No matter what level you’re at as an online business owner, you will have fears and limiting beliefs that show up, trying to hold you back. Imposter syndrome is a common one. So the question isn’t “How do you stop it from happening?” but rather “How do you deal with it when it appears?”
In today’s episode I’m joined by Paul Scrivens (aka Scrivs). Scrivs runs Maker’s Mob, which is intent on helping everyone in the world find the freedom that they deserve. Through his Pocket Business community, Scrivs interacts daily with his members who are at all levels of business, which gives him a unique perspective on what works and what doesn’t.
We talk about imposter syndrome and how it never really goes away, the one big thing many people get wrong when starting a business, and the differences between struggling and successful online business owners.
Connect with Scrivs:
Resources Mentioned:
Rachel Fairchild – This Crafty Home
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol Dweck
This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See – Seth Godin
The Boron Letters – Gary Halbert
I’m attached to serving my customers in the best way possible. And when you’re doing that, then you’re never attached to your methodology, your framework, whatever you’re selling.
Paul Scrivens
I want to treat the business more as a child and what I mean by that is I want to think, “If I left for three months will my business keep on growing? Will my business still be making money? Or will my business completely fall apart?” Because you raise a child, you have to be there for the child, but at a certain point, you can leave the child at home by themselves.
Paul Scrivens
Joelle
Hi, and welcome to your beautiful online business, I’m Joelle Brisland and today I’m very excited to welcome a very special guest, Paul Scrivens, aka Scrivs, Scrivs describes himself as just a guy who has tried a lot of businesses, failed a lot of businesses, and succeeded at a small handful. He’s been building businesses, sorry, building websites -more correctly – since 2003. And he claims to be allergic to working with others, he now runs Maker’s Mob which is intent on helping everyone in the world find the freedom that they deserve. Thank you so much for joining me today, Scrivs. I’m very happy to have you here.
Scrivs
Thank you for having me. I am super excited for this.
Joelle
Excellent. So before we dive in, I just want to give a little bit of a backstory to how we know each other. So I was first introduced to Scrivs virtually in 2017. So
Scrivs
Was it that long ago?
Joelle
It has. It has been four years. I joined up with what was then billionaire, billionaire blog club, so many iterations since then.
Scrivs
Yeah.
Joelle
Scrivs was actually one of my very first clients, and now has become a mentor. And the mentor aspect is actually a big part of why he is on today. So Scrivs, let’s go back a little bit to 2003. When you evolving your website, how did that lead you to where you are today?
Scrivs
I think I kind of fell into building websites, in the sense where I was, I was gonna say I was a geek, I’m still very much a geek. Now. So I was always on internet forums and everything. And I would see people talk about HTML and things like that, and everything. And I, I was never good. With building with my hands. Like I always like, I wanted to be a comic book artist, but I didn’t have the patience to draw. So then I thought I’d learn how to paint. I didn’t have the patience for that. But I was always good with computers. So like, I always had, I had a computer since I was like five, I wanted a Nintendo and my parents got me a computer instead. So I was just always good with computers, I was always on them. And when I started messing around a little bit, it was just fascinating to see that by changing just like a small thing you can change, like, what’s on a website. And you know, I started messing around with things. And then I was like, Okay, well, let me just start, let me try to build my own web page. So I built my own web page, you know, back in 2000, whatever. It wasn’t anything fancy back then. Because you don’t know anything. And I was like, wow, like this is pretty fun. You get to manipulate what’s being seen on the screen. And it’s in your head, you’re like, oh, the whole world’s about to see this cool thing I did, of course, like, nobody gets to see it, unless you show it to your mom or something like that. But just doing that. And I was like, Oh, this seems like something that maybe I’d want to do, you know, instead of every other job that I considered having and everything. Because this is because this is like the beginning of the internet. I was I’m still in that generation where it was go to school, get a nine to five, you know, get a traditional job, but I never, like I just I never knew what I wanted to do, or anything. Because I didn’t have any experience with anything. Like I went to college. And you know, I played soccer, so I was always playing soccer and partying. And then some I was like, Okay, well, now that you’re done with this part of your life, now you got to sit down at a desk and do something and I was like, and I always had crazy imposter syndrome. Back then, because I always thought I had a certain expectation that I had to live up to for my boss. And I just felt like I was good. This is gonna sound terrible. I was good at lying, and pretending I knew stuff. And so like, if you’re like, Hey, you know, can you explain this? I could BS my way through the whole thing. No problem. And so when they’re like, okay, now you actually got to do it. I’d like oh my gosh, like I actually have to do it. What am I supposed to do? And everything. So I was like, Okay, let me go ahead. Go ahead.
Joelle
I was gonna sit so right out of college, you say you were dealing with kind of the imposter syndrome?
Scrivs
Yes.
Joelle
Okay.
Scrivs
Oh, only because I think you said like, you expect the world to be crazier than it actually is. And everything and so like I had in my head like, okay, am I supposed to have this nine to five and it has this salary attached to it then there’s these expectations. And the reality of it is nobody ever had any expectations for me. They’re just like, Alright, yeah, we’ll hire you just learn on the go. But of course I didn’t learn that until like My late 20s and everything. But it was also because I, when I was young, like when you go through school, if you’re if you’re decent at school, it’s like you go along and everything’s kind of easy. And then you hit this point in your life where just some things you just don’t know. And it’s not easy. And so I think some people, and this is what I include myself, some people still want to feel like everything’s easy. So they lie to themselves, about certain things. And it gets to a point where you’re like, well, I am lying to myself, but they don’t know that. But they, they think I’m good at something. And I’m really not, Oh, my gosh, what have I set myself up for? It’s like, you have like this crazy imposter syndrome. That you’re like, I’m gonna be found out one day. Yeah, and never, it never really works out that way, everything but imposter syndrome is one of the worst things in the world. It sucks.
Joelle
It really does, it holds you back so much from doing what you actually do you have the ability to do.
Scrivs
Right, right. And if anybody’s wondering how I got over it, I just got older. There’s no no exercise or anything like that. I just got older, and I just kept on learning more. Because I was like, if I feel like I’m an imposter with this, whatever the skill or thing was, then I might as well just continue to learn it until I’m just like, Okay, I know enough about this, where I don’t necessarily feel like an imposter anymore.
Joelle
So something that never really fully goes away.
Scrivs
Now, I mean, the mindset stuff sucks. Our brains suck. It’s amazing. Like, I never understood how powerful the mind was, until I started working on my own businesses. And what would happen was, and this is one of the good things about the online world is you get to see the success of others. And you get to see how other people are doing things right in front of you and everything. So you see this happening. And you’re like, well, they’re doing it, I can do it, and everything. And it’s not like there’s any like crazy secrets about how to build a business or anything. And so you say, you know what, I’m going to sit down, and I’m going to start doing this business. And so you start working on it. And then you start going, you start doing all these mindset roadblocks, you’re like, am I really good enough for this, can I do this? So I start procrastinating on this, and you just come up with a million things. And then every once a while you go back on social media, and you look at that other person that you’re looking at before and you’re like, well, that person’s still succeeding, and they’re still not doing anything that I can’t do. Why can’t I do it? And it’s, you know, it’s in, it’s just everything that we just build up in our mind and everything and it’s absolutely killer.
Joelle
What I found really interesting is that at each kind of like, major income level, many people still essentially dealing with imposter syndrome. But just as feeling like an imposter at that level, right? I’ve heard for many people, it just never goes away. But it’s just it’s just kind of you’re dealing with slightly different things each time,
Scrivs
right? like there’s, there’s so so we’re in a mastermind together, we have this wonderful person, Rachel Fairchild, who does make a healthy amount of money selling freezer meal guides, and she she’s, she’s great at Facebook ads. And, you know, every month she’s making over $10,000 a month, and there’ll be times where I try to push her and I’m like, Well, you know, Rachel, like, raise your price or do this. And she always is hesitant and everything. And I’m like, how can you be hesitant because you’re succeeding on all this other stuff? And it’s just, it seems like no matter what, like no matter what level we go to, our brain is like, Okay, cool. You got rid of those mindset things. Well, I’ll introduce a whole new set of mindset issues that now you have to overcome. If you want to go to the next level, all over again, and everything. So yeah, you can pretend that success is going to change things, but you mentally you’ll find something new. That you have to overcome and hold you back. But I mean, that’s just something you got to deal with.
Joelle
This actually, we’ve kind of skipped your story. And I want to come back.
Scrivs
Okay. Okay, yeah, I’m terrible with terrible my storytelling, I can finish it up real quick. And so and so I started. So I got this job after college, being a recruiter where I’m supposed to find a business and say this business has this open position, and then I’m supposed to call around and see if I can fill that position. I’m not a person that talks on the phone. I’ve never been a person that talks on the phone. So I told my boss. Again, this is like I was able to get hired for this job. But then I told my boss, I see you have like, so you don’t really have a website. I could build a website for you. I never built a website for anybody else. But I’d rather have done that than talk to people on the phone. And so it was like which which do I feel most uncomfortable with? And I was like, way more uncomfortable talking to people on the phone. That I was saying, Oh, I can build a website for you, even though I’ve never done it for anybody. So I did that. And then I started blogging to help myself, learn web design, because I figured if I write about stuff, what I’m what I’m learning, that will help me do it. And so my writing style, and my personality was kind of different than every other web designer in that blogging scene back then. So people started paying attention to me, just because I was different. And so that kind of blew up. And I was like, wow, like, um, you know, it wasn’t like anything crazy. But I was like, Well, I’m getting like, 500 people a day, to my blog. And these are people from all over the world. And they’re sending me emails, and I’m like, this is so awesome. And I was like, so I’ve had this one job where I’ve been getting paid $7.50. Well, this thing I was doing for free, I’m getting people all over the world telling me how awesome I am and asking me can I build their websites for them? And I’m like, why am I working for this person over here? I could, I didn’t know this was possible, like people will pay me to do this kind of stuff. And so I started taking on some clients, completely undercharging terrible terrible at charging people. So that was another like, one of those hurdles. I was like, oh, they’re like, can you build this big website for me? And I’m like, yeah, I’ll do it for $200. Like, that’s, that’s like, that’s, it’s like ridiculous stuff that I was doing back then. And then I just kept on blogging, I just, you know, I kept on building bigger audiences and, and those kind of things. And it’s not that I found my great success back then. But what it did is opened my eyes to like, what is possible. And so I just thought, Man, I have access to everybody in the world, and everything. And all I have to figure out is how to make money from this. And so that just always stayed in my head. So I wasn’t really good at it back then. So eventually, how to get a job, another job, but having that job, it just just stayed in my head, like, I can’t, I can’t work for somebody else. Because there’s so much, there’s so much potential for me to do something else out there. Like I just always felt constrained. With a boss and everything, and then over time, I, I’m very selfless person. And so what really, like pushed me over the edge was, I’m really working hard for you, and I’m doing good stuff. But I’m making you way more rich than I can me. And everything is like my, the amount of money I can make with you is a ceiling, and everything. And if I want to make more than I have to go to another company, and I don’t want it that seems like a waste that that’s that’s a big hassle. Like, I don’t have to keep on applying for new jobs every time I want to increase the amount of money I can make. And all that entails like, Well, let me try this again. And then there’s about 50,000 businesses that I kept on trying that just kept on failing. And you know, but I kept on learning things along the way. And then not now we’re here. So sorry for that terrible, long, boring story. Everyone, I’m sure there’s more interesting parts somewhere in there.
Joelle
It gives gives us a good backdrop to to kind of get us to the the now we’re here part. So I mentioned earlier about how one of the kind of the biggest reasons I wanted to bring you on here was as your your role as a a mentor. Largely whether you like it or not you are a mentor to very very,
Scrivs
I was just thinking, Oh, that’s that’s a strong word.
Joelle
So many online business owners and aspiring online business owners, especially within the community that you have, that you have grown. So this gives you kind of a very unique perspective. So you’ve got you know that there’s so many blogging courses, online business courses, and all related. But there aren’t many people who could teach you from the aspect of being so involved on a day, day to day basis with so many online business owners and aspiring online business owners. So your perspective is quite, quite unique in that aspect. So could you tell me a little bit more about the community that you have grown and developed over the last few years?
Scrivs
I’m first going back to imposter syndrome real quick. If you want to get over it. Just have somebody like Joelle say how awesome you are, and get in and help bring out your accomplishments. And then you’re like, oh, okay, maybe I’m not that bad at all. And everything. Yeah, our community is is interesting, because my, the stuff I do, I think the difficulty, not the difficulty, but the interesting thing about how we do things is that people get to see that I’m constantly learning and everything. And so if you started with me at the very beginning, it’s a totally different community and structure now, and that’s not because I was like, Oh, let me just change things to change things. It was always because I still have to learn myself and I had to push myself and so what happens is, if you’re in my community, whether you like it or not, you’re coming along with me on this ride, and everything. And so I think that’s one of the interesting aspects of, of being part of the community is not only are you learning from other people, but you’re learning from my own mistakes and my own successes and how I’m trying to grow. And so I think that’s why I like doing it in that way. Because I still want to maintain that perspective that the people in my community are going through, because it’d be very easy for me to say, Okay, well, you know, I’ve done anything, I kind of have this figured out, let me just sit back and just give advice, and everything. But because I constantly see new people join, they go through their struggles, I need to make sure that I understand why they’re having those struggles, why, why they’re thinking they have to do this thing instead of that thing, or why they keep on hitting certain roadblocks, and everything. And so, I I just love the community, because I love the aspect of just being able to learn from everybody else. And everything I can, I can keep on learning myself. But when you have, you know, hundreds of people that are also learning and sharing their experiences and everything it feels it feels like a cheat code for me that I get to see like, oh, okay, like, I feel like I feel like I own 1000s of businesses, essentially, just because everybody keeps on sharing what they’re going through. And it’s awesome to see everybody evolve together.
Joelle
Like a like a hive mind, you can access all the brains of
Scrivs
Yes, yes, it’s amazing.
Joelle
Based on what you’ve seen with your, your members, so you’ve got kind of like members of various stages, once who haven’t started, ones who are kind of struggling to start in the beginning stages. And then you’ve got those who are making that kind of consistent regular income. And if you had to kind of look at the members who are making, say, like, say like around three to $5,000 a month consistently? What commonalities Would you say that they have between them that separate them from those who are struggling to make a consistent income?
Scrivs
There are a couple of traits. And the first trait is you just have to be decisive, and taking action. One of the biggest hurdles for the people who are struggling is that they don’t get started on anything. And what happens is they just sit there thinking, and they’re like, Well, I’m not sure if I should do this, or I should do this. And they just kept on keep on finding things that they believe they have to figure out before they do anything at all. And the reality of it is, as you grow your business, everything’s gonna keep on changing anyways, it doesn’t matter how well you plan it out, there’s going to be something where you go, you know what, I actually don’t like that direction, I’m going to go in a different direction. But that only occurs when you make the decision to take some type of action, and everything. And so the people that are making the money, that is the first step, the second step, after taking the action, is getting stuff out there as much as possible. Because you need some type of feedback loop, where you get something out there, you see if it works or not. And if it doesn’t work, then at least you know, it didn’t work. And now you have to figure out why it didn’t work. And then you can make adjustments. If it did work, then you get to move on to the next thing. I think we’re so used as adults to doing something and knowing that we’re going to get a specific result that when we start our businesses, we kind of think Well, okay, I just have to make sure I do these 10 steps in this exact order. And this is exactly what’s going to happen and everything. And so we kind of lose that. Like when when you look at when you look at children, children don’t know what’s going to happen, but they’re just like, I have to find out, like, let me see. And that’s how they learn and everything. And we kind of I don’t know if we lose that because the school system or our jobs or what, but we lose that. And as an entrepreneur, you just have to have that mindset of, well, I need to find out what’s going to happen. And the only way I’m going to do that is by getting it out there. Like I hope I hope I get it right the first time. Like I hope the thing that I want happens on the first try. But if it doesn’t, then at least I know what I just did wasn’t the right way to go about it. So let me try a different way and everything. And then the third trait is just being consistent just showing up. Because if you could do those first two things, and then you can just show up every day, then it’s eventually going to work out. Like you you see a lot of the a lot of the entrepreneurial mindset people they’re always like, just show up every day and it will eventually work well. That only applies if you’re getting stuff out the door and seeing what’s working and what’s what’s not working. And you know, making, taking decisive action and all that. Like I said, if you do those first two things, then showing up every day. Yeah, eventually you’re gonna figure it out and everything That’s that’s literally the only difference and never comes down to specific tactics or anything like that. It’s not like one person is using YouTube and another person using Instagram or anything like that. In our community, we have people that make money selling knitting patterns, people selling cricket patterns, people selling freezer milk guides, people selling weight loss plans, people selling, budgeting things like, so it’s never the actual thing that they’re doing. That makes the difference. It’s just the fact that they’re able to get stuff out there and say, let’s see if this works out or not.
Joelle
From what it seems like the first few trades, you mentioned, the just making a decision going with it. And then just putting things out there and having those feedback loops. It seems like really, what is holding people back is themselves. So like, largely confidence?
Scrivs
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, I think there’s, there’s a growth mindset. And there’s fixed mindset where the fixed mindset has to be, I’m looking at the reward at what’s going to happen. So I have to do everything right. So I get that reward. And everything. The growth mindset is more. I know the rewards out there, and eventually I’ll get to it. But let me see what happens. And just let me just enjoy the process and the journey and everything. I think one thing that you have to try to bring back into your life as an entrepreneur is curiosity. Like you just have to be curious to see what’s going to happen when I try this. You know, what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen when I do this? I mean, this podcast is a perfect example. I, you know, you told me, you want to do more podcasts. And I’m just curious. And I’m like, you know, I get my curiosity coming up. I’m like, Yes, you got to do it. And it’s more like, because I’m curious. I’m just like, I want to see what happens and everything. And I think I think as an entrepreneur, when you just become curious, and you just have that curiosity, like I just have to see what happens if I do this, like I have to do it and everything, then it kind of switches, it becomes more of a positive mindset, versus I hope I’m doing the right thing, because I don’t want to fail and everything. And so you can’t really see anything as failing. Because to me failing is just giving up on the journey. Like if you just say I’m never doing this, again, that that is failing. But otherwise, everything’s just has to be some type of learning experience and everything. Which which can be difficult in the online world, because the people we look up to, especially on social media, they never seem to share their mishaps or their mistakes or their obstacles. It’s always well, this week, I made $5,000 You know, this month, I made 100,000. So what happens is, when you’re looking at them from the outside, you’re going wow, they do everything, right. like they’ve never, they never mess up. And so you subconsciously start think well, that means that I probably don’t have to mess up at all, and everything. And so it’d be great if like more people shared, all their mishaps and all that kind of stuff. I probably share more I probably share too many of the mishaps I probably have people going, Oh, this doesn’t sound fun at all, like I don’t want to do, I don’t want to build a business at all, like no way and everything. So I have to be had to be careful that
Joelle
You don’t want to kind of almost put people off or scare them a little bit.
Scrivs
Just don’t worry for the rest of your life. You’re gonna screw up and maybe one day you’ll make money and everything. Yeah, that’s that’s not the message I’m trying to convey here.
Joelle
You want. You want to encourage people to kind of keep trying and even if things don’t necessarily work. How do you know when to not necessarily to look at it as a failure? But how do you know when to stop? How do you know when it’s not working? I know it’s a very vague question.
Scrivs
That’s a super tough question. Well, I’ll break it into two parts. There’s some people where they go, they come to me and they say, you know, I’ve been trying this for x amount of time, let’s say two years. Should I just give up? And I say, Well, it depends on if you feel like that hunger is still there, and you feel like you can do it. If you can do it, then you have to you have to try to figure out like what’s not working right now. Because what happens is, and this goes back to the feedback loops, a lot of people just put their head down and they just do the same thing for like two years straight. And they’re like, well, I keep on doing this. And it’s not working and I’m like, well, you got to change something like you got to try something different. Like No, I’m gonna keep on doing this exact same thing for two years and I was like, that doesn’t make sense. And they keep so with as an entrepreneur that has to be it literally has to be like a science experiment. I am going to try this within this amount of time, and I think this is what’s going to happen, if this is not, if this doesn’t happen in this period of time, then I need to make an adjustment to it and everything. But yeah, you do have to be careful, because there will be people, you go to who and you’ll say, you know, should I stop doing this and they’ll go, No, you got to, you know, keep on pursuing your dream and keep on going forward without giving you any, like, strategic or tactical advice about what you should change with that kind of stuff. And that’s why with my students in our community, I broke it down into what I like to call the pocket business framework where I just said, you know, these are the four things you just have to make sure you do all the time is get people to notice you get them to pay attention, get them to trust you, and then convert that trust into money. That’s what you just got to focus on. So everything that you do just has to apply to one of those steps. If you’re doing something that does not apply to one of those steps, then you’re probably not going to get anywhere and everything. So I just think a lot of people struggle with should I quit only because they don’t exactly know what they should be doing, or what they should be looking for. And everything.
Joelle
So that’s actually very great advice, especially for the people that are kind of in the very beginning stages. So if we had to kind of take the same perspective, let me just get my wording right. In terms of changing and knowing when to change your your direction,
Scrivs
Right.
Joelle
So when you are already successful. So I’m asking you this specifically, because I know that even when you have been doing really well, you have seen issues or potential issues and completely changed direction, even I would say with the unhappiness of some of your members. Causing everyone quite a lot of stress. And how when your business kind of has got to a certain level, which you know, it’s different for everyone, it does become part of your identity. How do you? How do you make changes? Without kind of I don’t know how to how to phrase this, but how do you get comfortable with making those changes? Without kind of being too attached to to your business? kind of part of who you are? The way that you? Now, if that makes sense?
Scrivs
Yeah, no, it makes perfect, then that’s I think with me, it’s a little easier, only because of what our business is, we’re in the business of helping people make money. And so whenever we make a change, it’s in our minds for the benefit of everybody to help them actually make more money in the long term, and everything. And so my identity is based around that, how can I help you make more money, my identity is never going to be based around a technique, or how something is done, and everything. And so, you know, it’s like, let’s say, I own a pizza parlour and everything, I can either base myself in my brand around the experience that I want people to have, or I can base it around my cooking technique. Some people were like, I’m never changing my recipe, you know, I’m never doing this, you know, our restaurants gonna stay looking like it was for the next 50 years no matter what. But if, if my goal is just to say, I want you to have the best dining experience possible, then I’m always going to be looking for better things to do. And everything. And so I think it just comes down to is your why attached to continuously finding that answer. Because for me trying to help people make money, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a best answer. And so that’s why I’m just always in search of it like, Okay, is there something we can do better, there’s something we can do better, and everything. And so for me, I actually want my identity to be more attached to who? Oh, like he’s always looking like he’s always trying something better for us, to help us push forward and everything. And so when we do make changes, you’re right. There’s some people that are like, I don’t like this because my mindset is I want to do it like this and everything. Why are you changing? And, and some people think like, we change just a change, and I want to explain to them No, like I’m changing because I think this is going to be better for you. You might not believe me yet. But in the long term, you know, you’ll see it and some people go. You know what, you’re totally wrong. I’m leaving you. I’m going to go to you know, another teacher that is going to teach the way I want to teach and that’s fine and everything, but I can’t help I can’t detach myself from trying to help you get the best result. And so that that can’t be me thinking Alright, everything I’ve created is perfect, and there’s no way to improve it, and everything. And so I rather, I rather you come to me going, Well, he might change everything tomorrow, but at least he’s changed to get to help me out, and everything instead of just changing to get to change it.
Joelle
So, if you’ll focus kind of more more in the why than than the how.
Scrivs
Right.
Joelle
Yeah, be able to make those changes to it.
Scrivs
Right, it’s very similar to, like, some, some person will create a video around whatever, and they’ll go, Well, this video is great. And then someone else copies that video, and they get upset. They’re like, Oh, my God, you copied my idea. thing, ideas don’t matter. Like that. Like, you have to figure out what you’re going to be attached to, with your business. I’m attached. And then I think this should be the philosophy everyone I’m attached to. I’m just, I don’t refer to them as customers, but let’s let’s just call them customers. So everybody understands. I’m attached to serving my customers in the best way possible, and everything. And when you’re doing that, then you’re never attached to your how your methodology, your framework, whatever your whatever you’re selling, and stuff like that. So it’s I it’s, I think it’s very much like Apple, like people, like why would Apple keep on, you know, upgrading certain things, why can’t they just keep things a certain way. And it’s just like, okay, because we want to provide a better experience, and we’re just continuously hunting down, hunting that down and everything, and we’ll never find it. But it doesn’t mean we can’t pursue it, and everything, so.
Joelle
that that makes sense.
Scrivs
I’ve got to record that I like, I like that I never, I never said that out loud, I’m gonna have to keep that one around, and everything.
Joelle
I’ll send you the transcript, then you have, it.
Scrivs
Yeah, anytime I make a change, I’m gonna be like, watch this five minute clip before you before you respond to my emails, please and yell at me.
Joelle
And now changing kind of focus a little bit in terms of trying, trying to get everything done and doing all things. So running an online business, especially like, if you’re doing it alone involves just so much creating content, and working with your students trying to grow social media presence for for online business owners who are already kind of earning consistent levels and not kind of brand new to the game. But say they’re earning consistently, like 5000 a month, what should they be focusing on and spending their time on?
Scrivs
There, there comes there comes a time, where you have to start looking at your business as a child and not a pet. And, and what I mean by that is, when we first start, we want to do everything, which makes sense because you’re doing it on your own and everything. And so because you’re doing it on your own, everything is relying on you. You can only bring in new people, if you’re on social media, you know, you can only please your current people, if you’re updating your content. Or if you have clients, you always have to be in contact with your clients and everything. Once you get to a certain income level, and you’re like, Okay, you know, I feel a little comfortable with this, you have to take a step back in, you have to look at all the different tasks that require you and you have to decide does this test still need to happen? If yes, do I need to be the one that has to do this task? And everything? And if not, okay, how can I outsource it? How can I offload it anything? If you’re like, no, there’s no way I can outsource it because I have to do it, then it becomes Okay, how can I make this a system that I can systematise something in some way to make this easier? on me? I think the most difficult thing for me is that I would love to not do anything besides just talk to people like I would that would that’s what i would i would just love to do and everything but I’m not at that level yet not because of the income but because it’s hard for me to put down on paper what I expect from someone else to do it and everything because I don’t want to be that person where if I say Alright, go on do this task. I’m going to sit there looking over your shoulder the whole time anyways, because that’s then the defeats the purpose like I’m not saving myself time and everything. So until I am better at communicating what I want and what I expect then I probably can’t offload certain things. I do know once we get to like a certain like, I’m just gonna make up a number here. Let’s say when we do get up to six figures a month then I I want to treat the business more as a child and what I mean by that is I want to think if I left for three months will my business keep on growing. Will my business still be making money. Or will my business completely fall apart, and everything, right, you know, because you raise a child, you have to be there for the child, but at a certain point, you can leave the child at home by themselves. Yeah, right. Like they are okay on their own for a little bit without without you panicking and everything, but with the pet like you always have to be there for the pet and everything. And so like a decade from now, if I’m still doing this, I don’t want to have a pet where I’m like, I’m stressing whenever I’m not around the computer, or anything like that. So it doesn’t really matter what income level you’re at, as you just keep on growing, just start to look at stuff and be like, you know, what do I need to do this to? If yes, can I offload it in some way? Is there a software that I can use? I think at the very beginning, a lot of people go like, I don’t want to use I don’t want to spend money on any software. Like I’m just gonna do everything manually, right? I would do everything manually. And then then you got a but and you got to decide yourself like okay, now making, we’ll use Pinterest, for example, like people were like, I’m just gonna manually pin because I don’t want to spend money on tailwind. Let’s just say tailwind, then you got to make a decision. Okay, now that I’m making $1,000 a month? Should you be using tailwind where you can schedule stuff? And then that’ll allow you to spend more time on something else? Or are you going to just say no, I’ve got it this far doing manual pinning. So I’m going to keep on doing it right, there comes a time where your time is better spent doing something else to grow your business than it is those little things and everything. And so just every I would say at the end of every month, or every two months, just take a step back and say these are all the things that I do every day from my business. And just take inventory and see like what can be improved? And what can be systematised, what can be offloaded and go from there?
Joelle
What would you prefer to be outsourcing first?
Scrivs
Ah, some type of, well, for me, I just the first thing I did was community management, and everything. And so I brought on Marybeth. Because if I was going to grow this community, to grow a strong community, it takes a lot of time and effort. A community is basically a pet on its own, and everything where you just have to be there. The pet might sometimes be like, I want to sleep like no, we’re gonna play, we’re gonna get some exercise. So you have to keep on encouraging everything. And so the community was not going to be necessarily based around me and my brand, and everything. So I didn’t need to always be around it and everything. So that’s why I brought Marybeth around. If Marybeth wasn’t around, and you didn’t have a community, then I would also didn’t, the first one I would do would be like some type of customer service or someone that monitors my emails, and everything. So I’m not constantly looking at emails and having to remember to respond to emails and stuff like that I would have somebody actually go through and say, okay, Scrivs probably needs to read this email respond or Scrivs doesn’t need to bother with this email. The last thing I can tell you, the last thing that I would probably give up is the outreach stuff. And I don’t know about ever give that up, simply because, for me, the outreach, and the engagement is based around me, like people are gonna
Joelle
So, when you say outreach, what specifically Are you referring to?
Scrivs
So we’ll just say like social media, that’s probably a better example. Like, if I’m going to go out there and interact with people on social media, I can’t do it just as a brand. I have to do it as me and everything. And I feel fully, I have a firm belief that one on one engagement with people on social media, where you leaving thoughtful comments, and things like that can’t be duplicated to someone else, and everything like I can’t, I can’t tell someone else. Well, I want you to go leave 10 thoughtful comments on the biggest influence on Instagram, every day, that person is not going to sound like me, that person is not going to understand my philosophy no matter how well I teach them. They’re just not going to represent me and everything. But there are other forms of outreach that I would do off like I would say, okay, you know, I’m gonna write our ad copy. Now someone go manage the ads, and everything. And I don’t need to sit there saying how the ads are performing, and stuff like that. So basically, anything that I feel like I have to be represented with my voice. I’m probably never gonna let go and everything but anything else, then yeah, I have no problem with that and everything, especially in today’s world where your where your brand is you.
Joelle
Yes.
Scrivs
and everything. So you have to be you.
Joelle
It’s interesting that you were saying how you would ideally like to just spend your days talking to people but your first hire was a community manager to talk to people. How did you kind of approach that of bringing someone into your business where up until that point, it was just you and they are now interacting as part of your brand.
Scrivs
I am very much. And I think most entrepreneurs say this, I’m very much a control freak. But I realised I’m not a control freak, because I think everything has to be done a certain way. And I touched on this point earlier, I’m a control freak, because I just don’t know what I expect yet, or what I want with things. And so I always have to look over like, Ah, you know, let’s do it like that. I want to do like that. When I brought Marybeth on board, it was because I still needed. We weren’t doing paid ads. So the only way we’re bringing people in as if I was going out there writing blog posts, going out there engaging with people and everything. And so the thought was, am I gonna spend majority of my time interacting with people that are already here? Or am I gonna spend the time trying to get people into us and everything? In the beautiful thing, and the wonderful thing about Marybeth is that she was a member. So she was with us, for she’s with me, I shouldn’t say, because there was no us. She was with me for a good six months, and she was interacting in a community, she had a feel for everything. She knew my approach, we would dm all the time and talk about stuff. So she basically knew this stuff. So there was no onboarding process.
Joelle
Okay.
Scrivs
And everything. So that’s that that probably makes it a little different than what other people would just strictly try to hire. Because of the experience. I have a Marybeth. I don’t know, if I could just go out and hire somebody from the outside. Like, I don’t know, if I could say, Alright, let’s have an interview, and I interview you, and then I hire you. And then I don’t know what what happened, I’d be terrified, probably because I’d like oh, my God, I got to, like, teach you so much stuff and everything. So I would I would love if every person I hired to grow this business started off within our community in some way, and everything, just so they understood, not only the vibe of the community, but more importantly, how much of a pain in the butt I am to work with everyday, like, you gotta, you can’t work with me, if you don’t like me, it’s not gonna work out whatsoever. So you kind of have to understand who I am. to really enjoy working with me,
Joelle
if they’re in your community already, you know, that they’ve got kind of a similar worldview, and approach to business. Already, you know, that you have, so there’s kind of that connection. So you know, they approach things in a similar manner.
Scrivs
It’s very cliche, but when I bring somebody on board, so, you know, I have Marybeth and I have my brother, I expect them to have an entrepreneurial mindset where they just they have an idea, and they go out and run with it. And the reason I want that is because I and I tell them this is I can’t look after everything. I can’t run every experiment. I don’t I don’t want to have to think about, oh, maybe we should try this. Or maybe we should try this, I want you guys to go, Ah, you know, like, our analytics over here looking kind of low. Let me try something new. Let me try something else. And they have that permission to just run with things. And I tell them, I was like, there’s nothing you can break. Like, you know, you can’t you can’t do anything wrong here. So just go out and see what happens. And everything. And so like, if you can’t bring that to the table, then yeah, I can’t, I can’t work with you. Because I’m a terrible manager. I think I’m a good like, I’m a good leader, where I can inspire you and I can boost you up and everything. But like managing you and being like, you know, are you doing this task? have you done this and everything. It’s now beyond terrible that and you know that because you’ll send me stuff. And I’m like, Ah, yeah, I’ll get to it at some point and everything like I I’m just no I’m not good at that part. So,
Joelle
So, moving on to a new topic. So the world of online business is full of kind of misconceptions, misunderstandings that, what is one common myth about running an online business that you would like to debunk.
Scrivs
But the problem is not going to find one. But the problem is, I have too many.
Joelle
Let’s go with the most annoying one.
Scrivs
That it takes more time than you think. And everything. And this is kind of a hurdle that a lot of people have to overcome is they think there are a lot of different moving pieces that they have to put together to make something really, really work and everything. But when you’re starting off, it’s essentially just have to find the one person you’re talking to the one outcome they want, what is the one problem that is preventing them from getting that outcome and then offer a solution to it. And so if you’re like, Okay, I just have to keep those things in mind. Then all you do every day is let me go out and find that person. Let me try to find that person. But what happens is people see Other people have like these websites up and these intricate funnels and everything and they’re like, Well, you know, I can’t really get started until I get my website, which means I got to learn all the technical stuff. I want to and also got learn how to design and Okay, well how am I? How am I gonna handle my logo? Oh, I hear I gotta get emails set up. And I supposed to have some type of funnel now I got to learn, like, people get so bogged down with thinking they have to learn all the technology, and all that kind of stuff. And they kind of remove themselves from like, what are the just the basics of running an online business? Like what do I need, and everything. So like, you should be able to just go out there and just talk to people and say, Hey, I can help you, here’s my PayPal, or I’ll send you an invoice. And you know, you can just get started like that, and everything, but because people talk about systems and, and you and you have systems every so I’m saying people people will probably a little more advanced when it comes to Joelle and everything. But I think I don’t want people to be overwhelmed with the idea that there’s a lot of stuff that they have to do, and everything just to get started. And everything. Yeah, over time, have a great website, have your funnels in place, all that kind of stuff. But don’t don’t think that those have to be there to to actually move forward with anything.
Joelle
I was going through my email newsletters yesterday, and I came across a story in one where they were talking about a client that was wanting to start her online business. And she was giving herself I think, up to six months like just to prepare before taking on her first client. And I was reading those and I was feeling so shocked. And then like, I thought back to kind of when I was starting. And I also had that same view of like, I need to get everything ready. Before realising like, all I need to do is have one client, do work for them And they pay me that’s how how you start, like, like you said, you know, do the work, invoice them and you’re in business.
Scrivs
It’s an impossible thing to teach is the fact that no matter what things are going to change along the way. Like, like no matter what. And so it literally does not matter how deep you plan stuff, and everything. It’s just, you can plan a couple steps ahead. But I see I see people going like, so far beyond and everything. It’s It’s It’s crazy. Like, I got an email the other day, where this guru was like, Well, you know, this is what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna sit down, you’re gonna come up with a five year business plan. I was like, do you know how much stuff changes in five years? That’s, that’s insane. Like, it makes no, like, have a have like a five year goal. But like an actual plan, like you’re gonna find out after like, the first two weeks, like, you’re gonna look at your plan and like this, this is done. I’m done with this. So it’s crazy.
Joelle
Yeah, I mean, I spent years trying to get a business started. But the only thing that worked was the joining up work and starting work. And that developed into a business like you said things change all the time. So trying to get everything set up from the very beginning is really just a waste of time. I learned that the hard way.
Scrivs
Yeah, people aren’t gonna believe me when I say it. But if you say it, then there’s way more authority behind it. So I’m glad you I’m glad you said it.
Joelle
What is one thing that people misunderstand about you?
Scrivs
Besides everything, um, I think people because I’m very outgoing. And, you know, I talked with a lot of confidence. So I think people think I’m not scared about things. And even though I make quick decisions, and I take action, there’s a lot of times I’m absolutely terrified about stuff, but there’s never there’s never come a time where I’ve been terrified about doing something with my business. And then I just waited, hoping to overcome the fear. It’s always been well, you know, I gotta take some type of action. And that’s literally the only time the fear is overcome. It just doesn’t work where I’m just sitting there going. Alright, well, three weeks later, I’m still scared. I don’t know what to do everything. But there’s there’s a lot of things where I’ll find myself procrastinating. And when I find myself procrastinating, that’s what I know, I’m a little bit scared about something. And so I kind of have to take a step back and be like, okay, you know, why are you scared? give myself a little pep talk and be like, okay, we just we just got to go out and do it and everything. And so I again, I think like it’s no matter what level you’re at. You’re going to be hesitant about doing some new things. You know, there’s a lot of news I’m kind of used to just doing new things now and trying them but that we talked about like that imposter syndrome creeps in here and there. That fear creeps in here and there just because you know, you’re human, you don’t stop being human, the more successful you get and everything. It’s just, it’s just how you’re going to be and whatnot.
Joelle
It just kind of comes down to just doing the things just
Scrivs
yeah,
Joelle
getting them out.
Scrivs
Yeah. Yeah. Like Marybeth says, like, she hates that about me is that I’ll just be like, she’ll, she’ll, she’ll come up with an idea. She actually came up with an idea. The other day, and I was like, Okay, let’s do it. She’s like, No, we got to talk about this. And I’m like, No, if we, if we start thinking about this, we’re gonna, we’re gonna start thinking about, like, all things can go wrong. And everything. And I think that’s one of the challenges is that it’s very easy as a business owner to think about what can go wrong. And when we start focusing on that, we kind of lose track of like, what can go right? And so when I get excited about something, and I’m like, well, this has the potential to do this. Then I’m like, Well, I’m going with it. Let’s just go with it. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t care what could go wrong. And everything. I just, I just want to see if I can get that right thing to happen. So
Joelle
before we finish up, I’m sorry, I’ve lost my words. And I would like to know from you, what three books would you recommend to my audience and Why?
Scrivs
One is definitely a growth mindset by and I totally forget her name. But she’s the original person that came up with the concept of the growth versus fixed mindset. It’s, it’s not that like, it’s a whole new concept, but she actually put it into words, and everything. I totally, totally apologise for not remembering everything. The second one, I am totally forgetting all my author’s names, and I have all my books. Seth, Seth, Seth Godin. So he has a book, The Art of marketing, or something about marketing. And, I mean, he has a tonne of books, but it’s pretty much like the art of marketing or something. And the concept that I loved about that, was and a lot of people have this misconception. They hate they hate that. They say, I hate the idea of selling. I don’t like marketing. And for them, it feels like very scummy and slimy and everything and that and that’s because they’ve come across tactics that make them feel that way. But and this book, what he does is he explains how marketing when done correctly, is all about serving your audience. And so you know, you’re doing yourself an injustice, like you know, you can help people, you’re doing yourself in them a disservice by not making sure they know you exist, and everything. And so it just changed my perspective on what marketing can be and how marketing should be and everything and yeah, that was great. Now I gotta scroll real quick here.
Joelle
We can get those the proper titles and put them in the show notes.
Scrivs
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Joelle
Get all the details.
Scrivs
There’s a board that I think I want to say it’s called the boron letters. And it’s it’s, it’s by this copywriters son. So the copywriter himself is Gary Halbert. And he’s one of the greatest copywriters of all time, and everything. And it’s just, it’s based on the 70s and 80s, direct mail, marketing and everything. But I truly believe as an entrepreneur, your most important skill that you can learn is copywriting. And the idea behind what words you can use to actually sell something, and it helps you understand how to get into the mind of the person that you’re trying to sell to, and just how you can’t just say anything. It’s how certain words have an effect on you and what you need to present yourself and everything. So that would be the third one. But basically, any good book on copywriting that you can get your hands across, I think everybody should read because if you can’t sell yourself or sell your business, then you’re going to sit there going, Well, I know I post every day on Instagram, and I have this funnel setup and nobody’s buying Well, it’s because you’re not doing a good job selling and everything.
Joelle
Well. Even in Instagram, you would be using copywriting just to get people to follow you.
Scrivs
Exactly. It’s a universal skill that just has to be applied everywhere.
Joelle
Thank you for that. I’m going to be adding that to my Amazon wishlist and where can our listeners connect with you online
Scrivs
On TikTok right now you can find me on struggle college, Twitter, struggle college, Instagram, a pocket business and on YouTube if you just search for pocket business I should come up I totally forgot what the name is on YouTube and for website if you just go to pocketbusiness.com that would be probably the one your listeners want to go to, even though there’s multiple ones but that’d be the one.
Joelle
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for your time and for joining me today. It has been really really awesome talking with you.
Scrivs
Thank you. Thank you for not falling asleep. Yeah, thank you for staying awake and actually actually letting me talk and everything. It was great.
