Riding Tandem

Vivian Kvam (00:01.966)
All right, back for part two. Yeah. Had to take a quick break. Okay. I love how we talked a lot about preconceived notions about entrepreneurism and what that's actually looked like thus far. And I think if we fast forward 10 years from now, had the same conversation, we'd probably say some similar things, but some new things for sure. Yeah. That's important. One of the things we've also talked about over our coffees is shiny object syndrome.

especially when you're an idea person, which entrepreneurs are, there's always a, could do this and I could do this, or I could offer this or this product or this service, or maybe I'll take it this direction. so I'm talk about that a little bit. How do we, how do we navigate that? How do you navigate that? How do I navigate that when there are lots of ideas and that's a important piece of being an entrepreneur. but not get stuck in just talking about ideas and never

doing them. So for me, I want to make sure I'm talking about ideas of products that I could or services that I could provide. And I look at that differently than the iteration of who I'm Because both of those have changed for me. As far as products, I am an idea person in ways that I can serve folks. And that served me really well.

in corporate America. Because I would have these ideas, this is a great idea. And I would give that to someone on my team, give this idea to someone on my team, give that idea. And we would create these amazing opportunities for people that we served inside of the organization. But man, when you're on your own.

I think every idea I have is the best idea I've ever had. It's like in the moment. You know what I mean? I'm I'm building a website. We're making a webpage. Get the emails out. This is going to revolutionize everything. Yeah. Right. Finally figured it out. Yeah. And so I dive head first into it. And then what happens is another idea comes and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is even fantastic. And there's energy. There's an energy that's around a new idea.

Vivian Kvam (02:22.274)
Right? When you have the old idea, now it's not an idea anymore, now it's work. Now you're bringing it to life. Now it's tasks. Now it's staying up late. It's looking at the computer when your eyes are tired. It's trying to bring it to life. It's much more fun to sit inside of a new idea. A new idea comes. And the temptation for me is to set the old idea aside.

and the work aside and really bask in this new idea. Get excited about it. Dream about everything it could be. Brainstorm all of the different ways that it could impact and change people's lives. then you're like, okay, so how would I bring this to life? And you start creating your steps. Okay, got my tasks in order, right? And then you begin to dive into that. And all of a sudden another idea comes up and you're like, oh, that's much, I would much rather sit inside of that idea.

then sit inside this one, this one's work now. And before you know it, from my experience, I would have three or four different ideas sitting there, half-baked, half-started. And all I did was jump around to the next new idea, because the new idea is so exciting to me. And that's where I was really challenged for a while on how to set those things aside and so forth.

I can struggle with that. Totally. Really? Michaela and I actually, a couple of different reasons, but one of them being the ideas reason we chose to start using telegram as a way for like a messaging system between us and between our team versus just texting each other, which is what we used to do. And part of that, one of the reasons for that was because,

ideas would pop up and come and so then I would type it all out and so excited everything and blast it off and at same time you're making like personal plans and it would become overwhelming right you can overwhelm people with your ideas too and also I've noticed too like having a business partner she has her ideas I have my ideas and we'll bounce them around it can start to become very overwhelming

Vivian Kvam (04:45.562)
because it can look like, my gosh, we're shifting and I'm not sure I'm ready to shift into that idea yet. When in fact, they might just be to your point, exercising an idea out basking in the fun of the idea. And that was one the things that we've had to talk a little bit about is, how those ideas pop up, how we're going to choose which ones to follow and which ones are just fun to share because it does keep the spark going in it.

and it makes for good conversation and it sparks the next one. But I have definitely found they can cause a bit of chaos internally because you are jumping from one thing to another. But also with a business partner or with having a team in our case, if we're constantly look like we're jumping from idea to idea, that can be hard for everyone to follow along with like, wait, are we doing this? Are we doing that? What are we doing? When in my mind I'm like, no, it's just an idea.

So that has been an interesting dynamic with having a business partner and a small team as well. As I've had to learn to go, I might just bet this idea out on my own for a while and then really see where it lands before I start sharing it. Yeah, for me, it's certainly been about discipline, right? Learning. So a while back, I'm going to let the listeners in on a conversation you and I had.

And this comes from, I'll go as deep with this as you want me to, but we had had a conversation about the rule of five for entrepreneurs. And that comes from my leadership life. Can I, can I explain it a little bit just to get some context? So it comes from John Maxwell, who is a renowned leadership speaker, trainer, and so forth.

and he talks about the rule of five. And the rule of five give you an analogy. There's a tree in your front yard or backyard, it doesn't matter. It needs to be cut down. And you've got to go out there and you cut this tree down. Now, if we tackle that tree like we tackle many of our problems, we're going to rush out there and we're going to go crazy on it, right? Pause. Todd.

Vivian Kvam (07:08.91)
Does one go by while we're not recording? No, no it does not.

Vivian Kvam (07:17.772)
You know, so like first the second one. Well, it's not quite gone yet.

Vivian Kvam (07:25.87)
Okay. So there's a tree in your front yard that needs to get cut down. And if we attack that tree, like we attack most of our tasks or jobs or responsibilities, we're going to run out there and we're going to go to town on that tree. Okay. We're going to go to town on it. We're going to hit that tree 50, 75, a hundred times, right? Next day, we're going to go out there and we're going to hit it again. Third day again, fourth day again. Before you know it, we're only hitting it once or twice.

Before you know it, we're not even going back out there, right? Because that tree is just not falling. It's taking a while. So the rule of five says, if you can figure out five things you do, and you do them every day, the tree will fall. So for instance, I go out on day one and I hit the tree five times. Put the axe down, come back inside. Day two, five times. What's eventually going to happen to that tree? It's going to fall. There's no debate. There's no questions.

Now we can talk about how long it's going to take. That depends on how big the tree is, but the tree is going to fall. So the rule of five, if you can figure out your five things, if you want to be, if you want to be a great parent, figure out the five things that you need to do every day to be a great parent and do those things every day. If you want to be a leader, come up with five things that you need to do. You want to be a supervisor, five things you need to do. John Maxwell talks about

the rule of five as a writer, because he writes a lot. What are the five things he does every single day? And he has a joke, right? People say, what do you do on Christmas? I do the five things every day. Right. Right. So you do those five things every day, eventually you're going to win. And I wondered in our conversation here a back, is there five things for entrepreneurs? What if we could highlight the rule of five?

for entrepreneurs and that entrepreneurs, if they could do these five things every day, every day, they would be successful. The challenge is coming up with the right five things. You may think you have them and then you get involved in entrepreneurship and you realize, this really isn't the, I mean, need to change this one. Number four, it isn't working or so forth, right? So I played around, I tell you all that to tell you this, I played around with the rule of five for entrepreneurs.

Vivian Kvam (09:51.454)
One of them that I have on a list is called prioritize right. And I think as entrepreneurs, one of the challenges that we have is we don't always prioritize in the right way. So we're talking about having all of these different ideas and we can get into trouble when we're not prioritizing the right idea. For sure. We have all of these different ideas. Each one is powerful. Each one is game changing. Each one can impact our business.

in a ton of different ways. We don't lose the idea, we write them down, we keep them. But what idea do we need to be working on today? That's what we need to focus on. Likewise, in entrepreneurship, think sometimes we... So I love reading and building stuff around leadership. Well, I would much rather do that than come up with marketing materials, making cold calls, doing all of those things, right? But maybe those are the things that I need.

to be doing. So I think as an entrepreneur, we have to prioritize in the right way. And that's one of the things that I had listed. And I think it kind of paints a really good picture for having all of these different ideas. That's wonderful. It's what's going to make you successful is having all of those ideas. Those ideas are what's going to make your business grow. But being able to manage those ideas and prioritize them is what's really going to help you become successful, I think.

Do you, have you found you've been able to start prioritizing them? Oh yes. the squirrels slow down a little bit or are you able to help direct your squirrels a little better? Yeah, I'm always gonna be an idea person. I'm always gonna have tons of ideas. I started using ChatGPT and you can create projects in ChatGPT. Yeah. So I just start storing my ideas inside of ChatGPT with these different projects.

and understanding what I need to work on. It's just that that's about me being more disciplined as an entrepreneur. I've had to learn that. When I first started, I don't know that I had the discipline that was required to be successful as an entrepreneur. now I need to have that. I have to capture the ideas when I have them, but really stay focused on what I'm working on and what I'm trying to bring to life.

Vivian Kvam (12:15.84)
Otherwise I just ended up with a lot of like things that are halfway started. And nothing's ever come to market or, or seen, seen it come to life, know? Yeah. The prioritization I think is huge. Yeah. And we've fallen into the trap here before too of, because there is more than one of us feeling like we might have more capacity than we do. I mean, even when it's just an individual, you can feel like you have more capacity, right?

But whereas the business, we've had more priorities housed under the business because there's multiples of us where we've gone, okay, well that's fine because Michaela will head up this priority and Vivian will head up this priority and Jenny will head up this priority. So really we can have three priorities. And what I have definitely learned is that's not true. You really can only have one priority at a time. Now you can stack.

them and go priority one, two, three, four, et cetera. But the business itself has to have priorities. It's kind of its own person, its own entity. And thinking of it that way, which I think is really important, especially with businesses like ours who we have more than one brand. So the brands have different priorities. And for some businesses, they have different departments, et cetera. And so it can be really easy.

to have lots of ideas spread across your various departments or your different brands or your different product lines, let's say, and think, well, that's fine because they can each have their own priorities, but forget to trickle it all back up to what is the main priority here? And that has definitely been a lesson that I think I've been learning in doing.

a lot better at, but still in process. We've definitely tried to pursue too many things at once and have found that has definitely stripped us of the power of less. But you don't want to kill the idea generation. That's where I think people struggle in entrepreneurism too. They're like, well, I left.

Vivian Kvam (14:37.58)
my corporate world because I felt stagnant and too stuck in on one thing and I want to have the flexibility. So one of the things that has been helpful for us is to set aside time. Like this is the discipline thing, right? To discipline yourself to set aside the time to go, this is designated idea time. And it doesn't mean ideas can't pop up other places, but this is for sure here.

so that we can have those ideas and really cool things come out of that. And one of the places we do that is in our same page meeting, which we do once a month. Basically we lock ourselves in a room, we try to go off site. And what we do is we put all of the issues and ideas up. I've been thinking about this, I've been thinking about that. And that has been really helpful for us because we're not bombarding each other where then we can start to feel like, my gosh, maybe, maybe Kayla doesn't want to do this anymore. You know, that starts to create all kinds of...

of doubts and fears versus I just want to hash this out with you. I want to share this idea and see where it goes. And if it never leaves this room, that's okay. You know, we had room for that. And if it does leave the room and turns into something, that's all right too. But now we know what we're working into our priorities. Do you think, do you think a challenge that many of us face is we run to entrepreneurship

Chasing actually freedom. We talked about that before. We chase freedom. So the idea of discipline is counterintuitive, right? It's not, that's not what I ran to this for. I ran here because I wanted to do whatever I want to do today. I want to work on whatever I want to work on today. I want to focus on whatever I want today. And I think we forget that our business is like this living creature that needs to be fed.

but it needs to be fed the right food. Not just whatever you want to feed it. needs to be fed like the right kind of food at the right moment. And that's where we have to become disciplined. I thought of that while I was listening to you that I think maybe that was a piece of it for me is my life had been so disciplined. 20 years in the military, very disciplined life.

Vivian Kvam (17:00.878)
leading teams and so forth outside of the military, very disciplined. We set goals. We knew what we wanted to do. We'd get them done. We won everywhere we went. And then I ran into entrepreneurship and I really did feel like I am free. And I really, I wonder, I kind of was like, well, this is cool. I get to do whatever I want. This is what I want to focus on today. And it was fun.

But it wasn't productive. It didn't grow the business at all. yeah, think learning that discipline as an entrepreneur has been key for me. Do you think that we run towards it for freedom at times, you think? Well, I mean, there's a little bit of, think about kids, right? Where they think that they just want absolute freedom. Do whatever, watch TV all day and eat junk food and have every friend over and all that. But we know that

at some point they would actually crumble and it would be a huge solving mess, right? And I think that's just, that's the human nature in there of I want what I want and I want it now. And yet there are boundaries and parameters put in place to keep us from danger. It really is to keep us from danger and the danger within entrepreneurism of just having absolute freedom without discipline and

a complete, you know, don't tell me what to do. The danger is that your business dies, you know, and, and that doesn't give freedom then. And it really is that the discipline and freedom live together. when you can have the structure and discipline to do things that actually frees you to do more. Think about that with like, finances and budgeting when you can.

stick and be disciplined to that. Now suddenly you have the funds and the freedom to know, well, this is what I have to spend and I always spend, but people will look at a budget and go, that's, sounds terrible. It's awful. You mentioned how kids want those things. I remember we, my daughter went to stay with her grandma for several weeks. It was quite a while, three weeks, maybe four weeks. And when we went back, we went down to pick her up. She whispered to me and her mom,

Vivian Kvam (19:24.041)
because they had just done whatever they wanted. They ate whatever they wanted. They ate pizza, popcorn, they ate out. They had a great time like you're supposed to have with grandma. And I'm sure when she went down there, she was like, this is going to be it, man. I'm going to a great time. But then when we got her, she was like, I really need a vegetable. I guess not to sound too corny, our businesses need their vegetables. I know that sounds silly, but yeah, I think we have to be somewhat disciplined. That definitely makes sense in that.

in the space of the ideas. Also too, just like having space to have the idea, flesh it out and be okay with yes, I'm going to do it or no, I'm not. And being able to then take it to the task piece. I really like how you were talking about that of it is so nice to live in that space of, this is fun and this would be cool. And then you get the task list together.

How do you keep yourself disciplined?

over the past two years with what you're doing? Well, let me get this out because I just heard this in my head as we're talking about ideas. I'm just working this out, folks, so bear with me here. don't think our businesses are successful based off of the number of ideas we have. They're successful based off of

the idea that we bring to life. And I think that's been an important lesson for me is because I have a ton of different ideas. You can have 50 ideas, wonderful ideas. If you don't ever bring any of them to market, your business isn't going to be successful. You can have only one idea. One. You can be like, man, I'm just not an idea person. I thought of one idea and you bring it to market and you could be successful off of that.

Vivian Kvam (21:22.646)
So I had to get that out of my head. How have I done it? It's a daily ritual, right? It really is a daily kind of mindset that I have to approach and a reminder because I am instinctively this creative person that wants to go create and work on other things. I have to remind myself, this is what you're doing today. Like I have to be disciplined about when I'm going to sit down and...

when I'm going to work on this and then reward myself. You do this at the end of the day, you can work on whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. You can turn on the television and get lost in a program while you work on something if you want. But you have to be disciplined first. And it really is setting that expectation for myself on a daily occurrence for me. That's what's happened for me. And then recognizing what gets in the way of it.

If TV gets in the way of it, then get away from a TV. Like some people can work fantastic at home. Other people can't. If you need to, and you don't have an office, but you need to get out of the house, then go to a coffee shop, go to a library, go somewhere where those distractions are away from you. That's part of being disciplined is knowing who you are and what gets in the way of you doing what you need to do.

If the family's at the house and they're distracting, go away, go find yourself, let them know, listen, I got to work on my business right now. I'm just knowing yourself and setting those expectations again, has helped me tremendously. I have found that too. And one of the things for me right now, which in some ways I'm going to say, I feel embarrassed to say, because this did not used to be a struggle for me.

So just thinking about how things change and how even being disciplined in one stage of life might mean a certain set and at another stage of life might mean a different set of disciplines is just getting out of bed when the alarm goes off. And it's kind of hard for me to even say that because probably two-ish years ago, that was not an issue for me. That was a...

Vivian Kvam (23:46.67)
alarm goes off, I'm out of bed. I was very disciplined about that, up early hours. And what I'm finding now is one of the disciplines I need to have is I can't succumb to that pleasure, if you will, because it's not actually pleasurable to me in the end. So it's one of those eat your vegetables that has changed for me. That was an easy vegetable to eat before, and now it has become difficult. Yeah, when I left

my job and dove into this world. I was sleeping in, which was rare for me. But yeah, sleeping into like, know, eight is sleeping in for me, but I might see an eight o'clock and I thought, man, entrepreneurship is amazing. Like this is fantastic. And then, you know, as I matured into this, I began to realize this isn't working for you. Yeah. You've got to get up. You know why? Because I'm my, I am my most alert.

and most productive in the mornings. Now we're all different. Some of us are more alert and productive in the afternoons, evenings, whatever the case may be. My peak times are in the morning and in the evening. Middle of the day, I really hit like a lull. But my decisions need to be made in the mornings and in the evenings. That's when I'm most creative. So I was trading away my productive time for what I perceived as some kind of reward.

and now I'm up at, you know, five, five 30 every day. and go downstairs and get on my computer and I start creating, start writing, I start getting myself together for the day. One of the, areas that Michaela always is a good reminder to me and everyone that we encounter is the whole concept of like doing the things you like the least first. That way it is just cleared and out of the way.

which then again, thinking about these ideas, it leaves room for more ideas then, right? You get those done, it's taken care of, and then you can go, okay, now I've got the room to play and let an idea go because I know that the vegetable part, I'm liking this apparently, the vegetable part, is done. Like it's just done and now it can be a play space. And that's important to have. But why don't we talk about this as entrepreneurs?

Vivian Kvam (26:10.846)
I got to tell you, I never heard any of these conversations from anybody when I was talking about entrepreneurship. I didn't hear about this kind of stuff. didn't, everything was, I'm trying to think the conversations were just about, you know what they were really, they were really surface level. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is going great. Some folks would tell me how much money they're making and everything is wonderful and life is grand. And I thought, man.

I wish I had the courage to live a great life like that. I never heard anyone talk to me about, here's your challenge when you dive into entrepreneurship. And maybe there are those books out there that talk about that and I just never read them, but it was all new for me. It's hard to hold yourself accountable. I think it's much easier to allow someone else to hold you accountable because then there's someone else to blame.

And when you're your own boss, there is no one else to blame. And so.

I'm just thinking about this. think that's sometimes why we will dwell in the idea world versus in the, I've chosen idea and I'm going to execute on it because so long as I stay in the comfortable world of generating ideas, there's no ownership yet. There's nothing, there's no one in charge of it because it's still just an idea. There's also no, no risk of failure. There's no risk of failure. It's not out there in the world yet. one. And gosh, that is huge.

There have been so many times where we've put out something new, right? I knew we had the idea, we did execute on it, we thought this is gonna be great, we're gonna do, I like a model, so I'll build out a financial model on that. Here's the pricing, and if we sell 10 of these packages and three of these packages and that, I get it figured out. And we put it out there, and nobody signs up.

Vivian Kvam (28:18.094)
Right? Or you get a fraction of the number that you think you're going to or you with my watercolors that I do, you you order thinking, you know how many pieces of product that you're going to need that you show up in it, you know, it's framed out. You don't sell it. And just to go, was the idea wrong? Do I need to give the idea up? But then also the piece of that is an I own it now.

Right? So there's that piece that could feel really uncomfortable. I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck then and give up. Is they'll go, well, this one failed and that one failed or didn't do what I wanted. So I must be wrong. Oh, absolutely. You know, I think I have to backtrack a little bit. In our previous conversation, we talked about my first venture into entrepreneurship and it dawns on me. It wasn't, it actually was in 2020.

During COVID, my company got the company I was a part of fabulous organization, but they got hit really hard with COVID and they got purchased and they laid everybody off. So I lost my job during COVID and I started a coaching program called Maximizing You and created the great art for it. And I had, I just knew like, this is it.

Yeah. This is it. Because it's so good. That's it. And I talked about it on social media and everybody, you know, was just like, Casey, this is going to be fantastic. Jump into it. So I launched it. Two people signed up. Yeah. Only one person attended. It was virtual learning. So I would get on calls and so forth with people and only one person attended. And I thought, a failure.

Terrible idea. Terrible idea. Terrible Terrible idea. I've set my, I have this idea. You know how some authors will write three or four books and then all of a sudden they write a book that just goes crazy. And then all of a sudden those other three or four books are really popular again. Yeah. Cause I think every idea also has a time. Yes. I'm going to relaunch maximizing you one of these days, whenever the time is right. And it's going to be, it'll be successful. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (30:44.446)
and I will, I will privately laugh to myself. Yeah. The timing being right for an idea is a really good concept. for sure. I can see that I was, I was actually digging through, Michaela had asked me, for a form of PDF that we needed to print and try and find the file. Right. And so I'm in my Google drive for a brand that we don't operate anymore.

And I'm just searching in there and all these documents pop up, right? And it was ideas. was a workshop idea. was a product idea that there were just all these documents came up and I was like, huh, you remember when we had that idea, this idea. And that did strike me at that point where I was like, I'm glad these are still here because I could see someday the timing being right. Yeah. And I love that of thinking through the timing being right.

I know a friend of ours who had launched a business It was location specific so they it was an entertainment kind of type of business restaurant bar type of thing and they launched in a Specific area of town that was up and coming but the timing just wasn't right, right? Now in that same area of town. Everything is booming and so I think there is that

timing being right, that is huge. Yeah, I wonder, like that's the way entrepreneurs look at the world, is they understand timing in a way that maybe others don't. I'm thinking about how parents, when I became a parent, the way I viewed the world changed. When I began to wear the uniform of the Air Force,

my view of the world changed. When I left the military, my view of the world changed. And when I became an entrepreneur, the way I viewed the world changed. I see in job ads, right? Looking for a person with an entrepreneurial spirit. And I've always really wondered, what does that mean? And I'm beginning to wonder, does it mean the way they look at the world?

Vivian Kvam (33:12.684)
Because entrepreneurs have a unique relationship with failure, with success, with ideas, with discipline. A successful entrepreneur has a unique relationship with all of those things. They view the world just a little bit differently. Failure to an entrepreneur isn't the end of the story. That's just one step closer to winning. I have to go through a certain amount of failures. I have to hear a certain amount of no's before I hear my yes. Entrepreneurs understand that.

entrepreneurs understand, this idea didn't work today, but just wait, this, this is still a good idea. And the timing will, will show itself when this idea can, can happen again. Whereas many people will just abandon the idea. The idea doesn't work. It's a bad idea. We throw it aside. And I'm, just, I'm beginning to wonder if entrepreneurs see the world differently because the way I entered entrepreneurship, the way I viewed the world is different than how I view it. today.

Have you had an idea that you have thought, well, I guess you shared one, you know, where like the timing maybe just wasn't there, wasn't right. Have you had other ideas where you thought I abandoned it too soon, could have stuck with it or where you have stuck with it even though it didn't seem like it was working? If had that happen yet. Hmm. Where I, no, I don't think so. Not where I abandoned it too soon.

No, I don't think so actually. That's an area that, and I could see it's been two years. Yeah. Yeah. That's an area that I am definitely seeing and working through right now is how long to spend on the idea. So for example, I'm just thinking about the course that you had. How many times do I need to fall flat on my face with it? Gotcha. Versus.

just saying, okay, one and done. Because there is this need, you don't wanna spend too long on something and then you've just put all these resources in. like knowing what your runway is, I think is a really important piece that you start to get a sense for the longer that you're in business. And again, seasonality of your life and business too. I feel like you can spend longer on an idea, vetting it out in that when you have more say financial freedom.

Vivian Kvam (35:40.482)
to be able to do that, maybe have a longer runway there or time freedom to do that. So I'm just thinking about prior to having kids or just being single, I could spend a lot more of my time on working, tinkering, adjusting. Now there's a little bit less bandwidth there. And so I like need things to work faster. So I may have to give an idea up a little faster and revisit it later.

Do you think that comes back to like healthy expectations as an entrepreneur of like, I'm thinking about realizing not everything works immediately. Yes. Right. Right. There's a gestation period. There's, there's this period where things need to grow. They got to be watered. they've, they've got to take root before they kind of break ground and show themselves. Yes. Sometimes we quit too and then other times we wait until the fruit is rotting on it.

on the tree, That is an important thing that I have been, have learned and continued to learn is what of the services or products that we have had and offered are a faster cash infusion and that I know that I can kind of turn on and what's the, how long does it take to get there? And then which ones are the ones that take a longer period of time to just kind of ferment and get out there. And for sure,

It's going to sound so simple as I say it, but in helping other entrepreneurs with this, I think a lot of it depends on the dollar amount you're charging. It's a lot easier for people to do a smaller dollar amount without the prep and the thinking. So some of our services are in the thousands to multiple thousands of dollars. Well, people don't make that kind of decision in a week. They don't. It can take a couple of years.

and we have found that you have to be thinking about, okay, so I have this idea, it's a million dollar idea, and it's going to be awesome. Okay, so then what's the need? Do people understand that they need it, et cetera? And then also what's the price point? And what is it gonna take for a decision maker to arrive there and have the budget? So we pivoted our business from doing a lot of photography, family photography, weddings.

Vivian Kvam (38:05.838)
things like that, well, that's a smaller purchase. And so it doesn't take as much for somebody to say, yeah, I want that. I like that idea. I want it. I'll pay for it. As we went into the consulting space, which is a space you're in, there tends to be a higher price tag attached to that. And there's a longer term value to it. It's less of a commodity, if you will. But that takes longer for people to catch the idea, understand the idea that you're offering them.

Embrace the idea and like it go talk to the 18 people who it needs to go through to decide if they can do the idea to then write you a $10,000 check. Yeah. Um, so that's something too, that over the years have just had to adjust. It's fine and dandy to take your ideas, put it in spreadsheet and go when we sell 10 of those, like we're going to be set. That's true. Um, but you need to think about the runway it's going to take to get there. It might be a couple of years process.

Yeah, that's the pieces of entrepreneurship that I didn't think about. was the come up with the idea. What am I going to charge for this? And when I sell this many of them, Home run. Yeah. Widgets sold. Home run. Money in the bank. Yeah. Things just don't work that way. So setting up to how can you have when you're in a consulting business or service-based business, how can you have things at different price points is one of the big learnings over the years.

that we've had, if you only offer one premier service and you're early in your business, you're probably not going to close a lot of those. Yeah. So yeah, so what's the cost of your idea, right? Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about, since we're there, we're talking about money and ideas and costs, pricing. Easy for you to figure out pricing your services. Difficult change to how you do that.

always a huge question. How do I price myself? It's the most asked question in the leadership consulting space. I'm sure. Everyone asks that question. I'm part of this John Maxwell circle where all of these different coaches and speakers and trainers gather together and we kind of go through some development things together and that's always the question is what do I charge for this?

Vivian Kvam (40:32.974)
The folks that run it will never give an answer. That's up to you. You have to figure out what that... Once again, you're the boss. So for me, again, I have this unique experience in that...

Vivian Kvam (40:49.964)
You know, I did this for organizations before. So I wrote the contracts. I knew what people were spending. Because you hired them. I hired, well, yeah, they would hire us. I would go teach leadership for my organization to other places. So I knew what they were willing to pay. So I felt pretty secure about where I was going. Now, I did have a struggle in that

when I started putting out bids, like, is this too high? Like, I know that this is the norm, but man, I really would love to have this business, you know? And you had actually, was speaking to you and Michaela one day about this, and you guys told me, just make sure that you place an amount on it where you're not gonna get mad about working on Saturday. Yep. That's a really good barometer. When you're working on Saturday on this project, are you getting paid

worth your Saturday. Like you got to make sure of that. And that really did hit home for me. And I thought, what a great, what a great point. You know, I mean, my time, my time does cost something. I was able to figure it out pretty quickly because of that.

And I still think I'm underpriced to be quite honest with you. I still think you could charge more, but I just don't know that the market holds true. Right. You know, which the market does in large part decide there are some norms that and that is that is true. And also thinking through there have been times where it can be based on capacity to write. I there have been.

There have been times where we're like, okay, we have a lot more openings within our schedule. We'd be happy to take it and we're not going, it's not gonna be at this rate. Then there's other times in season where we're at capacity in order to squeeze this in, I will be working on my Saturday. And so that does need price tire. so there is sometimes I think that question that comes in, how much do I want this gig?

Vivian Kvam (43:03.93)
and what's the value of it? Is the value, the experience of it, is the value that I can, you know, that experience I can say I've done it, which then leads to this next thing, is the value, literally, I'm gonna love what I do and there's gonna be a check and, you know, that keeps my business going on its merry way. So sometimes when I hear people talk about value-based pricing is something people talk a lot about, the way they will charge based off of the value they're bringing to the client.

I think that's a great model to look at, but there's the flip side too of sometimes you're pricing things based on the value it brings you. And there are times where it doesn't bring you a lot of value because your schedule is packed. In order to do this, you're going to have to give up things that you maybe wouldn't normally want to give up. And so you price that higher because the value that the project itself is bringing you as the entrepreneur is actually lower.

And then there's the flip side of that. There are times where the value of doing the project is so high that you're in a way you're getting paid by the experience of it. But we never suggest doing things free. Well, I'm so glad you said that because that's where I was going next. Yeah. Is one of my challenges was that I would do things for free. Yes.

I don't. So common. Have done it. Yeah. Have done it. Yeah. I heard this story. I think it was Jennifer Hudson, the singer, was a coach on American Idol and so forth. Has her own talk show now. And I think it was her that told this story of she would go around and sing for free. And someone said to her, hey, you're a professional now. Stop singing for free. like a switch flipped for her.

And for me, I needed to figure that out because I would do things for free for people. I would get asked a lot from nonprofits to come help. And I want to see nonprofits succeed. And I would go in for free and help them. And what I recognized was there was an experience where I went in and I helped a nonprofit for free.

Vivian Kvam (45:27.798)
I gave up my weekends, like four or five weeks in a row. And then there was needed to be work done after that. And I gave them a bid to say, now I can help you bring all of this to life and gave them a very respectable price. And they didn't take it. They said, no, thank you. And I thought, everyone's always really quick to accept my free help, but they don't really want to pay for the help.

It just helped me understand that this really is, while, while I, I deal in relationships very much, there is some transactions that's happening there. And I had, I, you actually told me, stop doing things for free. Even if you charge $20, stop doing it for free. Um, so I, I did do that. And I, and I, there are times now where I help folks and I literally say like,

The normal fee is this. I will do it for 50 bucks. For a hundred bucks, I'll come meet with you or 20 bucks, I'll come do this for you. Just to get out there and help you, but also set the stance or the position that, like Casey, be true to yourself. You do deserve to be paid for this. And I think that's...

That's something that we have to convince ourselves of sometimes as new entrepreneurs is that, my time is worth something. Like people will pay me and it's okay for me to ask for a fee for this. I think I felt maybe a little bit of guilt at times. Yeah. Of asking someone to pay me to come help. And I had to work through that. I just was, I wrote down about how...

I was having this thought that the transactional piece, that transactions actually do help preserve relationships because it helps put boundaries in place and relationships flourish off of boundaries and good communication. And when there's that transactional piece, there has to be clear communication, right? And I think that's something that we avoid at times as people or as entrepreneurs when we're, we don't want to create a contract.

Vivian Kvam (47:53.358)
We don't want to have an SLA, which is a service level agreement. We don't want to have a formal quote or to say this is price tag because it does start to put boundaries and parameters on things and that can feel uncomfortable. What if they don't like it or what if that upsets them or what if, you know, I can't fulfill it or whatever. I'm like, well, if you can't fulfill it, let's work the process backward. What can you fulfill? It's not over promise.

But I was just thinking about that. The transaction forces us all to have a clear conversation about this is what I'm going to do for this amount of money. And again, even if it's 10, $20 or $100 or $5,000 or $20,000, the dollar amount doesn't so much matter in a sense, except that it's saying this is valuable. There's value here. Yeah. And I would say that it doesn't even have to be

the exchange of money, like, if you really want to help someone, like you're truly wanting to help with them, you still got to own that you're a professional. So for instance, there was a, there was an organization I truly wanted to help. I respect this leader so much and, and so they wanted me to come speak and I said, yeah, I'll come speak. Hey, you're going to pay for me to get there.

And then, what's your budget? We're coming back from COVID. We don't really have a huge budget. And I said, OK, so here's what I want. I want time with you. I want this amount of time with you to discuss leadership. I want to hear your leadership journey. I want to hear how you reach the decisions that you reach and how you view teams and how you look at relationships. So I grow from that.

Right. My knowledge grows from learning from someone else that is leading at a different level in corporate America. I could have just said, no, I got to have some kind of money. But instead I changed it and looked for something else that benefits me. Like a barter, essentially. Yeah, it's a transaction. Yeah. Yes, they didn't give me a dollar figure and make no mistake, your business will live or die off of the dollar figures that you bring in.

Vivian Kvam (50:19.502)
But there is other opportunities because you also need to grow. And sometimes that can be part of that transaction as well. You can get creative. The getting creative part, that's huge too. We've had a number of opportunities where like pricing becomes sticky, right? Where we're out of budget. We're not in their budget. They really want to do it. We really want to do it. Can't necessarily barter it in this instance, et cetera, you you're back forth. But there's

There's always a way, right? There's money out there. So sometimes we've just gotten creative too in helping them find the money or coming up the way. So for example, one of the things that we're doing is a workshop with an organization and they are charging part of the ticket price and we're charging part of the ticket price. And then that way, the organization itself, wait, let me put, I didn't say that right. The organization is paying for

part of each person's ticket price. And then we're charging the attendee the other amount. So essentially they're kind of half sponsoring people to come. They're discounting for attendees to come. And that makes up the amount that we needed to get it done. Or we've had some opportunities too where the people that we want to serve, I think this happens a lot in consulting for sure. The people we want to serve.

genuinely need the product, they need the service, they need the information, and they cannot afford the price that we need and that is truly valued at. And so, you know, that's why you have nonprofits pop up and things like that too. But there is value still there. So like, how do you reconcile this? So one of the things that we have found helpful is to partner with organizations who are able to pull funds or maybe have a grant.

and they have been able to pay for that service to say sponsor, you know, the full amount of seats in that. And even then I will say though, we have found that if you have participants say for a workshop and somebody's sponsoring their seat, having the participants still spend even $10 of it, it just helps with the buy-in piece again. More likely to show up, to participate, to realize that there's value there.

Vivian Kvam (52:35.15)
So that was just something I was thinking about. There are creative ways. Yeah, and to that point, I deal with a lot of nonprofits. So, you you can help nonprofits find funding for leadership development. We really want you. And I say, you really need me. You really need me. Let's figure it I want to be there so you can help them find nonprofit dollars, funding to do workforce development inside their organization.

That doesn't mean you got to go out and do all of the research, but if, if you have something that someone has done before, some kind of a request form or something like that, you can share that with them to help them get the ball rolling and so forth. Yeah. You just gotta be creative. Well, the other things that we talk a lot about is, okay, you do have to pick a price. And for some people that's hard to do. Yeah. And a lot of entrepreneurs and ourselves included will, would under price. We, McKinley, I joke a lot about there's a,

a communication roadmap service that we offer. And the first time that we talked about offerings, like, gosh, do you think, what do you think? Time and value. We're like, $300? We do $300? That'd good. Let's try it. And the first woman we proposed it to, she said $300. That's it. And we were like, too low. Fast forward a couple of years.

we reiterated where it was like $1,500 and it was at $2,500 and then it was at $5,500 and it goes up and up there. And so we've kind of joked like, you remember when we were offering this for $300? And certainly it has evolved as well. It has fleshed out. The value has increased and increased as we go. But the general premise of the idea is still the same. The core is still there. But some of it is that we have learned with pricing,

Sometimes you're just vetting the idea first and it is okay to price it low enough to just make sure you get the people in to vet it and test it. It's like a beta, a beta with a price tag. But then how do you figure out the increasing, right? And so one of the things that we had learned, not my idea, don't even remember exactly where it came from, but we've embraced it long time, is to choose your price point that you feel good at, sell it three times, and if it's easy to sell and close, whatever that is, three times, then you increase it.

Vivian Kvam (55:00.878)
whatever you're thinking about increasing to and see if you can sell it three more times. And if you can sell it three more times and you're like, yeah, I think there's still room here. Then you increase again and sell it three times. And eventually you will hit your spot where you're like that. It's really hard to sell now. It's really hard to get people bought into this. So either we need to kind of stop here or maybe even walk it back a little, or we need to add even more value or something in there to help people with what that, you know, price leap is going to be.

And that turning it into a little bit of a formula has been freeing. So think about the discipline. It's like a discipline. We're going to stick to this. This is what we're going to do. And that has been really helpful. Yeah. Isn't entrepreneurship just a great big experiment? Yes, exactly. That's what it is. Exactly. It's just an experiment. I have this product and I'm going to see if people will pay this for it. Yeah. And wow, people are paying for this thing.

People are paying to listen to me come talk. Like, I wonder if they'd pay this. Yeah. And they pay for it. And then eventually you hit the place where people are like, well, they're not paying for it anymore. OK, so is that me? Is that the product? What is the reason for that? And you got to try to figure that out. It's just a big experiment. It is. I really am kind of circling back to one of the myths because we've been

kind of unpacking that like, it, entrepreneurism looks like this, but then here's the real experience. you had mentioned about putting out your, your, course or training and you had so much feedback positive. it's amazing. It's amazing. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm in, I'm in. but the real test is who will actually pay and show up. that's a really important thing to think about.

going into entrepreneurism is even, so we've been talking about this, like what does it look like? And then you have these ideas and then you put the idea out there and people get really, really excited. But do they, are they so excited they'll put their money behind it? Yeah, there's a difference from being a supporter versus a customer. Yes. And, you know, when you, when you come up with your great ideas and you post them on social media, you're posting them in a controlled environment. Yeah.

Vivian Kvam (57:23.522)
Those are people that you are normally friends with. You have some kind of a relationship with them, or you wouldn't be connected, and they're going to support you. They're going to encourage you. That's what we want from them. But that doesn't always mean that they're going to come spend the dollar to buy the product as well. And that really is the end of that experiment is, did it work? Did it vet out? And then do I need to adjust from there?

How do you talk yourself through when you are putting a proposal together and you're putting it out there?

the, I'm trying to think out of phrases exactly. I'm worried I'm asking too much or that they're gonna think I'm asking too much is maybe a better way to put it, right? Like I'm worried they may think that this is too high or that you're like, you know, I don't think my price is quite as high as it should be. How do you work yourself through those moments so that you can show up with confidence with your proposal?

I literally go back to that conversation I had with you and Michaela where I have to be comfortable with the price. Like I have to know, like I'm okay with doing this because here's the alternative. You get an agreement with someone and then you're not happy with it. You're mad about it. Because they bought it at the price you gave them.

Whether that's making t-shirts or doing consulting work. It doesn't matter. You got to figure out what you're happy given the product away for So I really think that's more internal. I have to figure out what I'm okay with For this product and one way that I've started doing that is You taught me this is I kind of create a tier system and that I say listen This is the lowest price model and this is what you get

Vivian Kvam (59:27.584)
If you want me more, then it's this price. If you want me more plus this workbook that I created, it's this. If you want me more and the workbook plus private coaching, then it's this. And I allow them to find the place that fits where they're comfortable at. Yeah. Having a pricing structure, I think, does make a big difference. And we've experimented a little bit in both ways.

And I think that's why we probably shared that with you, is there have been times throughout the iterations of the business where we're like, we wanted to have it simple. So we wanted it to be like, we do this and this is the cost and that's it. That's how I operated. Yeah. That's what I wanted was one fee. This is what we're doing. But I just don't think it works as good as...

You know, they use that phrase, right? Meet the customer where they're at. And I think that's a piece of that is, I don't know where they're at financially. I don't know what they're willing to spend. I don't know where they're at. If I'm giving you a $40,000 bid, you may not know me well enough to spend $40,000. But if I'm giving you a $2,500 opening,

you might say, as a corporation, oh, I can do $2,500 and see what it's like, right? And see if we want to make that longer partnership or whatever the case may be. Yeah, that is huge. the oftentimes, well, not often, every time we ask a client, is there a budget you're trying to work in? And 90 % of the time, oh, no, no, we don't know. You know, we don't know what the budget is. And sometimes I'm like, yes, you do.

Or the budget is so large. Yes. Right. Yeah. We're anywhere from 5,000 to 45,000. Okay. Got it. When, I will say, when clients have openly shared, this is my revenue. These are my goals. This is what I want to do. This is the value I have. We can nail a really

Vivian Kvam (01:01:45.998)
great package for them. I agree. That works super well for them and super well for us. And I feel like everyone is just like so aligned and that is rare. So for those of you out there who are thinking about hiring, just keep in mind, if you're working with people of integrity, they are not going to take advantage of you. It really is about getting to a good place for everybody in the right price because I also, I also hate when

we offer too little and they really need more. We're doing too much. They don't need all of this. And it's like, we have actually told clients, you do not need us anymore. You should take these dollars and put them somewhere else. So anyway, that's just a little side rant. I just did that this past year. Yeah. And that I was like, just don't think I, I don't think I'm providing what you need. Yeah. Like, I just don't think I'm the right person for you. I think you need something else.

Yeah. know, it like, reminds me of the old, when you're in the job search, right? what are your salary expectations? And you're like, well, what are you paying? nobody wants to give it up. Nobody wants to just come out with it. know, when I've been able to have those open conversations, there was, actually just recently on a call, I was

kind of steering the person towards, we had a tiered option and I was steering them towards a lower tier with the knowledge I had and where I thought they might be. And because I didn't want them, it still creeps in. I didn't want them to think, they're just trying to squeeze every last dollar out of me. Because that's not my intention. And they spoke up and they said, actually, I'm thinking the next one up. I was like, okay.

And they explained why and what they thought that value be. And what I love about that is I now have a very clear understanding of their expectation out of that service, which makes it much easier for me to try and help them hit that. and if we, if, and when we hit that, then that is going to, it was money well spent and I'm going to feel great about that. And they're going to achieve the next thing. And that's me, a raving client. So I do think the tiered approach is really helpful.

Vivian Kvam (01:03:59.737)
having options as much as I sometimes want it to be very simple for myself. Because putting together custom bids is one of the things I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't like. It's one of those vegetables they don't like to eat. But also having, we have also found having a kind of basic menu as a starting point.

and then helping people understand how we can customize from there. I also think there's this weird balance that as I've talked to folks, it's one of two places. Like either, either I want to say to them, have the confidence in yourself to charge what you're worth. Or I want to say to them, stop thinking so highly of yourself that you're charging this astronomical price.

Like it's not, it's not, the problem is not that companies are cheap. Yeah. That's not the problem. The problem is you're in all honesty, you don't drive that revenue. And that might sound harsh, but I've really seen that on both ends of the spectrum and you got to find that balance. And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I was just writing down. So I think one of the myths when we look at entrepreneurism.

I was kind of thinking through like the eyes of how you described it. So I'm kind of, I'm looking through Casey's eyes that aren't yours. I'm projecting thoughts on you. Probably not fair. But when you look at people who are in thought leadership spaces and you see entrepreneurs and you go, okay, well then I'm gonna go out there and sell myself as a speaker and a thought leader, et cetera. You can look at those folks that are up here and they are charging.

very nice prices and they're charging one price essentially. If you want me, this is what it costs. And I think what people don't realize is even now, even the folks who are doing that, they're charging that one price for their signature thing, whether that's speaking or the workshops they lead, et cetera. And it's like, gosh, I want that. I want it be so simple. People call me up, I go, great, this is what I do. It's gonna cost X. I think what a lot of them don't realize is they

Vivian Kvam (01:06:21.578)
always have other revenue streams. Always. There are books. There are podcasts. There are sponsorships. There are all these things that you just don't think about. You just go, they do this one thing and they charge this one big price. And really every business I've seen does not ever ride off of the five, 10, $12,000 keynote or what have you. so that I think is a big myth out there too.

They've built a business with a foundation of many other smaller transactions that are happening underneath of it. And now they're able to offer that one signature thing and that doesn't happen overnight. And they'll never rely on that one thing. That's where being disciplined about all of your ideas comes into play is you've got to bring one into market and then move to the next and bring it into market. That's how you get

multiple things happening inside of your business, right? Different revenue streams is that, you've had the different ideas, but you brought them to market one at a time. You're not going to bring all five at the same time. And I, you know, that's interesting because- something you and I talked about. Yeah. I can remember jumping into this and I wanted to be like the organization or the leader, the consultant that had been

on the market for 15 years. Right. In year one. Year one, want to, how, do I have to develop all 10 of these revenue streams? And then I launch my business? No. You develop one at a time and you grow at your pace and your rate. You don't have to go be like someone else that's been running the race for 10 or 15 years. Just run your race. Don't start comparing yourself to other people.

And I love that too, because that is where we so often get stuck of, okay, I've all these, I got to do, I'm going to do the book and then I'm going to do speaking engagements. I'm going to do. where the websites and the logos and all of that stuff comes in. Right. You need a logo for each one of those products. need a website for each one of the products, social media channels, five social media channels, each one of those products. And you can really get stuck there. I had a conversation. I got to be on her podcast, a friend, Lisa, even in.

Vivian Kvam (01:08:45.55)
I was having that epiphany again while she was talking. I really like her. enjoy following along with her and I've known her for a couple of years now and I didn't really meet her necessarily at the very beginning of her journey but earlier. It started with the service she was offering in that and then she was doing these conferences which is how I met her, went to this and then it built from there and then she started doing more of them and then she...

did a book and then she started adding more like signature speaking opportunities that she had. And I was just thinking this as she was talking, I was like, I really, often go, I want to be her when I grow up. You know, I think that, and I caught myself going, and you want it right now, don't you? But you haven't put in that time and that work to build there. And it doesn't mean I can't. And it was like both, it was a little bit humbling.

But then also I thought, okay, I can look at that though and I can see a blueprint there. You were talking about checklists and the blueprint really was bringing one thing at a time to, you know, to the market and giving it time. And I think that even with this podcast, we are, let's see, we just published like 60 episodes, 60, I can't remember exactly, 68 ish or something like that.

And there's that piece of me that goes, I want it to be more successful by now. And then as I think about it, go, have you given it enough time? And there have been times I've thought, maybe we should put resources towards this. Maybe we should put it towards a different idea, because this was an idea, right? And then I have to wrestle with, have we given it enough time? And what purpose is it serving? And why is it here? And why do we?

Why do we continue to do that and make those decisions constantly that and what does more successful mean? Yes, you're comparing that to you. Yeah, because it's already more successful than it was when we started Absolutely. It's already more successful. So it all depends on what we're measuring it against Yeah, this has been really good. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, is there anything else you feel like you want to say? from all our conversations of

Vivian Kvam (01:11:12.526)
This is what entrepreneurism really has been like in the middle of it versus what you thought it would be. Yeah, think, excuse me, I entrepreneurship, I would close with this. It is terrifying. It is scary. It's challenging and it's worth it. Right? It is rewarding and it is magnificent. It will introduce you

to yourself in ways that you never imagined, that you never saw coming. And that's really what spawned this with you and I, is just wanting to have a real conversation about entrepreneurship. Sometimes I feel like the conversations around this, it's almost like a recruiting video. Sure. Right? We're trying to recruit you into entrepreneurship. on, you can be an entrepreneur. It's a great life.

And there's some struggles that go with it. And I just wanted to be real about what some of those struggles are, how you can redefine what success looks like. I've done that. I started with an idea of what success was going to be. And now I look and realize, man, I've been successful all along. I've just been chasing this other idea of what I thought it was. It's all of those things. Any word you can think of.

It's that it's a great experiment that I I encourage folks to step out and take part in if somebody was Listening and they're not there yet. Yeah, they're kind of teetering and they're looking over the edge here I know you kind of just said it all but what do you want them? To know or think about and really chew on if there was just one thought the one thought I would

There's a million reasons not to do entrepreneurship. There really is. Not everyone's built for entrepreneurship. I think anyone can be an entrepreneur, but you have to be able to look at yourself, make some changes to be successful. The one thing I would say, if you're not, if you're looking over that edge and you're not taking this step because you're hearing this whisper,

Vivian Kvam (01:13:36.418)
telling you that you're not smart enough, that you're not capable enough, that you don't know the right people, that your idea is not strong enough. Stop listening to that voice. That is one of the most disciplined things you have to do, is learn which voice to listen to. And that voice, that is the same voice that will keep you unhappy in life, unhappy at work, unhappy in marriage, unhappy as a parent.

unhappy and everything that you get involved in. You have to learn to set that voice aside. You'll never quiet it. It'll be there with you for the rest of your life. But you've got to learn how to shut it down and listen to the other voice that's telling you, you can do this. That's the absolutely one thing that I would say to everyone considering entrepreneurship, because I don't think...

You can really gauge your ideas, engage your capabilities and your abilities until you shut that voice off a little bit. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. This has been a long time coming. We talked about this for a while. I feel like the timing always just works the way it's supposed to. I even think about had we had this conversation, gosh, it's been a couple of months we've talked about it. There would be, I think it would have been different because I know since we've been talking that

Like you said, a lot has changed for you. And so I love that you're able to bring that. Yeah. It's been that experience. Yeah. It's been fantastic. Cool. Thank you. All right.