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Increasing Profits Without Increasing Stress

7 Things To Know About Increasing Profits Without Increasing Stress

Increase Your Profits Without Increasing YOUR STRESS. In this episode we’ll discuss exactly how to achieve this! Best Business Questions (aka BBQ) is the brainchild of Estie Starr, award winning business consultant. You’ll lean in as Barry, the Ambassador of Joy, discusses with Estie her exceptional marketing strategies that help owners scale their business and increase their profits without increasing their STRESS. Estie has proven that people can build professional and profitable businesses doing what they love, and she’s here to guide them so they can bring their vision to life with a lot more ease. You’ll want to SHARE and listen frequently. Please feel free to share YOUR views with us, the show is all YOURS!

Show Notes:

  • 00:45 – Barry’s Rousing Introduction
  • 14:17 – Increasing Profits Without Increasing Stress.
  • 24:40 – What Is Organic Marketing Strategy?
  • 41:55 – Formula to Make More Money.
  • 52:21- Barry’s Interesting Wrap-up

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Increasing Profits Without Increasing Stress

Barry Shore:

I can’t think of anybody that inspires kindness for me, kind stands for keep inspiring noble deeds, than the amazing the wonderful, and fantastic Estie Starr. Estie, please say hello to 362,822 people around the world.

Estie Starr:

Hello, everyone.

Barry Shore:

She did that purposely. She was downplaying her exuberance. There she is. I just tickled her on her toes. Estie, when was the last night somebody said FU to you and you laughed? Yeah, so it was just now, FU. So, I’m not going to read and tell you everything about Estie because if I do it’ll take the rest of the show. But suffice to say she is one of the most successful, dynamic, personable, and productive business people existing on the planet today. She enables others to recognize what they have and shows them the path to success. She actually is the founder of something called The Better Business School, which is a multinational educational program for people around the world because we are a global economy and we are all joined together today. So, let’s just jump right in and talk about what it is that really animates you and what you do the best. And I’m going to say three words, ready? These three words are organic, not food, marketing, everybody likes that, and strategy. Uh-oh, strategy. So, how do these three words actually work together? People know what marketing is, they think they do. They think they’ve heard of a strategy. But what does it mean organic marketing strategy?

Estie Starr:

So in my world, organic marketing strategy is how you earn money without spending very much.

Barry Shore:

I like that. Say that again. 

Estie Starr:

It’s how you earn money in business without spending very much.

Barry Shore:

Wow, that’s a recipe for success, I think. So let’s go deeper.

Estie Starr:

So, I want you to picture it as a flower, think of anything organic that grows. You plant the seed, you water it, it doesn’t need time but it will grow if you treat it right. Organic marketing strategy is not different. You plant the right seed, the right essential business concept and you have all of the main principles in place, which means you have a concept that is something you want to bring to the world, it’s coming from somewhere in you. It’s not like you saw this thing, and someone just said, oh, you know what, if you just make these printouts on Canva, and then sell them like 600,000 other people who are doing it from TikTok you’ll be a millionaire. Not that. You’ve got a gift.

Barry Shore:

Oh, wait a minute, not that.

Estie Starr:

Not that one. And not either, that you’ve managed to crack the crypto code and you’ve made an online program about crypto, and you’re launching it for 19.97 only with $100,000 in Facebook ads, and boom, you’re a millionaire. There are so many of these. Not that, that’s not this. You can throw tons of money at almost anything, and something will come out but that’s not a sustainable business. You’re just throwing money at it, and you’re getting a little bit back. I don’t call that business. To me, business is when you got an exchange of value for value and I’m consistently bringing in more than I’m spending with organic marketing strategies from day one. From day one you’re earning.

Barry Shore:

So, you used a great word, you used the V-word. V can stand for victim, which most people think they are. Victor, which you help people recognize they really are and value. In other words, I think the difference between going from a victim to a victor is understanding that you have value and you give that value and the value may be the seed that you plant and the watering that you do and the soil and everything. So, let’s talk more about value and what it is that you help people do in your world. You being Estie that flame that ignites people that have an idea or dream.

Estie Starr:

So, I’ll give you a great example. We recently had one of our BBQ calls, which could be barbecue.

Barry Shore:

Let’s say it again. You go fast. 

Estie Starr:

I’m sorry. I talk fast. It’s the New Yorker that’s still left in me.

Barry Shore:

That’s okay. She may not even be a New Yorker but she’s posing as a New Yorker.

Estie Starr:

I am from New York.

Barry Shore:

I know. See I got a response from you, hello. Actually, it’s New Yorkers.

Estie Starr:

I was a New Yorker for a long time. 

Barry Shore:

They’re known for being rockers and raucous and talkers and speaking fast. But we have a global audience and people in India, China, Indonesia, and throughout Africa and Europe sometimes a little bit much in Latin America. So, let’s just go BBQ. Everybody, I think the world knows BBQ is a barbeque. Barbe que, hello. But wonderful Estie has been able to use that acronym to understand burning, and you don’t want to do this in your barbecue, burning business questions. People have burning business questions that oftentimes don’t get answered. In other words, “experts” will say bla bla bla bla bla because that’s their standard riff. But they’re not answering a really pointed question. So, what is it that you do in your program and your process in BBQ and other things that really goes to the heart of someone’s question, and not only answers it but removes the scales from their eyes so they can find their value and therefore grow their business?

Estie Starr:

There are so many things. So, my superpower is that I can turn any idea, hobby, talent, skill, or certification into a professional and profitable business. It’s my superpower. And I can take any business and make it more profitable and easier to run. My tagline for over a decade in my company has been more money with less headache. That’s what we do.

Barry Shore:

Wait a minute, we like that formula. More money with less headaches. Wait a minute, I think you should TM that, trademark.

Estie Starr:

That is my trademark headline. 

Barry Shore:

More money less headache. The audience, a large percentage, are either entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, whatever you want to call that name, or people who are in employment but recognize that even as an employee they’re really an entrepreneur. Everybody’s working for themselves, even if you’re getting a paycheck from someone. And how is it that you can utilize your superpower to ignite people, even more, to let’s say, take the step or steps that are necessary to break through into their superpower?

Estie Starr:

So for me, the way I do it is a blend of coaching, consulting, and teaching. I think there is a difference. So coaching, consulting, teaching, and mentoring. Four big words out there right now. The way I understand them as a coach, I am pulling out of you where you want to go and help you get there. I have no agenda for myself. I have no official thing that you have to do. I have no one path, one tactic. Someone asked me recently. She said, Estie, what’s your favorite marketing strategy right now? Do you know what you’re asking me? You’re saying Estie, I want to bake a cake. What’s your favorite ingredient for baking a cake? And I can tell you. I can tell you what brand. But you’re not going to have a cake, you’re going to have an ingredient. It’s not a cake. You need the whole picture. And so as a coach I have no agenda for you. My agenda is your agenda. I want to know where you want to go. And I’m reminded of a story. I’ll interrupt myself again, just for fun. So, there’s a power plant, and one day in the middle afternoon it just stops working. Everything shuts down, all the workers are there and nothing’s happening. They called the best, most well-known repairman. He comes in, walks around, and pokes at things. After about 10 minutes, opens the box, connects a couple of wires, shuts it and everything’s humming again. And the guy says to him, wow, thank you so much, we had no idea what to do. He said, how much is it? He says $10,000. It’s like, [inaudible 17:40]. You walked around for 10 minutes, and you connected two wires. Can I see an itemized bill? He said, sure. He gives him the itemized bill. It says, connecting two wires, $1. Knowing which two wires to connect, $9,999. So, a lot of what I do is ask the right question. I just ask the question. I’ve asked the question and suddenly all the wheels start turning in people’s heads. And asking the question that’s the dollar, knowing which question to ask which person at which time that’s my 20 years of doing this.

Barry Shore:

So, you’re telling me that oftentimes the Q is even more important than the A?

Estie Starr:

Ask a better question to get a better answer. And so, you can’t get the right answer if you don’t ask the right question. So, I’ll give you an example from yesterday because we’re still on coaching. I haven’t forgotten that I’m going to explain coaching, consulting, teaching, and mentoring. I’m still on that thread. So one of the questions at our recent BBQ, burning business question call, which is an open Q&A call for business owners to get to the next level was Estie, how do I let people know that I’m accepting new clients? That was the question, straight up?

Barry Shore:

Let’s repeat the question again, slowly and clearly.

Estie Starr:

How do I let people know that I’m accepting new clients? It’s an existing business owner, she’s got a business, she’s got clients, and she wants to know what’s the best way for me to let people know that I’m taking new clients. I don’t want to sound desperate. And I don’t necessarily want to advertise because I’m the queen of organic. People come to me when they don’t want to pay for ads and very expensive things. So she said, what’s the best way to let people know I’m taking new clients? Now, I could tell her if I was a Facebook ad specialist, I would say obviously, Facebook ads. If I was an Instagram influencer, I would say obviously, Instagram. If I was a salesperson, I would say obviously direct sales. I could give you 1600 tactics. Those are tactics. They’re tools in your toolbox. The question is what are you building? And so, my question to her was which clients do you want? And she’s like, well, I don’t want these and these clients. I say great, which ones do you want? Say well, I want these clients? So your real question to me is Estie, not what’s the best way to let people know I’m ready for new clients. Your question to me is Estie, how do I get five more of these kinds of clients in three months? She’s like, yeah, that’s my question.

Barry Shore:

I want to unpack this because this is so impactful that people I can feel are sighing and leaning in and saying, this is amazing. Because what you just did in this short process was to enable people to begin to formulate for themselves what it is that they really want, and how to go about asking the question to get there. Because if you don’t know where you’re going then any road will take you there.

Estie Starr:

The Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, if you don’t much care where you want to get to it doesn’t much matter which way you go. [Crosstalk 20:56] number one, where are you going? Where do you want to get to?

Barry Shore:

And this is the genius of Estie. And I say with great love and respect, truly genius. She said it’s a superpower. Well, it is. I will also mention in the same breath that each person watching, listening, you have if not one or more superpowers. The ability for you to focus in like a laser on your superpower, whatever it may be, is to begin to understand that now you’re bringing yourself which is your ultimate value to life and therefore to business. By the way, I’m just going to share it with Estie and many people know because I’ve mentioned it previously. The word business is really fascinating. In English, you spell it B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S, business. Notice that the U comes before the I. That’s the key. And that’s just what Estie just said. In coaching, it needs to be the U before the I. It’s not me. 

Estie Starr:

In everything in business.

Barry Shore:

And oftentimes it’s the I that goes in. Then she said well, I’m an Instagram influencer. Well, obviously, you should do Instagram. TikTok, TikTok, who knows what the next thing is going to be called. It doesn’t even matter when you’re working with organic marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter the platform, it matters what it is that you’re bringing. What is your value? Is that correct?

Estie Starr:

That’s the foundation. The platform is not even secondary or tertiary. It’s third. What are you bringing and what do you have to be bringing. So, I want to give another example just because that call was recent and I know this is such a prevalent problem. I almost can’t walk into a room of strangers without at least three of them having this problem right now. And the problem is they take a certification or training or something and then they’re like, oh, okay. They do the certification. This is one of the better business schools we have a partner program with certifications to help them create their own paycheck out of that certification. It’s one of the things we have. So, they go through this training program and they come out with a certification and a plan. And while they’re in their training program they’re getting clients, customers, and business because they’re just walking around super excited and telling their friends and telling people I’m learning this thing and it’s great. And I want to help people and like, oh my gosh, I would love that help. And then they graduate. And they’ve tasted success so they quit their job or not and they invest in a logo and a website, and maybe some SEO and they get some business cards. And then they can’t get any clients. Look, I don’t understand. But I built my whole online program but no one wants to register. But I have all these things. And I’m doing a 10-session package with the first session free but no one wants to buy it. And like, what do I do? And the foundational piece that’s often missing the first time is you forgot about the value for the humans. You forgot about the humans. You got so caught up in the thing that you wanted to get and the thing that you want it to build, and the thing that you built and that you created, you forgot about the people. Those were the ones you were excited about when it was working. You forgot about them. That’s all it’s ever about. And yes, you throw enough money on something, something will probably come out of it. That’s not sustainable. You want this thing to work. You want the money to flow in. Paid advertising is like fuel on a fire. If you have a fire burning it’ll burn brighter. If you don’t, it’s a wet smelly mess. That’s all it is.

Barry Shore:

So, this is absolutely stunning. By the way, when Estie mentioned the word problem and she [unintelligible 24:51] everybody has this problem. The problem is a fancy term for the word pain. I have pain. That’s why people come to Estie. By the way, everything you want to know about Estie, everything, just go to my website www.barryshore.com. It’s all going to be there. You don’t have to write anything down, you don’t have to remember. [Unintelligible 25:12] business school [unintelligible 25:13], and she has free gifts, she has stuff that’s going to help you, helping everyone live prosperously. That’s what help stands for. Helping everyone live prosperously. Remember the reason you tune into the joy of living because you want to be happier, healthier, and wealthier. That’s why Estie is here, to begin this process of what do I do with the pain. The pain is the problem. So, she found the pain point and with her coaching, she’s able to at least help people identify, once you identify the pain and we realize we don’t have to amputate now we can do something to help. Now, she’s going in from coaching into consultation. So talk to us about consultation, please.

Estie Starr:

So as a coach, we’re pulling out of people where they want to go so that we can help them get there. As a consultant, I like to say, I just know some things you don’t. My degree is in marketing, I clocked my 10,000 hours plus, I read at least one book a month, often more, more often two to three. I interview business and marketing experts weekly on my own podcast. I know stuff you don’t, period, end of story. And as a consultant, I’m just going to tell you here are things you should not do, and here’s why. And here are things you should do and here’s why. You don’t have to listen because you might not want things to work. But if you want it to work I would recommend following instructions. To me, that’s what a consultant does. Now, I have sat with many business consultants who work in the upper echelons of the corporate consulting realm and they don’t consider me a consultant. Because part of the name of the game in consulting in big business, we’re just going to be very transparent here, is to either A, create a PowerPoint and by the time it’s delivered it’s useless and no one uses it anyway, or B make sure by the end of your contract you have not finished it so it’s renewed. I’m the exact opposite. I have no problem being dispensable. I don’t need to be needed. I’ve worked with some of my clients for over a decade because they keep earning more money, scaling their businesses, opening new branches, and getting into the seven figures, starting from zero. And I have some people who come in there with me three to six months, they go back out, they come back a year later, they go back out, they go in and out. As a consultant in the small business world, I’m not here for you to be dependent on me. And that’s where the teaching comes in. I’m going to educate you, I’m going to tell you what to do but I’m going to explain why. I want you to understand. I really believe every business owner has an obligation to understand all the parts of their business. You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to execute it. You don’t like marketing, don’t do marketing. You’re not a numbers person, don’t but understand the numbers. Understand what it means, understand how marketing works, and how marketing strategy works. A strategy is a plan to reach a goal. That’s what a strategy does.

Barry Shore:

Is that really what a strategy is?

Estie Starr:

Yes. It is not a tactic. It is not a toy. If you’re taking a road trip, and you plan the whole thing and then you have a destination and you start driving, you want a strategy, a plan to get there. And what happens in small business today and in big business also but it doesn’t matter as much because there’s so much more money flowing, they get stuck the same exact way.

Barry Shore:

In a big business, they can hide it easily.

Estie Starr:

One of my articles on entrepreneurs was on the front page of an entrepreneur website for three days. I was getting emails from Fortune 100 companies. It was an email about small business marketing and I got emails from Fortune 100 companies saying I relate to this, we made the exact same mistake but it doesn’t hurt them as much. The small business owner, I work with Bootstrap service-based businesses, that’s my zone. Bootstrapped, every dollar in is a dollar in your pocket, every dollar out is a dollar out of your pocket. You don’t have seed funding, you’re not a startup, and I work with some of those also. The reason I get up in the morning every day to work, these are my people, the business dreamers. The people who don’t have the funds, who need more for less, who have less time. I’m a single mom of five, and I’ve been the primary supporter of my family all of the years, raising my kids, all of it. You got limited time, you’ve got limited resources, limited bandwidth. How do you still get what you need and what you want? And so, tactics is, you’re just learning to make a right turn. Someone says, oh you got to do Instagram, I got to do Instagram. So, you get in your car, and only the ones that make a right turn are like oh no, I’m going in circles. [Unintelligible 29:48] right turn. You have no strategy. That’s not a strategy. A strategy is a plan to reach your goal.

Barry Shore:

Let’s unpack this because I want to emphasize two words. Plan. Goal.

Estie Starr:

Yes.

Barry Shore:

We’re going to do a quick break here because sponsors love us and people watching love our sponsors. Estie is going to come back on the other side and she is going to talk to us about social media magic. So make your plan, walk so you can hit your goal. And we’ll be right back after these brief messages. 

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Barry Shore:

Good day beautiful, bountiful, beloved immortal beings and good-looking people. Remember you’re good-looking because you’re always looking for and finding the good. We have good in abundance. Our cup runneth over with good. And two-legged being her name is Estie Starr and we’ve been talking about plan, goal, and the W-word, Ugh-oh, work. It takes work to figure out your plan and to articulate your goal. Estie, you know this better than almost anybody on the planet. 88% of all people who say they have a goal, 88% of them never write it down. And if you don’t have a goal that’s written down it’s not a goal it’s an idea, it’s a wish, it’s a dream and that will not get you there. In order to reach your goal you need a plan, you need Estie in your corner, and you need to do the work. Oh yeah, this W word. So let’s talk about magic. Everybody likes magic, pixie dust, no work. Well, I don’t know if magic means no work. But talk to us about social media magic.

Estie Starr:

Yes, sir. So first of all, I really like to think of it as play. I’ll be serious. When you’re doing the thing you love it’s not that there aren’t things that you have to do that are not your favorite but overall, you’re enjoying it. It doesn’t feel like that heavyweight. My whole motto is, I want everyone to do what they love, earn buckets of money and have time for their life and a family. And when you’re doing what you love it’s not that you’re not working and it’s not that there aren’t some tedious or technical or unpleasant parts of it there are but the majority of it, and that fire and that passion, that excitement…I’m in Mexico a lot right now, [unintelligible 35:23] and I have a thing. I’m there at least once a month. So if there’s a line at the airport, if I’m waiting, I’m still excited. I’m joy full because I’m going to Mexico [crosstalk 35:36]. So what? So, a line at the airport, poor Estie, is in line at the airport to go to Mexico for the weekend. I feel so bad for me. No, I don’t. I’m having a great time. I’m standing in line, I’m jamming to my music like a crazy person on my air pods. And so for me, when you’re doing this, when you tap into, well, it’s not work. It is but it’s not work in that sense. I just needed to say that. Let me tell you about social media magic. Everything, everything that I do, that we do, that my people do in I world is strategic, which means it’s what they plan to reach a goal. It is strategic, strategy. Most people go on social media and either they’re throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks, or they’re playing marketing slot machines. Put the money, if you pull, if it works you’re like, yeah but you can’t replicate that. You don’t know what you did right. Most marketing spend, most advertising spend, most money spent on marketing, I think the statistic is about 85% of advertising spend is wasted. And most of the [unintelligible 36:47], it’s not strategic, it’s not planned, it doesn’t have a whole picture. And social media magic is not different. Number one, what’s your goal with your social media? Let’s divide it into two categories. You cannot have a business today without having a web presence. If you are standing in front of me telling me that you’re in business, and I take out my smartphone, and I look you up online, and I can’t find anything about you you’re not real. I don’t care what you say, pretend. You’re a figment of my imagination. You’re not real. I can’t find you on my phone. So you must have a web presence. Social media makes it so easy to have that. It makes it so easy to get out there. In one of my classes, one of my training is called X-Factor marketing and it’s the science of virality. There is a strategic way to go viral on every platform. Strategic social media means number one, what’s my goal with it? Level one, I want to have a presence on every platform so that on every platform that people might look for me on. Because, again, strategy, plan to reach a goal. If I’m in business, my goal, I would assume, which I know doesn’t have the best explanation but I would think your plan is to get business from it. Your plan is to get clients or customers. And so, be on social media where your clients and customers are. One bad call. I could not make these stories up, by the way. A guy called me a couple of years ago, this was, and he says Estie, I know if I was just on Facebook my business would take off. Okay, reasonable in theory.

Barry Shore:

Only a billion people on Facebook. But then who is your target audience?

Estie Starr:

Right. So I said to him, that’s your business? He said, continuing education for geriatrics, 70 plus. Now, you’re an exception, not the rule. The average 70 plus is not on Facebook, regularly. I don’t know if you are or not but they’re not on Facebook at all. I said, are you targeting their children or the caregivers to reach the elderly? They said, no, we’re specifically targeting the geriatric who live independently and alone. We have community and education. I said, okay, is your audience on Facebook? And he says to me, I don’t know I’m not.

Barry Shore:

Wait a minute. This is a person, a real human being who said, I’m not?

Estie Starr:

He said I’m not. But I know if I was my business would go well. I said, okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make a bunch of flyers, and you’re going to hang them in the local restaurants and community centers, and you’re going to send postcards and you’re going to get a list, and here’s where you get the list. You don’t need Facebook, and you don’t even need to work with me. Just go do that and come back to me and let me know how it goes. [Unintelligible 39:29]. What’s the strategy? Where are my people? I need to have a presence where my people are. At a minimum, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook will just give you some good SEO so that when people Google you, you show up. So you create those profiles. Fabulous. Having a presence when people look for you because social media is a party. Your website, that’s your house, your store, people come to you. Every social media platform is a 24/7 global party and each one’s a different kind of party. So, if someone is constantly hanging out at the Facebook party, and then they hear about you and your business, they’re at the Facebook party, they’re going to look around for you, hey, are you at the Facebook party, too? Are you at the party where I’m hanging out? And if you’re not there, like, oh, you might not be one of my people. You’re not there at the party where I hang out. If they were at the Instagram party, and you’re not there and they look around for you like, oh, you might not be one of my people. So, at a foundation, social media, you want to at least have a presence. Sign on the wall, booth in the corner, someone wearing a U-suit. As I call social media VA, they wear a suit of you, wearing a U costume and a presence on the platform where your people are. That’s level one. 

Barry Shore:

Let’s unpack. Remember she’s a New Yorker.

Estie Starr:

I’ve been in LA now seven and a half years, they tell me sometimes the natives [crosstalk 40:55]. Slow down just a little bit.

Barry Shore:

The great news is that everything is available at my website wwwwhatawonderfulworld.barryshore.com. Everything about Estie. Let’s just unpack a few of the things that you said. Because they’re so pointed and powerful and purposeful and pleasant. And we want to just go back in and make everybody understand something. Social media magic. Since you’re enjoying it, even things that seem tedious become enjoyable because you’re moving forward. That’s a wonderful thing. And when you’re on social media you have a presence. As she said, the essence of having the presence is the P-word. Party. That’s how I say it, I’m from Boston, party, or as some others would say, party. You want to be partying all the time, which means that you want to be enthusiastic, you want to be enjoyable, not that you’re enjoying, and you want to attract people. One of the things that Estie really does so well as you hear in her questions and the process she went through is that she understands the law of attraction in business, not the law of chasing. See chasing is one thing, you can do it, and you might even be successful. As she said, throw money in, okay, something might come out. But the law of attraction is knowing you have a superpower, understanding your value, and articulating your plan and goals. Being in a party mood throughout social media guess what’s going to happen? You will attract people to you. You go where your people are, and they want to be with you because you are FU capital N capital N, fun. Is that correct? I’m just unpacking what you said.

Estie Starr:

That’s a part of it. One of the analogies I use when I teach social media studies in analogy it’s a story is that you want to be the Trix box. Trix as in the cereal with the rabbit. That one. I was running a division in a summer camp many years ago. And so, we’re upstate New York in this little cabin, in a cabin in the woods, and we had cereal boxes in our bunkhouse. And I remember coming back one day and seeing these monster ants, not tiny ants, the kind of where you can see every bump with no microscope, giant monster ants. And they were crawling up the wall and down the wall. And you know they’re getting something. So I’m following the ant trail and I see they’re going in and out of the Trix cereal box. Now, that box was new on that shelf. There had been a cornflake box there for weeks. No one was touching it. But the Trix box is open for three hours and there’s an entire ant colony, a country of ants going in and out of it. On social media, so many people are the cornflake box, and they’re like where are all the ants? What if I pay for ants? Estie should I boost my post? Should I do ads? No, because you’re being a cornflake box. They’re not coming. You’re not yummy. They don’t want this. Be the Trix box, give the thing that your people want, not that anyone wants. And if you don’t like social media, I just need to put this in even though we’re teaching social media magic. One of the reasons a lot of people come to me is if they don’t want to do social media. They’re not interested, they don’t want to be part of it, and they don’t like that. There are so many ways that you can still market today super successfully without being on social media. So, I just want to put that in there even as I teach you how to do it. Don’t feel like you have to. There are no have-tos in business, period. There’s no have-tos [crosstalk 44:35]. The only have-to is you have to provide value to another. That’s the only have-to, you have to provide value to another, that’s foundation, everything else we fidget with. So yes, you want to be the Trix box. But when I talk about party it’s not just about being the life of the party because some people it’s not their type. It’s about understanding the analogy of party when you get on social media. Social media is plural for social mediums. These are just social mediums of communication. That’s all they are. They’re just parties. Now, just going to a party and standing there is not going to get you business. Going to a party and jumping up and down and waving your arms doing the chicken dance is not going to get you business. But going to a party, meeting people and networking, having conversations and getting to know people, and sharing what you do with the relevant people who might be interested that will get you business. And when you treat social media that way it starts to work. It’s a five-step process. Number one, pick a party. You’re one human. I think there’s a proverb, he who tries to dance at every wedding dances at none, something like that. This whole multi-platform strategy that so many people try to do. When the big business does it they have entire departments, multiple teams of people for each platform with guidelines on how to post, on how to do it. You are one human. Unless you have an entire team of people and you create a piece of content and then some lovely social media marketer who doesn’t know better, they’re not malicious they’re just clueless. They say, oh my gosh, I’m going to use HootSuite or HubSpot or Infusionsoft, or any of these softwares. And I’m going to do multi-platforms. I’m going to post your content on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m going to make you a blog post and we’re going to send it out as an email and I’m going to do an Instagram on it, and I’m going to do a TikTok on it and you’re like, yay. And really nobody sees any of that. You have empty restaurant syndrome. You’ve got this giant restaurant with a big glass window on a main street. Everyone’s walking by, your restaurant’s empty, nobody cares. Nobody’s commenting. Nobody’s engaged. You’re at all these parties jumping up and down doing the chicken dance and everyone’s just like, we’re not interested. They don’t even see it.

Barry Shore:

By the way, just another chicken dancer because everybody’s doing that. 

Estie Starr:

Everyone’s doing that. I have so many good analogies for this but I’m going to get lost in them.

Barry Shore:

Notice that Estie has not been animated throughout this entire process.

Estie Starr:

It’s just my favorite thing to do in the world. I just want you to know our first BBQ, burning business question calls is on my birthday. I sent it out to my audience. I said this is how I want to celebrate my birthday. I want to unblock your road to business success. Free open Q&A forum. And it was the best birthday ever. One of the first questions was, we not only unblocked her but as she was explaining her service that she wasn’t getting business for, wasn’t getting out. I said we’ve got a whole lot of people in here right now. I said guys, how many of you would want her help with this? And we started getting all these me, me, me, me, me, me, me in the chat. And people started putting their emails. And I’m like, not only did we just unblock you we just got you your first seven clients. Look at those emails. They’re right here. They just gave you their contact information. She’s like, oh, I’ll put my information in the chat they can reach out to me. I said, oh, no, you don’t. I’m reading the dating books, in dating, you can wait for them to reach out to you. But this is business, you get every single one of those emails, and you contact them and you follow up. That’s how this works.

Barry Shore:

Oh, wait a minute, you use the F word. 

Estie Starr:

Follow-up. 

Barry Shore:

Ugh-oh, she used the FU, follow-up. By the way, you and I will agree we used to call it the Achilles heel. Or the most difficult part, people like meeting people sometimes, even networking, even people who are not outgoing as much as Estie myself. They still like meeting people someplace [unintelligible 48:48]. But follow-up is the key.

Estie Starr:

The fortune is the follow-up. I can tell you story after story. One of my clients had a business line and when people would call her business line and not leave a message, she would just be like, oh, they didn’t leave a message. This is not your personal cell phone. This is not your neighbor calling, this is your business line. The only people who are calling that number are potential clients and customers interested in your services. You have a missed call you call it back. You call it back and you leave a message. And then you call it back again up to three times. You call that number back. Like oh, they must have not been that interested? No, they might have been embarrassed not to leave a message. 

Barry Shore:

This is critical, what you’re doing right now. I’m going to say it and you don’t have to agree but I’m going to say it. The mindset that you just articulated is, oh they didn’t leave a message. And now the mindset of the negative person says, well, they must not be interested, as opposed to, we’ll call it an Estie mindset, they didn’t leave a message, great, and I’m calling them back. The difference is how you perceive the process. If you recognize, if you think that there’s a negative aspect to it that’s what you’ll find. Estie is helping unblock people to find their superpower to recognize that everything that happens to you and your business if capital I capital F if you are giving value everything that happens in your business is to your advantage. It’s there to help you. Remember helping everybody live prosperously. That’s what you want. You want to be that mindset that says, wow, somebody called, so you call them back.

Estie Starr:

And they are interested and at a foundation. And don’t think I forgot that we have to open loops. We have coaching, consulting, teaching, and mentoring, I never got to mentoring. And we have the five steps of social media magic. We’ve only done step one. I haven’t forgotten that and I’m sure the listeners haven’t either. But to follow this thread, if the foundational mindset is, I have the most amazing thing to share with people. So, if someone’s reached out to me, and they didn’t leave a message, well, I better get back to them, they probably need the thing that I have. As opposed to I don’t know if my thing is really good. I don’t know if anyone really wants it. I don’t know if my price is right, or if my webpage is good enough. And my logo is not the right shade of pink and so I really shouldn’t call them back until I get the right shade of pink on my logo. No, that’s not how this works. You have a thing that people want and need, you have a gift to give to the world, whatever it is, product, service, or I have a bunch of foodservice and niche fashion lines. One of my clients made the coolest organic dog beds. I don’t care what the thing you do is, you have a gift you want to bring to the world and someone’s interested, even a little bit, talk to them. Now, if they’re not interested don’t force them. You don’t want to waste your time. But if they are, call them back. Because the foundational mindset is, I’ve got this great thing, I just got to tell you about it. And if it’s for you, great, and if it’s not, not. No problem, it’s not personal, may not be for you. I’m not for everybody. It might not be for you. But it might be. We won’t know unless I tell you.

Barry Shore:

By the way, we’re going to go to dangerous territory but just for a couple of minutes. Do you find a difference in attitude and mindset between men and women?

Estie Starr:

I really do. And I’ll tell you. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. I’ve been running businesses profitably since I’m 10 years old. But I’ve been doing this full time, running my consultancy multinational for over a decade. I’ve primarily had male clients as my private clients, when we launched online programs in 2019, we had majority females. So I got to see the distinction. I think I have primarily male clients because I’m very success-focused and very driven. And I don’t know this but to be really politically incorrect and stereotypical I have personally experienced more men that align with that mindset than women. That’s my personal experience. And one of the things I found is that the men they come in and they take it less personally, a lot less personally. Like okay, business is business, we do the thing, we get out there and tell people they don’t want it, I find someone else to tell it to. And the women sometimes will come in and are like, but they didn’t like it. And I put my soul into that and nobody wants it and they feel broken. And I’m like, it’s business. This is not personal, it’s not you. These are very general stereotypes and this is very much the experience that I’ve had with the humans that have come through my world. But stereotypes are stereotypes. This happens and you’ll have the flips. But those two different mindsets of taking it outside [unintelligible 53:46], especially when you are a service-based business owner. It’s very hard because it’s your service. And people will so closely identify with that, that they really take it personally, it’s not personal. It’s really not personal. Nothing’s ever really personal. Even in your personal life. Someone doesn’t like you [unintelligible 54:06] ever about them.

Barry Shore:

This is so important. I have three questions for you. And it’s hard to imagine, time goes by fast when you are enjoying yourself. Three questions. Are you ready? Question number one, will you come back again?

Estie Starr:

I would love to.

Barry Shore:

Thank you. Question number two, you have 80 seconds to answer. Only 80 seconds. I’m watching the clock. Estie, what is your most fervent desire?

Estie Starr:

That everyone experiences the financial security of knowing how to create money in their life doing what they love, whether they choose to take a job or not, that they have that security that if someone won’t hire them they can create money in their world. And they can do it by doing something that they love, that they’re passionate, that they’re excited that they want to give. That’s my biggest dream.

Barry Shore:

Thank you. And the third question is, may I give you a hug in front of 362,819 people around the world? 

Estie Starr:

That sounds wonderful. 

Barry Shore:

Thank you. Now, let’s tell everybody what hugs stands for. The people who usually listen know. Hug stands for heartfelt, unlimited giving. That’s the essence of Estie and your humble host Barry Shore. On the count of 3. 1-2-3 roar. The Joy of Living can be summed up in one word, Estie just said it, giving. You’ve been listening to The Joy of Living with your humble host Barry Shore and our amazing guest Estie Starr. Everything you want to know about Estie and you want to know a lot, just go to the website wwwwhatawonderfulworld.barryshore.com. Because on this show, as you know the reason you tuned is because you care the most in the entire world about you, YOU being the best you. You’ve had transformative information today, not just stuff, transformative information. Because you know on this show it’s all about you becoming happier, healthier, and wealthier. Who doesn’t want that? As she said, security. And by using the three fundamentals of life that is what you will achieve. Number one, life, your life has purpose. Number two, you can go mad. You lead a purpose-driven life, you make a difference in the world. Number three is unpack the power and the sequence of everyday words and terms like we discussed with Estie, www what a wonderful world. Smile, seeing miracles in life every day. Or as my eight-year-old niece says, seeing miracles in everyday life. Creating the kind of world you want to live in, creating, using the plan and the goal that Estie helps you formulate. Creating, causing, rethinking like you just said, enabling all to excel. Remember the six most important words you’ll ever internalize, utilize and leverage in your life. They are, choice not chance determines your destiny. Use four-letter words. Remember positive, purposeful, powerful, pleasant four-letter words like love, life, hope, grow, free, gifts, she has a free gift you’ll find that at the website and swim, pray, play and tell the world to FU capital N capital N. When you say that to your family later they’ll say, where’d you get this? I listened to The Joy of Living with Barry Shore. He wants to teach the world to FU capital N capital N. And remember to use the two most important words in the English language three times a day from now and for the rest of your life because it will help you, your family, your friends and all living beings and certainly we need that. And these two words are thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank stands for to harmonize and network kindness to harmonize, everyone. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always. Keep inspiring noble deeds. And so, our blessing from Estie and Barry is go forth, live exuberantly, spread the seeds of joy, happiness, peace, and love. Go mad, go make a difference. Estie don’t go away.

About Estie Starr

Estie
Estie Starr is an award-winning business consultant, exceptional marketing strategist, avid speaker, and founder of Strand Consulting, a multinational business consultancy that’s focused on helping small business owners scale their businesses to make big profits. She believes very strongly that people can build professional and profitable businesses doing what they love, and she’s here to guide them so they can bring their vision to life with a lot more ease.