In this episode, Tara interviews Mary Scott, where she gives you actionable steps to set-up your business to thrive.

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Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

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Mentioned in this episode:

https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call

Tara Bryan: 00:00:05

Hey everybody, it's Tara Bryan and you are listening

Tara Bryan: 00:00:08

to the course building secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach

Tara Bryan: 00:00:11

or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on

Tara Bryan: 00:00:15

your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide

Tara Bryan: 00:00:19

them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give

Tara Bryan: 00:00:23

you practical real life tips that you can use today to build

Tara Bryan: 00:00:26

your online experiences that get results and create raving fans.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:30

Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people

Tara Bryan: 00:00:35

without adding more time or team to your business? If you're

Tara Bryan: 00:00:39

looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and

Tara Bryan: 00:00:42

use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:53

Hey, everybody, welcome to course building secrets. I am

Tara Bryan: 00:00:55

here today with Mary Scott. And she is going to talk about

Tara Bryan: 00:00:59

giving some advice and tips on getting started in your business

Tara Bryan: 00:01:03

and what that looks like. So welcome, Mary, we'd love to hear

Tara Bryan: 00:01:06

just a little bit about your background. And, and give us a

Tara Bryan: 00:01:10

little bit of a some tips and tricks for how to get started.

Mary Scott: 00:01:16

Okay, thank you so much, Tara, I'm really happy to

Mary Scott: 00:01:19

be here. I'm Mary Scott, I'm originally from New York, I was

Mary Scott: 00:01:24

a videographer I did business to business videos, companies all

Mary Scott: 00:01:29

over New York City metro, I did two documentary films that made

Mary Scott: 00:01:33

money, one of them actually got nominated for an Emmy. And when

Mary Scott: 00:01:38

COVID hit, I thought, Okay, I'm tired of carrying around the

Mary Scott: 00:01:42

equipment. And let's see if I can get paid for what I know

Mary Scott: 00:01:45

rather than what I do. Having had all that experience, my

Mary Scott: 00:01:50

connections and my resources are the likes of which most people

Mary Scott: 00:01:54

can't imagine. So and I've always given businesses,

Mary Scott: 00:01:59

connections and advice so that they would look good on camera

Mary Scott: 00:02:03

and be able to get more business rather than just having me

Mary Scott: 00:02:06

videotape something that that I showed up. So landed in St.

Mary Scott: 00:02:13

Louis, in the startup ecosystem, and started actually talking to

Mary Scott: 00:02:19

the various resources in the startup ecosystem, who at the

Mary Scott: 00:02:24

time, kind of vaguely knew each other was there but didn't

Mary Scott: 00:02:29

really talk to each other. Well, I'm a fan of one stop shopping,

Mary Scott: 00:02:34

I remember how hard it was, as a startup to actually get find

Mary Scott: 00:02:38

what I needed, much less get off the ground faster. So I

Mary Scott: 00:02:42

collected all the links to as much of the business of the

Mary Scott: 00:02:46

startup ecosystem as I could I put it into STL startup

Mary Scott: 00:02:50

ecosystem.org. One stop shopping, so startups can find

Mary Scott: 00:02:55

what they need here. And all the resources can know who each

Mary Scott: 00:02:59

other is. Because if you're not in the same book, well, you're

Mary Scott: 00:03:03

not on the same page, you are in the same book. Yeah, yeah. So

Mary Scott: 00:03:08

that's where that goes. And so I've been consulting and doing

Mary Scott: 00:03:12

workshops to help startup businesses be wildly successful.

Tara Bryan: 00:03:16

Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm super curious

Tara Bryan: 00:03:19

about your journey from actually going out. And and, you know,

Tara Bryan: 00:03:24

kind of being out in the field to transitioning to more of, you

Tara Bryan: 00:03:29

know, moving online or doing things that that, you know, see

Tara Bryan: 00:03:33

sort of had had to change how you were working, and package

Tara Bryan: 00:03:38

what you were doing in a different way, tell me a little

Tara Bryan: 00:03:40

bit about that experience, and what that look like and how you

Tara Bryan: 00:03:42

went from really being out there to pivoting differently and

Tara Bryan: 00:03:48

growing your business, either online or in a different way.

Mary Scott: 00:03:52

Oh, one of the first things was to get used to being

Mary Scott: 00:03:55

on camera for a change instead of buying the camera. So that

Mary Scott: 00:03:59

didn't take too long, because Zoom is a very user friendly

Mary Scott: 00:04:03

format. So not only was I able to connect with a lot of people

Mary Scott: 00:04:09

on Zoom, but because I was a video editor, I could always do

Mary Scott: 00:04:15

what I wanted to with the recordings that I made and be

Mary Scott: 00:04:19

able to edit recordings for other people as well. So that

Mary Scott: 00:04:24

was that was really useful. And the fact that we can now connect

Mary Scott: 00:04:28

globally, rather than just locally, has made a huge

Mary Scott: 00:04:32

difference as well. So those are things to just not be afraid of.

Mary Scott: 00:04:37

And if you're a little nervous. You start with Hi, I'm Mary

Mary Scott: 00:04:41

Scott, I'm new. Tell me about you. Yeah, yep. And let the

Mary Scott: 00:04:46

other person tell you who they are and what they need. And that

Mary Scott: 00:04:50

way, you're not just telling them what you can do. You're

Mary Scott: 00:04:53

telling them what you can do for them. It's, it's ultimately it's

Mary Scott: 00:04:58

all about customers. ervice

Tara Bryan: 00:05:01

I love how you pivoted from being behind the

Tara Bryan: 00:05:04

camera to on camera and then showing up and helping your

Tara Bryan: 00:05:07

people. And, and solving that that need. That's awesome. So

Tara Bryan: 00:05:12

give us some tips. So if somebody is, you know, just

Tara Bryan: 00:05:15

thinking about maybe packaging their expertise and, and getting

Tara Bryan: 00:05:19

started for the first time and growing their business, like

Tara Bryan: 00:05:23

give us a couple of tips for how they can start thinking about

Tara Bryan: 00:05:26

getting started.

Mary Scott: 00:05:27

Okay, well, I'll tell you tips in the context of

Mary Scott: 00:05:32

three of the top 10 Mistakes startups make. First thing you

Mary Scott: 00:05:36

have to do is validate the idea, whatever product service thing

Mary Scott: 00:05:40

you want to do, ask people if they think it's a good idea. And

Mary Scott: 00:05:46

ask people if they would be willing to pay for you, for your

Mary Scott: 00:05:52

idea for your product for your service. Ask people who know

Mary Scott: 00:05:56

you, and then get some bravery and go present to an

Mary Scott: 00:06:02

organization like 1 Million Cups where you can ask total

Mary Scott: 00:06:06

strangers the same questions. Is this a good idea is Am I on the

Mary Scott: 00:06:11

right track? And would people be willing to pay? How much would

Mary Scott: 00:06:15

they be willing to pay for this thing? The second part is to

Mary Scott: 00:06:19

really know your market. Who's what problem does this solve?

Mary Scott: 00:06:25

And know really specifically what problem verify that that is

Mary Scott: 00:06:30

an actual problem. And that this solves that problem. Now, this

Mary Scott: 00:06:36

may also solve other problems. So that's a nice place to do

Mary Scott: 00:06:40

some brainstorming. And once you have validated your idea, and

Mary Scott: 00:06:45

you have a really good idea where the market is, make a

Mary Scott: 00:06:49

business plan, every community has something called the Small

Mary Scott: 00:06:54

Business Development Centers, they're at usually located on

Mary Scott: 00:06:58

university campuses, it's the SBDC. They're funded by the

Mary Scott: 00:07:02

Small Business Administration. So it's free services, and they

Mary Scott: 00:07:06

will help you create a business plan. So use that service.

Tara Bryan: 00:07:13

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great advice.

Tara Bryan: 00:07:16

Everybody do that, before you go out and start selling your

Tara Bryan: 00:07:19

thing. Because most of the time, right, and Mary, I'm sure you've

Tara Bryan: 00:07:23

dealt with this before in helping people is they go out

Tara Bryan: 00:07:27

and try and or they they spend all this time building the

Tara Bryan: 00:07:29

thing, before they've even asked if it's actually something that

Tara Bryan: 00:07:32

people will pay for it, or if it's something that solves a

Tara Bryan: 00:07:36

specific problem. So do your homework. First, make sure that

Tara Bryan: 00:07:41

people liked the idea and that they're willing to pay for it.

Tara Bryan: 00:07:45

That's key. What we do in in Learn Academy, which is one of

Tara Bryan: 00:07:48

our signature programs of teaching people how to create

Tara Bryan: 00:07:51

package and sell their online courses is like, don't build it

Tara Bryan: 00:07:55

first, right? Like, make sure that you're finding not like

Tara Bryan: 00:07:59

your mom and dad or your friends or your spouse, don't ask them

Tara Bryan: 00:08:04

if they like it, ask somebody who needs it, and then see if

Tara Bryan: 00:08:07

they're gonna pull out their credit card. If they don't, then

Tara Bryan: 00:08:09

you've got to keep honing in on what your idea is. So I love

Tara Bryan: 00:08:12

that. Because I think that the misnomer is you just can just go

Tara Bryan: 00:08:17

and throw it out there. And, and get started. So I love

Mary Scott: 00:08:22

to do a Google search. Make sure that nobody

Mary Scott: 00:08:25

else has this already. Right? Or if they do you have a better

Mary Scott: 00:08:29

version? Or if they have something similar. Maybe you

Mary Scott: 00:08:34

should collaborate, right? That's a good hole founders do

Mary Scott: 00:08:39

much better in the Success space than single founders. Right?

Tara Bryan: 00:08:45

That's so good. Awesome. Well, Mary, give us one

Tara Bryan: 00:08:48

like tool or resource or something that you can't live

Tara Bryan: 00:08:52

without as you are running and building your business.

Mary Scott: 00:08:56

I can't live without my CRM, that's a customer

Mary Scott: 00:09:00

relationship management system, CRM, there are a ton of them out

Mary Scott: 00:09:05

there. Some of them are, you know, $150 a month, the one I

Mary Scott: 00:09:08

use is $15 a month. And it's a way to keep your contacts and

Mary Scott: 00:09:16

all the things you do with them in one place. It connects with

Mary Scott: 00:09:20

your calendar, it connects with your scheduler, it connects with

Mary Scott: 00:09:24

your email, it connects with your your contacts, your phone,

Mary Scott: 00:09:30

text messages, so that all the notes about whomever you talk to

Mary Scott: 00:09:36

are in one spot with them.

Tara Bryan: 00:09:38

Yeah, that's smart. You use Mary,

Mary Scott: 00:09:41

I use less annoying CRM. That's what that's what

Mary Scott: 00:09:46

it's called. It was surprising to me because they're actually a

Mary Scott: 00:09:50

startup in St. Louis. They're only about 10 or 12 years old

Mary Scott: 00:09:53

now. And I was one of their early adopters. So I love these

Mary Scott: 00:09:57

guys. The best thing about less annoying so CRM apart from the

Mary Scott: 00:10:01

fact that it's reasonably nice is that you can get a hold of

Mary Scott: 00:10:06

tech support practically within an hour. Oh, that's sending them

Mary Scott: 00:10:12

an email, you will get an email back really quickly. If you need

Mary Scott: 00:10:16

to get somebody on the phone, you will get somebody on the

Mary Scott: 00:10:19

phone pretty quickly, like within the day or two, they'll

Mary Scott: 00:10:24

be on the phone with you and they can talk you through stuff.

Mary Scott: 00:10:28

They're amazing. They're so customer service oriented. It's

Mary Scott: 00:10:32

wonderful.

Tara Bryan: 00:10:33

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that name. I

Tara Bryan: 00:10:35

will such a sucker for any really good name. And so I'll

Tara Bryan: 00:10:41

have to go check them out. But go check them out. Mary

Tara Bryan: 00:10:43

recommends them see her CRM. It's fabulous. All right, Mary,

Mary Scott: 00:10:47

I'm happy to share links to the CRM and to I have a

Mary Scott: 00:10:52

downloadable for free that's called set up your business

Mary Scott: 00:10:56

legally in 10. Easy Steps.

Tara Bryan: 00:10:58

Perfect. That's what I was gonna ask is how can our

Tara Bryan: 00:11:00

listeners get a hold of you? So that's great. We'll put those in

Tara Bryan: 00:11:03

the show notes and and make sure that you're able to get that

Tara Bryan: 00:11:06

information from Mary. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mary for

Tara Bryan: 00:11:10

joining us today. It was great to have you as a guest on the