#259 How to Crash Your Business to Reach Your Goals with Jason Ayers

“You're identifying the key things that you would need to do to ensure failure. And the reason why this works is it's far easier to think of those things. And part of it is likely just because you've gone through a similar experience.”

Welcome to Thrive by Design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product-based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing, and scaling your business. Spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make you ready. All right, let's do this.

Tracy: Welcome to thrive by design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business so you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make ready. All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast Episode 259. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief visionary officer at Flourish and Thrive. And I'm excited to be here today because we just celebrated On July 5th, our eighth year in business or eighth birthday, and it's been awesome to just witness all of the members of our community, doing amazing things with their jewelry and creative product businesses now, when Robin Kramer and I had this idea and we got it off the ground, and we launched our first program, laying the foundation at flourish and thrive Academy, I never realized at that moment in time, the impact we'd be having on this industry.

And it's so exciting to me, because at this point, we've helped over 7,500 jewelry and creative product brands, build financial security, build freedom in their lives, but freedom with their time freedom with their lifestyle and build businesses, doing something that they love that they're passionate about, while being extra creative, and getting to do some really awesome things and I just love it because When I get to see someone who never thought that their little hobby or side hustle would ever turn into anything, and they're basically quitting their full time jobs to pursue their business full time, because their business is making so much money, and it's supporting them in the way that they need it to.

There's nothing more satisfying than that to me. And so it's super exciting. And, you know, one of the things that I talk about a lot is we talk about freedom and security as like the two main goals, as you know, as an entrepreneur as someone who's owning their own business. And there is this myth that having a steady, stable job is actually more secure than having your own business. Having your own business is actually more secure and stable. If and when you do it, right. And here's the reason why is because you have 100% complete control over your outcomes in most cases, and I'm saying in most cases, because there's always exception to the rule, but when we hit hard economic times, we noticed like, we're always going to see the cycle of people getting laid off from jobs, having a hard time finding work, etc. But when you own your own business, and you're basically like living your dream and doing it, if you set it up, right, and your business is profitable and supporting your goals, then you are way more secure, and you're in a much more secure position than someone who is at the mercy of someone else.

And that's why this business, starting Flourish and Thrive and helping the jewelry industry at first and now expanding into the creative product business industry has been so important to me. And it's been an honor to be able to support you. And so I'm just excited. So we just had a birthday and we're thrilled and that's why I wanted to bring my guests on the show today, Jason Ayers to come in and talk about something that might seem counterintuitive. We're going to be talking today about how to crash your business, so that you can succeed. It's kind of weird, Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason: Thanks for having me excited to be here. And congratulations on eight years in business, most businesses don't make it. And they especially don't make it to their eighth birthday, for a number of reasons that we're actually going to highlight today, as we figure out how you can crash your business to ensure that you're successful.

Jason: Thanks for having me excited to be here. And congratulations on eight years in business, most businesses don't make it. And they especially don't make it to their eighth birthday, for a number of reasons that we're actually going to highlight today, as we figure out how you can crash your business to ensure that you're successful.

Tracy: So I know a worst case scenario, person or thinker, but a couple of weeks ago, for those of you don't know, Jason is my boyfriend. And we've been spending a lot of time together during COVID over the last several months, because I've been living in Arizona with him as New York was kind of shut down. So a couple weeks ago, I was struggling with a couple of things, and feeling really overwhelmed because there was a lot on my plate. I've taken on a lot of extra responsibility over these last few months to make sure that we are doing what I said we're gonna talk about today, and I was super stressed out. And so he sat me down. He has this big whiteboard. In his kitchen, he started asking me some questions. What's the worst thing that could happen?

What? Absolutely let if you want it to fail your business 100% and that was your ultimate goal. What would you need to do in order to make your business fail? And I was like, that's a weird question. And I don't really want to go back there, because my first business completely imploded after 2008. And I'm like, that's not really something I really want to think about. But he's like, trust me on this. So you went through this exercise, which we're going to be talking about on a high level today about how when you think about worst case scenarios, or what everything that you have to do to actually destroy your business on purpose, then you can create the inverse.

And so I was excited about this concept because Jason is going to be doing a training in our Momentum coaching program. Momentum is our newly revised version of our SOS coaching program that we're launching in a couple of weeks, and I'm really excited about this in particular, because Jason's going to be coming on as our mindset and success coach. And that might sound ambiguous, but this guy is like, so smart. That's why I love talking to him all the time. And I've had him on this podcast many times, including our podcast last week. And he's just really amazing with taking your situation and helping you think through everything that's going on so that you can get a positive outcome. So Jason, let's just jump in, shall we?

Jason: Sure. Right into the deep end,

Tracy: ight into the deep end. So we're going to be talking about something on a high level today. You're doing a full on training in our coaching program, I think in like two weeks on this. So let's talk about this. What is it called first and foremost,

Jason: It's called inversion thinking. And you brought up worst case scenarios. This is really kind of a worst case scenario related to what you could do that would cause your business to fail. When We think about the worst case scenario, sometimes they're external. And we definitely have been going through some tumultuous times and challenging times where we've had to figure out how to make adjustments. But what we want to do today is we want to look at the various areas of your business and determine what it would take for you to fail in those areas for you to crash your business in those areas. And while this might seem like a really weird exercise to do, it's incredibly powerful.

Tracy: Yeah, it's incredibly powerful. I know firsthand, because I was like, Oh, yeah, so if I think about, like, everything that I would have to do like this one scenario was where we were talking about advertising. And, like, well, we absolutely do to make our ads completely fail and for no one to respond to an ad and we basically spend all of our ad budget with zero conversions. And so we went through exercise and I was like, oh, that seems so silly like no one would ever do that. And so it helped us reframe and think about a different way to make it work.

Jason: One of the reasons why I love this exercise is because most people think in terms of what it's going to take to succeed. And when you're thinking about what it takes to succeed, you're very likely looking around at what other people have done. And you're saying, well, this person is successful, and this other person is successful, and they're both filling in the blank. So I better fill in the blank too, without even actually knowing if that activity has a direct correlation and a direct impact to your bottom line and whether or not you're going to be successful. 

So what we want to do with this exercise is and why this exercise is so powerful, it allows us to identify the things that have the activities that we do in our business, that have a direct impact on the success of the film. You're in the business. One of the challenges when you're thinking about what you need to do is you don't necessarily have a measuring stick or a way to know if that activity has any impact at all, or the amount of impact that it has on your business. 

So you feel like you have to do a ton of stuff. And you, you get this feeling like you're overwhelmed. You're like, Oh, my gosh, I've got to do social media, I've got to do ads, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. And it gets to this point where you may have even felt like, you don't want to grow your business. You don't want to grow beyond a certain point because you don't want to take on all of these additional things that you need to do. And well, that's a completely understandable way to feel when you're thinking that you have to take on, you know, more activities than you have time for. But what this actually is going to do is it's going to reveal the critical components, the critical activities that you need to do in your business. In order to achieve success, you'll start to realize that a lot of those other things that you thought you needed to do, were just things that other people were doing, that aren't necessarily required for your business to succeed. And the beautiful thing about this is, it helps you to really crystallize those core activities you need to do. 

And when you do that, you'll start to realize, wow, there's really not that much that I have to do well, in order for this to work. I just have to do the things that actually matter. And then do those things well, so I took Tracy through this exercise, and we looked at an area of ads, but why don't we talk about an area today, Tracy that most people don't necessarily directly correlate with success, but that is super important.

Tracy: That sounds good. The reason this is really important and that you said a lot of things in that last little snippet that I just wanted to pull out because part of the reason we went through this exercise is because Jason was asking me, do you really need to be doing all those things? Because I was feeling so overwhelmed. And it wasn't just without realizing it with a lot of other things in the business as well. Because I have taken on a little bit of extra responsibility during the past couple of months. And I was like, and I kept saying, Yes, yes, I need to do all of it. And he's like, well, let's break it down. And then I realized, no, I don't need to do all of it. Because I was just giving myself extra work.

And you'll start to notice as you go through this exercise, the key things that are actually most valuable, which actually can be measured. And I think that's the most important part of this is that a lot of times we go through life and we go through business, just doing all the things because we think we need to without measuring the significance of our activities. And that's the number one reason why we often feel overwhelmed. And that is exactly what momentum coaching is designed to remove you from is all these things that keep you feeling overwhelmed, so that you can start getting things off your plate and working a little bit smarter instead of harder. So let's just say, what do you think about using the example of customer service?

Jason: I like it, I like it because it impacts multiple areas and scenarios beyond just the, you know, direct customer service experience that you might think.

Tracy: So do you want to pop into an example? Or do you want me to share so I will give you an example.

Jason So if we were to look at, let's say that you've sold a piece to someone, and they have an issue, and to get that issue resolved, let's say that they email you or they submit a support ticket. So what would you need to do in terms of responding to them and response time to guarantee that they have a miserable experience and never want to do business with you again, so this is where we're looking at how we would make it fail so that we can determine what we need to do to make it succeed? 

So if you were if let's say that I bought a piece of jewelry from you, or I bought a piece from you, and I had a problem with it, maybe something broke, and I email in, how long would you want to wait to ensure that I'm furious, and that I'm having a terrible time and I'm thinking, you just really do not care about me as a customer or as a client. And I'll never buy from you again. And I'm probably going to tell some friends about it.

Tracy: Exactly. So like, in the case of let's say something, you have something you sold someone a necklace, and the necklace broke, they email you and it was within your return policy, they email you and say like, Hey, can I get this fixed? And you're like, you basically you don't respond to them for maybe a week. Then when you do get back saying sorry, we don't fix anything. You go find it yourself. And there's no compensation or any support there. They're probably gonna say like, this is not a brand that I actually want to buy from again, and so they won't buy from you and guess what's going to happen. They're also going to give you a bad review. 

They're going to tell their friends not to buy from you. And this is going to become a bigger cycle. And you know, earlier Jason and I were talking because we're here on vacation, we're actually driving in a car right now. So if you hear outside noise, that's the reason why. And my travel hair dryer that was actually like a real hairdryer broke while we're here and I just bought it. About six months ago, it was a couple hundred dollars. It was a really fancy one. I emailed the brand to say, hey, look, my hairdryer is broken. And I still haven't heard back from them. And this is a really reputable brand. And I'm just kind of like, what that guy's like, why isn't Why aren't you getting back to me? And so this is a good good example because if someone were to ask me about hair dryers, or something, I am not going to recommend this brand. I am going to tell them absolutely 100% do not buy this hairdryer.

Jason: It was interesting. So I'm here with Tracy on this trip and she came in and she's talking about something and how it doesn't work and everything else. And I was in the middle of working on something and just to just to witness and observe her visceral reaction and the feelings that she was going through realizing that this expensive hair dryer, which is supposed to be of high quality has suddenly failed on her. And of course, it failed on her on a day when she needed to shoot some videos. So you know, and it consumed a significant amount of time. And then what did you do about it? Tracy? What did you do as a result of that? hairdryer breaking to try to get some kind of resolution?

Tracy: Well, I emailed the company, exactly what I did. And I gave them an explanation about what happened. I asked for them to replace it and I still haven't heard back.

Jason: And how does it make you feel that They have not responded?

Tracy: I'm super annoyed, really annoyed, and I probably wouldn't buy a hairdryer from them again, I'm probably just gonna send it back and get a refund.

Jason: So what are the chances that you're going to not only not buy from them again, and not be a repeat customer? But what are the chances that if somebody asks you about hair dryers, that you would, you would actually make a point to bring up that hairdryer and say, Well, whatever you do, don't buy this one because I spent a lot of money on it.

Tracy: It is a highly qualified chance. And you know, this is all part of the we talk a lot about here over here the desired sharing our desired sharing proposition, but also the desire brand effect, which is our methodology over here at flourish and thrive Academy. It's built around three spokes, essentially creating desire, which is all about attracting customers into your sales funnel. I'm going to use that for lack of a better term. The second piece of it is sharing desire and that's all about converting those people into paying customers and keeping them because the reason why Especially with luxury or creative products, and jewelry products, a lot of times the the best salesperson or sales team are your actual customers, because they're going to wear it, people are going to comment on it, they're going to ask who it's by. And they're going to share that.

And so this opportunity for you to create a great experience becomes essentially even more important. And the third part of that is scaling desire, which is all about doubling down on what works so that you can create a better experience over and over again and build your business. And the reason why these three pieces are so important is that we know for a fact that it's 80% more expensive to find a new customer and get a new customer than it is to sell again, to an existing customer. And this is why it is so important.

Jason and I were talking about this earlier, when you know, I don't know I go to brunch with my girlfriends when things are normal in New York City. And we're always talking about things that we're buying or things that we're using or facial cream and we share like positive and negative results. And I want to use as another example, because I've been witnessing Jason in the process of researching buying a car, and I want you to share this experience because I've watched you and every single time you're like all I'm like, Well what about this car and you're kind of like, well, the negative reviews say x y&z So talk a little bit about that experience.

Jason: Yeah, so I'm, I'm a classic entrepreneur in terms of I'm a, I'm a high Quick Start, which means I get into action pretty quickly. But I also do a ton of research. So I'm a high Fact Finder. And part of being a high Fact Finder, is where I'm going out and I'm doing my research and I'm looking at reviews and I'm asking people, what their experiences have been like. And there's a particular car that I've wanted for quite a long time. I really liked the looks of it. I like everything about it, except for the fact that I had heard a whole bunch of horror stories, in terms of problems that that vehicle has had and issues that people had experienced getting it fixed, getting resolution, in other words, customer support. So ironically enough, as Tracy and I are driving right here, I'm looking at one of these vehicles and for somebody that we're spending some time with up here. 

And last night, I pulled him aside and I said, Hey, what is your experience? Been? with them? You know, have you had any issues? Did you have any failures? And he said, yeah, we had a few issues. And here's a few things that came up with the first vehicle that we had from this brand. And I said, Well, you know, how did the dealership react? Did they take care of you? How was the level of service? And he said, No, actually, it was it was really good. They took good care of us. So now, I've gone from a position of wanting that car but you know, not being willing to buy it because of the negative reviews too.

Being back on my radar and a car that I'll likely buy, simply because I talked to somebody who is already an owner. So, you know, bringing this back around, if you wanted to ensure that somebody had a bad customer service experience, and I want to make make it clear that we're only talking about one part of the customer service experience, we're just talking about response time, and how long it would take you to respond or not really even Tracy alluded to it a little bit. And you know, how you could in the next step, and in what your actual responses, how you could really disappoint somebody and make sure that you fail.

But just looking at response time, we identified that if you wanted to guarantee failure, you'd want to wait a long time to respond. Exactly. So this is where this is really powerful. Because we identified the one thing you could do if someone emails you to guarantee failure, essentially. So what is the inverse of that? What is the opposite of that? What would you have to do to create an experience where you delighted them where they felt valuable where they felt like their investment with you and them choosing you over someone else was a wise decision and a smart decision because they feel valued. Tracy, how long do you think it would? You'd want to wait before you responded,

Tracy: You'd ideally want to respond within 24 hours, if not sooner.

Jason: Okay. So there we go. So we've identified one portion of the business and businesses can be broken down into their different component pieces. If we look at it from somebody doesn't know a thing about you, and they haven't heard about you, too, how they find out about you, too, how they then start to desire, something that you've created one of your pieces to the process of buying it, fulfilling it, the customer service experience being invited back at a point in the future to buy from you. 

Again, all of these are different steps, or processes that you can break your business down into. And we go into a lot of depth in this momentum in the mastermind, but for the purpose of this example, in this podcast, we're looking at customer customer service. So the next step that you could look at would be the actual response that you give. Right? So if we know now that we want to respond quickly, because we've identified that responding slowly would be a way to guarantee failure. How would you guarantee failure in terms of how you responded to the people, instead of you know, the, we just talked about when Now let's talk about how so how would you respond to guarantee that people are unhappy with your customer service?

Tracy: Okay, so we start with the actual response time, then we move into how we respond and then all the other aspects of customer service. So with that being said, we're not going to go into the weeds with this because we have a full training On this in our momentum program, so Jason Tell, tell me the steps sort of in inversion thinking,

Jason: Well, what you want to do is you want to look at the different components of your business. And then within each of those components, so like when we did it on the whiteboard, in my kitchen, in my, in my kind of breakfast note area where I have all these whiteboards. I wrote down the different steps in the business. So for example, I started with advertising. And then I said, Okay, from advertising to the sales process, and then from the sales process to the fulfillment process and the fulfillment to customer service. And I just labeled each of those areas and I drew lines down the board to divide those and I said, Okay, if we were just looking at ads, for example, what would we have to do to ensure failure?

And then we wrote down what we'd have to do to ensure failure. And then we said, okay, what is the opposite of those things that we would have to do to ensure failure and then we moved on to The next part of the business to the actual sales process. And that's essentially how you do it, you're identifying the key things that you would need to do to ensure failure. And the reason why this works is it's far easier to think of those things. And part of it is likely just because you've gone through a similar experience, right?

You've seen an advertisement, you've gone through a sales process, you've placed an order, you've received something and then you've at some point, have had customer service issues so you can identify with them. And it makes it a little easier to think of those things in terms of as a customer, what would really turn me off, what would cause me to not want to buy or to not want to buy again. So that's why it works. So well.

Tracy: And then after you do that you just think of the reverse, basically,

Jason: you're thinking of the reverse. So you're kind of going from one extreme to the other, in terms of what you need to do. So it's if you know for example, that you would take a week or maybe a month to respond to a customer service email, the opposite of that might be, hey, we want to respond to every customer service inquiry within 24 hours, let's say.

Tracy: That's great. Okay, so this is awesome. And I'm super excited. As I mentioned earlier, Jason's coming on as our mindset and success coach because he's just brilliant. He's sort of like, we talked about being a chief visionary officer over here at Flourish and Thrive Academy. I have coined that as my title. And many of the members of our community also call themselves chief visionary officers, because it is one of the most creative roles in a business. He kind of comes from the other side where he's playing more of the chief integration officer.

Jason: Yeah, well, typically, I'd be called like a CEO, for example, Chief operations officer. And, and that is actually even been broken out into a bunch of things over time into CIO and the different parts of the business Chief Information Officer or technology officer But essentially what I do is, I help visionaries to come up with the concrete measurable actions that need to happen to turn their visions into reality, and then figure out who they need to do the different components, and how they need to execute them and how it all comes together and how it all fits together as a system. 

I can very much Miss systems and process background, where I'm thinking in terms of, if we do one thing over here, how does that affect the business? Where else does that show up? So for example, customer service, right, if you take a long time to respond, that could circle all the way back around to the point to where you're not getting repeat buyers and you're actually getting people who are leaving negative reviews, which is then impacting the front end of your sales funnel and what you're doing. 

So I'm the, you know, there's a yin and a yang, you know, and Tracy's one part on the other part and together with a visionary and an integrator, That's how you can really have a successful business that allows you to operate in your unique zone of genius. And, and to do what you do best.

Tracy: Yes. And so we basically were outsourcing his integrator brain to help us create metrics and data so that you're measuring success in a way that makes sense. So you know, if you're doing a good or a bad job,

Jason: well, I wouldn't say I, it's funny, like, I'm not a fan actually of good and bad. I'm a, I'm a fan of, there's something you want are the actions you're taking moving you closer to it, or farther away from it, you know, or further away from it if we're talking about to crease and that really takes strips a lot of the judgment out right, like a lot of times we're worried about doing the right thing. And when very often it's just will this thing result in what I want or not, and if it won't, let's not do it and if it will lead, rank it and prioritize it relative to the other things that will help us get what we want.

Tracy: Perfect. Well, Jason, thank you so much for being here today.

Jason: Thanks for having me.

Tracy: I'm excited. I'm super excited for this training, because it's happening in a couple weeks inside the momentum coaching program. And I'm thrilled to have Jason coming on. And we're really excited to actually do our official opening for enrollment of momentum in a couple of weeks, we're announcing two different levels in the program, we're going to be giving you an opportunity based on where you are in business, to work with us in a mid tier level, and also at a more high touch level. So it's awesome. I'm super excited about it. Because at the end of the day, what you can measure in your business are the things that you need to be looking at on a daily basis. And that is how you can see growth and results over time.

Jason: Yes, yes. And you know, I'm excited as well because one of the things that I do, and have done over the years as I help people scale up their businesses and put the foundations in place and then do what they need to do to scale it up in a way that they can still enjoy their life, they can get the, you know, the economic security that they wanted to create, and the sense of certainty that they want without, you know, high levels of stress that you don't necessarily need if you design your business the right way, and it's really exciting to see flourish and thrive has. 

They're now at this place where they've broken it down into the various segments, and kind of the, the entire journey. And you're covering the entire thing now where there was a little bit of a gap,

Tracy: I think, in between, of our essential model. 

Jason: Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited about it. I think I think this new model is going to serve you, whether you're just starting out to the point where you're scaling up dramatically, and you really want to build a you know, maybe a big Empire or create a legacy.

Tracy: Yeah, I'm excited. And what he means by that is, is that we've repositioned our programs and and created a better flow from one stage to the next. So that, you know, after you start with us, if you're like just starting out, or you're trying to make your first, you know, 50 to $100,000 a year in sales, what do you do after that? Like, what's the next step after that? And then if you're trying to go from that first hundred thousand dollars annually in revenue to multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, if that's your goal, like what are the steps to do that, and then so on and so forth, as your business is growing beyond that, so we're very excited, so many great things for for our students who are investing with us and and joining our programs because their businesses are doing fantastic and extra measures that they're really tracking how the the impact of their actions that they're taking on a daily basis in their business, how that's impacting their bottom line, their profitability, their sales, and their growth overall.

So it's very, very exciting. So I'm, I'm excited. And with that, we're just gonna end this episode. Thank you so much for listening today. Keep your eyes open because next week we're going to be announcing an amazing brand new masterclass, where we're going to be talking a little bit more in depth about this and the key metrics that you need in your business to actually supercharge your sales. It's going to be exciting. I am thrilled about this. So let's do this. Thanks for listening today.

This is Tracy Matthews signing off. And if you're enjoying the show, I would love for you to give us a rating and review your ratings and reviews to help us know how we're doing and how we can improve. 

So we'd love a five-star rating for you. If you're enjoying this program, you can head on over to www.flourishthriveacademy.com/259. And if you're interested in some of the things that we've spoken about today, head on over to the show notes over at www.flourishthriveacademy.com/259. And we'll have links to everything that we spoke about today. Thanks so much. Bye for now. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help thousands of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity. To make money, make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played.