Permission to Kick Ass

Moving from expert for hire to business owner with Amy Posner

• Episode 171

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Today's guest is my long-time friend Amy Posner, and let me tell you, this woman is a force of nature. As a serial entrepreneur, copywriter, and business coach, Amy has been through it all, and she's not afraid to get real about the ups and downs of building a sustainable business while staying true to yourself. 

Can't-miss moments:

  • One question every entrepreneur should ask themselves: Amy reveals why being selective is actually a business accelerator... 

  • The real reason why you might be struggling to get people to pay your rates (this is a much easier problem to solve than it might seem)...

  • When life gets in the way: how to build resilience and rest into your business when you get knocked down (you're going to be seriously inspired by Amy's story)...

  • Good news/bad news: there's more than one way to solve a problem, so your approach might just work. Here's how to bust yourself out of analysis paralysis and get moving...

  • Are you auditioning for your clients, or evaluating them as potential partners? Here's how to tell whether you're unintentionally "unpositioning" yourself (and what to do about it)...

Amy's bio:

Amy Posner is a seasoned online entrepreneur and business coach who helps digital creative freelancers build breakthrough businesses. 

Over her 30-year career, Amy has launched six successful businesses (five of which are still in business today!) and mentored thousands of freelancers to success. Now, she focuses on empowering freelancers to grow the business they want by teaching them the skills they need to attract the right clients – something she teaches in her Complete Breakthrough Freelancer course and as co-host of the Business Badassery podcast.

Amy has been featured on Copyhackers and as a guest on several top podcasts, including The Copywriter Club, Copy Chief Radio, and The Deliberate Freelancer, among others. 
 
In her free time, you’ll find Amy adventuring around her hometown of Olympia, raising funds for pet cancer treatment, and enjoying Washington’s natural beauty.

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Angie Colee:

Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners, from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs helming nine-figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, angie Coley, and let's get to it. Hey, and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass. With me today is my longtime buddy, amy Posner. Say hi, hey, hey. It's been ages since we've talked and we were laughing about that before we started recording that. The last time we saw each other, I'm pretty sure there was probably maybe some wine involved.

Amy Posner:

I'm pretty certain, considering we go to events where, like, people spontaneously get married and shit, right yeah.

Angie Colee:

Oh my gosh, how did I forget about that? That was the first time I sang on stage at a well. I never thought I would sing on stage at a business event, but um woo talk about terrifying. I was so afraid that night. And then our friends got married. What?

Amy Posner:

And you rocked it.

Angie Colee:

I had no idea.

Amy Posner:

I didn't know that side of you. It was like, oh my God, who is this woman? I remember that.

Angie Colee:

For everybody listening. There was an event back in what is it 2017, uh called copy chief live, hosted by my friend and Amy's friend, Kevin Rogers. It was a gathering of copywriters and people who were really interested in marketing and sales, and Kev puts on a pretty cool event, including this X Factor show, where he asked a bunch of us that were musicians and comedians and stuff like that to get up on stage and perform. And let me tell you, I was so nervous I had a band at the time and Kev knew this.

Angie Colee:

I've performed in front of thousands of people, strangers, empty rooms, full rooms, on a moving train, Like. I've performed in every kind of situation possible, but for some reason it was. I am performing in front of colleagues. This is especially terrifying. So I've had like. Marcella Allison, who is also a friend of ours, was like you rocked it that night and I was like I was so drunk. I was so drunk. I don't recommend liquid courage to everybody, Cause that's not a way to solve problems, but that is definitely what got me on stage. Anyway, tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.

Amy Posner:

Well, there's a segue for you. Huh yeah, so smooth. I've been a pretty much a serial entrepreneur for 30 years. I've worked for myself and the funny thing is I never wanted to be a business owner. I grew up in a family business and I was like I want to be the creative one, having no idea the business was super creative and would end up being where I landed. So I've run six businesses over that time. A couple of them are still actually.

Amy Posner:

My first business is still running, still going really strong. I'm not part of it. I sold out of it years ago, ran an agency that I sold. Yeah, so I've had some good success and in the last 10 years or so I had a copywriting career. That's where we originally overlapped and met and that kind of worked into coaching. Partly because and it's interesting because one so I did I did coach copy for a long time. I ran a thing called Copy Clinic.

Amy Posner:

But kind of what happened for me was I was, as I was, sort of working with more freelancers and coaching people and you've seen this I know it's like the people who are really good at their craft but don't have any business chops, just don't eat well, they're constantly up against feast and famine and, like the mediocre practitioners who know how to run a business, make a whole lot more money.

Amy Posner:

And it was trying to be great. You know, it's like you have these really great people who go into business because they're great at something and they love it and then they burn out on it because because of feast and famine. And so I started leaning really heavily into coaching the business skills and that and then and running masterminds and group programs and that's now morphed into some coaching still. But what I did was I digitized everything that I knew and kind of created like an off-the-shelf mastermind, and so that's kind of where I am right now. I'm like in this, in this business, I've been around for a long time, I'm swimming in totally new waters and I don't know the strokes and it's very interesting.

Angie Colee:

Oh, wow. Okay, I'm making notes and I have so many things I want to circle back to, but I wanted to highlight the thing that you said about people who are really good at their craft who tend to suck at business, and I've noticed this pattern too. So for anybody listening out here who has, and tell me if you have felt this feeling before, cause I certainly have thinking Jesus, why is this so hard? Like I thought I was a good writer, but this just seems to be beating me up. I don't know if I have it in me to figure this out. Maybe it's easier if I just go get a job Amy's giving me the thumbs up on that one.

Angie Colee:

That is a skills gap, like Amy, so accurately pegged. You're good at your craft, but you need to learn the business skills, and that includes money management, client management, time management, whole bunch of stuff that comes along with this. You know, creative endeavor, make your own way, live your life by the beach whatever hours you want to work right, we've all been sold the dream. It's a lot harder than it looks, but it can be done if you're willing to put in the work.

Amy Posner:

Yeah, 100%.

Amy Posner:

And I think, you know, one of the things that's so interesting about it too is, I think, like the business stuff isn't sexy, right, like who wants to learn about finance and write proposals and you know all of this stuff.

Amy Posner:

And I think there's also like there's the sales myth.

Amy Posner:

Like people think, oh, if I, like I have to convince people of something or talk them into it, when there's like none of that at all in an actually a good sales, you know, meeting or conversation.

Amy Posner:

So I think a lot of it is people just feel like, oh, I don't want to learn that, like I don't want to be creepy, pushy, manipulative in your face, all these things that they perceive they might become, you know, if they, if they learn the business skills and so I'm doing my best to make it really accessible and go like no, no, no, I'm really scrappy, like all right, I'm not, I'm not an MBA, I'm not like all formal, it's like like let me show you how to do this in a way that's going to work in the world that you move in, and and like let's just give you these things so that you can actually like prosper instead of, you know, constantly wondering like am I out of my mind? Did I make a mistake? Is it me? Because everyone says it's so easy and all the things you've just said and like no, it's not, it's never been easy.

Angie Colee:

I love that you said that business stuff isn't sexy, like these business skills really are not. I coached for a friend's program for quite some time where it was that we were teaching the business side of things, specifically of freelance copywriting, and we positioned it as one person agency and all this was was about figuring out what you want out of this business, what your specialty is, who you work with, what kind of level they're at, how you can support them, and there were so many things that, like I remember getting wrong when I was early in my career that I didn't understand about business, that it's so critical to talk about these things. I would see people saying and this is no judgment if this is where you're at, this is where we all start. Right, you have to learn. They go I want a $5,000 a month retainer and I'm like, great, who are you going for? And they're like these are small business owners and they're making $50,000 to like $150,000 a year and I was like, okay, cool, let's do some math. How much are they making a month? Oh, suddenly we start to see that this math doesn't work. Maybe we need to. We need to either adjust your retainer or we need to adjust your targeting. You need a bigger business or you need a smaller retainer, but you're not going to get $5,000 out of it. You can't get blood out of a turnip it's not going to happen. And blood out of a turnip it's not going to happen.

Angie Colee:

And the unit that I taught specifically was client management, which my friend Chris Orzachowski knows that I'm pretty good at. I communicate pretty well with people, hence having a podcaster. But I was consistently surprised by how many times our coaching calls would run like two, three hours, as all these students are just throwing scenarios at me. Okay, you know, my client was late getting me this thing and now the whole project's running behind and they're mad. How would I handle that? We can't kick this project off because they haven't got me the contract or the payment.

Angie Colee:

How do I handle that? And I would just come up with scripts on the fly and be like we don't have to take these things personally. We don't have to. They're often not personal. If somebody's late on an invoice, it's not usually because they're going. How can I scheme this person? I can't wait to screw them over and get things for free. I mean, there are some folks out there like that. But you develop. You get burned once or twice and you learn what hot means, and you learn how to recognize that the stove is looking a little red right now. Maybe get away from that.

Amy Posner:

Exactly, and like some of those things, and you know it from. I mean you're, you're naturally good at it. I mean you're a people person, right? So you know these things. I had to learn this. Oh, you did in the business context. Was it not natural for you?

Angie Colee:

Yes, it was not natural for me at all. Like a lot of the people, skills are very, very much a learned skill for me. But I'll say your point and then I'll continue on that.

Amy Posner:

Well, I was just going to say I think it's. It's interesting, because people often see clients as adversaries, right? Instead of potential partners.

Amy Posner:

And so I think that's where this whole little thing sort of gets knotted up and get started, where it, you know it's like the freelancer goes almost like hat in hand, like, oh you know, like my, good enough, would you hire me, could I work on your project? When really you know that, first of all, that's not going to impress the client but second of all, that's not the situation. It's like you know you have a skill, they have a problem. You know, does your skill, is your skill, the solution to that problem? So A is there fit? And B like do you want fit? Do you want to solve this problem? Do you want to work with this person? I don't want to work with everyone. I don't want to solve everyone's problems. I mean, I just don't right, I don't. I think most of us don't. So period.

Angie Colee:

Underline circle amen. Do I want to work with this person is a totally valid question.

Amy Posner:

Yeah, and it's one you should be asking and you can see where, like, you come from a place of more confidence, asking that question right, like, rather than oh like, would you deign to work with me and maybe accept? No, it's like, hey, I've got the skills and even when you're new, I mean you're valid in what you know and ideally, you know more than the client does. Even if it's just a teeny little bit, you're the expert.

Angie Colee:

Oh, yes, yeah, Absolutely. I fell into that delusion for a long time of thinking that I had to be like the utmost expert in order to earn their respect. I've told this story, I think, a couple of times in different places, but the first time I was asked to break down copy on stage, I spent weeks studying like the most advanced launch strategy. I was convinced that somebody was going to try and throw me a curveball, and I was. I was prepared, and so imagine me on stage when I'm getting. I'm like bring it on your best shot.

Angie Colee:

I'm prepared to answer any marketing question you have, no matter how advanced, and all of the questions were marketing 101, all like very, very basic marketing stuff. But you're so close to it, especially when it's just you as solo practitioner or you're in that messy growth stage where everybody is swamped and you just don't see little things like nowhere on this page. Did you tell me what your business actually is? That would be helpful. It's a very pretty graphic, but I don't know what you do. And then they came to the back table and told me oh my gosh, how did I not see that You're a genius? And I went this is wow. I thought this was going to be so much harder than it was, but most people are struggling with the same basic problems and once you see the patterns it's very easy for you to solve.

Amy Posner:

It is, and it's interesting because there's the same patterns, and it's often it's like the two things you said. It's like well, this and that has happened with a client. How do I untangle it? This and that has happened, right, these are just people, right? Like, what do you do when you have an issue with your partner or your best friend or your mom? You know, how do you, how do you handle it, how do you talk to them? It's like it's the same, it's the same kind of thing if you well, it's the same kind of thing.

Amy Posner:

But you have to see yourself, as you know, sort of deserving, for lack of a better word, and I think that's that's kind of an issue for people. It's like am I good enough to Do? I have the confidence, do I deserve to? And so I think you know the mindset stuff is a whole other piece that just smacks right up into this. I feel like the second you decide you're going to start a business, it's like you know all your confidence just goes. It just goes like shaking to the ground, like, oh my God, what am I done? Like who am I to? And like we all run into that.

Angie Colee:

And now you've got to solve that problem. Oh yeah, nobody told me when I signed up for business that I was signing up for like 80% self-development, 20% business. You come face to face with yourself good, bad and ugly real quick when you start a business, oh my gosh. But I agree with you when you talk about there's this kind of pervasive under, especially in the direct response, like the more sales oriented woohoo, this launch made $2 million. There can be a client as an adversary undercurrent, even if people don't say that they're the enemy, and I see this happening all the time with well, like I made this recommendation and the client disagreed with it. How freaking stupid are they? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Angie Colee:

And I got really known in certain copywriting groups for coming in and kind of toning down the pitchfork mob and being like okay, well, you're an expert in marketing and your perspective is valid, and they're an expert in their business and their perspective is valid and they're taking on you as a risk and a cost. So I think that's a position that deserves respect. I don't think that's stupid at all. And suddenly you know there were some people that like doubled down and they're like what the hell do you know? I'm like okay, cool, that's fair. But then other people that were watching got it and suddenly realized like okay, when we respect each other and we work together to solve a problem, that's much better than me coming in swinging things around and going pay attention to me, I am the expert, yeah.

Amy Posner:

And I think and it's funny because I think I think the like, the less expert you are, the more likely you are to have that position or feel delusional, right, or feel delusional, it is delusional, whatever. I think that it's funny, like the more seasoned you are, the sort of the more humble you are, because you realize it's so funny, like at the, at the early stages, you're like you know, you know people are talking about things and, like you said, like you don't know what that is but they don't know Cause they think, oh, I'm supposed to know. Like you're busy, busy like Googling, like what is that acronym? Well, it's like some internal thing that they don't expect you to know, but you feel talking about something they've done. And the thing is you realize later, of course, is like the more questions you ask, the more of an expert you look for.

Amy Posner:

Look like because you need to dig down right, nothing, nothing or rarely is anything like what the client presents is the thing that they need or the solution to the problem. It often needs to be talked about. So you need to learn how to ask questions and probe and find out what's really going on. And I think, I think in the early stages. You don't realize that and I think that just that one thing learning to ask questions can, like, like, change your whole, the whole positioning of how you're seen. Oh, absolutely.

Angie Colee:

I can't remember where I heard it, but I've heard it a couple of times that said that that basically people will easily perceive you as an expert if you know how to ask good questions that make them think. And I have talked about that with clients and with the courses that I've taught about. You know, I see it almost as client inception. If I present an idea and they kind of resist it, then I will start a sequence of questions that gets them to rethink the choice they've made and eventually they usually come back around and suggest the thing that I suggested and I go. That's a fantastic idea, as I wanted to proceed without us ever having to fight each other, because I just wanted them to see where I was coming from and if they overruled me, cool, they're paying me to do a job and we may not agree on that, but I need to do the job because that's what they're paying me to do.

Amy Posner:

It's okay, yeah, and our job is to make their lives easier. Right, it's not to be a pain in the ass, it's not to challenge them and sometimes, like, sometimes they are wrong, that's their prerogative. They're paying the bill, right?

Angie Colee:

And sometimes I'm wrong too Right? No, we can't. I want just as much grace whenever I'm wrong as I want to give them Yep.

Amy Posner:

Yeah, and I think you know it's an interesting thing, that like getting cause you're really you're getting inside someone's business and I like, for those of us who run businesses, like that's our baby, right, I mean this is very especially the smaller businesses. Or if you're a solo, I mean this is very, very freaking personal. And there's even some like sense of like, like I don't know, proprietariness, right, it's like I hired you but I don't really want you to tell me everything. Right, I want this to be, I want it to be a little bit more, a little more gentle or a little more of a partnership, and so you have to be really careful as the contractor, right, because again, I think it's our job to make their job easier and to kind of help interpret what's going to work. But you got to be really gentle because this is like, really this is their baby. It just is that's the only way I can put it. It's like it's really personal.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, I like that reframe because if you especially if you're in the newer the growth stage, if you start to treat people's businesses like this is their baby, I wouldn't just come in like steal their baby away and like run it over here Cause I think we need to be at the park right now. You're going to have the call cops called on you. You're going to be arrested real quick, like don't do that. But if you talk to them and be like, hey, do you want to walk to the park? Let's go to the park together, maybe the baby can get some sunshine, you and I could talk business right.

Angie Colee:

You said that I was a natural, and that seems like a conversation that's come up a couple of times recently, because I have also had somebody say that I was very, very confident and that I always spoke my mind and I would not let people walk all over me. And I said that's because I used to be a doormat. I was like every single thing that I now know how to do is a learned response based on how I used to behave. This is very tied into the evolution that we were talking about becoming a business owner. Like you learn how to be better, you learn how to put certain safeguards in place or you just don't move forward. You stay stuck in the place that you are until you learn the thing you need to learn, in the place that you are, until you learn the thing you need to learn. So you know doing what other people told me is basically my repeat pattern. That shows up over and over and over again, and I talked about this recently on the podcast too. It even showed up in me trying a whole bunch of different things in my own business, because every time I would come up with an idea that lit me up and filled me with joy, I'd run it by my mentors and they'd go. I don't think this is a good idea, and here's all the reasons why. And I didn't trust myself. I trusted them to know better than me, so I would follow what they told me to do and I would struggle and I would feel miserable and I didn't understand why these things were working. These things weren't working because I was trying to build somebody else's business. So it worked when I followed my own vision, even when it didn't make sense to other people, Like I actually had a mentor.

Angie Colee:

Tell me my, my first idea for an event was. It came on the heels of my travel. I spent a couple of years as a digital nomad. Somebody came to visit me in in Savannah Georgia. We had this giant two-story porch with the columns and the fans and we spent most of our time out there writing. And this person idly comments at the end of five days I've gotten more work done on this front porch in the last five days than I've done at home in probably the last five months.

Angie Colee:

And I went aha, there's something to this like change of scenery, change of pace. Maybe we can do something. And I said oh, a lot of people have been telling me that they'd love to go on adventures with me. And now I have this person saying they got a lot of work done with me. Maybe I can create an event where we can combine the both. We do some adventures, we get some work done. Everybody wins. I'm very excited. I run this by my mentor. And this person was like yeah, I don't think that's going to work. And I was like cross my soul, why don't you?

Amy Posner:

And did you go? Have you gone ahead and done it?

Angie Colee:

I actually did go ahead and do it despite that, and I think that was just the sign to me that I was no longer in the right space in terms of mentorship, because and this is something you learn in business, too that you eventually outgrow your mentors which can be very sad in and of itself where you're like I thought I was going to go forever with this person and they were going to be my, my person that just helped me build my business forever.

Angie Colee:

But some people are going to pop into your life and help you get to a certain level, and then you're going to need somebody else to help you get to the next place, or you change directions entirely and you don't work in that field anymore, so it doesn't make sense to work together anymore. So that was another real hard lesson, too, where it was like no, I, I disagree. I think that this is going to work. I think there's something to this and I'm going to pursue this, and that led to my event ePlay launch where the very first one was in Vegas and we drove bulldozers and it was fantastic.

Amy Posner:

Oh, this is ringing a bell. I've read about this now, okay, okay, when was this?

Angie Colee:

This was April of 2022. So there have been three so far and they've all been fairly small and like invite only because we haven't had to advertise to the public yet. There's not one planned for 2024 just yet, but I will keep you posted.

Amy Posner:

Oh, very cool. So let me ask you so in this, this, because I think this is really interesting like when people say yes and when people say no, like your trusted mentors or colleagues. So how do you I mean, how do people break out of that? Like when do you know when your idea is right and then somebody else is wrong? Like is it for you? Is it like gut, is it experience? Like you've done it enough now? Or had people say no to things that are so uniquely you? I'm like, how does that work for you? I'm really curious.

Angie Colee:

That's a great question. I think this is the first time I'm really articulating this, so it's going to be on the fly and it's probably going to be a bit rough. I would say it probably was a little bit gut instinct, because something in me woke up in that moment and said hey, wait a minute. I'm really excited about this and it feels like, instead of asking me how we could make this happen, what would need to happen? Right, that's the line of questioning. I would take a client down to lead to this client-ception. Right? If I think that what they're doing is not going to be productive, then I will ask them a series of questions that will help them decide whether this is a good decision or not.

Angie Colee:

But so I think part of me rebelled against being told this is not a good idea. I think part of me rebelled against like, why can't we figure out what would make this a worthwhile idea instead of just stomping all over it? And then there was another third, like deeper part of me that went enough. I've followed what everybody else told me to do for years and years and years and it didn't work out the way they said it would. Why don't I do what I think should be done and figure things out from there. So yeah, I think that was all the conversation that was happening kind of in an unconscious level that led me to go. I'm going to figure out how to do this.

Amy Posner:

And do you think like is it based on, like, like you've had successes, sort of being I don't know out of the box, or like not following what people said, and so you kind of said, well, hell, it's working for me, or I know myself better, or yeah, that, and I think and I feel like a lot of podcast guests have identified with this in the past too A lot of us come from that kind of exceptional student background like overachiever.

Angie Colee:

We were really naturally good at certain things, especially in school, and then we got into the working world and got a little bit surprised by it's a little bit harder than that, right, right.

Angie Colee:

And then you get into business and you're constantly told that like you have to work hard, you have to hustle and grind, and there's all of these things that go into running a business.

Angie Colee:

Yes, and once you have figured out how to make your finances work, your offers work, things like that you can construct things in a way to where the work is easy and enjoyable for you. That doesn't mean that business is always going to be smooth sailing, but and I think that's the thing I didn't get for a long time until somebody saw me editing something live as a copywriter and she goes I just watched you do that, but I have no idea what kind of magic did you just do? I don't know how you changed two sentences and changed this whole email and I was like, oh, I thought everybody knew how to do this and it turns out a lot of other people struggle to do what I do very easily, and I think that's true for almost every industry out there. I've met some people who are whizzes at technology and they start talking about tagging and list cleaning and I start going oh panic, no, I don't need to know anybody.

Angie Colee:

Please you do that for me, okay, yes, I all but hide every time I get an email from one of my bookkeepers and accountants and I know it's probably going to be like 10 minutes of me looking at books on my end, but I'm like numbers no, yeah, me too.

Amy Posner:

Like no somebody else. My story for a long time was I'm really good at making money but not good at managing it, which isn't exactly true, but I guess I just don't like it. I like money, but I don't like that stuff. I don't like getting into all the details and sometimes I feel a little embarrassed about that, like as a business owner and a coach who teaches business stuff, but it's like no, I don't like it, I don't need to do it, you don't need to do it, you don't like.

Angie Colee:

You know, I think that that is something that's kind of dismissed, a lot Like money is inherently uncomfortable to talk about for a lot of folks. For some folks, it comes very easily, but for other folks especially those that have some sort of trauma in their past or they haven't trusted themselves with how to handle money, that becomes something tricky to talk about. So, like when you get somebody all up in your face about you got to talk about money, yes, and like being all in my face isn't going to make me want to have this conversation anymore. Um, actually, before the recording, we were having a talk about having you know downturns over the last couple of years and how um there were. There were some difficulties.

Angie Colee:

I heard this across the board in a lot of small businesses that 2023 was a struggle, um, and I remember going to my accountant on a quarter when I was going to take a loss, like there's no way around this. I'm in the negative for this quarter and I'm just so full of shame going into this call. I don't want to talk to them, I don't want to be on this call, I don't want to share this news, as if they didn't already know it, because my accounts are connected and they could see all this happening in real time. But I just don't want to face the music Right. And what I loved about them was they came to this call and they went.

Angie Colee:

This is it happens. You're smart. Look at your track record, look at everything that you've built. You'll get it back. This is a rough patch. We have all the faith in you. We're here to handle the numbers and help you get better at keeping that money. You're out there doing the business and the hard work. It's going to be okay. And I was like okay, thank you. And sure enough, they were right, turned it around, managed to make some offers and some sales and things are trending up. It's fantastic.

Amy Posner:

I love the accountant slash therapist.

Angie Colee:

That seems to be who I need to work with.

Amy Posner:

That's very cool. It's like, oh, extra service. Okay, thank you.

Angie Colee:

Part accountability, part therapy, and then, you know, just a good buddy we could go have a drink with. This is who I like to work with, at least. Yeah me too.

Amy Posner:

It's good, though you don't expect that from your accountant necessarily. Anyway.

Angie Colee:

No, not at all. Well, hey, we broached the topic. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what happened over the last year?

Amy Posner:

Yeah.

Amy Posner:

I mean for me, it's mostly personal. You know, it's funny because a lot of my clients were taking a business hit and I had decided to take a business hit, so well, yeah, so what happened is my brother died in October of 2022. No-transcript. And so what I decided was okay, I'm going to step back and do something I've wanted to do for a long time and haven't done properly. I'm going to build this program that I've wanted to build and I'm going to hire someone to help me, because I built it before and I just wasn't proud of it, so I never put it out in the world. So it just seemed like a really good time to invest in myself. But here's the funny thing In the end of talking about money, I never did that before. I've never. I mean, I've invested in my business, obviously, and in myself, but I've never said, you know what, I'm not going to work, I'm not going to worry about income, I'm going to finance this next iteration or this next chapter, and that's what I had decided to do. So I was already in those. I was already expecting that. So I wasn't. You know, that wasn't. That wasn't challenging for me.

Amy Posner:

I mean, what was challenging was then my chiropractor got murdered, then a really good friend had a heart attack and then I had a breast cancer scare that took a month to get the results of. So it was just a lot of things at once, and so that was my hardship, was I? Just? It was the first time in my life really that I couldn't work at the capacity that I wanted to work at. I just I've always had a lot of capacity, I have a lot of energy, and I was just like you know what I'm out. I especially don't have it for other people, because I really like to give when I work with people, but like you can't give if you don't have to give, you just can't, right. And so I've never been up against that before.

Amy Posner:

And I was up against it and I thought, okay, you know, and I mean you know I'm obviously not a kid either, I've been around for a while, so it's like okay, like can I take another hit like this? Like what if you know? Like who knows what life is going to bring me? So maybe I really need to rethink my business model and have it not be so so dependent on me, you know, and me being, you know, there, you know, in real time. So that's that's why I made the pivot that I did. And it's been interesting because of course I've been coaching people and I've, you know, I bugged it. I kept, I kept a little handful of one on one clients and what I've seen is like extremes, like either they're rolling in way too much work and they're wondering like who do they take on and how do they manage it, or they're over here going. I've had like an abundance of work for two or three years and now the well is dry and I have no clue what to do and I didn't see anything in between.

Angie Colee:

There weren't a whole lot of people who were just rolling along on their normal path.

Amy Posner:

Right, it was either it felt like it was either feast or famine. Yeah, so it's and it's. It's just been a really. I mean, I, you know on the heels of the pandemic and our lives have changed because of that and I don't think we've all really kind of taken that in, because there's so much going on and the world's a mess, and so, like it's a, it's a challenging time, you know, on top of being a tough economic time.

Angie Colee:

It is a very challenging time. It is a very challenging time and that's I mean wow. I mean so much all of my love to you, because I definitely feel that feel. When are the hits going to stop? When are we going to have some breathing room? Oh my goodness, to have all of that happen in such short order. How did you find your way through that? I know that you mentioned a little bit. I'm going to take on this next bit of building by yourself, but what did that look like? I'm curious. You mentioned a little bit. I'm going to take on this next bit of building by yourself, but what did that look like?

Amy Posner:

I'm curious. So I actually. So I have, I have a I don't know what to call her. She calls herself my chief wrangler, so I have somebody who runs alongside with, alongside me, and so luckily I had her and we've been together for a couple of years now in business, so she knows me and knows what to do well enough that she could kind of fill in some things for me. So I had that and you know, just turned out to be really wonderful support like above and beyond. So that was great. And I hired an instructional designer. I mean, I hired someone to actually help me figure out, because I think I'm pretty good at teaching people or helping people. What I'm not good is knowing how like I don't know how to get what is out of my head into a format that you can use, because I either do way too much or way too little.

Amy Posner:

Right, my old style was like, backed up the information, dump truck me, like here I'll give you as much as I possibly can. Then I realized no, people can't work with that. But then I went a little shorthand and it's like no, that's not quite enough. So I I didn't trust myself to know like what, like to have a real learning path for people and to make it super accessible. So, anyway, that's what I set out to do. It took us. We thought it would take six months. It took nine months.

Amy Posner:

Um, and then I realized it was so funny because I got that done and it was like oh wait, my website's a copywriter website, yeah, and a coaching website, hmm, didn't think of this. So then I did a website and a rebrand. Then it was like okay, now I'm in the selling things business. So I got to clean up my backend and I got to get my automations right and like why are people coming? Why is that door open? Why is that door open? Like, how did these links, links, go? Like someone download a lead magnet I was offering four years ago? It's like where did you find that? That kind of thing. So that led to a whole tightening up in the back end and cleaning things. And so here I am, I'm all sparkly, clean and ready and I'm like what do I do every day?

Angie Colee:

I know exactly what you're talking about, cause I feel the same way in terms of my capabilities as a teacher. I feel like I'm really good at teaching somebody as long as they bring me a specific problem that I can solve, but like, if I have to sit down and figure out, ok, this is like the whole landscape of things that I could work with and these are all the problems that I could solve. Then I start to get overwhelmed and I think the first time I tried to teach somebody how I think through launch strategy, I literally watched like the deer in the headlight look, pop up on people's faces and then went oh, I'm like I'm backing that dump truck up, I'm burying them alive, they're panicking. I don't know how to stop this. So what I'm hearing is I need to hire an instructional designer too.

Amy Posner:

It was. It was kind of amazing. It was like like it felt it actually felt like magic, because we do these long sessions and then he would come up with you know like sort of what like the key points, and then I would flesh them out and we ended up developing a working process. But I felt like like I finally found someone who could get into my head and extricate the stuff somehow. And I don't know what that takes. I have no idea why he's good at it and why we were a fit, but it worked.

Angie Colee:

I think a lot of us are good at that to a certain extent and in certain fields, because I remember a while back wanting to get in more media and pitch more articles. But it's the same thing where I sit and think about everything that I could potentially speak to and all the stories I've accumulated over and all the publications that are out there and getting the information for the editors. Then it becomes overwhelming. And so I paid my media coach for like an hour of her time and said here's what I'm working on, here's some things that have been happening. And I was just waiting for her to go Ooh, tell me more. And then I'm going okay, cool, there's a story. And by the end of this hour she had pulled like 12 to 15 stories out of me and she'd also said this would be good for this publication, this would be good for that publication. It's how I got an article into Huffington post last year of like she basically spoon fed me that this would be a good article for Huffington Post. You should talk to this person, here's how, right. And I was totally oblivious to the fact that that is exactly what I do for my strategy.

Angie Colee:

Clients Like I sit there and pull this out of them and reflect I call it reflecting their awesomeness back at them, because we are totally not objective when it comes to seeing how awesome we are. That kind of goes back to like making things harder on ourselves and not letting it be easy when it's something that we can naturally do. But I get to listen to people and ask them questions about their business and then when they get like good and ranty or they get impassioned or they go oh my God, this is my favorite client ever. I go story story. Story story All right, cool. Here's how that launch flows. Story story All right, cool. Here's how that launch flows. And it's fantastic. It's the best feeling ever to solve a problem like that just by talking it out.

Amy Posner:

It's so good and I just flashed on. I just remember talking to you in a hallway at an event and you were just starting a kind of coaching where, like, people could bring you anything and it could be a one-off. And I was like and it's interesting, it's like talking about like you doing you and your ideas, and I remember thinking that's freaking brilliant. I know I mean I never had heard of it and I offer something like that now, totally inspired by you. But I remember thinking like just thinking how smart that was and just I don't know. This is like I'm kind of bringing that circle back. You've always struck me as someone who's very I want to say, uniquely you, but like someone who does follow their own ideas.

Angie Colee:

It's taken a lot to get here, and that's it's so funny to me. Well, because of course I have to be in my head. You guys don't have to be in here with me and trust me, you don't want to be. It's a scary place in between my ears. Sometimes that's the creative imagination at work there, but it's been a lot of work to get to that point and to know that it appears that way, even though it hasn't always felt that way, it means a lot to me. Thank you for saying that.

Amy Posner:

Oh yeah, you're welcome. I just flashed and I can remember like distinctly like coming around the corner and seeing you and having this conversation and hearing about that and going, yeah, just sort of being mind blown anyway.

Angie Colee:

Yeah, that was one of those like I. I know that a lot of people want to work with me on stuff and I know that they have a lot of things that they can work on and a lot of problems I can solve. And, like a lot of multi-talented, multi-passionate people, we struggle to go. This is the problem that I solve for the person that I solve it for. Yes, yes, and here are all the little sandboxes I like to play in. Okay, that's fine, I'm a little ADHD, sue me.

Amy Posner:

And at the time you had a full-time job and I remember thinking like, okay, you're, you're doing this and you're doing that and you've got a pretty responsible full-time job. From what I could see on the outside, you were really running the show and it's like and she's coaching, and she's doing. It's like, yeah, I, yeah, you've always been impressive.

Angie Colee:

Well, I didn't bring you on the show to be all like. Here's why Angie's awesome.

Amy Posner:

Oh no, you're going to pay me after, right, oh yes, okay, sure, we didn't talk about that.

Angie Colee:

This is. This is fantastic. Okay, so you've, you've hired the instructional designer. We've decided we've been building this comeback from this really really awful, terrible year. Rest in peace to your brother. How are things going now? How's it looking?

Amy Posner:

Are you excited? Yeah, so things are looking great. I just just launched a new website and it's funny. I feel like I've like moved out of a dorm room into a luxury hotel. I do. I felt I didn't realize how self-conscious I felt. It's like, oh, everything's neat here and that's a place. So I'm really excited about that. We've been doing all of these things to sort of get our house in order and now we're like ready to sort of do the work that we need to do.

Amy Posner:

So I feel, really, I feel very excited. I feel a little bit I won't say out of my league, because I think I can get this in my league, but I feel a little. I feel like I've got a new challenge that I need to solve and I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to solve it, although I'm really grateful to some of the things you've said, because I have some ideas and they're really different from the mainstream ideas and I'm like, and they're very me and that's always worked for me too Right, like I launched my copy business with a lumpy mail package, right, like who does that? But so, anyway, you've like sort of given me a little bit of I don't know impetus to say like you know what I think. Maybe I need to bring a little bit of my own little spice here.

Angie Colee:

Absolutely. That's so funny. I get so up in arms when people talk about, like, what's working, best practices. I want to do what somebody else is doing Like. To me, that's the mark of somebody that's not a good fit for me. I like how are you going to stand out if you are deliberately following the herd that is not standing out, that is blending in? And the whole reason that everybody follows trends is because somebody was brave enough, like you, to go. Well, I don't want to do it that way, I want to do it this way. I think that's wonderful, wonderful.

Amy Posner:

I do too, and I think you know. The problem, I think too, with following the trends or following other people, is you really don't know what they've done. You only know what you've seen Right. And it's like, oh, there's Angie and overnight success. It's like, yeah, plus 12 years, or whatever. I mean you just you just don't know. And so I think that whole idea of I don't know and like yeah, it's great to emulate people and it's great to learn from people, but like you really need to know what you're dealing with Right, because you just you just don't know.

Angie Colee:

You have no idea. And to know why you're doing something like, if you like the idea behind what something somebody is doing and you want to make that your own cool, make that your own, but don't give away your power by going well, this, like I did. This person knows better than me, so I should just do what they say. That is building your business for somebody else. It may or may not work for you, and I think that's where a lot of these kind of gurus get themselves in trouble with unsatisfied customers. They only know the way that works for them to build a business. They haven't explored other ways, and I think that's what makes you an effective coach, and I like to think that's what makes me an effective coach.

Angie Colee:

I can see across industries to higher level trends and things that work, because this is something that just works for creative service businesses. This is something that works for service businesses in general. Right, and these can apply to all of these different things. Versus. There is one way to do it, and if you do not do this, something is wrong with you. I hate that messaging and I hope it dies in a fire.

Amy Posner:

And the problem with that one trick pony business is like you haven't shown anyone else to do it right. It's like, so you've done it and it was great for you, but like, unless you can show me, you've, you know, taught that to a bunch of other people who can also do that and it works for them. Then why would I do it? How do I know it's not uniquely you and I can't emulate it. It just doesn't make sense.

Angie Colee:

Amen, amen, like. My favorite drum to beat lately is that there's a hundred different ways to solve any given problem and a whole bunch of those solutions could actually all work, and so I'm tired of this dynamic of where there's one solution, there's one best solution. Maybe, maybe not Right. I had. You'd probably appreciate this, because we touched on sales sucks and head trash earlier at the beginning and I made a note to circle back and I almost forgot. So I'm glad we're coming full circle.

Angie Colee:

I had some head trash around not being good at sales too, and I think this came in the past from feeling like I had to be some slick, polished salesperson that could just like pivot smoothly and be like, by the way, I have the perfect service for that. It turns out I didn't have to do that. I recently had a couple of sales wins for my business and that was new for me because I worked for these big teams. I was referral only for a long time. I didn't develop those sales skills and I felt, frankly, very uncomfortable putting myself out there and making offers.

Angie Colee:

And then my coach, hi Ron, said something brilliant Lean into the discomfort like practice your pitch a couple minutes each day, like talk about who you're for and what problems you like to solve, just casually, out loud to yourself, so that you get comfortable saying this, and then just lean into the awkwardness. And the funny thing is I had a sale a couple of weeks ago that, like this is a stranger. I'm meeting her for the first time. She was introduced by a colleague, closed the sale in 15 minutes because we were just vibing, we're on the same page and I was like this is who I am, this is what I do. I'm not the greatest, most polished salesperson on the planet, but I don't give a damn about that. I give a damn about being good at marketing and I I assure you I'm really, really good at that. And just leading into that awkwardness made her go yep, you're my person. Cool, send the contract.

Amy Posner:

We're done, yes, and I love that. And you know, it's like I love like transparency around awkwardness, because what happens is it's like it's like Angie, like I feel really uncomfortable but I got to ask you this thing. Well, you're going to feel like a little warmer toward me, like like I feel uncomfortable with me, Like come here, like what's up Right, like it just puts you in a more I don't know in a more open position, and then and now it's like on the table that I feel awkward. So, instead of like, if I act awkward, you might just think I'm like a weirdo or I'm not good at what I do. But if I've just told you I'm awkward, well, I might still be a weirdo, but I might still be good at what I do.

Angie Colee:

And I can still be really freaking good at what I do and not be the strongest salesperson. Those two things can be simultaneously true and I can still build a good business off the back of that. That is this all ties back in beautifully to this like being yourself just owning that, trying new things. I love it.

Amy Posner:

And also being willing to be bad at something, to be good at it Like we so desperately me included, I so desperately want to be good at something that it's like it's hard, I get impatient, like I don't want to be bad at it, I don't, so I don't do it and it's like you know, it's okay, it's really okay, like you can't get better, unless you get at it.

Angie Colee:

I don't like okay. So I want to be better at running. I need to run a seven minute mile tomorrow, even though I haven't run in 20 years. I'm going to start working out. I need to go lift 500 pounds tomorrow, like, yeah, those unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves, that's the root of a lot of the suffering. That's the root of a lot of the suffering.

Amy Posner:

it's going to be messy, it's going to be ugly, it's going to suck it's like when people come to me and they say, well, I want to make 10k a month, you know, I'm like you know, and I'm just starting a business and I've had a job, and it's like, well, have you made 10k a month in your job?

Amy Posner:

no, all right, we we've got some unpacking right, but like it's like you, so you don't have experience doing that, so like we need to like unpack, like the whole. Anyway, it's just. Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting, isn't it? I love this. Yeah, I do.

Angie Colee:

Thankfully, I'm so grateful and it sounds like you share this trait to to be like Okay, why am I thinking that? Why am I behaving this way? Why are you behaving this way? I get curious instead of going Well, that's freaking weird. I never want to talk to them again.

Amy Posner:

No, and well, I mean I kind of like the weirdos though, personally Me too, I know, oh, me too.

Angie Colee:

Weirdos are my people. They make life way interesting and if you want to be like a normal alpha whatever boring, snooze, cool Go run with your crew, I don't care.

Amy Posner:

Right, there's a bar for you too, yep.

Angie Colee:

Exactly, there's a bar for all of us. Just don't come to our weirdo bar.

Amy Posner:

On that note, I'm going to keep going for like two more hours, if you let me, but at my website, amyposnercom, I've got a um, a free course called breakthrough clients, and it's a really. It's really good for people who are trying to figure out like, who's my client, who should I be going after who, who should I be talking to? You know, it's funny, this is like I, this is like a little sideways, but you know, when I started my business, when I started my copy business, I didn't know who bought what I sold. Right, I was like why do people? Why do some people buy a sales letter for 2,500 and some people are paying 25,000, right, is it the client client, is it the contractor? Is it the project? Um, you know.

Amy Posner:

So I was really trying to untangle all of that stuff, and what I and what I've come to understand is like you have to be serving the right people for you, which, of course, you know, and you really need to go through the process of figuring it out, cause when you're and I think you said it earlier it's like when you're trying to make the wrong offer to the right people or the other way around, it's like it doesn't sell and you think it's you when you suddenly are solving the right problems for the right people. It's like, oh, you know, your dance card fills up, People want projects, things are happening and so so, anyway, that's that's the thing I have at the site. That's free. I do a weekly newsletter. That it's like your little dose of entrepreneurial intelligence for your week and things to think about. And yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, I hang out, I answer questions, I try to be, I'm trying to like, get known and be accessible. So that's where I'm at.

Angie Colee:

Well, I think we can help with that, with this show for sure.

Amy Posner:

Yay, a little happy dance. I'm doing a little happy dance here, yeah.

Angie Colee:

Yes, all right. Thank you so much for being on the show. This was this just made my heart happy. What a way to end my recording day. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It's fun. That's all for now. If you want to keep that kick-ass energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high-octane dose of you Can Do it. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Permission to Kick-Ass podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify and wherever you stream your podcasts. I'm your host, angie Coley, and I.