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DEMO: Reverse Engineering

We begin, and we're gonna be doing this with an audience member, in just a moment, by setting the end goal first. Then, we are determining the starting point, and then we are going to be breaking it into steps. And we're going to be, and I'm gonna just be very clear about this, please, allow for variances, because unless you want to be upset the entire path, because it will never get there the way you think it will, that's why it's good to have the general direction. And you keep going in the general direction, so even, if you're on a few serpentines that you didn't think they were gonna be there, because they will be. It's a treacherous, unpredictable path. You have outcome over two things, the beginning and the end. The path, eh, that tends to do its own little thing. All right, so, shall we get started? Jeff is up here, thank you so much for doing this. Absolutely. So, you have two choices. We can, on page number six, or page number seven in the workbook, we can either just do a...

general reverse engineering process, or we can reverse engineer a career. So which of the two do you think you want to do, and I'm going to show them to you right here. The process, I think, not a career. Okay, very good. So, we're just going to, and I'm just gonna show this, right now, so here it is, this is what we're working on right now. This is a standard reverse engineering process, in the workbook, that we are going to be following, so that way you can fill this out. All right, so, what is your end goal? Are we looking at a large goal, that's over the course of a year or two, or are we looking at something on a smaller scale? What makes you more comfortable? I think, realistically, the smaller one, there's three or four smaller ones to achieve the larger one, so maybe tackle the smaller one first. Why would you want to tackle the small one if you have me right here? Let's go for the big one! All right. (laughs) I like daunting things. We're here to go... I set myself up for that. He totally did! (laughs) It came out of my mouth, and I'm thinking, oh. Did you guys see that coming? I just watched that happen, a few minutes ago, sorry. And your wife will be texting. Hands on the head, this time. There's no clapping right now. No, no, no, there's, I'm glad that you let me play, a little bit, but, you know, you may as well think big. Because the little stuff, the little stuff is just the safe stuff, but the big stuff is the big leap. It's a quantum leap, a quantum leap isn't pushing this from here to here. A quantum leap is a big thing so let's go for quantum leaps. I'd like to get our business to where we're doubling what we did last year. Okay, well, shall we write that down? In the end goal, double our numbers. So, how many people are working with you today, we're looking at the starting point now. Two. Two people, okay. And how many sessions do you do, approximately? Just tell our audience what you do, so they understand what you're doing. I'm a professional photographer. I do, primarily, glamour and boudoir photography. So we do 20 sessions a month, on average, sometimes, depending on the season, 30, sometimes just a little bit under 20, but typically, 20. Okay, good, and is there a preference of one over the other, or are they about 50-50? In terms of? Quantity. No. More glamour sessions than the other ones, or 50-50? It really just depends on the clientele, there is no preference, it's really what they want to do. But you know because you know the numbers. Are you shooting more that, or more that? I would say it's equal. So, it's 50-50? Mm-hmm. And so, your business partner, are you splitting the two, or are you working on both together? No, I'm the photographer, and my business partner is my wife, she's the manager. Okay. So she runs the business, does all of the bookings, and I do the shooting. Okay, so, if we were to double numbers, could your wife handle all of the bookings by herself? Can she handle double the load? Oh, yeah. Can you handle double the load, as the photographer? Yes. Okay. So, on the scaling, that means we do not have to, we do not have to bring in additional personnel. What about post production? Oh, you're gonna need somebody post production. I'm pretty efficient in post production. Are you really? Thanks to CreativeLive, yes. Bravo to CreativeLive. Okay, very good, so you've become very efficient. So you feel that you can double your numbers, without any additional personnel. Yes. Good. So, then, what are the other elements? So your sales need to be improving. Yes, and we need, we need to get that average to closer to 30, versus 20, because obviously that's a big difference, in terms of the monthly bookings. And then we also need to sell more artwork along with the actual digital packages. Okay, so, then, the steps would be to increase the per-session spent. Yes. Okay, so let's write that down. That's going down here in the steps, uh-huh. Increase the per session spent. And rumor has it, you're very process oriented. So I'm sure you can develop a process around how we can ask people for more, to leave more money with you, right? How about your marketing, how do you market? Through the internet, and our website. And do you do paid advertising, or also, social media, unpaid social media? A combination of those. Okay, so if you want to get double the numbers, what do you think you need to be doing? Probably get more... Probably get more physically involved in other networking forms. Okay. Like groups, expand my network, or our network. Okay, very good, so let's write this down, expand your network, and I also think you're going to, as an additional step, you'll probably need to increase your marketing and social media spent. Now, if we talk about social media, and advertising, can you still handle this, all by yourself, or is it now time to hire somebody to handle some of these aspects? And the reason I'm asking is, I'm just telling you, out of experience, that to double numbers, without adding any additional people, is very difficult to do. Mm-hmm. If you're scaling, you can't scale, just adding more workload isn't really scaling. Scaling is when everything is set up, so that it can grow. Yeah, I think, in terms of that portion, definitely some outsourcing. Very good, okay, so, now, we have a hire. Okay, very good. So, then, I would add that, and would say, consider, you know, part time social media advertising salesperson, whatever goes into that. And just to be clear, from my end, too, I have no problem outsourcing some of the things that we do, but that's different than a full-time hire, in my opinion. To hire somebody to handle the marketing, or to outsource some of the editing, those sort of things, that's different than actually having another full-time person on the team. So, yes, I do expect to have to do more outsourcing. Okay, so I'm gonna let you in on one of my business tricks, or secrets. Mm-hmm. I believe that it's better to have 10 people that do small portions of your business, just retouching, just social media, just pay per click, just, whatever it is. And that's all they do, in the subject matter expert in their category. I agree 100 percent. Versus hiring one person that does everything, so and so. And the reason that is, because I already lost a business, because one person thought she had too much power. It keeps you safe, it keeps your business safe, and if somebody goes off on the deep end, it's much easier to replace them. So it's easier to scale when you have many people in smaller spaces. So, I do believe, if you want to double your numbers, that you're gonna have expenditures in the personnel portion of things. So I would put that, definitely, in there, and say that you will have an increase. But I believe outsourcing is absolutely the way to go for you. Okay, very good. What other steps do you think go into, do you have all the skillsets that it's required, that you need to have to manage a team of a bunch of people that may be sitting all over the world? Uh, in that regard, yes, absolutely. Okay, good. In terms of the other skillsets, I don't know that anybody can say that, at any point, they have enough, especially in this business, because it changes every day. Every day. So I know my skillsets from even five years ago are dramatically different, and I thought I had it all then. So I just know I'll constantly have to be learning more. Good, so then, in your steps, I would also add a continuous education component. And I probably would do that, for two things, for business systems and processes, which I know you are going to be loving. And the other one is just automation and management of the resources that you have, because that is correct, we are in a time that moves really really incredibly fast. So that has to be allocated for. So how do you feel about this plan? Good. Do you feel that we have a plan, or do you feel that we need to add any more things to this? For something like that, I definitely feel, there are more steps that need to go in between. I'll definitely have to create a system, and a step by step process, first. And you happen to be really good at it! As we have come to find out, so yes. So, that is true, you start with the parameters of what it is that you want to achieve, and you put sort of the main elements in it. And then you can fill in the detail as you kind of go along. And that's how you reverse engineer. Because that leaves you, then, room, because if you find, then, some really great people that are really good at something, you may not have spent so much time on as you can allocate something to something else. But that is, in essence, the plan, on how you think through it, how I'm gonna sell it, how I'm gonna market it, who's gonna do it, who's gonna handle the workload. If there's more people, who's managing these people. So that's all, that needs to be in the thought process, and then, and only then, are you gonna hammer out the details. Because when you start at the bottom, you try to hammer out the details, before you even know what the end goal is. So it's better to have these markets in there. Well, I thank you so much for doing this. Give him a round of applause, I appreciate that. So, again, if you're in the workbook, you have now seen that it does take a little bit of time to fill in all the details. So just take all the time that you need, and you can always stop the recording, and take a look at all the things, and fill it in, and revisit it at a later time. And make sure that you have it in such a format that you really feel comfortable and good about it, because that's really what it's all about, to have a plan that works for you.