Christy o #1

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Speaker: Clarity equals consistency and consistency equals control. And that's how you can basically show a backend discipline before you know you even really try to get out there with the sales. And then the importance of not having too many subscriptions and too much chaos and too many things. Because when you're new, it's like you have this empty briefcase, you're carrying around with you and you wanna fill it with things.

I need my pencils and my papers and my business cards, and I need to learn this skill, and I need that tool, and I gotta have a toolbox. And then before you know it, you have so many tools. You need to have bigger toolbox. So there's an importance of having one CR M1 communication channel, one project management workflow, and one financial tracking system because it gives you that, that [00:01:00] clarity when you understand exactly who you serve.

Exactly who you don't serve, what your area of genius is, that gives you clarity.

Skooby: Salutation, scuba, believers, and we are here again with another amazing entrepreneur. We're doing a, where the heck are they now? Episode with my good friend Christy. Hey, Christy. How are you? 

Christy: Hi. 

Skooby: It's so great to see you again. I think it's been a little bit longer than six months since the last time I talked to you.

Christy: It really has. We really should be in touch a little bit more, but it's a good sign. We're busy. 

Skooby: That's right. We're all doing something right. You actually were an episode 104 and I actually, believe it or not, I got a, uh, one of those things on Facebook was like, oh, this has happened, you know, in the back of, wow, I really need to get ahold of Christie.

'cause it's been a while. So it's just great to see you. 

Christy: Same here. Same here. Scoop. 

Skooby: All right. So, um, what we're gonna do here is, uh, I would like you just, since we haven't talked in, well, if we have some new listeners that [00:02:00] didn't listen to your episode before. I will be linking the episode 1 0 4 into the show notes if you wanna check that out.

Let's do a quick reintroduction of who you are and what your entrepreneur venture is. 

Christy: Well, my name is Kristy O'Connor. I'm the president and CEO of Ocon co marketing here in Massachusetts. I started probably before that, but technically 1999, and I've been incorporated since 2005. That's me in a nutshell.

That's That's pretty much it, marketer. Yeah, I mean, I've got a lot of experience, so I could go on and on. 

Skooby: , now we've talked a while back ago, but I'd like to know what the differences are. So you were doing something before when we first had the, uh, interview and episode 104. And so what are you doing actually now? What was the biggest, was there any like, real big switches between what you do did before and what you're doing now?

Christy: I. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that, um, we're just moving ahead trying to do more automations, using [00:03:00] more ai, and it, it is, if I remember correctly, we're transitioning more into agency support rather than just individual business support. But that's not to say that. We don't service individual businesses.

It just seems to be for some reason that we're attracting other agencies for agency support, for marketing, creative design workflows, mar any, anything, digital ads those, whatever process in the digital space, agencies just tend to gravitate towards us. 

Skooby: It's kind of kind of where that, that works out sometimes where you're doing one thing and all of a sudden people start realizing, Hey, this is maybe something we could get into, or maybe she can help us do this.

So we're kinda like, oh look, new, new type of people we can, we can take care of. So it's always nice to have that, that little reaction when you're doing something really, really well. 

Christy: Yeah, and I, I, I don't know if there, I mean, I hope we're doing things [00:04:00] really, really well. I pride myself on working hard and being professional, but I, it could be that there really are a lot of people starting businesses, starting AI agencies, starting automations because it's never been a better time than now to start a business, especially with AI tools and automations.

And so having the experience, we don't feel. Threaten to even generate leads for other marketing companies. So, uh, it's been, it's been a pleasure. System before sales It's been a pleasure and it's really nice to work with people that are understanding the outcome rather than working with a small business that doesn't quite understand what we're trying to do.

And, you know, it's just easier to work with someone that's a little bit more in the know. So, 

Skooby: yeah, there's nothing wrong with, with keeping people around you that know a little bit more than you do, that way you can learn from 'em and understand, you know, where they're coming from and ke and kinda keep 'em around.

That way you could see what's happening, what's new, what's different that [00:05:00] maybe not just you kind of miss, but maybe you could pick up on what they're actually learning and, and, uh, keep it that way. So, yeah, it's really important. 

Christy: Yeah. Steel sharpened steel, right? 

Skooby: That's right. That's right. So what I'd like to hear, do you remember what your six month goal was?

That's one thing I always like to touch on first. 

Christy: Yep. Yes. I wanted 70 clients. Of, uh, monthly recurring revenue. 

Skooby: How did we do? 

Christy: We didn't do it. 

Skooby: Oh, no, that's okay. That's okay. 

Christy: We're not there. But it, we got agencies now, so if you do the girl math, maybe 

Skooby: that's kinda right. No, no, that's okay. 

Christy: We're so close though.

We're so close. Exactly 

Skooby: what needs to happen. What do you think is that breakthrough thing that you need to happen? 

Christy: Well, we just haven't got the automations in place, so we need the repeatable, uh, the repeatable processes. You gotta find what's compound able. And so we've found some compound things and we're just plugging stuff together, doing some automations, and it's [00:06:00] just, it's not as easy taking what's inside your head as an entrepreneur and.

Populating all the different minds that are around you. But I've been very lucky and very good people are surrounding me and very blessed. Um, and we are, we're there. We're gonna get there. We, we will. I'm confident. We just had, we didn't hit the 70 mark yet, but That's okay. 

Skooby: That's okay. That's okay. Uh, but it's nice that now I think one of the biggest difference between when we first talked and now is we actually have a whole different set of tools that we can use to find these holes or to find these things that we need to be able to break through to that place where we want to be.

Christy: Yes. 

Skooby: I know I've reached out more to using AI as a tool to, to hatch ideas and to come up with new and better ways of doing what I do. Uh, that a year ago there was no way I could, I could, I was barely even be able to put on the podcast, let [00:07:00] alone, talk to an AI and, and come up with ideas and brainstorm with an ai.

But it's been such a big difference between then and now when it comes to that. 

Christy: Yeah, absolutely. And we wanna focus on the ENT workflow where we create an automation, we do like a web hook or we connect to another platform, and then we have AI in the middle to help with intent monitor monitoring, help with decision making.

So whenever there is, um, different routings and decision making. That really helps to have a little layer of AI in the middle, and then you can go back to just a standard hardcoded process. And so that's one of the reasons why we haven't scaled to the number of customers that we were talking about because I think it's very important to understand that power isn't hype, it's system before sales.

So if we don't have the systems really locked down, we don't wanna scale [00:08:00] unless we're really super confident on the fulfillment side. So unless we have, an automated agentic workflow with a layer of AI in the middle, and then a human involvement for governance and oversight. And then we can get back into some of the automated, say like autoresponders, and then just these different, even if it's just a sales.

Process of getting an automated receipt or contract, then that can move forward. But unless we have those systems in place, we don't, we don't want to scale because then it gets chaotic and sloppy. 

Skooby: Well, yeah, you don't want to scale up until you know that you're ready and have all the systems in place to be able to scale.

'cause you can get to a point where you scale up, okay, I'm there, but am I gonna be able to handle whatever it is that I'm putting myself into. So it's very important to have those systems in place. Before you scale, and I think that's 

Christy: what you help with, right? And is, are you really scaling? Are you really scaling?

If you just get a bunch of sales and customers and you can't fulfill it, I'm not sure that's [00:09:00] actually scaling. I think that might be just overbooking or overcommitting or bottlenecking, I think. What do you think Skoog? 

Skooby: Yeah, I mean that at that particular point, you become your own bottleneck. Because it's like you're, you're trying to do all these things all at once and now you gotta take care of customers that you didn't have before.

You don't have the systems in place to be able to take care of those customers. And then, something happens to where they, they can give you a bad review or something like that 'cause you didn't, you weren't able to help them the way you prompt you were gonna help them. And that can lead into some pretty bad things for you if you, if you are not ready to take the scale on that, you say you can't.

Christy: Yeah, I mean there are non-negotiables. You need clarity before clients. You need to know exactly who you serve and the exact outcome that you can absolutely deliver before, before doing that, you need that structure for sure. 

Skooby: So what I'd like to do, especially with a lot of my [00:10:00] return guests in the six months, on a personal level, what has changed?

What has changed about Christie between then and now?

Christy: I don't know if much has changed. I always feel, geez, I wonder, I don't know. Can you tell? Because I don't, I don't feel like I've changed. I feel like I'm just still, still climbing the mountain and still heading, you know, I still have my eye on the prize. That's how I feel. But maybe something's changed. I do know that, you know, there's been some, um.

Scenery change of more agencies being attracted this way. Um, starting to get a little bit more infrastructure, you know, starting to plug in some of the workflows. Always, always trying, always striving. Um, but I feel like I'm always like that, so I, I don't know. You would have to be the judge of that. 

Skooby: I mean, that's, that's what we all do as entrepreneurs.

We just keep going and just [00:11:00] seeing what works and seeing what doesn't work and, and when we have something that comes across that actually works, you want, okay, what do we do? How now with this new thing that's coming along, now that you're, you're getting new types of clients and that kind of thing, you were talking about before we got on you were talking helping virtual assistants or VAs or something like that.

Can you kind of dive into that a little bit for me? 

Christy: Um, well I have an opportunity to maybe contribute to a summit and, um, yeah, the idea is helping virtual assistants through a nonprofit, you know, build the foundation of their VA business and maybe what a new company, virtual assistant company or a digital company would do to start out.

And I think you could probably give some insight with the way you talk to ENT entrepreneurs. Um. A good foundational presence could be for a virtual assistant. That's looking to start off what, right? 

Skooby: Well, yeah. I mean, it's, it's important to know [00:12:00] and, and this goes with just about any kind of new entrepreneur that's starting, no matter what business this is, you know, that you're doing.

But start off with what you know you're good at. Start off with what's in your zone of genius. Know what your zone of genius is. And then build off of that. 'cause I mean, if you're gonna do something just to do it just for the money, then you're gonna burn out really quick. 'cause it's gonna turn into a chore.

It's gonna turn into a quote unquote job. When you're doing something like this, you don't want it to be like that. You want it to be something you love to do. And a lot of different people have different loves of what they love to do. There's some people that love math. I hate math. Yeah, I did. I guess I stay away from math as much as possible, but there's people out there that love numbers.

Um, my wife is learning code. She loves to code. Oh, and I, she tells me all the time about, oh, I learned how to do this, this, this today. I have no idea what she's talking about. I still, you know, do the, take the head think, oh, that's great. That's awesome. I have no idea what you're talking about. But that's because the coating's in her zone of genius.

So. [00:13:00] Learn the where your zone of genius is, then figure out how you can help people in your zone of genius. And if you're helping people in your zone of genius, not only are you helping them, but you're helping, uh, yourself as well too because you're doing something you love. And then eventually, uh, as long as you're doing that, the money will come.

But I think the really hardcore foundation of the first thing you need to do is to know where your zone of genius is. 

Christy: Is this how you would define. A virtual assistant entrepreneur finding their niche, is that what their niche is? Is their zone of genius in finding out exactly who they serve? 

Skooby: Yes, exactly.

Exactly who they would serve. As long as it's in their zone of genius or in their niche or whatever it is. As long as it's something that you love to do so much, you never get tired of doing it. You never get tired of talking about it. You got people that you're telling, people they're telling you, be quiet.

I've heard enough about this. That's when you know you're heading the right direction. Um. Then just using that as your, your takeoff point [00:14:00] to, well, I can, I love doing this. I can help these people with this niche or this zone of genius, these type of people, and then go find them, basically go wherever they are.

They, they, uh, they go to, there's a lot of Facebook groups that you can go to of people that are looking for what you, you love to do. There's a lot of other places too. That's just the first one that comes to mind, but yeah, exactly. 

Christy: Yeah, so that would, I mean, I would just add to that to say the three non-negotiables for a foundational, you know, new virtual assistant company would be, we just talked about it, clarity before clients, uh, but who they serve and who they don't.

That's part of clarity before clients. So not only. Who your avatar is, what your niche is, but who you don't serve. Like for example, I don't serve Fortune 100 companies, even though agencies tend to gravitate towards me. It's usually companies less than $10 million, usually less than 5 million. Between five and 10 million is my sweet [00:15:00] spot.

So you wanna know who you serve and who you don't serve. And the other one would be the exact outcome you're going to deliver. Not something along the lines of like, oh, I do email management. No, it's zero inbox in 30 days with a documented system that will save you five hours a week. Something that granular exactly what your deliverable is gonna be.

And then the final thing that would be a non-negotiable would be your minimum sustainable price. Numbers that allow you to operate sustainably and deliver the outcome consistently. Otherwise, you may actually start to resent your clients, because when burnout sets in, you can't service them anymore. It becomes a burden.

Skooby: Exactly. Exactly. Um. Know, know what you're gonna do to serve them and make sure you narrow it down to where it's as simple as you can to say it. Yeah. That's something I've had to learn too, is I can't, I, I've seen a lot of people want to be cutesy with it or, or, you know, want to do wordplay or anything like that.[00:16:00]

Say just what you're going to do. I'm going to help you with this. I've actually changed a lot of what I've been doing to say just what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna get you through the four hurdles of stop. I'm gonna help you start a business instead of saying, I'm gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know? Yeah. And it, it kind of turns out to where I'm, I'm sure you've heard this, where you, you sell a drill, but you're not really selling a drill. You're selling the hole. 

Christy: That's right. 

Skooby: Right. But then you go deeper than that. You're not just gonna sell the hole, but you're gonna sell the whole of what's gonna go in that hole after you make it.

Right. Uh, I'm gonna hang a picture up on my wall, so I'm gonna make a hole in the wall, but I'm gonna hang a picture of my family in the wall. Go deep with it like that. You'll always find people that will wanna work with you. 

Christy: That's right. You can have a longer sentence for your own mantra, but I can tell you the formula if you want to hear it.

Oh, let's do it. Yeah, absolutely, 

Skooby: Chrissy. 

Christy: Yeah, so for persuasion and for marketing, marketing is getting the word out the message. And so it's it's benefit without pain point. It's a [00:17:00] formula, literally benefit without pain point. And I'll give you an example. I will help you get ranked on Google without hiring an SEO agency.

I will help you get all your emails into the inbox without all the frustration and a 40 hour work week dealing with multiple people, so it's benefit without pain point. 

Skooby: Alright. That's awesome. Okay. Make SC Believers makes you write that down. 'cause that's gonna be really important. Later on, you'll see, 

Christy: yeah, there's a quiz, 

Skooby: right?

There's a quiz at the end. Look how people, 

Christy: yeah. 

Skooby: But the other thing too is, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit on price as well too. 'cause price is really going to be important, what you're doing right. Do not undersell yourself. I see time and time again where people want to undersell themselves, but you have to realize that the price that you're charging is gonna be the perception of the goods that you're gonna put out.

Christy: That's right. 

Skooby: If, if you put something out that's gonna be really low price, they're gonna realize that they're gonna, people are gonna think that low price is gonna be [00:18:00] the type of quality that you're gonna have. I don't wanna go with them. The price is too low. That means they're low quality. So keep your price normal or even higher than I've talked to so many entrepreneurs.

They say, well I'm charging this. I'm like, double it. 

Christy: Yeah. So what we're discussing here is perceived value. And so yeah, people believe, particularly those that have the income, it's a status, prices status. And so low price is a perceived low value. 

Skooby: Exactly. Exactly. And we don't want to, we don't want people to think that we're low value, 'cause we're not.

Nobody really is low value, but you have to value yourself enough to be able to, and be vulnerable enough to put that number out there and to, to see what people will actually pay and make sure it's big enough to where you could sustain yourself too. Don't, don't put a number out there that you're gonna lose money doing or losing time or anything like that.

There's gotta be some kind of gain for you to keep yourself going. 'cause if you can't keep yourself going, then there's no point. 

Christy: That's [00:19:00] right. But there's also a fine line, pricing is an ethical thing and also has to be within market pricing. So I've seen people overcharge and I've also seen. In some circles, not all, but in some circles with some freelancers and some people that are trying to start off, they understand and believe that they have more skills than they actually do.

Um, so I think you have to understand your lane and you have to understand your skillset. Just because you're talking to chat GBT and chat, GPT is making you feel empowered. Doesn't mean you have the life experience, and there's really nothing wrong with telling someone that. You don't have a ton of experience and that they can have a trial offer that has an end date.

So if you wanna give a better price, you can quantify it in a variety of ways, um, because you, you have to be honest. You really don't [00:20:00] want people to think that you're some expert at something when you. Brand new because it will show up even if you're using ai. AI will expose your weaknesses because it's only gonna output based on the prompts that you're giving it, and you could easily become deceived and start putting stuff out there that's not right.

So I definitely think that you should charge. What is marketable? So you have to measure and understand your marketable skills. I'll, I'll leave it at that, but I do feel passionate about that as someone that's been burned many times and it's really, really clear to me when you don't have experience and I think that shows up with people that are other experts in their field.

They can tell just by talking to someone can only fake it for so long. But desperation, one of my very good friends used to say, desperation is a stinky cologne. If you're desperate and [00:21:00] you're selling yourself short, it's never gonna help either. There's one thing, giving someone value and understanding marketable skills and what the market will bear, and a negotiation versus a desperation.

Skooby: Exactly, exactly. I, I am a big, I'm not gonna say I'm an expert on desperation, but uh, I have experienced desperation and it's no fun. But the funny thing is, is when you get more desperate, less positive things happen to you too. I'll give you an example. I used to be a car salesman. I sold cars for 16 years.

That's where a lot of my sales experience comes from. But whenever I was having a bad month, I was really having a bad month. Yeah. Because I get more and more desperate wanting to sell the car and the more desperate I got to sell the car, the less cars I sold. Yeah. Now the guy next to me in the booth, next to me, he was, he was good.

I'll give him, he was really good at selling cars, but he always, and he always had it 'cause he didn't have that desperation. 

Christy: Yeah. 

Skooby: [00:22:00] So, yep. Be careful with that. I mean, there, there's gonna be times where you're desperate, but it's, there's a, just like you said before, there's kind of a fine line when it comes to something like that.

So, 

Christy: what's the old adage? Never let 'em see your sweat, right? 

Skooby: That's right. Oh boy. I just wanna sweat. Yeah, that's for sure. But yeah. Okay. That's awesome. And thank you for all that great information. I hope so. I hope there's a lot of people out there that can use that. I know there is a lot of people out there can use that information.

So thank you very much, Christy. 

Christy: Oh, you're welcome. 

Skooby: All right. So thank 

Christy: you. 

Skooby: Yeah. Yeah. So one of my favorite questions to ask people that come back on my show. And this is gonna make you think so, I apologize ahead of time, but from your experiences from when we first talked to now, if you were able to go back and talk to Christie from six or months or a year ago, what would you say to her?

What kind of ex, what kind of experiences you had that you would share with your, with your last year self?

Christy: Yeah. [00:23:00] What would I say to my last year? Self. Because we were saying that before too, where I was like, geez, I can't tell. I don't know. I really, I don't know. I need a vacation. 

Skooby: Take a vacation every once in a while. That's all 

Christy: right. Yeah. Take out a loan. No, don't take out a loan. Uh, yeah. Don't eat too much cheese.

Found out that's not good for you. Oh, yeah. Um, no, the, I. I don't know. Maybe it's ego, sc Maybe it's just my ego. Maybe. I just think I'm great. I do wanna be humble. I, I, I wanna be humble. I want to, I wanna do a good job. I, I just wanna keep going and, um. I feel like, I feel like we're we're headed in the right direction.

I mean, I got a good team. Everybody's on the same page. I feel like we're a coat of paint away. Yeah, I just. [00:24:00] I don't know, maybe, maybe you can pick up on something with our conversation and, and tell me you're, you're the coach, so maybe you gotta tell me to, to sharpen up kid or something like that. 

Skooby: Well, if, if, if I was to say anything, even, even kind of joking, joking about it, don't be afraid to take breaks.

Don't be afraid to take some time to yourself and recharge your batteries. Yeah, so you don't have that burnout now. I know you're doing okay. And, and that's cool Christie. This might be for somebody else, but that's the first thing that comes to mind. 'cause even though we kind of joke about it at the same time, it's really important as entrepreneurs to recharge our mind, to recharge our bodies.

Don't be afraid to take a couple days off to yourself to heck, I just sleep. Really? That's pretty much all I can do. Yeah, that's, you know, get some sleep, but I mean, take up a quick hobby, do something else. That's not exactly what you're in, what you're doing right now in your business. So [00:25:00] you, you kind of grow the new synapses that we can use in our brains.

So, like me personally, I started fishing every once in a while, which has been really great for me. And I'm taking up the guitar. Does, do these things have anything to do with business? No. Unless I start a fishing business, who knows? But these are things Yeah, you 

Christy: gotta unplug. 

Skooby: Yeah, you gotta unplug.

That's a very good way to put, and that way you have the capability after you're charged up. To move on and do bigger, better things, think more clearer, have those aha moments and they were gonna come faster and easier 'cause you have room in your brain to be able to have them. So don't be afraid to take breaks, 

Christy: I think.

I think you hit the nail right on the head. Because my, my mantra is like, I have to be the last person standing. You know? There's know, because the thing is, is everything's going so fast. Yes. I'm sorry. Go ahead. 

Skooby: No, that, and that's very honorable. We all want to do that as entrepreneurs, especially people that are in, [00:26:00] you know, a, a growing business like you are, and knowing that you're that close to being there.

Right. One coat of paint away, just like you said, but you have to have the room in your brain to be able to put that coat of paint on. 

Christy: Yeah. Yep. We go in, um, in phases, you know, we get a couple clients, we get the deliverables done, then take a couple days off, uh, go through the holidays. Like we just had, um, we just had a quite a few days off around the holidays and so I, I pretty much knew I was gonna be straight out until Easter, you know, after the new year I had, I usually have.

Good 10 days off between Christmas and New Year's, uh, where it's, I still work an hour or two here or there, but it's very slow. And then spring with our construction workers and some of the other traffic. Usually January, February is usually very busy, although this year, January was slow. February's been nuts and I have a feeling March is gonna get, get up there and then we'll get [00:27:00] into, uh uh.

Maybe a pattern or a plateau, and then usually July, August is usually pretty busy, which is interesting. I don't know if it's just getting into the swing of things or, or what. 

Skooby: Things usually pick up when things get a little warmer out there. That's what I've noticed too. You know, more people are active, they're getting out more, they're doing more things, even if it's not exactly what, like a, a business is or anything like that.

Getting outside just itself is recovery and people want to move and do things and they're okay. Their brains are moving, things are going. So I think just because it's, it's just that time of year where people wanna move and do things myself, that's just me. 

Christy: Yeah, yeah. I wanna plant my seeds. It's the end of February, so I'm gonna start planting my seedlings.

I got a little green room, little grow room down in my basement under the stairs, so I'm pretty excited about that. 

Skooby: Oh, you, I loved, I love to grow stuff. I've, I, I've had a brown thumb for a really long time, I gotta tell you, but, uh, recently I've been getting into, [00:28:00] into, getting into plants and, uh, I grew some, uh, some some garlic and I'm working, what, I'm working on an avocado tree right now.

Christy: Oh, sweet. 

Skooby: Yeah. So we're just, I'm playing green thumb. Let's see what happens. 

Christy: That's cool.

Skooby: So, um, what I'd like to do here is one, I wanna give you another opportunity to talk about a new entrepreneur and if you met a new entrepreneur like we did before, and kind of use your new experience you just had between now, then, and now to give maybe something a little bit different. 

Christy: Um, what do you, what do you, what's the question?

What is my advice? 

Skooby: So if you're come, if you're to come across a brand new entrepreneur, Uhhuh, that's just getting started. Now that you've learned some new stuff between then and now, is there any different advice that you would give a new entrepreneur that you've kind of acquired? 

Christy: My, my advice is always don't give up.

But as I was kind of thinking of what we were gonna be talking about and thinking about the virtual assistant, uh, summit, and what I would [00:29:00] say if I spoke to someone like that, I would say that, um, clarity equals consistency and consistency equals control. And that's how you can basically show a backend discipline before you know you even.

Really try to get out there with the sales. It was like we were talking about before, that you want structure before sales, and then the importance of not having too many subscriptions and too much chaos and too many things because when you're new, it's like you have this empty briefcase, you're.

Carrying around with you and you wanna fill it with things. I need my pencils and my papers and my business cards, and I need to, I need to learn this skill and I need that tool, and I gotta have a toolbox. And then before you know it, you have so many tools, you need a bigger toolbox. So there's an importance of having one CR M1 communication channel, one project management workflow, and one financial tracking system because it gives you that.

That [00:30:00] clarity when you understand, like we were talking before, exactly who you serve, exactly who you don't serve, what your area of genius is, that gives you clarity. Once you get the clarity, you could be consistent and then you rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat, and that's what gives you controlled.

Building now you can create the repeatable structure and the foundation of your business and that backend discipline before your customer even sees the deliverables, they'll notice that you have your act together. This is somebody that actually knows, you know, and as somebody that's run a 15 person team, 25 person team, I could.

Speak to, why documented workflows matter. You know, why you wanna think like an agency early and how automation can prevent burnout. I think a lot of people that wanna start a business, they don't fail because of skill. [00:31:00] They fail because they skip out on the foundation of, of what really.

You know what really matters. So rather than, selling a task, you're selling an outcome. And when you have those systems and that foundation in place, then now, now you can start talking about marketable skill sets and a marketable price where you can, discuss hourly versus retainer rates and outcome pricing rather than how much it actually costs, 

Skooby: fantastic. Absolutely. We'll, uh, definitely clip that out. That's some awesome information there, Christie. Thank you so much. Alright, so what I'd like to do here is I want to go ahead instead of doing six months. Yeah, let's do a year. So for a year from now, where do you think you, are we gonna stick to the 70 clients you think?

Or are we gonna do something 

Christy: else? 

Skooby: Clients, yes. Okay. 

Christy: Same goal. Same goal. I learned from, uh, Jeff Lopez. Shout out CEO labs. Um, easy [00:32:00] sales, easy scales. 

Skooby: There you go. That's awesome. Yep. All right, Christy, this is your time to shine. This is time where if we want to get ahold of you, of your surface or anything like that, how do we get ahold of you?

Okay. Ready, set, go. 

Christy: Thank you. Thank you, sc. Well, again, I'm Kristy O'Connor and you can find me. I've been online all over the place. It's Christy. O'Connor and the name of my company is ocon co marketing.com. O-C-O-N-C-O marketing.com. I have LinkedIn, I have every social media platform. We have, uh, YouTube.

Do you, if you just look me up. I'm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Ocon co marketing. You'll, you'll find me. I'm all over the place. 

Skooby: Alright, Chrissy, thank you so much. It's so good to see you again. I'm really looking forward to our next episode a year from now. 

Christy: Alright. I really appreciate it sc it was really nice to meet you and, uh, maybe I can talk you into coming onto [00:33:00] my podcast earlier than that.

What do you think? 

Skooby: I would love that so, so much. That'd be fantastic. We'll talk, we'll, we'll talk about that later. Okay. All alright. All right. SC believers, make sure you stay tuned for the wrap up. Okay everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 4: Alright, SC Believers, what a great conversation we had with Chrissy today. It was so great to be able to follow up with her and see how she's doing in her entrepreneurial adventure. Fantastic talk. There's two major takeaways I wanna make sure that you caught. Don't rush to scale until your foundation is solid.

Clarity about who you serve and what your outcome is. And what you deliver is what separates you from a thriving business to a chaotic one. 'cause if we don't have those solid foundations, it's gonna be a huge mess. We're trying to do all the things all at once and try to keep those things together. And it's really gonna be hard to do if you don't have them down pat first.

And success [00:34:00] as an entrepreneur isn't about being perfect. It is about being the last one standing. Keep planting those seeds of trust the right way and the right systems will get you there. It's all about planting the seeds, but it's not just planting the seeds, it's about making the foundation for those seeds so they can grow.

So it's kind of like watering the plant, making sure it's fertilized, making sure that the conditions are right. And you make those conditions right by making sure that your foundation is sold. And with that, I'm gonna say thank you scuba believers for another fantastic episode, and I'll see you in two weeks.

Thank you everybody. Bye-bye.