Rewild Your Business, Ep. 2, Goals, TRANSCRIPT
Gill Moakes: Hi, I'm Gill Moakes. I'm a business coach and mentor and the host of the Heads Together podcast. I help ambitious freedom seeking entrepreneurs step into who they really are and create wildly profitable businesses doing what they love. Rewild Your Business on the Stone Fruit Roll Up is a six part documentary.
It's a reality TV series for business, if you like, where I'll be taking my business bestie, Rebecca Gunter, the founder. Of stone fruit on a journey to define success on her terms. Hi
Rebecca Gunter: everybody. I'm Rebecca Gunter Peach in chief at Stoned Fruit. I'm a brand strategist, developer, and copywriter.
Gill Moakes: I want her to start regenerating time and energy for herself, and we're gonna do that by rewilding her business.
By cutting away what doesn't belong to allow what does to thrive. The biggest
Rebecca Gunter: challenge in my business right now is how freaking over complicated it is. No one knows what to buy from me. And I need someone to help me clear, clear the forest and help me re, replant the seeds that actually have a functionality and a purpose.
Gill Moakes: So over the next six weeks, we'll be deconstructing the idea that there's only one right way to do business. And my goal is that by the end of the series, Rebecca will be crystal clear and completely confident owning her own unique ecosystem.
Hey everybody. Is that not just the best intro ever? I probably shouldn't say that because obviously it features me and Rebecca, but I don't care. I'm saying anyway. So good. Thank you to Toadie. Of course. Um, so episode two, everybody I'm hoping that, uh, our dear friend, Rebecca will be joining us in a minute because I'm going to get her to talk through.
What she has been working on this week. So if you were with us last week, you would have heard us talking all about her vision, really both for her personal brand business. But also for, uh, stowed fruit. Um, and she then went away. We did some really deep work in the last episode, actually. And she, Rebecca's phenomenal at this.
She's so coachable. She's so open to looking at things through a different lens or through from a different angle. And we really went deep on that and kind of challenged some of the things that she's always really. You know, put at the very forefront of her business, but that's what this process is all about.
It's not always necessarily about a radical change, but it is about tweaking things so that your business feels more natural to you, more organic, more rewilded. It's about cutting away what doesn't belong to allow what does to thrive. So like I say, last week, it was all about her vision. And so I want to kick off this week by just recapping on that with her and getting to hear what she worked on during the week, and then we'll move on to goal setting.
Once we're. Both happy and confident that her vision is clear. So Rebecca, come and talk us through it. Hi, Gilly. Howdy. Oh
Rebecca Gunter: my God. Howdy. Guess what? I'm here on the Stone Fruit Rollup
Gill Moakes: every Thursday. Welcome to the Stone Fruit Rollup, my new show that I've just completely hijacked.
Rebecca Gunter: You are the most adorable hijacker I have ever seen in my entire life.
Won't you please hijack this and five more? Four more episodes, five more episodes,
Gill Moakes: maybe I'll milk the hell out of this. I'm going to keep this going for the rest of the year. What are you talking about? Four more episodes,
Rebecca Gunter: please. And thank you in advance. You are a hundred percent in your welcome. Welcome is the one that we all need to hear.
Gill Moakes: Welcome. Welcome to the stone fruit. Roll up.
Rebecca Gunter: Hi, Gilly. Hey,
Gill Moakes: you've been busy.
Rebecca Gunter: As per usual.
Gill Moakes: As per usual, but with an added layer of homework on the top.
Rebecca Gunter: It was a struggle to prioritize it, which says all kinds of things.
Gill Moakes: That says a lot, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It
Rebecca Gunter: was okay. I wanted to give it the time and the space and the energy to really sit down with it and use my purple Sharpie and be intentional about it.
And so that right there made me be like, okay, well, this isn't the right time because I'm not in that headspace. And how about when you haven't been working all day? And so, uh, until it pulled back the curtain a little bit on my own, I don't know. Well, um, I guess like toxic trait to not always prioritize my own work and vision and goals over the work and needs of like the business.
Gill Moakes: Problem is it's, you know, it's, it's not a toxic trait, is it? Because you do it because you're prioritizing other people. So it's wonderful for those people. For those people is the last thing that they would call a toxic trait, but it is toxic to yourself in a way, because it means that you always come bottom of the list.
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah, let's, let's do well with awareness, with awareness. Like I was so excited when we got off our last session there. You know, and the, the vision of like holding space for, I'm going to have this like sacred, you know, moment where I sit down and then suddenly it's like, it's Thursday. So one, there's no perfect time to get started.
It's kind of like parenthood. Like it is what it is. So jump in there and you can't always have the perfect nursery for your baby. Yeah.
Gill Moakes: Can you see though? Why. I mean, you are generously letting me do this with you live over this next six weeks, but can you see why I really want to package this as a virtual retreat where people have out time on their way to do this?
Because you can see just with that first module, if you like that first section of getting clear on your vision. You really would have benefited, wouldn't you, from being away from the office, away from client delivery and having that luxury, because it is a luxury for most of us, to be able to carve out time.
Rebecca Gunter: It did require That you, I don't know, maybe like get down with a little self care for your entrepreneurial spirit, shall we say, um, in order to not just kind of rewrite maybe a cleaner, more elegant version of what you're already doing. And there was a part of me as I lamented to you on the, on the offline moments ago in the, in the green room, as it were, um, about how I, Oh, I wish this was an editable.
Workbook, and I'm sure, you know, the next vision of it will be an editable workbook. So I'm not calling it out for being incomplete, but I actually at the end of it was so grateful that it was not editable as a PDF.
Gill Moakes: Really? So you actually need the activity. Yeah. You have
Rebecca Gunter: actually using a pen. Not being in copywriter mode where I'm worried, where I'm just like subconsciously prioritizing how the words read and kind of getting in just muscle memory of writing copy.
This forced me to really answer the questions in an authentic way. So I thought that was kind of
Gill Moakes: a happy opportunity. And to grab the purple Sharpie. Sorry, I talked over you then, but to grab the purple sharpie. Do you know what? I was just thinking, as you said that, the last time I've seen that much of your handwriting with the purple sharpie, the signature, iconic purple sharpie, was when you went to the lake house and You had time out away from the business and you sat and journaled and journaled.
Do you
Rebecca Gunter: remember? I have it right here.
Gill Moakes: Right? So isn't that interesting? So that purple Sharpie is symbolic to me of you doing the deep work, doing the thinking, working on your business, working on yourself rather than for the business and for yourself.
Rebecca Gunter: And also in a purple notebook versus a client notebook, which is, yeah, yeah, so for any other creative nerds out there who require like a specific notebook, a specific pen to really kind of get into that frame, you know, along with the ritual of holding space for it, I encourage you to just even celebrate the purple Sharpie hashtag celebrate the purple Sharpie.
While I'm writing that down with my purple Sharpie, Gilly, tell the folks at home how they can get their own visioning workbook. Because as we're talking about editable, not editable, you know, I showed the cover here of our, oops, just actually removed it. That's not very helpful. Bringing that cowboy to face.
How can folks go and get that? Dropping a banner here below with the web address for folks to go and grab their own. Tell us a little bit about this.
Gill Moakes: So this is the first part of a three, but it's actually five part workbook bundle. So it's called, um, the address is gillmoakes.Com forward slash visions dash and dash goal dash setting.
I deliberately made it like that. So it rolled off the tongue that perfectly. Uh, so the first three workbooks, what the first one is about your clear vision. The next one is about goal setting. The third one is about writing your North star statement. So these are the three foundational parts before you do anything else in your business.
So if you're getting to the towards the end of this year and it's time to start planning for the next year, this is where you start. You revisit these three activities, um, and then. As part of the bundle, you get five days of email support where I'm emailing you really some guidance around setting your vision, setting your goals, writing your North star statement, and then getting very clear on your offer.
And then going down into the marketing of that offer. So there's lots of, um, bits and pieces in, in the bundle. I would really recommend this is a perfect time of year to start thinking about this work and what I'm doing with Rebecca in this week in the goal setting, and also in reviewing the vision, this is where you're going to start.
So go and download that if you haven't already. So, oh, Rebecca, I'm excited to see this now. I can see Rebecca scribbles in her notebook. I'm gonna, um, I have a new hashtag. Hashtag, hashtag not editable. This is my new signature style.
Rebecca Gunter: I don't know.
Gill Moakes: I think it works. I mean, it may fell a few trees to be fair.
So the sustainable among us may not quite be as much of a fan, but there's something about the activity of writing. That it's very creative. I
Rebecca Gunter: guess this needs to be a printed, available for sale. A
Gill Moakes: boot. Yeah, that's a good idea. Oh, I could, I couldn't possibly sell it. I'm too generous. I want everyone to have it because this work, especially the, the vision.
The goal setting and the North Star statement is so bloody foundational. I don't think anyone should be reaching out to work with a business coach or, um, a coach, a brand coach like you or, um, you know, messaging coach or anything like that until they've done this work. On their own without other people's input, even because I think this is, this is the kind of work that you actually need some alone time for, by all means, then hire the people you need to bring it to life and to help you crystallize the vision, nail down the goals, perfect the North star statement.
But I think there's a lot to be said about doing this work alone in isolation, in a silo, the very things we're told not to do anymore.
Rebecca Gunter: It's like the anti collaboration movement.
Gill Moakes: That's so me, isn't it? Oh my god. Honestly, I'm always saying to people I'm not a team player. I'm just not a team player. So
Rebecca Gunter: true. Well, I think you are one on one. Kind of reminds me of the old
Gill Moakes: I'm a one on one team player.
Rebecca Gunter: The old George Carlin bit of, you know, I like people very much one on one, but when they start to cluster
Gill Moakes: Start to cluster up not so much.
Yeah, that's why I love one to one coaching as much as I do. I can't help it
Rebecca Gunter: All right, Gilly
So for folks who are following along at home, I have done my homework. If you were here last week, I'll put the link in the show notes for last week, where we really discussed, uh, the vision that I have for my entrepreneurial journey as it will. And. So part of that work was to answer questions and fill them out and Gilly's handy dandy vision workbook.
So here's, here's where we are real, real live in time, totally putting my notebooks out on blast, even though there's a little addendum here saying no one will ever see this instead. I'm flipping the script and saying the entire internet has
Gill Moakes: between me and you.
Rebecca Gunter: All right. So where would you like me to start? What would you, how do you, how do you go through this? Can
Gill Moakes: you read out the first question, please? Well,
Rebecca Gunter: the bad news for you is that because you're so generous and it's not a published notebook. You know, my PDF is like Heather and Yon. So do you want me just to pick a question at random or is there a specific one that's we're supposed to start with?
It might be free, right? Beginning with my dream business. Is that correct?
Gill Moakes: That is
Rebecca Gunter: correct. I'll read it out loud for the audience at home. Free write beginning with in my dream business, I dot, dot, dot, those are drama dots include as much detail as you can without limiting yourself by referencing reality.
That's my favorite note. So my answer,
Gill Moakes: Gilly, that's probably your work.
Rebecca Gunter: Not probably. What? I don't know. I like it, though, without referencing reality. That's the name of our new podcast. Ooh, nice. We'd better be writing all
Gill Moakes: that down. I'm writing that down immediately. I love
Rebecca Gunter: that. Our dual podcast that will take place, that will be the replacement for this show.
Gill Moakes: Trouble is though, we have a new idea for a new podcast almost every time we ever do anything live. For some reason, this live environment brings out our creativity. Like nothing else. And then we have all these really good ideas. Okay.
Rebecca Gunter: My dream business is a magic carpet by which I apply creativity and curiosity toward market driven activities, read revenue generating and business joint adventures at my leisure with generous returns.
In other words, it is a vehicle for wildly different entrepreneurial energy that makes manifest win win scenarios for every stakeholder. It is a place that also has wildly different clients and co creators who can come to find creative solutions to optimize their own agenda and feel completely authentic and empowered along the journey.
This is also a place where talented people can find paid work on collaborative initiatives. No editing. I mean, I'm just free writing. So
Gill Moakes: that is the, that is, how does it feel? Read? How does it feel reading that out?
Rebecca Gunter: Uh, it might make my nipples hard a little bit
Gill Moakes: nice. Always a good indicator. So good kpi Know what, so lemme you something with this. And I think that this was our last. Episode. Our last, our live last, this time last week. And that was when we had this kind of breakthrough, if you like. The work you do is what make entrepreneurs marketing work.
Do you remember we talked about that last week and we kind of were like, okay, so actually the work that you do, it's not necessarily creating a marketing strategy for someone, but the work that you do by giving them the. Coaching around this creative part of their business, the content creation side of their business actually gives them the tools and stone fruit gives them the words themselves to make their marketing work and so when I read it's a place where wildly different clients and co creators can come to find creative solutions to optimize their own agenda.
That's what that says to me.
Rebecca Gunter: Good.
Gill Moakes: I'm guessing that was purely by luck and in no way intentional. But of course, as we know, nothing is really by luck.
Rebecca Gunter: I think on some level. How could we not? We are, you know, we're very intimately involved in each other's lives. So you see something. And I don't think there are any coincidences in this work between you and me.
Gill Moakes: So that's, I really love to see that because that I think is very aligned with what we were talking about last week. What I want to just pick up on with this is that it isn't telling me that much about what the business is.
Rebecca Gunter: I had a feeling I was going to get that pushback. Mm hmm. I mean, you're, if we're asking for my dream business, it's something that really can take on.
Just kind of any project you throw at it which isn't helpful at all for niching and that's why I don't have you know a real offer or anything because what what do you want to do? You want to open a hotel? Okay Do you want to start a Oh, hold
Gill Moakes: on. Okay, so the dream business is Jets, and the dream without any reference to reality is a we bring or projects to reality are us.
Rebecca Gunter: But I think that's a good, a really good way of thinking about it. What I mean, I used to say, although I got pushed back on this from my favorite business coach in the world, if you can dream it, I can brand it. And if I can brand it, you can sell it. That's I really don't want to be limited by, I only work with coaches or I only were, and I don't mean that for anybody who is like.
Well, good on you. But I only work with restaurants. I only, I, I serve, um, solopreneurs. I serve corporate. I, I don't know. I get, I, I wanna play all the things,
Gill Moakes: and I don't think your niche is an industry, but I do think you have a niche, and we've talked about this before. I think your, your niche is an attitude.
Rebecca Gunter: I, so when people ask me my niche, I say entrepreneurialism like the, the drive. To go get it. I
Gill Moakes: think it's narrower.
Rebecca Gunter: Interesting.
Gill Moakes: I think it is entrepreneurs, but there are entrepreneurs. These days are anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur. And I don't think anyone who starts a business is your ideal client.
I think your ideal clients are entrepreneurs, but they are entrepreneurs with a certain attitude, a certain creative way of thinking. They don't come up with the normal ideas. They don't come up with run of the mill projects. They don't, they're bored by that. And we've talked about this before about your ideal people really are, you know, allergic to mediocrity.
And I, I really believe that that's true. So I love the idea of keeping the vision very wide open, but it's a vision that brings to life the projects dreamed up by the weirdest of entrepreneurs. I don't mean that. I mean, we're back. Maybe
Rebecca Gunter: a little bit weird. We're back to, we're definitely back to disruptors.
You know, we're showing back to that. I do have an answer to the question when it comes to visualizing your perfect business. Oh, that's hilarious. I only answered one part of this question, which was about client one. Who do you serve? And how do you serve this? All I answered on this one, which is kind of, I guess, another like red flag because I didn't answer anything about the business model.
Smarty pants. Know it all. Bad bitches who seek sovereignty and who know the cost of not doing it right.
Gill Moakes: Read that again. Slower. Yeah,
Rebecca Gunter: let me get to it. Actually. I mean, bring it. Get back here, you scamp! Get back here,
Gill Moakes: you little monkey! It's iterative. I'll just say that. Oh my god, you're so good. For anyone listening, this is my new favorite American word to say in my American accent, which is, it's iterative.
God, it's iterative.
Rebecca Gunter: You're so good. You're so good. Right? God, you're really channeling your inner Kardashian. I'm just You need to start shaking a salad around in a plastic to go box. Okay. Yeah. Uh huh. Smarty pants know it all bad bitches who seek sovereignty and know the cost of not doing it right.
Gill Moakes: Smarty Pants know it all, bad bitches. Why would they have trouble working with anyone other than you?
Rebecca Gunter: Know it all part? Smarty Pants part? I, I mean, I
Gill Moakes: think that Yeah, but why would you be the person to work with
Rebecca Gunter: them then? Game recognize game. Mmm.
Gill Moakes: Yep.
Rebecca Gunter: What else? You know, um, I guess I'm like team Smarty Pants know it all, bad bitches.
I love that. I just, I love the irrepressible drive to for freedom and to work on, um, on your own terms and to do it your way, which is, you know, we're kind of back to the renegade piece of it or the disruptive piece of it. I do wish my purple sharpie had carried through on who to test mediocrity because that is my favorite part of current positioning.
Oh, shit. I said the, I said the P word. That's my favorite part. Yeah. I did not put a business model in here at all. Okay. I mean, I, I guess in my,
Gill Moakes: you are fighting like tooth and nail against describing how you are going to make money. That's what you're fighting against the stone fruit.
Rebecca Gunter: Okay. Well for me personally, my favorite is retainer Yeah, I love to be on retainer.
Gill Moakes: So so we and we know that for you. We know You are all about Marty pants know it all bad bitches who are looking for A writer, but more than a writer, a coach and a writer who's going to bring their biggest dreams to reality and give them the expression they need for it.
Rebecca Gunter: And an idea factory and a strategist.
Yeah. So like, uh, how are we going to grow this list? Okay. Let's start with, let's try a challenge and then delivering all the pieces around the challenge, like with a little bow and some chocolates and like, here's your pitch, perfect challenge. And that, like, knowing it's going to work makes me feel like,
Gill Moakes: Oh, I love it.
So that sounds like a. A kind of almost like marketing brainstorm. So a strategy, brainstorming, and, you know, just really a partner in crime to come up with the first experimental strategy of the day, because we all know that marketing is experiment after experiment, after experiment, marketing always works, it just takes a matter of time.
So part of it is that, and then the other part is making that possible. With words, with copy, with messaging, with the things that Stone Fruit will supply, sell, question mark. I'm doing that with a huh at the end, question mark.
Rebecca Gunter: Question mark, yeah, but ideally that's the total package. We determine what, what, how are we going to articulate this special sauce.
Not using the, not using the P word, if we determine how to do that, go through the process of that and agree that this is the truest, most authentic, badass articulation of how you're presenting yourself in business. And then we go and apply that motherfucker. To as many assets as we can prioritize and afford.
Gill Moakes: Okay. I love it. So, and this is just vision level. So the vision for the business is that you are here doing your retainer work. Stone fruit is the agency that you use to create the copy. Once you've done the strategic work, granted that you'll keep some of your private clients that you want to carry on writing for.
But am I right in that? Is, is Stone Fruit going to be this collaborative place where other writers can come and, and pick up work?
Rebecca Gunter: Also more than other writers, other creatives. Oh, let's put together, let's put together a bit, um, a promo video. So we need a storyboard, and we need, um, a book. We need someone to Determine who it's for, what they need, who, what this project is, what it delivers and why it's special.
Um, maybe we need a press release that goes with it. Maybe we need, um, some, like some title card scripting. Maybe we need a voiceover script. Uh, maybe we need emails to promote the thing or social. And so kind of bringing those players together. Um, my vision would be other creators to kind of come to essentially the shop.
And find partners to work on a project because nothing happens in a vacuum. So you need a photographer, you copywriter, you need a graphic designer, you need a web developer. You need kind of all these pieces. Imagine how powerful it'd be if they, this kind of pod was able to work together on. Projects and initiatives or, or, or not.
So right now those people are handpicked and we can name them by name. All Tony, Gill, Calvin, Zach Taylor, you know, right.
Gill Moakes: Janine Jodi and Jodi. Yeah,
Rebecca Gunter: exactly. Ross, of course. Um, whoever we would, might need to pull in to pull off one of these higher level. Well, beautifully executed, you know, anything but mediocre assets.
That sounds
Gill Moakes: so exciting, right? Now that vision, that vision, now that you're talking about it in terms of Stone Fruit, what Stone Fruit is, that sounds incredible. It sounds to me like it's almost a, um, it's like a Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. That is
Rebecca Gunter: so awesome. That is so awesome.
Gill Moakes: Of brand and marketing.
Woo. That is so awesome. If you bring any of your brand and marketing project ideas, it can be the tiniest germinating seed of an idea. And you won't believe what we can turn this into. You will not believe what we can do. And here's what's in it for you. You are not going to be having to project manage 10 different creatives to bring this together, which everyone knows is the hardest thing for an entrepreneur is because creatives are very demanding about getting a detailed brief.
Before they start work. And the problem is creatives, uh, sorry, entrepreneurs aren't creatives. Generally most entrepreneurs like me, I'm, I am creative, but I'm not a creative. So if a, if someone comes to me and says, I need a really detailed brief for this creative video project, one of the. And I think one of the beauties of this is that in time, one of the absolute advantages of using this creative hub to bring the project from cradle to grave will be that the client feels.
Cosseted along the way they feel like it's not all on their shoulders so particularly for small businesses with small teams you know if you've got an entrepreneur and a couple of days doing all the work you know they're not the best in the best place to project manage a big. Brand a marketing strategy from beginning to end there really not and that's what I see where I see stone fruit coming in as someone who can really take the germ of the idea and absolutely keep it going keep the momentum going through to the execution of it.
Rebecca Gunter: I agree with everything you just said, and it hasn't really faltered from the days of like a year ago, a year ago today, when we were thinking about how this thing would come to life. I just haven't brought it to this level of vision. And I want to further articulate, articulate that the center of my target is other creatives.
The client stuff is almost like the next level out that this is where I want to focus on like marketing to other creatives as the place to be rather than a creative agency that's firewalled behind the brand, if that makes any sense. And I don't know if there's a business model behind that or not. But what I see is like stone fruit being the umbrella by which all of these vehicles can happen, like produce business on the raw, um, create a brand from nothing for the Janine sound experience.
pivot, all of that being true, but that our offers are the ones that are highly collaborative co creation. So maybe like King Productions X stone fruit, well, I guess stone fruit, we get top billing, but like stone fruit, you know, X Jody Wissing for a slide makeover. And we would be able to, that's that marketplace feel.
So I don't know if, um, you know, since I've been a year of working, if that needs to like go. I really need to reconsider that or evolve it, but my focus has always been on how do I create a playground for creatives to come together and be able to collaborate on projects and then I can tap into that myself and also other businesses can tap into it, um, through.
I mean, I guess I'd always thought it was going to through me. Um, but you could buy them. I don't know, Gilly. Now I'm, now I'm back to overcomplicating. Now I have arugula and spinach and sweet peas and, um, and I'm kind of back to that, but creating a playground and a space for other entrepreneurs to come and play in collaboration, whether it's on their own projects or in partnership with other creatives has been what makes me.
I
Gill Moakes: mean, I love the vision. I wonder how it pays you.
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah, that's a good question. That's a really
Gill Moakes: good question. Because I love the idea of a playground. But who is paying to be in the playground? Is anyone paying to be in the playground? Or is the playground just free entry? Um, but you've got to bring your own clients.
Is it a bring your own client party? Um, are you offering to, uh, Do the business development work on that
Rebecca Gunter: sounds awful. No, that. Well, I don't know. I would say that sounds awful. But then I'm like, well, I'm kind of doing that now. Anyway, um, originally with this kind of like, playground for creatives model, there had been a membership aspect to it of like.
Members get discounts on opportunity offers, you know,
Gill Moakes: Who are the members? Creatives
Rebecca Gunter: or clients? Creatives. Those would be the members. And then anybody can buy from there.
Like, say, brand, you know, so and so comes tooling along. It's like, oh, welcome, Sequence. Cha ching, I'll take it. That's again, this kind of over complicating the retail skin and the creative play space and highly collaborative and lots of crossovers and, um, creating, again, solutions for business problems.
Gill Moakes: I love this and I think it is very visionary.
In turn, because we're going to move on in a minute to goals, which we're going to look at over the next 12 months. I think we just need to, I need to challenge you on something you said, which was that you want to be focusing here on the creatives and the clients are around the outside of that. Um, that will not make you any money.
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah, that's where I am right now.
Gill Moakes: And the business needs, right, the bit like stone fruit needs to earn its keep. So I would completely simplify everything. I would have that vision. On a whiteboard somewhere I would have that as in five years in three years. I'm going to develop this till it gets to that, but I don't think you can start there and get all of these excited creatives in as members for what if there's no business development going on in terms of.
Um, bringing in clients for those creative, what, what's in it for them to be inside of the stone fruit umbrella. So I think developing stone fruit as a brand that is magnetizing the clients that it wants, the clients that are going to benefit from the actual services it's selling. Is where you really need to start and even if that means by having one thing on offer to begin with that you deliver, you know, maybe day one, that's what it is, or maybe you have one offer that you deliver and one offer that, uh, your first invited creative and maybe creatives come by invitation only.
Um, you know, and when a creative,
Rebecca Gunter: you
Gill Moakes: know, you give them some kind of badge that they can display, they can be accredited by the stone fruit creative hub or something on their website, you know, so I'm thinking, let's move on to goals, but let's, well, first of all, let's see if we can agree that the vision is spot on.
It's the vision you want, it's the vision you've wanted from day one, but in the execution of that vision, we have to start with a different focus that doesn't quite feel like it's speaking to the vision in its truest sense that you have at the moment. I think it has, we have to be looking at a, um, starting point, which is client centric as opposed to creative centric.
Rebecca Gunter: Well, to be fair, following along with that. We do have two offers that are currently made like that, that I deliver, like on the shelf. You can buy a LinkedIn profile makeover. Well, actually three. You can buy a LinkedIn profile makeover. Right. You can buy a three session coaching package currently called P Word and Messaging.
And you can buy the 12 week coaching package, which I call a durable called business in the raw at home edition. Those are three things that you could possibly buy right now, like off of the shelf. So that is a thing. But those offers are convoluted, not branded well, like they don't really fit the client.
Great. Like they're not communicated well. So, um, just to be fair, there are three of those offers. Thank you.
Gill Moakes: Do you love all three of those offers? This is really a question for a later episode. We're going to come to this later. I'm just asking that out of interest and I'm just, I'm not going to react to the answer, but I'm going to store it away to use against you at a future date.
Okay.
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah. Yes. Yes. And no, I think that they're just mispriced maybe. Okay. All right.
Gill Moakes: We're coming on to business models, so, and offers, so we're going to go deep into the offers. Yeah. Are we in agreement then, that actually the, the, we know what Stone Fruit will be in due course.
Rebecca Gunter: Can I, can I, can I
Gill Moakes: interrupt you though?
But we are going to focus on clients to begin with.
Rebecca Gunter: Okay. I, I just want to interrupt and share that, um, Kathleen McDonald. Big part of stone fruit. Her suggestion was that stone fruit, just be all the DIY stuff that leads you to the high ticket stuff. So I want to throw that out there as into the conversation.
Gill Moakes: I love that the LinkedIn profile makeover sounds clear and straightforward, doesn't it? Shouldn't it be?
Rebecca Gunter: It is. It's just too cheap for the work that it is. And I don't It's
Gill Moakes: clear. It's straightforward. It's absolutely game changing. Rebecca, you are the best I've ever known at writing a LinkedIn profile that absolutely sells someone.
Which you do so beautifully for other people. Just amazingly. It's probably too cheap for the value it delivers to people. But I am still a big fan of over delivering as long as you're not too far out. And I suppose where I was asking about, you know, do you love all of the offers? I guess where I was getting there was I would love it if we had maybe got it down to sort of like just two offers that you make crystal clear what they are.
We absolutely go through every piece of messaging around those offers and take out anything that muddies the water and stop someone understanding what that offer is. We take out some of the clever wording around it. You know, your copy is so exciting and so clever. But when it comes to actually making clear what an offer is, sometimes you need to get bit basic.
So I think that could be something we explore when we come on to offers. Fair enough. Do we feel that? Are you in agreement if, and I know we are going to move into goals and goals is good because it's a good one to not have to spend too much time on because really this is just, we're going to set three very high level goals that are going to, we're going to revisit time and time again anyway, and we're going to work back from to create all of our micro goals.
But before we do that, I just wanted to check in again and just make 100 percent sure that you are okay with us becoming more client centric rather than creative. Centric at this stage of stone fruit.
Rebecca Gunter: Yes. I love my clients. They're the people that I, that make me like, be so happy. What a sentence. They're the people who make me be so happy.
They're the people they
Gill Moakes: make you be so happy.
Rebecca Gunter: They do make me be so happy. I really do love them and I love the I know you do. Um, I, I wrote,
Gill Moakes: I know you do, but here's the thing. Stone fruit is, it's always about how can I even better serve my clients? And actually having you and your time diluted doing some of the deliverables that some of your retainer clients might eventually want isn't going to be the best thing for them.
They may need someone who has a much clearer desk and can be super responsive and reply like that when they need a piece of copy tweaked or when they need something, you know, this is about providing a better service for your clients. It's not about taking anything away. It's about enhancing what you do, and it's about being able to work with different kinds of clients.
Not every client that comes to Sownfruit is going to be a potential retainer client for you. You know, some clients are just going to come to Sownfruit because eventually it's going to have a hub of creatives that are going to be able to cater to every single project. We know that that's the vision.
But we've got to build the brand of stone fruit in its own right before we're going to be able to entice creatives to come and work under that umbrella.
Rebecca Gunter: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gill Moakes: Yeah. Okay. So we are going to come on to offers in so much more detail in a couple of weeks time. So let's wrap up goals now and we've got 10 minutes left.
And actually. That is really going to be all we need because we now know what we're going to be focusing on in terms of the vision over the next year. It's really, the vision is to build Stone Thru into this incredible, I want to call it a hub. Because I don't think it's an agency, but it's a hub where people can bring ideas and, and as you develop the brand, it could be that in a couple of months time, when you start talking and creating content around this idea hub, this, you know, wouldn't it be amazing if we, um, there was a place where you could bring the slightest germination of an idea and have it brought to life, you know, there's no reason you can't do that.
Before you bring in the creatives to make that happen, those can be brought in by you, Rebecca, you have a wide network, you have a fantastic network of people who would clamor to work with you. So I feel like it could be that you start talking to that vision and it organically comes to life anyway, but I don't think the focus is on creating an offer of membership for creatives or anything like that.
Over the next 12 months, I think it's about building the stone fruit brand. It's about growing the stone fruit revenue to pay for itself, um, which will then go back in to start to keep it growing. Cause you know, you might want to go into paid ads or whatever you want to do in terms of growing it. Uh, exponentially.
Um, iterative. And Iterative. You can't stop
Rebecca Gunter: it. Iterative. Iterative.
Gill Moakes: Wow. We say iterative. And you say iterative. Just rolls off the tongue.
So let's talk goals. Let's talk the big three. So the big three goals that I want us to think about, and this is a first stab, this isn't a, I'm going to tattoo them to your forehead type of goal. This is your first stab at telling me what you want to achieve over the next 12 months in terms of your lifestyle, your revenue and your reputation.
And this is for yourself and Stone Fruit as, as a whole, this is for you and your business. What are the big three?
Rebecca Gunter: Reputation.
Gill Moakes: Money. I knew that would be the easiest one for you. I knew you'd go straight to the Reputation! Oh, you do great things!
Rebecca Gunter: Ha ha ha! Well, in terms of reputation, it's time for me to start being on more podcasts and also doing more speaking opportunities and more teaching. Mmm! Um, continuing to up level business in the raw and also stone fruit roll up, very committed to giving the roll up a solid year before making any decisions on it.
So I think that enrolls within
Gill Moakes: the stone fruit roll up will go anywhere. I think as the stone fruit brand grows. You know, if we get this really solid plan in place to grow the Stone Fruit brand and business over the next 12 months, I don't see this show going anywhere. I think what we might wanna do is that it has always been pitched as the show about growing the show.
We've grown the show. I
Rebecca Gunter: doubt it's now. I think it's time
Gill Moakes: to be a big, it's time to make a stand for what you want it to be about. Agreed. So that will come when we start talking about marketing. Fabulous. Yeah, so, so what I'm hearing then in terms of reputation is you want to be more, you are happy to be more visible.
So more podcast appearances, more speaking engagements, more teaching opportunities, more substack,
Rebecca Gunter: more writing, more, more sub emails, writing more, more of my, uh, more of my voice.
Gill Moakes: So what I'm hearing is these are all things that you're going to do, but what's the goal? Why are you going to be doing those things?
Why do you want to be more visible? Because you want people to think what about you?
Rebecca Gunter: I mean, I think the easy answer is that I'm the expert. That's the, that's, that's the easy answer. Well, fuck, I'm not allowed to say it.
Gill Moakes: Only because no one, no one knows they want it. I mean, that's what I'm going to set you a challenge. I want you to describe what positioning is without using any kind of flowery, clever or copywritery words. You've got to use the most basic words ever. That sum up the crux of it, by the way, next week's episode is positioning.
You'll be happy to know you'll be so in your comfort zone right there. I
Rebecca Gunter: know I, okay. And I wrote bestowing a reason to believe upon the conversation, watching it come to life in words, actions, and images, and then influence heart slash mind money slash action. I mean, I feel like it's just words. That's just what I, it's just what I wrote in my little notebook.
Gill Moakes: I like it, but I feel like you just won't say how you want people to think about you. I want you to say the truth. What do you want your reputation to be? Well, let me help you. I want to be seen as an absolute thought leader in the business coaching arena. I want other coaches to know who I am. I want my email list to just grow by.
A thousand new subscribers every quarter, maybe every month, actually. And I want to do, I'd like to do a TEDx talk, but now I feel like everyone's doing a TEDx talk, and like, no one can actually get to do a TED talk. So I think, I know what I want to do. I want to actually start my own version of TED talks.
Maybe that's what I'm going to do, and I want to be known as, as the Gill X Talks. My accent is slightly different. Right. But those are relationship. Those are reputational goals, right? What do you want? Tell me.
Rebecca Gunter: I mean, I want
Gill Moakes: to write a book. And you want to write a book. And what do you want people to think about that
Rebecca Gunter: book?
I want them to think that it profoundly changed their lives. Oh,
Gill Moakes: now we're there. So you, reputationally, you would love to be known as an author who has published a book that has profound, that profoundly changes lives. That's an amazing
Rebecca Gunter: goal. Sounds so pedantic, but yeah.
Gill Moakes: Pedantic? What's pedantic about it?
Rebecca Gunter: Maybe it's cliche. Maybe the word I'm looking for is cliche. I wonder if it's a bug that changes people's lives. Oh my god. No, but
Gill Moakes: what's coming out here Iterative. What's coming out here is your hate, your despising of mediocrity. So if, if I try and get you to say something that is a reputational goal that anyone else on this goddamn planet might share, you're allergic to it.
And it makes you want to throw up in your mouth.
Rebecca Gunter: I feel seen. I feel seen! You are exactly right. Like, anything can
Gill Moakes: change his mind. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna share any reputational goals unless they're absolutely unique and no one else has ever wanted to do that thing in the whole world. Because otherwise I have to punch them in the face.
Rebecca Gunter: Boring. So,
Gill Moakes: for me, everybody, for our watchers now, I'm gonna tell you now that I'm not going to get Rebecca to agree to goals this week, by the way, we're going to talk about them a little bit longer if you can stay with us, do, but I'm going to get her to do the same as we did last week, work through the workbook and by next week, I want her to read out to us her goals that are genuinely her goals, but I really want you to actually create some goals that are real and just because someone else might share them doesn't mean it can't be your goal.
Get over yourself, Gunter. But also for anyone watching, if you're looking for the bossiest business coach on the planet, who has clearly lost a lot and doesn't actually know how to coach, only knows how to bully, then do get in touch.
Rebecca Gunter: I want to bully. I want to bully. Financial. Crystal clear, so much easier.
Oh my God. I know I want to get this 30, 000 a month. Revenue.
Gill Moakes: Perfect. That's what I want to go is by the end of 2024, let's say you want to be hitting consistent 30 K revenue. Now, what we will do is when we work back from that goal is we're going to break that down. So that's some of the work that we do, isn't it?
Is that when we get into the business model, we start, um, Breaking down what that 30, 000 needs to look like, how much of that is retainer work, how much of that is going to come from stone fruit work, what are the variations month on month, when are the busy times, when are the slow times, you know, and, and we can really get a bit more accurate.
And when we do that, I'll share, I'll share with everyone. Actually, I've got that really good projections tracker. Where you start off entering at the right hand side of your spreadsheet, how much you want to earn. And then it's this tracker that you put in your, um, actuals and you're projected. And you can see every month, month on month, where you are against your target.
So we're going to do that. Okay. Easy one. Financial done. Love it.
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah. No, no contest. I know how much it costs me to run this household and I have to double that to handle taxes and business expenses. And I need high quality people.
Gill Moakes: Yes. And lifestyle goals. So we've got one of the big three nailed reputation you're going to work on this week and come up with a really good goal for me on that.
Okay, but what are the lifestyle? What's the lifestyle goal?
Rebecca Gunter: Freedom is really time. Freedom is really what's coming for me. Um, I wrote time in the day to, you know, have quality conversations with clients where we're actually moving the needle on business problems, time in the day to write whatever that looks like, whether it's Yeah.
For client work or for myself towards my book. That's going to change lives time to take a break from all that and not feel, not spin out and worry about how that's going to impact me financially. Time, sovereignty, time to say, you know, yes or no, I'd love to take a year off and write a book. I'd love to take six months off and write a book.
How on earth would I do that without and still be able to pay my rent? So, um,
Gill Moakes: So what I'm hearing is time, freedom, time, need more time. Does that mean that, and this is just for you to think about, it's not for you to answer right now, but I want you to think about what that really looks like. Is it that You want to work up to taking a month off that doesn't feel like it's possible at the moment, but it could be something that fits in with that bigger vision that that's, that is the goal that fits with their, what fit might fit for the next year is what could you do to free up time either on the daily basis or to actually.
Set aside a couple of days a week where you don't do client work, where you're only doing work for yourself, which is always what's worked for me. I don't coach clients on Mondays or Fridays. So when I record my podcast, that's always, I do that on a Monday or a Friday.
Rebecca Gunter: That's smart. I think right now, one big, one huge baby step would just be to be sustainably adjusted to.
A very truncated work day, which if you know me, if you know me at all, and you know, my major complaint right now is that I spend three hours a day taking a kid back and forth to school. So a work day going from eight hours and let's be realistic. It's usually nine or 10 hours being shrunk down to five hours being fully aware.
That once I get home with that kid at four o'clock, I'm pretty much like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, I don't have any more juice inside me. So right now, if I could even just get comfortable with working with that reduced time without. You know, it's that hamster wheel of like, Oh my God, you know, how am I going to pay tuition this month?
I got to work more hours. Okay. I got to do more visibility. Like I just, if I could just get off that hamster wheel, it would feel like such a huge.
Gill Moakes: What would have to happen to get off the hamster wheel?
Rebecca Gunter: I mean, I'd probably have to raise my prices.
Gill Moakes: Right. Yeah. So if it's revenue, that's an issue, you either need to raise your prices or have more clients, if you're already working so that you're finding it hard to carve out any time, then raising your prices is really the only option for you right now in terms of time capacity, right?
Rebecca Gunter: Yeah, I would agree with that. And to be fair, I haven't raised my prices since my first retainer arrangement, two and a half years ago, and which I had. The skill, you know, I had a copywriter skill level here and over the last conferences, training, honing my craft. Like I'm still at that lower price point.
So to be fair, it's certainly time.
Gill Moakes: Yeah. And I think that's going to be such an interesting one for us to talk about when we come onto the business model, because I think price increases. a really exciting tools. And I, and if for anyone listening, this is a really good one to kind of for us to wrap up because raising your prices is such a powerful thing to do in so many respects.
Number one, it, if you do it the right way, It really reinforces to your clients the value you bring to them. Because when you raise your prices the right way, you really communicate well with that client and you really go over with them the value you're delivering to them. And actually raising your prices can actually get a client to freshly look at what you do and how invaluable you are to them.
So it can often done well. It's a really good tool. And so what I definitely want us to do when we look is manage that pricing increase process and how you do that really ethically as well, really doing it by thinking about your clients because this isn't just about, Oh, I need more money, so I'm going to increase my prices.
This is about making sure that the price you charge reflects the value you deliver. No more, no less,
Rebecca Gunter: 100 percent agreed and have put a lot of thought into that and consideration and, you know, mostly onboarded to do a certain kind of set of things, which I absolutely do. And then kind of all this, this other stuff around it, which in the beginning I didn't understand would be part of it.
I didn't know that the coaching even had any value. So I just would pay, you know, just charge for deliverables. And then the strategy would be kind of baked into it. So, all of those things. And that's
Gill Moakes: still where you are, really. People are getting this next level coaching that's informing their business strategy, and then you're only charging them for the end piece of the puzzle, the deliverables.
So people are getting an awful lot more value than you're charging them for.
Rebecca Gunter: Well, and that's great. They deserve it, but it
Gill Moakes: is, and I'm not saying that, you know, with existing clients, um, I think, you know, sometimes you look at your pricing differently with existing clients and that you bring on, et cetera, you know, you make sure it feels good to you.
You don't do something that's going to make you feel bad or make you feel like you're doing something unfair to your existing
Rebecca Gunter: clients. Exactly. Exactly. They've grown with me, you know, they've helped me become. They helped me become who I am today.
Gill Moakes: That's right. So many ways to book the chiefs. Iteratively.
Does it? It really, really, um, one last thing I want to say about your reputational goal, think of it in terms of positioning, if it's about the book and everything that the reputation of an author who writes books that changes lives has, because I think that's the reputation you want. You want to be seen as this.
Bloody fantastic writer who has something to say, who has something really essential to say, think about the positioning of the book and that will probably get you to your reputational goal.
Rebecca Gunter: Um, spoiler alert. It's not a business book.
Gill Moakes: I didn't say it was
Rebecca Gunter: for the audience at home.
It's not a business book, although I can see where owning your own means of production. Is key to independence. Yeah. Okay. Good job, Gilly. What's one question I should have asked you, but didn't?
Gill Moakes: How do I think you'll make money? I was pushing you to tell me, how is this a business that makes money? You didn't ask me.
How I thought it should make money. Well, I will be telling you. You kind of told me.
Rebecca Gunter: You kind of told me.
Gill Moakes: Yeah. And it's not. I don't even need the questions asked.
Rebecca Gunter: It's not even a shocker. You need, you need the right offer for the right client. I clearly have the right clients and a pretty solid, you know, magnetism.
Mm-Hmm. And I definitely have a unique mechanism by which I do this work. Mm-Hmm. But there aren't any offers really. I mean, the Yes, you're right. The LinkedIn offer is pretty straightforward. I not selling the hell out of them. No, they're, we haven't, it's a lots talked, we talked about that earlier, but
Gill Moakes: also we gonna.
Sneaky peek as to what's coming up as well. When we come into, um, you know, you're one of your issues. And I think you speak to this in the intro to the episode is around, um, you know, people don't know what I sell or how to buy it from me. And I'm going to challenge you to write some pieces of contents and real cornerstone pieces of content for your website in the form of blog posts, which are absolutely spelling out what you do.
But in the form of a long form blog post,
Rebecca Gunter: can't y'all just watch business in the raw season one?
Gill Moakes: Well, yeah, sure. Uh, if you really think that people are going to sit and watch every episode of that, you know, that's
Rebecca Gunter: not come on super fans. You
Gill Moakes: can do it. And I'm not saying that that won't happen. People will, because that series is phenomenal.
I'll SEO optimized for the show notes, like things like
Rebecca Gunter: that. I am working on that with Kathleen and we're getting transcripts done and stuff. So I am working on
Gill Moakes: that. Yeah. Because to be honest, that would be a perfect way of doing some of this sales content would be to. You know, but I don't even want, I feel like sometimes that's like making people work for it.
I want a blog post that actually says, Hey, listen, I want to tell you, I'm going to set out in this post, this article, exactly what it's like to work with us. Here's what we sell. Here's how, what we do. This is our process, right? This is your website. You can put whatever content you want on there. And it also becomes something you can sell, send by email to prospective clients.
Rebecca Gunter: Cool. You're right. You're right.
Gill Moakes: Thank you for rewilding me. Iterative. Iterative. You're welcome.
Rebecca Gunter: Thank you for rewilding me.
Gill Moakes: This has been so good. Thank
Rebecca Gunter: you. Thank you, Gilly. Let me bully you. Oh my God. Bully me, Mommy. I try
Gill Moakes: not to.
Rebecca Gunter: Thank you for your time and thank you for joining us live. We will be here next week, Thursday, and Gilly is going to actually let me say the P word. Yes. We're talking about
Gill Moakes: positioning. We're talking about
Rebecca Gunter: positioning. I can't
Gill Moakes: wait. Awesome. Yeah. I'll see you then. Thank you, Gilly. Thank you, Rebecca.
Rebecca Gunter: You're the best.
You're the best.
