Session #299: Stephanie Skiba on Scaling Success

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

---

This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, Session number 299. Stephanie Cheba on Scaling Success. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. There are so many amazing takeaways in this week’s session.

And I’ll tell you in advance, let’s get a little bit personal for a moment. Yes. We’re a week away from episode number 300, and some of my favorite podcast recordings in this series have been the people who I have been wanting to have a conversation with for quite some time. And this week is a small exception because my guest is someone who I’ve had tons of conversations with over the years, yet there’s a very, very unique perspective that she has.

And that’s exactly. Why she’s here. So if you’ve been an attendee of Hypno Thoughts Live, you know her work. If you have recently gone through any of my work Smart Hypnosis Live trainings, you have benefited from her work. If you’ve done training with David Snyder in the last year or two, You know her work, and if you’ve purchased anything, any interaction with Richard non guard in the last 12 years, you know her work because going back and she’ll tell the backstory, Stephanie Cheba is kind of the wizard behind the curtain of some of the top names in the top events.

In our industry, and even times when there was sort of a newer conference that needed that organizational wizardry, Stephanie was swooped in and she was the one who made things work. So coming from a very different background, you’ll hear part of the story here of getting a phone call from a bit of a childhood friend of Richard non guard going, I wanna hire you because I trust.

And over time becoming the, Again, I’m gonna keep using the phrase wizard behind the curtain cuz that’s what I’ve always seen of Stephanie. Someone who can problem solve the issue, can get to a solution, can think creatively, and at the end of it, here’s the important part. , everyone’s happy and getting along.

So there were some very pressing questions where I, I got to know Stephanie a whole lot better when I hosted David Snyder’s event back in November of 2019. And the timing of this episode is kind of funny because this is actually releasing very early in the morning as it does when Stephanie and I, I’m already in Virginia, but she’ll be in from Arizona.

As will David Snyder from San Diego because today’s the first day of his hypnosis and hypnotherapy identity by design training, which we’d love to promote that to you, but its chances are starting today. And, um, if you can get here by lunchtime, we’d love to have you otherwise look to David’s future scheduled events.

So this episode has been a long time coming because there are some things we’re gonna get very, very specific on about what works. In scaling a hypnosis business, and, and this has a lot to do. We’re gonna talk about her booking sessions for people like David Snyder, not as a student, but instead as a client of David, of people like Richard non guard.

So she’s got a very unique take about how she’s done that for years, remotely. She’s in Arizona. David Snyders in San Diego. Richard non guard was in Tulsa, then Las Vegas, and he’s already talked about this online is now moving to Texas. Surprise, he’s been posting online. We can talk about it. So the ability to run a business remotely and how to successfully pull that off without an admin sitting in the physical space.

You’re gonna get that very unique perspective. We’re also going to talk about the organizational structure. Of really scaling a training in terms of taking an educational event, whether it’s in person or whether it’s online, reaching a global audience and what works for that. So the themes of communication, the themes of transparency, the themes of honesty, the themes of not going behind someone’s back and going, Hey, Scott Sandlin told me this, which no, he didn.

No, no, no. You’ve seen the videos of talking about that. Now, behind the scenes, there’s a bit of a censored question as the question often then shifts to what doesn’t work, and she does sum up that at least for 2020 in one very succinct answer, which I’ll lets you listen to the podcast here and and hear that.

But again, it where it all comes back around to what’s working. And I’ll tell you where this conversation wraps up, which is to say, this is not an opportunity to go, Hey, she’s got availability. Call her up. Hire her too, because no, she doesn’t. We’re all kind of busy right now. But instead, listen to the nuance, listen to the specificity, listen to the fricking excitement that you clearly hear in my voice because this is a conversation I’ve been.

All of you to have in terms of what really works of building a global brand and having people wanting more from you, how, how to do something in a way that’s always from a position of giving, even though we happen to be earning a pretty good living as a result of what we do, what are the secrets to pull that off?

What are the methods that clearly don’t work and get people into trouble? And often why? Sometimes the old phrase, it’s easy to sell something once. Once is not a good overall business plan. So we had planned to talk for about 30 minutes. I think we went for 49. But who’s counting? This is what I am so excited for you to hear, and even better, it gets to release as Stephanie and I are hanging out together in Virginia and let me phrase this quick offer to you.

And of a bit of a unique way, if you would like to have your certified professional HYPNOTIST certification document process directly by Stephanie. Well, Richard non guard and I are joining together once again for a live and online hybrid training event. If you’re listening to this as it launches, I believe I don’t have the calendar in front of me, but.

Basically November 17th or 18th, one of those dates. We’ll figure that out by the time it Thursday. In about two weeks time, Richard and I are joining forces together once again for a certification program, live and online. Here’s how it works. You’re getting lifetime access to hundreds of hours of video training content.

You’re getting access to my hypnotic worker’s product. You’re also getting tons of content. It’s a real Oprah moment from Richard as well. And no, no, no. You don’t have to go through. Every bit of the three or 400 plus hundred hours of stuff. What we’re doing is it’s a bit of a guided tour through our materials, and then we’re gathering together in real time in online Zoom sessions.

Go over to work smart hypnosis live.com. You can see all the dates and details for this event and see exactly. How it works, which makes it so, even though it is a hundred hour certification program in 24 hours time, in real time together, spread out over the course of several weeks, a bit of a brief break for the winter holidays.

That’s where we’re gathering together in those moments, and it’s not having to be the realtime lecture. Because that’s not the world we have to live in anymore. You’ve already done the learning. Now we get to do the hands on practice. So simply put, if you want better confidence working with clients online, it kind of makes perfect sense to go through an online training where now you’re practicing with people.

All around the world, plus learning my approach of work, smart principles of techniques that are actually working with clients and making it so it’s easy to bring in the clients. So you know when there’s a button, the chair and you’re getting paid, talking about scalability, that sure does help. That is the professional terminology, by the way of button the chair.

And Richard’s sort of claim to fame is that of really helping to popularize this massively important premise of evidence based hypnosis. Let’s not just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope it sticks to quote Curtis riles. It’s instead about using the methods that in clinical research have proven to be effective.

So you’re getting that from both of us. We had a sold out event from September till November. We wrapped up the recent training and such a great feedback. We’re doing it again. Head over to work smart hypnosis live.com and even better your document. We’ll be processed directly from my amazing guest this week.

I am so excited that she’s finally on the program and just in time for episode 300. So here we go. Episode number 299. Stephanie Cheba on Scaling Success. So I chair before we jump into this week’s episode that some of my favorite episodes are the ones that are people that are. Necessarily hypnotists, but there’s something about what they do, which are clearly hypnotic.

And it’s about time we have Stephanie Cheba on the program. Stephanie, how are you? Great, Jason. Good to be here. Thank you. And for those that don’t yet know you, could you give a little bit of a backstory as to how you got involved with all of this? Oh gosh. Yeah. So I have known Richard non guard since we were very young.

And so about 2006 or 2007, he, he was saying, You know, I want you to wanna figure out how you can work for me. And he pondered that as he does for a while. And then I was actually sick for a bit and he kept saying, You need to get, you need to get better so that you. You can work for me. And so , in about two eight, I started working for him and basically just running the business.

We figured out how to allow me to stay living in Scottsdale while he was living in Oklahoma. And it was great. It was really fun and I, I learned a lot and both of the business, the CE business as well as hypnosis, so that was. Entry into the hypnosis world. And then a couple years later I, I had met Scottland and Richard Clark at the Dallas Hypnosis Conference, and after the first HT live, I had to call Richard for some Richard non guard for something, and he was on a call with Richard Clark.

So he patched me in and all I heard him say was, You need Stephanie. And so right after that call, I got hopped on a call with Richard Clark and he, you know, used me for the next hypno thoughts Live. And I think it was about two months before the second hypno thoughts live. And honestly, I thought it was just coming.
I was pitched in to help for one year, you know, I didn’t realize that now, you know, I, I’m still doing it, so it’s great. And then through Hypno Thoughts Live, I met David Snyder and so. That’s how I kind of got into it. And so people ask me often, Are you a hypnotist? Do you, where is your practice? What do you, you know, do?

And I always say that I’m a hypnotist wrangler. Nice. I have to get all of the hypnotist as well as you know, students. And with Richard non guard licensed mental health professionals. I kind of need to wrangle them and get them all to. Do what I need to, uh, have done, which as we’re, we’re recording this before it comes out as is the style with the program.

And this is actually launching the very first day that you’ll be in Virginia with me, where we’re hosting David Snyder’s event coming up. And I, I’d give you part of the story as to why I invited Stephanie on here, which is that very clearly from this background, there’s got to be a very unique perspective.

As to what works in the scalability of a hypnosis business, as well as of course, the possibly more entertaining aspect, aspects of mm-hmm. , what’s, what’s not working in terms of the scalability, but it’s where I’ve been back and forth over the years in terms of getting certificates. You know, sort of organized and ordered for people who have gone through a certification training and then spinning around and sending you an email to a different email address.

Uh, mm-hmm. in terms of updating people signed up for a guest training event. I’d, I, I’d have to throw in the quick anecdote. That I had a guy who was editing video for me, and he did projects for about two years before. He sent me a cool message going, I just got an incredible job offer. I don’t know if I can still do video for you.

And I paid him a bonus and said, I wish you the best. And that was the end of it because he had done amazing work. And a lot of the stuff that people saw of mine in the early days, he had done, including the editing of what became hypnotic workers, and, and that’s the setup because soon afterwards, Maybe nine or 10 months in, I get an email from this guy and he’s in the Philippines and he explains, My brother was very nervous about a job interview, so I did a hypnosis session with him to build up his confidence, and guess what?

He got the job. And I’m in my head for a moment going, Wait a minute, this guy hasn’t gone through hypnosis training. And I, I, I’ve even taught at times, and there’s no negative to this, but I’ve taught you don’t need to hire someone who understands hypnosis. They need to understand the structure of, wait a minute, this guy has watched all of my videos.

I got his mailing address and I sent him an honorary certificate. First class international male . That’s fantastic. So I’d, I’d imagine, you know, while not necessarily doing the work, it’s, it’s there. So let’s talk about. First of all, in the early days with Richard, it was a balance of, with Richard non guard, it was a balance, correct me here, of the CE work, but also booking appointments into the Tulsa hypnosis office, right?

Yes, yes. And then also managing his, his live events, cuz he was doing a lot of training for licensed mental health professionals as well. And so December was super busy because, Would always wait until the last minute, which would be December 31st to get their S for license renewal. So, you know, December he was traveling all around Oklahoma and Texas and little towns and giving one two hour, Well actually, you know, it was really a day of training in the morning.

He’d do more ethics in the morning and another thing in the afternoon. So it was, it was a lot high volume. At that time. Right. So then also balancing out client sessions as well. And the thing that I, that was, I was fascinated by, and this is part of why we’re here right now, was the aspect of helping to organize a local business while being several thousand miles away.

What were, and this is now 10, 12 years ago, what were some of the technologies that were, you all were using to pull that? Well now it’s, it seems so rudimentary. Yeah. , . I mean, I, you know, I, I remember I flew, flew to Oklahoma and stayed for a week, and he taught me, you know, everything I needed to know at that time.

Got me my first laptop and had a, what was it called? The. Like Jack thing that you plugged into the computer. Oh, magic Jack. Yes. Yeah, Magic . And then, you know, just, just, it was funny and I just, at that time I had a full house of, of children and animals and all of that and, and so I had to set up a desk in my bedroom and that is where, I, I ran his business for, you know, a couple, couple of years before I was like this.

There’s no door to my office , you know, like it never ends, you know, But it actually worked. Really well, really quickly. I don’t think we had a lot of hiccups in terms of the technical side. There was a little bit, you know, I had a lot to learn at that time. I didn’t even really, I did email. That was it. I didn’t, I didn’t come from a, uh, a background of, of administration or anything like that, and, You know, it was just me learning a ton and him being very patient and and giving me the skills.

Yeah. And I’m curious to ask, to rewind it back, what was the background before? What sort of path were you on, or what was it, What was it from those early experiences that maybe made him go, I need to hire you? Well, he did say he didn’t want his business to be run like the dmv. Um, so he was really looking for someone who could handle customer service, you know, handle themselves in a situation, you know, and use my customer service voice and not get upset and or flustered or anything like that.

So for me, my background was actually Special Ed , and so I had worked in a group home in a, a large state run organization, and I prior. To that I had, I had worked as a home manager over weekends, and then I also taught all the classes for new people who were joining the company. So I did their, you know, first aid and also policies and procedures.

I love that as the aspect. That’s also part of Cheryl Elman’s background too, and I even draw a correlation as to, again, looking at how do we manage teams of people of there I was as the stage manager of organizing, being that hub of all communication and making sure everything got along that even if it is processing documents at the end of the class for the people going through and reporting the CEO hours.

There’s this almost showbiz aspect of here’s the time, it’s gotta start, here’s the time it’s gotta wrap up. Here’s when people need their materials. And I love what you said about there weren’t necessarily hiccups of the technology, which nowadays is a whole lot easier because we’ve got more robust options and.

People are used to it. It was instead kind of figuring out if I may use, may use my own word on this. It was figuring out the systems pretty early on about, well, how do we do this and how do we make it work? Right, Right. Yes, yes. And it was a very positive, Yeah. Is there a story that kind of stands out of kind of building that communication system so that it became seamless and things were working smooth?

I don’t know, one defining moment. You know, I think it was just a culmination of little, little moments. You know, one of the things is too, is that knowing Richard so well, you know, I knew that I kind of exhausted my problem solving skills before I went to him because I knew that he. Trusted me and thought I was smart enough to figure it out on my own

So, so that really prevented me from, you know, saying, Well, I, what’s this answer? What’s that answer? You know, rather, So I, it was a lot of learning for me. I mean, just a lot of learning. Um, which, would you wanna highlight something inside of that? Because this. Let’s call it out. This is not just the opportunity to have you on here cuz I’ve been wanting to have this conversation myself, and here’s the person who many people find out, oh, she’s, who’s kind of behind a lot of the I C B C H, A lot of what’s with hypno thoughts, a lot of what’s with David Snyder, and again, this very unique perspective, but what everybody, what you’re hearing right now is if we’re going to hire somebody, you’re hearing the insight.

That you ought to be looking for or even to train towards my, my, my business. You, you, and I’ve had this conversation before, that every time I’ve been about to hire someone for more of an admin role, my strategy has gone to go, What could I do to systematize it? The way that we just processed 36 people for the recent training that Richard and I did together.

And it wasn’t 36 individual emails. It was a single Excel spreadsheet because they all went through a scheduling application and they all went through the woohoo automated form. And I just hit export and I went, Yep, that looks good. And sent it over to you and then we were done. So I’m, I’m always looking at systems, but I can think back to a time where I had someone locally who was handling calls for me, and this could have been met with conflict, but instead it was met.

Her going, Oh, thank you. To which I go, Okay. I’ll keep this extremely positive and very friendly, because if you already knew what I wanted, you wouldn’t be getting hired as my executive assistant. You’d be a psychic. Uh, so it’s my job, , it’s my job that along the way, we’re going to train each other. how to best communicate.

But just so you know, ahead of time, here are two things that if you do these, I will fire you , and I’m saying this with a smile. . Um, one, if you could look at an email that goes out or a website page that just, it’s just something behind the scenes that goes out. And if I could ever look at it with the filter of quote, there’s no way you could have thought this was.

Right. That that’s a challenge. Mm-hmm. and two, if you go into the attitude of what the person on the phone of going, Oh, I really have no idea what that is yet. I, I don’t know that the words, I don’t know, you know, are not, you know, uh, or, or to guess something wrong, Right. Is really dangerous. But instead to go, You know what?

I think Jason would be the best person to answer that. Let me schedule time for you to speak with them. Mm-hmm. , you know, so this communication shortcut. That it wasn’t ever guessing, which is dangerous or the sort of attitude of, Oh, we don’t have the answer to that, which I don’t know is an acceptable answer.

I think the better one was, Oh, let me find a way to get you the right answer. So, so inside of the communication, how, I’m, I’m curious to ask, and this is for my benefit, you all can listen at home, uh, , how much of it now requires actual real time conversations versus now there’s a system to it and so much of it is now digital.

So well, so much of it, it’s different with the different people that I work with. Yeah. Right. So even this morning I did text Richard non guard just to ver cause I got a very strange call and like we get, I know right ? I know the answer. I gave them the answer, but I just wanna check where you are. In the world,

Cause I wasn’t quite sure. And so, Cause his, That’s a fair question. He’s moving, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so the, the, yeah. And the, the answer, you know, was a locational thing. So with Richard Ard, I don’t, we can go a long time without talking to each other. We do a lot, you know, messaging back and forth, but not even, it doesn’t really take me a lot of time because, I’m kind of set now.

Mm-hmm. and I know answers to the questions and so I’ll check in. I double check answers just to make sure, because so. People change their minds and so , So I like to double check with the people that I work with to make sure that, you know, with a certain issue they’re, they haven’t changed their mind on it.

I really enjoy all of them and so I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. Yeah, because I don’t have to. So the people that I work with, I work with by choice, and I think that gives the freedom to all of us. You. Right there. You also highlighted something that I think is a good takeaway for people, that we sort of build a communication mechanism, and once we have that rhythm, it’s not for the sake of being brief or let me actually go to this negative paraphrase that someone one time put on something that I said about how I work with Zema, who’s currently one of my main programmers and designers.

The podcast images for Work Smart hypnosis, she does as of this week, she’ll be doing the imagery for hypnotic language hacks, and she’s someone who, she built out the Virginia Hypnosis website, and then over time it became, Hey, you’re really talented and you’re really responsive. What would it cost to just have you on retainer full time for the month?

And I just send you daily tasks. And she gave a quote, which was extremely reasonable, and we probably then went 15 months. Without speaking and because all of the instructions that I sent over were done in terms of like a screenshot video. Now here’s a software recommendation of Loom, which makes that a whole lot easier.

Yeah, and it’s only in the last two weeks that, you know, I sent a message over to go, let’s schedule time to speak. We got onto a call together and the whole setup was, I hired a consulting company to help sort of map out everything that was gonna be the new Jason Lynnette brand and everything new at the podcast.

And it was a bonus benefit that that included the new website design. So that’s why someone else has been doing that. But since the origin of that, eventually you were gonna take it over. So now that it’s almost yours, let me give you a tour inside as to the design choices, the layout, and what technologies we’re using.

And just to call it out, let me know. If this is something you can do or if I need someone else for this, and some of my best time ever spent with someone working with me has been to actually pay them to go through a training , Wow, hey, here’s, here’s the software that we need to use for this. Do you know how to use it?

No. Okay. Well, it’s gonna be a pretty light week. Let me create you as a user on my account and go through and watch the videos. And now suddenly, She’s a project manager going mm-hmm. , Hey, you need a video for this page? So I’m curious to ask though, in terms of from Richard non guard then to now also one third of hypno thoughts live to also now working with David.

If we had to sort of chunk it down, let, let’s start with the positive. What would you say works? What would you say needs to be a. To really create a scalable property because here’s hypno thoughts, which brings in people around the world. Here’s David Snyder, who clearly does things around the world.

Richard non guard, who clearly does things all around the world, and we’ve politely left outta this conversation side projects where you were part of, And then I, Is this a fair phrase? You chose to not be ? That’s correct. Okay. That is a very. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll leave it at that. So let’s ask this first. What would you say clearly works from your perspective on the, the scalability of a business?

Well, we, we touched on it and it, and it’s kind of funny to say now, but, you know, communication between all parties. But there’s something to be said about brevity as well. . So, so I think one of the things that we all do is communicate well together. Also, not being afraid to bring up. Hard situ, hard situations or hard questions.

I appreciate that all of them are very so respectful of me and never, I don’t know wanna say, but, but they’re disrespectful and so well tell, tell me if this is a fair phrase cuz I’ve seen people, I’ve had people like in hypnotic business systems and even though I’ve got, in my lesson on outsourcing, I talk about the importance of please and thank.

Yeah, The, the importance of understanding time zones, and I don’t think I’ve yet told the story here on this podcast, but the, the team, the alternate team that was building the new Jason Lynette website, suddenly there were storms in the Philippines. They couldn’t do the build out, they could not do the launch.

So it became a moment where suddenly I had to bring the person who works with me in a lot earlier and had to ask her to sidetrack some personal schedule stuff. And the whole time through, we were on, we were on the Skype together talking. We were building out the project. And at the same moment, it was me going, By the way, it’s the 20th.

I’m going to pay you for next month early, and I’m giving a bonus, I’m sorry, . because I got 90 minutes of sleep that night. And I don’t do that typically. But the, the importance of recognizing that it’s another human being, it’s not just a let’s go there. A, as I saw in someone else’s communication, like, Yeah, I would’ve quit working for you too.

A quote slave to do your bi. That all of the big things that someone can pull off happen because it’s a team, It takes a village to make these things happen. It does and, and mutual respect. And I think I said it before too, of, of trusting that I know what to do. And if I don’t, I’ll come to you and ask.

And setting, setting projects. Uh, Scott and Richard Clark and I meet once a week via Zoom, and we have about an hour, 45 minute, hour, sometimes hour and a half, what’s going on. But it, it’s really, I, I actually look forward to those. To those meetings. Cause a lot of times I don’t even talk to them during the, you know, depending on the time of year for HT live for the week.

Cause we have all got other things we’re doing. So I do like seeing them even as a virtual person. I like seeing them and, and connecting on that level as well. So anything that we have, anything that’s not urgent can wait until Thursday and so that’s also helpful in these days where an instant response is assumed.

You know, the, the, the people that are are say, Oh, I, I messaged two hours ago and I haven’t received a response, so I’m gonna go and message, you know, David or, or Richard non guard on, on Facebook to see why you aren’t answering your emails. , that, that was two hours ago and it was. Eight o’clock at night.

Thank you. . Right. , I think, I think you and I have had the conversation, and this is more so about clients. This hasn’t been about students, so I can share it here. The person who leaves me, sort of the escalating tone voicemails. Mm-hmm. , which by the way, and this story goes back to earlier this year actually, before even.

Everything pandemic really kicked in. It’s Sunday morning and I don’t hear these until Monday cuz I don’t even forward the calls. But it’s Monday morning and it’s a series of voicemails. I know you’re there. Pick up. Yeah. What the hell? You’re at a service based industry. What if people have emergencies?

And I’m listening to that thinking My voicemail says I’ll call back within a business day. I think I’m gonna make this person wait until Tuesday. Which part, number one, that’s not how voicemail works anymore. Right. You know? And second of all, just No, no. And because there was a moment of why didn’t you call back?

It’s like, well, because it was Sunday and I was with my family. Correct. And also it happened to be that Monday was a holiday. Thank you. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And of course, course it was, I’m calling you back on Tuesday and it’s 9 35. I’ve just started my day. What can I help you out with? Exactly. And never from a place of scolding, but just polite and matter of fact, and it’s where, correct me in terms of just in terms of generality, if we have that.

To shift the language towards what can we do about this rather than what’s wrong. Right. Yeah, I’ve said that before. Uh, you know, let’s just put everything, you know, what, what can I do to help you move forward? Mm-hmm. , you know, and so circling back to your question too, They all have my back as well. So if, if someone is complaining or upset or you know, Jason, which rarely happens, but every once in a they have my, what’s their name?

I’ve once in while I’ve a So on Facebook and. You know, Melissa Tears will be like, Okay, who do I need to go after ? You know, Melissa, it’s good. But, but you know, all of the Richards and David and Scott, they, I know they have my back, so I don’t have to be nervous or fearful that, Oh, I’m gonna be, you know, Quote, unquote trouble or, you know, they’re gonna be mad at me.

Right there. There’s none. And, and that is the freedom in that as well, that I appreciate. Well, I think anyone who has seen any of the videos that Scott has done about hypno thoughts, there’s the occasional tone of, and, and, and no. Don’t in Scott style and No, don’t tell me you told Stephanie this because we all talk to each other every week and you can’t lie to us because we remember things and that’s not how you make us like you

That’s true. Well, someone else say, you know, Well, Scott said, and, and you know, I just laughed myself. That is not what Scott would say. I know what Scott would say. Yeah. In this instance, and that is not it, you know, . So that, I think that that’s what’s needed. The other thing in terms of if you’re looking at like a clinic setting mm-hmm.

Yeah. Hiring somebody who has knowledge in Hyn. Is important. You know, with, with them mostly David, you know, and Richard non guard who have courses and products they sell. It’s important that I know what they’re saying in, in those courses. So it’s a lot of material for both of them. So I certainly have not gone through.

All of it, uh, or nor could I remember it mm-hmm. , but a, a general so that I can answer those questions, you know, confidently and not steer someone, you know, down the wrong path. So there isn’t, there is a need for anybody that you hire to have knowledge. And it’s good that if they, that they believe in hypnosis.

I know, I know of people who are like, Yeah, I just hired the first admin I could find, you know, and she believes, Hypnosis is evil and you know, , , but you know what, She was so affordable, so . Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the price was right. So it’s just, it just is funny to me because I think that’s probably not a good fit for either of you.

Well, back to the, back to the psychic joke from earlier that, and this is again, uh, well, let’s call out the moment where Richard was going through non guard was going through the, the throat surgeries a while ago, and he’s. Vocal about telling the story about this at times and, and there was a window of time where he was doing websites.

For hypnotists, and that’s something he doesn’t tend to really do anymore because he’s back to seeing clients and teaching once again as we are doing several events together at the same time. Right? But here, here’s a moment where one of my students who I had given a glowing referral to go, Richard knows what works for hypnosis websites.

He’s extremely reasonable. Go through him and the student was then calling me up to gripe that. Yeah, but he hasn’t put any videos on the website. You know what I, I don’t know. He hasn’t done any opt-in offers, and the response had to be, Have you made the videos? Well, no. Have you asked for the opt-in offers?

No. Well, in the, in the programming world, we talk about what you see is what you get and it would not, it would not be there unless it was requested and built out. I’m talking, we’re working with an ad agency right now for the new podcast and you know, they said if you can give me, and this is where I’m gonna nerd out on technology for a moment, if someone doesn’t buy the new business Influence languaging program.

It triggers a series of emails automated, which not until the third email does it now go, Hey, you probably didn’t wake up this month for your business and go, Man, I need a hypnotist. So it’s very likely that you’ve got questions, which in that case, click here to schedule time for a quick chat. You know?

And it then gives them the option. And the beautiful thing became, I, this is my fault. I griped, Hey, I don’t see a campaign to retain those people. And they go, Yeah, cuz you haven’t given us the pages. Oh, oh yeah, that’s right. Hang on.

So we’ve talked about community building systems, open communication and really that, that trust that, you know, I can think back to, and you know, this was something we were talking about before we hit record, that here’s someone who’s coming in for David Snyder’s event, who then goes, Oh, I also wanna do the online thing with you and non guard.

And just giving you a heads up to go, Oh, it’s changing the payments set up, but here’s how, where, not that there’s any secret deals behind the scenes, but when someone’s doing two big purchases, as it becomes in my, in my line to go, Let’s spread that out and make that easy for you. But where like last year, The first time where we did something together, it was, Hey, is this okay?

And now it’s just the, hey, as a heads up, we did this cuz we’ve established that before. So just that open communication from a place of trust and being willing to figure things out. Now I’ve gotta ask the alternate question. What would you say is not working in terms of the scalability, let’s say specifically a hypnosis business?

Well, covid. Yeah. Okay. And Stephanie, what’s your solution? Well solve it for us cuz you already solved so many other things in our industry. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, Jason. One of the things that I have seen in the past seven ish months Yeah. Is that everyone that I work with has the ability to pivot.

Yeah. And, and pivot quickly. So that’s helpful. You know, I think sometimes people get stuck in that, but this is the way it’s been, or this is the way I’ve been trained to do it. Yeah. And I cannot think outside the box, you know, which to call out the, the folks who we’ve referenced here. And this is by no means a surprise and this is where.

Episodes 260 through two 70. I specifically, for the first time ever, came out with two episodes a week interviewing people who, for many years had already been doing work. And asking them, you know, what are you doing? What’s working for you in terms of this? And the trade off of that was, is that the people who were the most prepared were the ones who were already doing it.

So it wasn’t let, let’s edit that. It wasn’t a hundred percent a pivot. It was kind of a refocusing on strategies to go, Oh, I can’t do this part, but I already have that part. Yes. And many others kind of had to play that catch up. Absolutely. And I think also for people, you know, we care about our community.

Yeah. And we, so it’s not even just like, Oh, how can I retain this course? You know, money that I’ve collected or whatever. But it’s how, how can I help? Other people who are going through this time and if we don’t have our train, you know, people have scheduled time for this and some of them had lost their jobs than had even more time to, to be on webinars or, you know, things like that.

And so it really was how can we give people what they want and what they need and what’s good for them. So I think I had just come off of H P T I in February of last year. After that, David had a pre-training in San Diego, went into platinum, and then David had a post platinum training in San Diego. So I was very busy last February, March, and I came home and that’s when everything was, was shut down.

But we had a training. The, the next month. So we talked about it and decided what, what we were gonna do, and we then, you know, were able to move it online. And honestly, for the people that were in that training, they just kept saying they were so happy to be there, even if it was online, because. You know, it was something normal.

You know, they had already planned to do it, and so it was one thing that was kind of still there and it was very positive. I think it was, you know, of course we didn’t know then how long it would be going on, but, Right. Yeah. You know, it was, it was good for people. I had a class in April that I’m like, Oh yeah, July.

And now I’m of the mind to go. I am not in a hurry to schedule anything else in person for a. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard. But with, with David Snyder’s people, they’re very eager to meet in, in person. So we’ve actually been holding live classes since July. Mm-hmm. , uh, much, much smaller. Yeah. Uh, and, and obviously following all guidelines, but you know, those are the people who really just.

Crave to for that, for that learning and the training and, and don’t necessarily learn well online. So we’re happy that, that those folks are coming out. I love that. That’s really the answer here, that it’s, it comes back to what does the audience want and how can we still satisfy that. As opposed to, Hey, here’s this unique opportunity, people are going online.

And you know, I, I had one very brief moment where someone goes, Oh, so now you’re doing online trainings? And the answer was, I, I have been since 2013 already. Yeah. And what happened was to rewind part of the story back, you know, when something’s going on and I need help, I do the natural thing and I call Karen.

Because she’s my favorite heist and all of y’all else can just deal with that now. She’s wonderful. and, and you know, I said people were reaching out to me as we were doing the two, you know, the, the twice weekly podcasts and you know, suddenly it was, I can’t go to this training, I can’t go to this. And I asked, What do you want?

And they go, I need more flexibility because I’m looking at a client on a screen that’s more personal. It’s more one to one, and I don’t have the ease to hide behind a. And I went, Karen and I gotta do an event together. And we did an event called Script plus Hypnosis, and this was that sort of eyeopening moment that I think back to, and I just drove through this area the other day.

Oh, let’s name the exact city accident Maryland. Oh, I know. Because the, the legend is the stage coaches. Crashed and couldn’t be repaired. So they went, Eh, let’s just start up a town here. And that’s why it’s called Accident Maryland. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but I just really hope it is cuz it just, it’s a good story.

It’s such a good story. . And this was a school that, and this goes back nearly 15 years ago now, that the principal at the school said, Thank you so much for bringing something to the. It wasn’t. Thank you for bringing your assembly program. It wasn’t, Thank you for bringing a positive message to our students.

No, thank you for bringing something to this school cuz it’s like right on that border of Maryland and West, the part of Maryland that when you’re driving. Some people know this area, you’re driving on one road, and then briefly you’re in Maryland, then you’re in West Virginia, then you’re in Pennsylvania, then you’re in West Virginia again, and it’s all one highway

Oh yeah. So there’s not much out there. And again, thank you for bringing something. And the audience at that event with Karen was all almost the same as like, this is so good. Because we had the opportunity to learn different styles and interact with each other, and we were only a few weeks into it at that point.

And at that point it was all a maybe in terms of how long it was gonna last, which is where I went. Let’s do this two more times and probably we’ll do another one again sometimes soon. But to look at what were people’s needs, what did they want to learn, and answering the question of how can. Solve this problem for people if that’s the solution, rather than what’s the opportunity and how can I make money off of it Instead, what are people’s needs and how can we meet that?

Yes, and I, I think those opportunists get called out pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. and they kind of self select out of the communities you and I run in. Yeah, because that’s just not, not what we do. Well, I, it’s the line from Steve Martin about becoming so good they can’t ignore you. Or we were, we were chatting about this before we hopped on and I’ll, you know, leave the reference out.

But a student who is hitting some pretty hard times in terms of work in an industry that just does not exist right now and issues with the payment and the request was, Hey, I’m on a payment plan. Can you delay the payment a month? And I simply respond. No, I can delay it two months and we can spread it out even further.

This way it’s not a burden. Mm-hmm. . And if you need it, spread it out even further. Let me know. We can set that up. You know, so this, this place to see people where they are and you know, I’ve been saying this constantly on the new hypnotic language Hex podcast, that every sales conversation I is noble when we’re satisfying the question of how can I make that easier and help you to get there faster.

So other than Global Pandemic , you know, that old thing, what else would you say should be looked at differently? In terms of how people often try to look at the scalability of a business? Well, with hypno thoughts, one of the things that we do every year is we look at things that we can do differently just for fun.

Right? Just so that things, you know, you don’t just eat the same chicken dinner, you know, or you don’t. Just what can we add, What can we add? You, You’ve even heard stories about the chicken dinner. Yes. So, so like, you know, what can we add? Because HD Live is a. Is a 5 0 1 C three. And so any, anything we have, we put back into the conference.

And so two years ago it was very fun to add, add the coffee and things like that and, and add a couple other things to it. So I think it’s not so much what isn’t working, although we do say, Well, that that wasn’t a good organizational thing. Or, or, but, but I think because it, we’re, we’re all so positive, those moments where we talk about the things that didn’t work are kind of brief.

And so it’s more of a solution. Oh yeah, that didn’t work. Let’s do this. And then we’re onto the next, you know, solution. So I can’t really think of anything. It’s a learning opportunity. Right, Right. And so I think that’s what’s good is to always be willing to do something differently or tweak it a little bit or say, Well, that, that wasn’t a great idea.

Well, I share a, I share a very specific story here, which I’ve been going on business podcast and promoting the new program, and there was one, one show that I was just on, and as soon as I said the end of the story, the person hosting it, he. Oh, you’re so right. Let’s rewind back and let me ask a different question because I shouldn’t have gone that direction, , that the question was about, is there a time that you know, your, your message was not right, and what did you learn from it?

I told the story of, I designed an entire training around one thing that built Virginia hypnosis, which was going out and giving talks, and I put a lot of time, energy, and money into the promotion of this event and was gonna launch it at the I M D H A conference. And I don’t blame that conference for this.

I blame myself for this. That one person signed up, and I then reached out to the person to go. So three options. One, we can do it because you booked it and we’re both here. Options number two, we’re in Daytona Beach and it’s really nice here. How about we take the day as a vacation and then we can connect by, at the time Skype.

And do it remotely. Or option three, did you know Michael Watson’s doing this really cool training? She goes, Oh no, I was between this one and that one. I go, Oh, perfect. So let’s do this. Let’s walk you over to Michael and have you sign up for that and I’ll give you lifetime access to this $1,500 product of mine.

Cool. She’s like, Oh, amazing. And and done . Perfect lesson learned. I sold what I thought people wanted and I was wrong. Yes. Which then turned into, in the next 15 or so months, hypnotic products said hypno thoughts live, which sold out two years running. Why? Because I asked people what they wanted and in this interview, the guys going, Well, what was that like when you realized something had failed and the questions were all negative?

I’m like, and eventually I just jumped in to go, Hey, change the name. John did. Did you hear that? I told the story of already what I learned. and what the result was. And more importantly, here are the so many people who went through that training and here’s what they’ve now done with it. Here’s the person who discovered their personal brand.

Here are the people who clearly turned it into products. Here’s the person who now has a three day training event from taking the systems that I taught. I think that should be the focus of this conversation. And he goes, You’re right. Let’s backtrack . So, so rather than continue to talk about the oxygen, Right.

What Jason? What? No, I think too, you know, like what you were just saying, I’ve got this great program. Why aren’t people signing up? It’s the people’s fault. Yeah. No, that my classes aren’t full. It’s. The, It’s everybody else’s fault that, you know, whatev whatever is bothering you. Every Steve just who has been on this program has brought that up about blaming the audience.

Blaming the room. No, no, no. You were the entertainer. It was your job to bring in the audience and entertain them. Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, that’s really important. The other thing, and you’ve touched on this with, you know, saying you called Karen Hand, you know, there’s so many people that we can bounce ideas off of.

So I know, you know, Scott has private conversations with people, Richard Clark, I do, you know, everything. And, and David and I talk about it a lot too, of just having those conversations of what, what should we do? What sounds good? What would be a good way. Present this or, you know, things like that. And, and being able to have people that you trust and you consider friends that have also have successful businesses.

And, and it, it’s not that, Well, I have this piece of information and I’m not gonna tell you cuz I want to be the best. Hypnotist, you know, I wanna be the best trainer, so I can’t share any of my tips with you because your competition. Yeah. So I think what’s, what’s good and what I’ve seen is that people do talk to each other.

I mean, I, I even have people that, that I contact when, when I’ve just had a little too much mm-hmm. of customer service, , and, and I’ll message particular person and just be like, Please tell me. It’s okay that I’m rolling my eyes. Yeah. Behind the screen on this one. . Yeah. Do we reveal that? This is what you and I do when someone wants to put 20 letters of initials after their name on a certificate.

we only have a certain number. Characters don’t Smaller, and this is perfect. Right after Nancy Ader was on the podcast last week and we got onto the topic, she goes, I even could put letters at the beginning of my name, . Or this is where I should, I probably reveal now the story of where Richard and I think first officially, the first bonding moment with me and him was I had bought a product from him, which means you probably shipped it to some respect,

I’m sure I did. Yeah. And before it arrived it, I’ve told the story on here before. Before it arrived, Google canceled the feature that his video was. So something, I had received this product that was now out of date and before I could even received it, he, he called me up outta the blue to go, Hey, they don’t, this thing doesn’t exist anymore, so I can give you a refund of like the a hundred bucks.

It was, Or you know, find something on my site that’s upwards of like three 50 and I’ll just send you that instead. Mm-hmm. , and that’s one of those customer service, you know, customer moments for me back then, which also informed me digital products because you could update them once they’ve already been delivered

Yes. The second point, and this is back when the program is now hypno. Business systems. But when it first came out for a short while, it was Hypnosis Business Boot Camp and most digital products. And because this is about compliance with merchant accounts and credit card companies is you have to offer some kind of guarantee.

And it doesn’t have to be results guarantee. It can just be satisfaction guarantee. If you’re not happy, you know, in 30 days, let us know. And I felt the impulse to message Richard non guard to go, I just had someone who bought something from me five years. Because they haven’t yet logged in, asked for a refund and we’ll leave it out.

But he goes, Oh, was that, And he named the person . I’m like, How did you know? He goes, I just got the same email. Yep. It’s that discovery that, no, it’s not hipaa cuz they weren’t a client. Let’s defend that. Uh, yes. It’s, it’s the reality though that, you know, I’ve had people who tried to pit my stuff against, Other people with business programs from Sheila Grainger to Steve Miller, to Helen might to Richard Barker, to even others, and to find out, you know, we all talk to each other and we all like each.

and you know, even where I last year, bringing in David Snyder’s conversational hypnosis class, having to go, yeah, I’m not doing work Smart NLP this year. Because that kind of conflicts, it’s, it’s a similar description. It’s a different class than what he’s offering, but to not be putting something, pitting one against the other, and having now retired, that training myself, because now that’s.

Business influence product [email protected], but that revelation that we all kind of refer to each other and recommend each other, and I think that kind of ends us on the right note about how it’s really, again, that community aspect of recognizing that I, I, I’ll give a quick story here that I heard from Ryan D, who runs Digital Marketer and also was behind the big Traffic and Conversion Summit conference.

Has gone online this year like many other things, and I heard him one time say, As part of our training for our staff, you have to create your employer employee manual so someone else could pick up your job and do it just as well as you. If you ever position yourself as being irreplaceable. You’re probably gonna get a two weeks notice.

Mm-hmm. , and I love that as a mindset about how it’s that community aspect working together and working to build something together that really helps to increase this. Any thoughts on that? I totally agree. I mean, the people, Scott Stanley, you know, he always brings people together. And I think also, one of the things when I used to recommend hypno thoughts dot.

To people through Richard non guard was, you know, it’s a great place to meet. It’s a great community. It’s a sandbox where everybody’s invited, you know, and I, I love that about, about this community and, and you and I know a lot of people in this community and with, with hypno thoughts. You know, I work with 175 to 200 speakers alone throughout the year.

and that’s, that’s a lot to manage. And, and most are, are very kind and, and understand that community feel. Mm-hmm. , you know, so I, I, I do, I just think that’s, that’s really, really what it’s all about. So normally I ask, what’s the best way for people to get in contact with you? Where would you like to point people?

Oh goodness. I didn’t know this question was coming. Cause this is the interesting thing is one of the ways that I do it is I compartmentalize everything. Yeah. So, So that’s how I run my day. Right? So this block is for Richard. This block of time is for, you know, and that’s how I kind block it off. But if.

Say the easiest, which re uh, ht live.net. Yeah. Info info ht live net. Which really for all of this, that’s kind of where all of us end up too. And yeah. And, and, and let me call something out here. And I think this was not the intention of this because someone’s takeaway from this conversation should not be, Oh, I need to go hire Stephanie cuz correct me, you’re probably not available.

I’m not, I’m not available at the time. I’m, I’m very busy, but, and it’s where people, and other than like the occasional random project, like inside of the hypnotic business systems community, Dan Kendel popped up the other day to go, My website’s slow. What should I do? And I’m like, You need to switch hosting.

Here. We just migrated every one of my 15 websites, and I’m not working Nazma too hard this month. Let me get you to pay her like 150 bucks and she’ll do that for you. Yeah, so that was a, you know, job type thing. But the mistake people make is thinking, I need to hire who Jason uses. I need to hire who Richard uses or David uses or hypno thoughts uses, which actually last three were all you , , and look, look through everything we’ve talked about here.

And the dialogue is instead about building as much as we’ve talked about community in terms of the outward community of our profession and our clients, but this little bubble of a community of our own business and all of this can be modeled. All of this can be built over time. So before we wrap it up, any final thoughts for the listeners out there?

Well, obviously I want everyone to come to hypno Thoughts live in 2021 and they can talk to me there, cause I’ll be there and I think just, you know, Patience, patience with growing your business. And maybe that, that might be what you don’t teach Jason, but I’m sure you do. But you know, it, it’s, it’s all about learning and growing and maybe doing something different.

Maybe doing it right, you know, straight out, out of the gate. But just communication. And that’s it. Jason, Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for. You know what? Let’s change it up this week. We always do the outro the same way. A huge thank you to Stephanie for being such a huge instrumental, part of the biggest event in the entire hypnotic profession.

An event that I was sad I wasn’t able to go to this year in 2020, given the pandemic, But so looking forward to being once again together with a. Everybody in Las Vegas in July and August of 2021. Check out HT live.net to get some FaceTime with Stephanie and connect with an incredible community from all around the world.

And also too, check out work smart hypnosis live.com. This event is happening very soon, though. If you’re listening to this after the fact, no worries. Go to the same event because chances. I keep doing these over and over. I’ve done typically five or six of these online certification trainings each and every year, even before covid times.

So head over to work smart hypnosis live.com if you’re able to join us for the one coming up in December. Fantastic. I’ve got a special guest of Richard Non Guard will be joining me for that one. If not, still hit the same website either way, and join us soon to really advance your skills as a heads up about half of the room.

Our brand new to hypnosis, and the other half are people who were already trained in looking to truly refine what they do. And as is our theme this week, scale up that success. So whether it’s in person, eventually, or back online as we’re sticking for the time being, check that out. Join us there. Work smart hypnosis live.com.

And even better, Stephanie will create your certificates, which makes it even more special. Thanks for listening.