00:00:17Welcome to the third pedal, podcast recorded at the Vandal Lounge. In beautiful Southeast Portland, Oregon, why the third pedal because even the most badass entrepreneurs gets stuck up and Business Management. Consultant, Jennifer McFarland is your third paddle, helping you get unstuck.

00:01:02On days, when I create the most space, my productivity is up. And I feel deeply connected to things. Much more significant than anything I could find on a smartphone. So, question is, are you ready to emerge from the digital fog? Go to Jen mcfarlane.com ebooks and get digital trade-offs, which is the journal I created for myself, to see if my time was aligned with my biggest goals. I think you're going to want to check it out, dere is the founder of Carvel digital and agency that helps mission-driven service-based businesses, automate, their marketing to create a predictable sales pipeline. She's a regular speaker at WordPress. Meetup sand, word camps, and has been featured on podcast, such as the Kim Doyal show and the out entrepreneur with Rhodes Perry. Her latest project is content bootcamp a 10-week online intensive to teach overwhelmed entrepreneurs how to create and use content as an asset that saves time and sells for you. When she's not working. She can be found in joy.

00:02:22So I'm going to practice this answer by telling you that I can tell you what it was like for me a black gay woman living in Portland, Oregon to work in an agency.

00:02:52And there was a lot of BS just going to, I'm just going to wrap it all in that. I was eventually fired for quote, unquote culture fit, which I interpret to mean that my boss really wanted a bunch of young white dudes. He could work 80 hours a week on a salary.

00:04:00I don't have to go back there. Whatever happens next. It's going to be better.

00:04:40I'm so well that leads into the next question. Can you talk a little bit about what it means to be a recovering WordPress developer?

00:04:50When I started out, I basically would make websites for anybody who could pay me and I was very anti growth. In terms of, I didn't ever want to hire people. I thought that sounded messy. I just wanted to code into the sunset, and what I found is that

00:06:12Turn of trying to get closer and closer to the root problems that I see people having, I mean, I think you identified several problems. Like you certainly don't want your website hacked which by the way, if you don't ever update plugins and code is what happens sidebar, but the biggest thing is you can have a totally ugly website and that doesn't matter if you have great content and updating. It is so true and you can have no website even and if you have great content and great and you, you know how to talk to people, you know how to sell, you can still have a business and you know, as someone who does really love websites and really loves good website as it pains me a little say that but I know people who are making 10-20-30 came out, they don't have a website they don't you know, or their website is a one-page, you know, whatever. But it's the relationships that are able to build it's the fact that they have a great offer like there's so many other things that are

00:07:22Absolutely, although I am a big proponent of websites, just because if you're making all your money off of social media and they changed, something could be totally screwed, but that's a whole other discussion. Probably, but I do acknowledge there. A lot of people making a lot of money just because they know how to talk to sell. And I also think everyone should have a website but depending on your resources when you should do that. It is different for different people. Totally. So we worked together at open house and before that it was NXT and we both gone through like a lot of changes in our business like this. You were a WordPress developer when I met you. So now I just watch you and it just looks like you have like everything unlocked, right? So and you're giggling when I say that, but what do you do when you get stuck out of projects or in business?

00:08:58So, when I get stuck, I not only have a person, I have, you know, whole communities of people that I can go to who are super bad ass and have probably been through whatever I'm going through, you know, but ten times worse and say, hey, the sky is falling by. Do I'm happy to report that happens less and less where, you know, disasters are happening. But so I always have resources and I have fewer problems because of the networks that I'm in the communities that I meant, you know, I see that they're actively saying, look, these are the potholes that you're headed for. You. Wanted to go left or right?

00:09:52The internet for a lot of for a long time. Well, I mean, I have a I have a post on my blog. That's like how I learned to run a successful business so you can see all the people that I've followed for the first two years, my business. And yeah, it's really just I don't even remember the last of the, the one I meant currently. It was probably a Facebook ad or something or, or a podcast that I went down the rabbit hole and listen to the content for a while and read their stuff was like, oh these guys definitely know what they're doing. And so by the time I got to the point of like watching a webinar and getting on a call, with somebody might go, if I if I take this step, I'm going to, I'm going to do this because it makes too much sense not to. So but yeah, you have to, you know, depending on your

00:10:58I think so, but I appreciate the most about what you just explained is the need to research it out and spend a lot of time because one of the things that I still find, so shocking, even though I shouldn't be surprised is how many charlatans there are out there who are just so fake and selling their widget, but they have no earthly idea what they're doing.

00:11:46Yeah, you definitely want to do your research and you want to talk to people who, you know, have gone down that path. I remember one of my one of my business but he's now a post of hers came up in the Facebook group. You're she was like, I don't know, this seems too good to be true, like that is this real? And there were all these comments from people who are already at. And that post is I think probably a year old. At least now, she's, you know, she's in, she's doing amazing, you know, she's killing it. And so to see that from people to be able to go and see, like, oh, these are all the people who have been helped by the Smiths person or this organization and then just decide like, are you going to do the work? Cuz that's that's the other key factor and if you're not willing to do, what they're asking you to do, then you can't be mad if you don't get the results, exactly.

00:13:39It's hard. I mean, I'm a lifelong researcher. So like I can totally go down the path. Like that's what I did professionally. Like people be like resources project and and let us know what how much you think it'll cost and what it would look like. And then I realized that, I spent probably a lot, a lot of the first year, like, I was trying to do it and now I've been like, yeah, I know. That's just that doesn't work. Yeah, and you know, I know people who are in The Mastermind that I'm in who didn't have a business when they joined, they literally gotten so that they could have someone who had been down the road validate their offer, teach them how to go out and put that to the marketplace and now, you know, and now they have a business within a couple of months so you don't, you know, basically Fortune favours action take her. Absolutely. One of the biggest things I've learned is in perfect action.

00:15:38Down the road. Like I said something that is going to be around. Is it going to be supported? Is it going to grow? And I got, I got just the best testimonial from a client of mine recently, where she talked about this because she doesn't have her products, not done yet, but she really went all-in and invested in her website. And then, you know, a CRM and really dialing in her marketing and social media, and she gets questioned about that from Venture capitalists because she's trying to get funding, but she wanted to have control over her branding In Her Image in her communication and her marketing. And she talked to so many people who now that they have, you know, ten thousand people in their CRM. They're trying to find another one because it's not working the way, you know, and she said, didn't you think about, didn't you think that you would grow? And didn't you imagine this point? And I think many people do not do that until you have to, you have to match.

00:16:48Actually, I want to say one more thing about that. That's not about software. And that's just in terms of making business decisions. For instance. The Mastermind that I joined recently liked that was a pretty big investment and it wasn't like I had that sitting around and so I have to weigh that in terms of. Okay. What is this? What is it going to do? If I, if I join with these people, in my I take the shortcut basically that they're offering based on their expertise or if I slog through and I do it on my own and what's, what's the opportunity cost of that? And so even though, you know, it might be a struggle. I made that decision to jump in. That is totally paid off. Like, I literally 4X to my income in a couple of months from doing what I was told. And so one of the things I said recently on social media was, can you if you want to be a millionaire, can you make million-dollar decisions when your bank account?

00:18:05Don't become do and then half. I agree. I've jumped into coaching situation than groups that I couldn't afford and it was what got me where I am now. And now I'm looking for a new place to go with people who are like 10, 20 steps ahead of me, but I needed that first group so that I could get over the hump on some of my own struggles with sales is actually my my place and I felt like I needed to do that so I could get where I wanted to be because otherwise I was going to be just struggling sales all the time and not being able to have any conversations. So I think that's totally true. You have to look at the future and sometimes it's going to cost you a fuck ton of money, get there. But if you do, like you said, if you do what you're told and you do the research beforehand then

00:19:10So you tell the listeners about you work? Yeah. So what I'm doing now is a Content bootcamp and I named it a boot camp specifically because it's very implementation oriented. It's not about sitting around taking in a bunch of video lessons. So it's 10 weeks. It's 10 weeks inside of the group. And there are there are some trainings. But that the goal is basically to teach service-based business owners. How to use content to sell and how to treat your content as an asset. That's going to actually produced for you long term. And I've talked to so many business owners who are so strapped for time. There's they're struggling with their revenue and they don't have time to blog or they don't have time to create content and they'll say the same thing a thousand times.

00:20:48When she was actually one of the last websites we launched as well. So I've actually been working with her for probably 4 or 5 months and just seeing her growth as a person. And as a business owner, like her confidence level, from going through this process, and from starting to put herself out, there has been amazing. And so that's, that's really cool to see, like, it's one thing to, you know, make a website and handed over to somebody. But to actually Empower them to have a skill and have confidence to go out and Market themselves that they're going to take with them, you know, forever. That's really cool. One of our members.

00:22:22And, you know, one of the things that one of my students said, was, you know, I have a call with people to say to see, like, what are your goals for the next ten weeks together. And she's like, my goal is to figure out how I can just stay here and keep marching. So that's also an option. But you don't like anything's. Some people are going to come in blazing and die off, you know, afterwards and some people are going to come in and they're going to really soaked and what they learn and really take action and make it, let me know a part of their business and a part of their routine. And and without consistency you just can't win long-term business. So the people who win are going to be the ones who are consistent and its people always ask me if you know, how often should I post. Then? I say whatever you can keep up consistently. It's way better to post once a week or two or three times a week. And keep that going. Then it is to post every day for a week and then disappear.

00:24:20Yep, and the things that you put out, you know, when you start are still valuable to people, so that's the nice thing is that, you know, you could go. I've been blogging for 6 years off and on and so you can go and you can see the evolution of that.

00:25:35Put that in the show notes. So how can people get in touch with you? You can pretty much just Google my first name and find out what Carvel digital.com on all the all the platforms professionally. So website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and then coronavirus calm. It's my personal blog, mostly neglected, but well, now mostly dog updates, so we better. Yeah, so, but yeah, those those two places on all the, all the, all the platforms. Can I just say how much I have like name and be because you've got you, you've got like domains. You got it all like just conquered cuz you have such a unique name. Yeah, I couldn't get my first name on Instagram. So I had to put my middle initial in their butt. But, yeah, most places I can get my name. Yeah. It's pretty sweet.

00:27:35Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me.