a strategist to come in and kinda, like, unpack my brain and help me figure out, like, what am I doing today that I could turn into a product? I think there's a a good middle ground. So a way to experiment for for me was instead of selling all of my consulting and coaching to package it into 1 or 2 day training workshops that I could do. So you're getting, like, a room full of prospective buyers that you're teaching what you do. And some of them are gonna go and do it and do it on their own, and that's it. You know, you've helped them for what they needed and for what their budgets are. But there's gonna be a couple people in the room that say, this guy, this guy, like, I see how not only can they do it, but they've taken it to the level where they can teach how they do what they do. They help me, like, identify pitfalls that I would have that I would have otherwise fallen into. That level of expertise, like, that's a way that you're starting to demonstrate that expertise.
And so what I did from from going from active consulting and coaching, I I created the 2 1 or 2 day workshops around the frameworks. And then because I had taught it, instead of me showing up live, I started to record videos of some of the training modules. And then I also had in the room when I was doing live training, I would have templates on the tables or worksheets. So those all became assets that I started to package into my online tool kits. So it was it was almost like my online my my package training became the foundation for what I turned into prerecorded and online materials for people to buy. And the price got more and more affordable because there was less and less access to me, which meant now I had all that time back that I can go and spend on the 10,000, $30,000 thing.
[00:13:19] Matt Rouse:
Right. I think one of the things you touched on earlier was was doing, like an analysis of your business. We actually did a similar thing at our own business recently. We looked at who are all the clients that we deal with on a regular basis and what is that kind of frequency that that we actually work with them. And what happened is is we figured out that the top 10 clients that we have, like, literally 10 different clients, were almost 90% of the marketing revenue came from those top 10%. We only spent half of our time on them. So we're getting 90% of the money from the top 10, but we're spending half our time on people who are 10% of the business. Right? The way that we've restructured our business is to say, anyone who is not in this top ten doesn't get access to the business owners like myself and Scott. They still get work done and, you know, if we need to be brought in because there's a problem, we'll still help with that. But only the top 10 get access to us and everybody else gets access to, you know, our staff at systems.
And then we determined that we could build another system that's mostly automated, handles a lot of those other tasks that we were doing, and then we could focus our attention on the people who are paying us big money to do big things. Right? The people who want stuff that takes actual creative thought, you know, get that time from us. So it's kind of a win win for everybody. Yeah.
[00:14:47] Jay Malone:
Yeah. And and, like, if you didn't have those systems, your option is you have 2 options at that point. You can say yes to work that's gonna kinda, like, suck you down into things you probably shouldn't be doing. Or if you do have a system that you can give to them, like, you can push them in a different direction and say, hey. Listen. I don't think it's a great fit. You're you know, what for whatever reason. Your our budgets are off. The way that you need us to work is not really where we're taking the business, but use this thing. It's much cheaper than hiring me to do it. Use this thing. It's great. It's helped a 100 other people. It's like you're you're you're still helping the person. You're still making a little bit of money from them without having to put a wall up to say, you're not my ideal customer. You know, go away. Well, everybody wants to talk to the owner. But at the end of the day, when it comes to most things that people use,
[00:15:36] Matt Rouse:
especially business to business wise, like, if you go to Mailchimp, you're not like, well, let me talk to the CEO of Mailchimp before I send my email. Right? I think people have an understanding that there is, you know, there there's a cutoff somewhere, right, in in who do you have access to at a company,
[00:15:55] Jay Malone:
and at what price does that access come. And I think people understand that. So Yeah. Actually, it's it's another it's another pain point because you asked about, like, where do these business owners get stuck. And I think the idea that you're cheapening your work by packaging it into something like a an ebook, a course, a toolkit, set of templates, something like that. But I think, like, what you said, most people are smart enough to realize that some prerecorded materials that you created and doesn't include direct access to to go down deep into the rabbit holes with them, of course, it's gonna be cheaper than hiring you. But the the idea is in that you're cannibalizing yourself with your own with your own packaged content. It's just a way to, like, help a person at a different place in their journey, and they'll know. They'll they'll know when it's time to bring you in. And now instead of guessing, is it gonna be what valuable? Is this person worth what they're saying?
Should I consider somebody else? You've already you you put your tools in their hands, and it makes it a much easier decision for for them to hire you. Well and, of course, you could help everyone who is in the business of whatever it is that you do. But
[00:17:10] Matt Rouse:
who is going to have the most benefit from your work as well as who is gonna be able to financially support you doing that work. Because not that everything's about money, there's a lot of stuff about do you like the work you're doing and things like that, but nobody likes grinding for an extended period of time. Right? And if you're grinding out $30 an hour projects when you should be charging $300 an hour, you're just gonna drive yourself into the ground like you said, doing stuff that you should not be doing. And it's not that those people won't appreciate the help or anything like that. It's they're not at the level to afford someone of your caliber, then you can help them with a smaller tool so that they can make money or an ebook like you said or something like that. Right?
They can work their way up, make more money, and then they can afford to hire you as a consultant.
[00:18:02] Jay Malone:
Yep. Right? Yep. My former business coach, when I met him, he was charging $500 an hour. Eventually, he got to 2,000 an hour. You know, that's not what I was paying, luckily. You know, he does coaching for, executive people sitting on the board at Porsche and things like that. But his his frameworks and his coaching has great impact. And so he looks at it and says, I still wanna be able to help people that can only spend $50 on a coaching call. So he takes all his stuff, and he creates a course or something that helps them where they are today. And who knows, one day they get hired or promoted or something, and they remember him and say, now we got the money. Now I'm at a like, the stakes are higher. I'm gonna hire this guy because he helped me where I was at at that point in my life.
[00:18:52] Matt Rouse:
Right. And I think also businesses and and the people who run those businesses are at different points in their business journey, and they may need to work out the basics before they're ready to even take on somebody who is gonna do some kind of higher level consulting. You know? They like, you can't go in and and help somebody make a souffle when they don't know how to make mac and cheese yet. Right? Like, they they need to have the basics down. And if you could teach that that stuff, right, if you can if you can package up your expertise in a good way that people could get the benefit, but then, you know, like I said, they could learn those things and they can those are your down the road clients.
And, you know, I can 100% attest to doing that. We used to do in person webinar style or, you know, classroom style courses and lunch and learns and all this kind of stuff pre COVID. And I've had people 4 or 5 years after the fact come back to us and say, hey. Can you help us? That is a long term strategy. The nice part is they give you money right now. Right? Because you're teaching something. You know, we used to do courses for email marketing. They were cheap. They were, like, $49. And but we would get a room of 10 people in there, make $500, makes it worth it, pays for the drinks and the food, whatever. Right? And then, you know, 2 of those people over the next, you know, like, one within the first few months and then one a couple years later, maybe one down the road become your clients
[00:20:24] Jay Malone:
for 1,000 of dollars a month. That is a long term, you know, and a short term strategy at the same time. Yeah. The first story I told about my first business, new haircut, so it still exists, actually. I just it's sort of, like, sitting in the background. Those toolkits that I mentioned that I had built, I built them at the tail end of 2019. I finished building I built 3 of them. I built some other content that pointed to them. I finished that work in mid 2020. I wake up several times a week today in 2024 for of people downloading those tool kits, some of them upgrading to the paid tool kits, and then a fewer of them dropping into my inbox to say, hey. I wanna talk to you about a project. And this is so four 4 plus years ago for a business that I'm not actively operating. It's like, I know that when you hear automated sales funnel, when you hear passive revenue, like, my hair goes up too on the back of my neck, but
[00:21:20] Matt Rouse:
I don't Just because of all those crappy YouTube ads.
[00:21:23] Jay Malone:
Yeah. But I I I can't think of a better example of business coming into my inbox from something I did 4 years ago that I literally haven't touched since. They're great. They're very valuable. When I built them, they I gave away everything I had in them. And because of that, they still continue to work today. Maybe in 10 years, they're gonna be outdated. I'm not sure. But they're still helping people, and when I help those people, they want they want access to more of what I've got.
[00:21:52] Matt Rouse:
And it's the Internet. Right? You can always update it. You know, it's not like Yeah. It's not like you're changing Star Wars or something. Yeah. Just the the what was that? Everybody argues about the Guido shooting first in the original Star Wars back in the day. Anyways, that's kind of an aside. Jay, if somebody wants to reach out, learn more about how they can kinda make the leap from trading time for money, What's the best way for them to find your resources and get a hold of you? Yeah. They can go to profit ladder.net.
[00:22:23] Jay Malone:
I write a weekly newsletter there where I'm constantly giving away ideas and strategies and things to help people get started, free resources to do it yourself, to figure it out,
[00:22:33] Matt Rouse:
and, access to me if you wanna talk some more about how I can help. Nice. And, Jay, there's one more question I wanted to ask you. We have talked about AI every single episode of this podcast this year, and we didn't even mention it really this one except for the one kind of chat JBT comment. What are you seeing in your business right now with regards to AI?
[00:22:57] Jay Malone:
So I use it as a great sparring partner for the work that I do. I do create a lot of content, but, also, I'm constantly asking it for help of taking what I'm doing and systematizing and automating pieces that like, giving me time back from me having to create it on my own. It's a great thought partner. What I where I'm plan to go with it is that I think that people have courses and content and whatnot sitting in them, and I think that I will probably create some tools that people can just kinda, like, plug the work that they're doing into them to generate ideas that they can turn into productized offers. You can already do that through Chat gbt. You have to just have to be smart enough with the prompts, but I'd like to package it in a way that people don't have to become the best prompt engineer in order to use it. They can just kinda, like, plug a couple key facts in and get some great ideas.
It's still surprises me to this day. I've been using AI for a couple years now. Still surprises me about, like, where my ideas go after a few iterations of having conversations
[00:24:01] Matt Rouse:
with AI. Nice. Yeah. We're a big AI shop here. We're using stuff all the time. And I think, actually, when we were chatting before the show, our our developer was asking me about, like, can they spend some money to use some API tokens? And I'm like, just go spend the money, man. Get it done. Jay, it's a pleasure talking with you today. Man, I I know as a company who had to make this decision years ago, are we gonna keep just grilling out our time, grinding it out for, you know, dollars for for time, or if we're gonna make that shift? It's a game changer for our business and our lives. So, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on, Jay. Yeah. I appreciate being here, Matt. Thanks for having
[00:24:41] Unknown:
me. This voice over used to be done by a human, but now it is synthetic. Oh la la. If you want to know if your job or business is safe from disruption, read Matt's new book, Will AI Take My Job? Predictions about AI Incorporations, Small Business, and the Workplace. Available now on Amazon. Trust me, it'll be worth it. Remember to tap like, subscribe or unfollow, to never miss a show.
Introduction to Jay Malone
Transitioning from Time for Money to Business
Creating Toolkits for Business Automation
Challenges in Moving Away from Hourly Work
Analyzing and Restructuring Business Models
Long-term Strategies and Client Relationships
Leveraging AI in Business
