Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - The High Income Secret to Funding Your Location Independent Lifestyle

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

Today I’m speaking with Crystal Davis, the Borderless Coach and founder of High Income Digital Nomad. Crystal’s mission is to help people build thriving and enjoyable businesses that let them travel and work remotely. We get into the nuts and bolts of how to get up and running with a profitable online business right now. We discuss: why conventional wisdom regarding online business keeps people in a long slog, and what you should do instead to earn the income you want; what kind of offer you should create;how to find clients;who you should sell to and who you shouldn’t target;the three daily activities you need to do to make money; and more.This isn’t the usual business advice you hear, and I think you’re going to love Crystal’s fresh, and effective, perspective. I’m such a fan of Crystal’s work that I joined her group program, High Income Digital Nomad, which teaches you how to build a business and sell without feeling totally cringe. If you want to have a business, you need to master selling.  Check out HIDN if you're ready to start building your dream location independent life. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

There came a point a few years later where I was just like, it can't be like this. I really need to nail how to make money in. And then I kind of understood how to do it. Welcome to the Postcard Academy, a show about travel, living abroad and location independence for people seeking a more meaningful freedom-fueled life. I'm your host, Sarah Mike Citell, an American who first moved abroad on her own at age 18 and who has been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. I am so glad you're here.

My guests and I will share with you how we made our travel, living abroad, and location independent dreams come true and how you can too, because you will never have this day again. Make it matter. Hello, hello, and thank you so much for being here. It really means a lot that you're spending some time with me today. And if you are a longtime listener of this show, then you know that my life's philosophy is we are never going to get this day again and we need to make every moment matter. And so we want to get control of our time and attention and where we're

spending these days. And you know that the easiest way to make living abroad happen, which is something that's very near and dear to my heart, is to start your own online business so you can work from anywhere. Well, today I'm speaking with a very special again. Crystal Davis, she is the borderless coach and founder of high-income digital nomad. Crystal's mission is to help people build thriving and enjoyable businesses that let them travel and work remotely. And we get into all of the nuts and bolts of how to get up and running and profitable with an online business right now, not like a million years down in the future, but now. So we discuss why the conventional wisdom regarding online business keeps people in a long

slog and what you should be doing instead to earn the income that you want. What kind of offer should should you create? How do you find clients? Who should you try to sell to and who you should probably not waste your time with? The three daily activities you need to do to make money and more. And this isn't your usual business advice that you hear all the time. I think Crystal gives a lot of really, just a really great fresh and effective perspective. And I'm such a fan of her work that I joined her group program, high-income digital nomad, and I would like to invite you to a free three-day training that she's doing starting on Monday on how to sell without feeling totally cringy and gross and awkward. And it's called the 24-hour secret sellout launch, because let's face it,

if you're going to own a business, you need to master how to sell. And it's something that I think a lot of us need practice. So you can join me. I'm going to be at that training as well. You can sign up via my partner link at postcardacademy.co slash high income. It's a live training, so you do need to sign up this weekend. And I hope you join. I will see you in the Facebook group and you can say hi to me. Okay, on with the show. Welcome, Crystal. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. It's a pleasure. You've had many adventures. Did I see it right that you worked on Game of Thrones as well? Yeah. So that was really a year. of me just ticking off my bucket list and I was a Game of Thrones fan and I happened to be in London

and heard from my sister like they're casting for Game of Thrones and I like acting. It's what I wanted to do with my life when I was younger. And that was in Belfast that they were filming Game of Thrones and I thought, you know what, I'm just going to have a crack because I had developed this philosophy of impress myself first. Yeah. And so I just, I emailed them and kind of lied because it was a requirement that you live in Belfast. And so I just gave them the address of a hostel where I decided to stay. And I fit the brief and they said, yeah, can you be here tomorrow? And I said, sure, I'm very quickly booked a flight. And I worked on Game of Thrones filming. It was season three, episode eight, if anybody wants to see it. Yeah, I'm going to definitely

go back. And you can see me for like a second. But you can see me. So yeah, it was super fun. It was really interesting. Like it was an amazing experience, very professional set and incredible. Yeah, I've got lots of stories I can tell you about the set. Well, I heard that you need Peter Dinklage in the head, Tyrion. Oh, my gosh.

Yes. So he was coming off set and I was sitting like with my knees crossed right just on the edge of the set door. And he came out and he was kind of just like, do, do, do do do you coming along. And I stood up at the same time. And I, my knee connected with his head. And I was like, oh my God, oh my God. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. And he was lovely. But, you know, I was mortified. Yeah, he seems like a nice guy. Yeah, he laughed. And I just thought, my God, what have I done? Out of curiosity, what was in the brief? What were they looking for in the sense? So, Yeah, I was a Kingslanding noblewoman, and they were just looking for someone around my height

with, like, you know, pale skin and long dark hair, and that was me. Excellent. Okay. Because I was like, gosh, they got really detailed into what they want for extras. So anyway, that sounds so fun. I'm glad you got to do that. They are, like I have to say, they are detailed about everything. We weren't even, I wasn't even allowed, it was freezing.

We filmed in Titanic Studios where the Titanic Studios where the Titanic. Titanic was built. So huge, like big shed. And I wasn't even allowed to wear like stockings under the dress. It was completely authentic. Like everything had to be perfect. Everything was handmade. It was incredible. It was a really incredible experience. I miss that show. All right, Crystal, Italy. So tell me where are you from and how did you end up in Italy? So I'm from Australia. I grew up in, well, for most of the time grew up in Tasmania, which is stunning. And the way I ended up in Italy is really it was my existential crisis, I guess. I was working in the corporate world. I had started in the corporate world really early and was working for a company doing, I started in sales and then

in coaching and moved on to like call center leadership and then into project management. And I kind of really liked that, but I was completely ignoring my full desires, I guess, to like travel the world and just like shoving things down. And eventually that ended up with me being super, super sick with endometriosis and had some surgery. And my life just completely fell apart. I lost my house. I couldn't go back to work. I just couldn't stomach it and kind of became homeless really quickly. So moved back in with my mom. and totally unemployable. The only thing I could do was start an online business.

So I did. I started an online business from my mother's pantry, very glamorous, and started traveling the world from then. And the first place I went actually was Italy, of course, because where do you go when you have no idea where to go in the world? You go to Italy. I went on retreat and I fell in love with it from then and became a digital nomad and just kept going back

and eventually I thought, this is the place I want to live. So I moved here. There is so much there. Going back to when everything was falling apart and you lost your house and had to move back in with your parents. Like, that's a huge blow. So how did you get the confidence? Or I guess what drove you to start a business online and to like keep moving forward? It was out of necessity, really. I realized that I just could not, you know, I guess part of the whole breakdown was when I had the surgery for endometriosis, they told me that, because it was stage four, which is the really bad kind, that I would never have a baby. And I would be in the hospital every month and that

I would have to have the same surgery every year. And that was just going to be my life now. And I think that was the part of the story that just destroyed me the most. And at the time, I didn't really think about it. You know, I was like in my 20s. I wasn't thinking about having a baby. And I certainly, it was in front of mind that that was a problem for me. But that was a big factor in me realizing I would just, what am I doing with my life? Like I'm making millions of dollars for this company every year.

And even though I've been here 10 years, they just gave me a handshake. It was a handshake. And I was like, this is my entire adult life. I've been here and you just shake my hand. I guess on a deeper level, I just felt. like what is the point of all this? What am I going to do? I have to, I want to make money. I want to like live my dream life. Like there's no option now. What am I going to do? Just like fall in a hole and never get out. So I was on Facebook at the time and I just started seeing other female

entrepreneurs around me and I joined a group of, I started following one of those people and just realized that was a thing. Like you could run a business online and I just started having my ideas and I realized I'm really good at this. All of my skills have kind of led to this place and, you know, it was a mess to begin with. It was not super successful at the beginning. Yeah, tell us about what was your first business. So I started with just like I'd built myself a couple of websites for like personal pursuits and things. I did some work for charity and I ran a small charity for a little while. And I thought, well, that's what people do online.

So I started building people websites, which were horrible. And none of my clients were happy. They were awful. And at the same time, I did graphic design, like, none of the things I'm qualified for or even really enjoy. And I just, like, I worked really hard at that. And then I thought, you know, I'll start coaching. people in a small way and I did some single sessions and none of that works like I was I was not bringing in I was working really hard like a lot of hours and not really bringing in any money like

it felt it felt good to be in charge of the work but not getting paid for it really is tough and you know that that was a struggle for a long time there was a there was the first year that we're talking about here when I had the whole breakdown and started ticking off my bucket list. I traveled the world on 9,000 Australian dollars, which is very low for an entire year. So you can imagine what I was eating and where I was sleeping, couches and stuff. And I just, you know, there came a point a few years later where I was just like, this, it can't be like this. I need to, I really need to nail how to make money in. And then I kind of understood how to do it. What did you tap into? What, how did you figure out?

for yourself was the way to do it. When you're online, it's so confusing, and I think a lot of people will relate to this. It's so confusing because there's so many ways to do it, and everybody's got an opinion. And so the general opinion is that you start by giving away free or low-priced things, and then you kind of work your way up. And the consensus online is that that's the way you have to do it. So I kind of bought and sold that idea to myself at the beginning. And when I realized, hey, this just isn't going to give me my dream life, I spent about a month, like, completely depressed.

What is going on here? And I decided, you know what, what would I do? Like, I am a professional sales person. I know how to make millions for a company. What would I do? Like, if somebody hired me to figure this out, what would I do? And I realized, well, I would not be selling single sessions. I would not be doing things that take me a lot of time that don't make my money.

my client's happy. I would be doing what I'm excellent at and charge a lot of money for it. So I realized that creating a program, like a high ticket program, and for me, my zone of genius is coaching. That's what I've always been, would make the most sense. So I just thought, you know what, I'm doing that. And I was in a group of spiritual entrepreneurs at the time. And I just kept seeing how much those people were struggling with really basic business stuff, like had no goals, had no idea how to achieve those goals. Like there clearly was no business plan involved. And so for me, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to help these people with that.

And I'm going to charge $1,500 for it. And we're going to start with that. And I sold that out in a week, like less than a week. And I realized, you know, like I 10 times to my income from the previous three months. And I knew that that made the most sense. It was just very direct. I didn't spend time like with an opt-in. or anything like that.

I just literally went in there and said, this is what I'm doing. I want to help you. And people bought it. And I've never looked back. When I was first introduced to you and heard you just saying like you should master one high profit thing quickly, I was like, oh my gosh,

why isn't everyone saying this? This makes so much sense. Can you talk a little bit more about creating a signature asset? Yes. So, yeah, why isn't everyone talking about this? That's what I want to know. So I'll talk about it all day long because it just makes sense, right? Like what I encourage people to do is just sit back, remove the noise and ask yourself what

makes the most sense. It does not make sense that if you want to hit a large goal like $10,000 a month, that you're selling something for $100. How are you going to do that? Like, it doesn't make logical sense. And so mastering one thing, a mistake I see a lot of people make it. actually I had this conversation with a client this week who's been very successful. Master one thing. Choose one thing that you're going to do and make that work. One logical thing

that you're excited about and make that work. So when things are working, we have a tendency, and I don't know why we do this as entrepreneurs, but a tendency to try something new. And I totally don't recommend that. I recommend if something work, do it again and you do it again and you do it again. And then if you have time and need to change, then you change. But usually what I would find is that once you master one thing, you get so addicted to that being successful that you don't need to do anything else. So creating an asset would mean make something that's really unique to you. And this is something I teach on. Like make something that's really unique to you using what you truly know. And master that thing, bring it to the market, help people with

that one thing and make it work very quickly. That makes so much more sense than getting people to opt in, selling them something for $49, selling them something for $200 and one day eventually working up the courage to pitch something for 2000. That timeline we're talking about is years. Years we're talking about somebody building that kind of trust where actually you could just turn up, give people something they truly want, charge a decent price for it and everybody's happy. When we're charging them, say, like, $1,500, $2,000, is this access to us that we're selling, kind of as part of our signature asset? Well, it really, there's so many options for this. So there's lots of ways that you could do it. You could do it as a one-on-one program. Yeah,

that was my first one, which was just like I coached people for three months, and it was just me turning up with them once a week for an hour and we've worked on their business plan because that was the core of my program. Or you could do a group program where you're working with multiple people at a time and you still just work, you just turn up once a week. This is an example, but you've got lots of people that you're working with or you can create something that's kind of a hybrid, which is what my program now is, which is some recorded content and also some personal time. So generally when we're charging, you know, high ticket, which would be minimum $2,000 to $5,000, even though I started a bit lower than that, generally you would start between

$2,000 and $5,000. And people would want a bit of personal attention. But there are so, as many ways as you can think of, it can be done. I guess what people are generally paying for and what allows you to charge more money is getting a result for people. And the way to do that is again, and just be really logical with what you truly know, because, you know, it's so easy to forget that we have the knowledge that we have, and it's tempting to think you have to fit into some kind of box when you're working online, but it's so the opposite of that. When you tap into your own knowledge and you map out the wisdom that you've collected over the years

that you know is successful to get a particularly kind of result for people, and that can be any kind of result. When you do that, you've got an amazing product, and you can charge much better money for that than trying to fit in with what you think people want like me doing web design. It's terrible. Yeah. Well, you make an excellent point.

I think we all tend to overcomplicate things at the beginning. And we're thinking we're creating a product, but what we're really aiming for is a result, right? We want to get somebody some sort of kind of transformation in the easiest way possible. Absolutely. So it's so much less about how you deliver it and, you know, like how long it is and these kind of things that people get stuck on. And it's so much more about, well, what is the fastest, most logical and unique way that you feel that result would be delivered? And that's what you sell. Something that I've done and other people I know have done is we just want to share absolutely everything we know because we feel like if we're charging money for it,

then we have to give everything and be super comprehensive. And I think we just end up overwhelming people. I've got an amazing example of this. Yeah, we feel like we've got to get it all out now. And if we don't, then how could it possibly be worth the money? I had a client of mine who was a lovely client and she built a course and she literally put all of her knowledge in this course. and it was enormous.

Like it's not like to the point where nobody can possibly digest that and it really was there just to show that she knew. And I think that is a kind of partly doubt, self doubt, partly a feeling of well, if it can't possibly be that simple, you know, well, I can't just make something, you know, minimal and direct and there's got to be more to it than that. And I think until you sort of make your first several thousand in full in your bank account, it does feel like it's not going to be possible. And so we have this tendency to go, okay, I will add this and this and this just to make

sure it's worthwhile for people. But people are not buying our entire knowledge. They're buying the result that we can bring them. And the simpler that we can make that, the better. But another tip that I have is that I say that you create the products based on the result and then you bring all of you to the table. So we're not ignoring all of those skills and experience and everything. They will be allowed to pop up and be of service, those parts of us.

Whenever they're required, we're not cutting off an arm or a leg. We bring all of our skills to the table because when we create a product like this and we serve clients who truly need what we have created, we are free to be all of ourselves. And that's what truly helps people. That's when we really go to a level where people are deeply attracted and we feel like we're living our life purpose. But to do that, it's really important that we make something simple

because you can't sell something that's complicated. Something a mentor told me once, which I love, is the confused mind always says no. So when we're talking about sales, if we're confusing people with the amount of knowledge or the amount of content that's involved in something that we're selling, they're going to say no, because they simply can't understand how it's for them. So the simpler we can make it the better and then just giving personal permission to be all of ourselves, I find is really, really powerful. Can we make this a bit concrete with an example? Like say I'm a copywriter and I'm new to the online

space, what advice would you give me for starting out to make money quickly? I would say, first of all, you want to find what people require from you. And to do that really easily is you just look around with what I call the eyes of opportunity. So you just look around in spaces that you're in and take away any kind of prejudgment and just look around and see what are the themes that I'm seeing here that are gaps for people. And it's not necessarily going to be that people are saying, I have a problem with this, but you'll see it. You know, when I was looking around this group of spiritual entrepreneurs, it was really irritating to me that nobody knew how to run a basic business plan,

you know, and I could see that that would help everybody. Nobody said that. Nobody knew that's what they needed. But I knew that because of my experience and the person that I am. So when you're all looking around in particularly online spaces like Facebook groups, they're great for this, you will see just based on what people are posting, the way they're posting, what they're posting, what they're posting about.

And you're looking at this with your entire lifetime of experience, you will see a gap there. You will see something that could be bridged. And then you can do a really quick confirmation to say, hey, guys, this is what I did. I said, hey, guys, I can see everyone's struggling with this. Am I right? And they're like, oh, yes, oh, my God.

I have no idea how to even begin running my business properly. I was like, okay, great. And so then I created the product. So if you're a copywriter, you're probably going to see the typical mistakes that people are making in their copy, reasons why it's probably not converting. You're going to see that because of your experience. And then you're able to create something very direct. So the result would be, and the result is always if you're working, and I usually recommend that people do work with online entrepreneurs. Say that five times fast.

that's the best kind of niche to work with because we all invest online. And so you're skipping a massive objection there of like, well, I've never invested a lot of money online. You definitely want to choose someone who has. So if you're looking around at a group of entrepreneurs online, you will be able to see why they're not converting more clients based on your experience. You'll be able to see if you're a copywriter, okay, they're not telling a story or they're not connecting on a human level or they're not even selling, you know, and you'll be able to create a product based on that.

Yeah, your example for yourself was a great one, how you saw a need to do a business plan and you didn't create a course on absolutely everything to do with business. You focused on the business plan. So something simple that they could take action on that they really needed. I'm guessing it was not a ton of steps. No. So the other thing about keeping it simple is,

it really is about what mapping out for yourself, what are the minimum three to five steps that somebody would take to get that result. Like if you just wanted to get your best friend or your mom to have that outcome, you wouldn't mess around, you wouldn't add everything you know. You would just say, oh my God, this is what we need to do. This will work, right? If you just do this, this will work. So we want to do that for our clients because they don't want to spend extra time. they don't want it to be difficult, they don't want it to be complicated, they don't want it to be confusing. So the simpler we can make it and the faster, I say like we want to go direct from A to B, whatever that is, like what's the fastest way for somebody to get there? And that's the way you

coach them. So for me, it was just three steps with the business plan. In the first month, we used our sessions to map out the business plan. The second month was we started building out the actions and taking action. And then the third month, we reviewed it and we made plans for the future. So it was really basic. And I think another thing we get stuck on and another reason that we bring too much to the table is a bit of ego in the way of thinking, yeah, but you know, I'm so great at everything. I'd come from the corporate world going, I make millions for people. I'm a project manager and actually what people needed from me was way more basic than that. And by stepping aside from what I wanted to show the world that I'm all of these things and

just serving my community, then I made money. This is all so great and just worth repeating that we might feel insecure. And like, if people are going to give us money, we have to give them 100 hours of content. And people don't want that. So we don't have to feel guilty about not spending a thousand hours creating something because people don't want that anyway. Absolutely. My current program has gotten kind of smaller every time and faster every time,

because I just realize there's things in there that aren't getting a result or they're adding confusion, which is not what we want. So the simplest possible form is going to feed your confidence anyway because the simpler it is for you as a service provider, the better you're going to be able to support that person instead of like fielding questions about every single piece of this. You want to use like the lowest common denominator, like the lowest possible, most basic possible version of what you're doing and that's what people want to buy. This episode is sponsored by me or rather by my online course Podcast Launch Academy. You are a podcast lover and thank you so much for being here.

But I was wondering, have you ever thought about creating a podcast yourself? Well, visit sarahmicatel.com to learn how we can work together and to take the podcast personality quiz. You mentioned niches before and how niche do we need? to go, in your opinion. And do we need to brand ourselves a certain way? And will that cut us off from other opportunities? Yeah, I think this is one of those distractions that people teach about when they don't really know how to get people a result, which is not a judgment. It's just, I feel like everybody's teaching that because it's a nice distraction from the truth. And the truth is,

it doesn't, you don't need a website. You don't need special branding. You don't need, need a title. You don't need to sit there figuring out what do I call myself. You don't need to do any of that because people are asking for the result. The result has nothing to do with any of those little bits and pieces. So I also see this in people trying to name their programs and just little bits and pieces that are distractions from the truth, which is that you want to serve your client. You want as the service provider to facilitate the result. Like you really want. You really want. them to get this result, you really want to support them doing that. And so when we keep our mindset on how can I best support the client, how can I best help them to get a result? Well, there's so much

that falls away that seems like it was important before, but it really just isn't at all. So the main thing is, who's going to pay you first? Who can you serve? Who will pay you the easiest? Who do you feel connected to? And you just serve that person straight up. In terms of like defining the niche and defining the ideal client, the only thing you really want to make sure of is if you're trying to create online income, you want that type of person to already be comfortable with investing online. This is something that I see a lot of people get stuck on, is choosing kinds of clients that don't invest online. For example, one of my clients who had this issue was creating a program for corporate women leaving the corporate world.

And when we really looked at it, we found, well, those women have never hired a coach. They've never invested $1,000 online, right? They do, even their shopping, they would go to a store to buy their handbag in their lunch break. They wouldn't order it online. That is going to be an issue to getting paid. So whatever is your ideal client, that's something that I always say, do just examine, is this someone who already buys online? Because otherwise, you've got a whole piece of work there,

moving them into the comfort space of buying online. And we don't want to do that. That's going to take a long time. So whoever it is that you're serving, just make sure they buy online, make it really simple, and master serving one type of client before you try to serve others.

How do we find these clients? They are everywhere. I love Facebook, right? I love Facebook purely because it's really interactive, but they're on every platform. So you'll see wherever you hang out, It could even be in person. Wherever you hang out in any group of people,

there are going to be some of your clients, people who need what you are, not just what you know, but people just who you feel a gap in kind of in society. So they're everywhere. Your clients are everywhere. If you start looking around with the eyes of opportunity, you're going to see where these people are.

And it really does, again, we're talking a lot about ego in this podcast, but a lot of it is letting, go of any ideas that you've had before about what it's going to look like, about what people need from you and being really open to that. So I always advocate mastering one space as well, which means just choose where you like to hang out, better if it's online, but it could also be a kind of a networking situation. Choose where you like to hang out. So you mean like LinkedIn or LinkedIn, Instagram, any platform, any of the, even the new platforms, I think there's

one new one called Steam It, which has changed to something else. TikTok, I'm not on there. I use Facebook, but the reason I'm not on all the other platforms is because I have mastered Facebook for myself and I don't have any need to expand. So, again, just choose the place you like to turn up and be active looking with the eyes of opportunity. It can just happen in a feed. I mean, if you're on Instagram and you just go through your feed and you see what people

are posting and you just spend an hour on there, which is an hour well spent, to spend an hour on there seeing what are the gaps you see in the way people are presenting themselves or posting with whatever your area of expertise is. So clients are everywhere. In any hundred people, in any space, there is always going to be a client, always. So wherever you are, just start looking around. That's what being an entrepreneur is. You just start seeing opportunities around you. So It's a mindset shift more than anything. What advice do you have for people who are confused about how to sell or who have never had to sell anything? And they're like, how do I even start this conversation?

Selling's really easy. It's literally, it is just you having the confidence to say, I do this. Here's how much it costs. And I have a really great process for this. I'm going to do a training on it soon called my dark launch process, which is basically about really quickly building relationships with people. And then you do a kind of a personal outreach where you talk to them about your product. And this is not spamming either.

This is not like cold messaging people and saying, hey, buy my thing. But there are lots of ways that you can do this and build relationships really quickly. But ultimately, sales, all it requires is you having the courage to say, this is who I am, this is what I do, I want to serve you. And doing that all the time. One of the best things that I ever did in my business was just have a policy for me that there were no rules around when I could and couldn't sell. And I just started to, I talk about my program all the time.

If I do a Facebook Live, which I love, I'm pretty much always talking about what I'm selling at the time, whatever program it is. I'm always just name dropping. So sales can be really, really easy. The more rules we have around sales of like it's supposed to look this way and I'm only supposed to do it like that, then the longer it's going to take to get paid. And I think owning your reality that this is who I am, this is what I love to do and I do I do ask to be paid for it is a really powerful thing.

I've heard you say that it's it is 90% mindset. And so I think we just need, I think we just need. I think we forget. I think when people create things, they are proud of them. But then we forget that we're proud of them. And we get all weird. Like we know we can help people, but then we feel so awkward about it. Yeah.

And that's just practice. Honestly, we get weird because it is personal. And especially when you're proud of it, it can feel like you can feel really vulnerable with sales. And I get that. I really do get that. And it's kind of like the heart pumping, blood pumping, you know, like cold sweat situation the first time you do it.

And I can tell you, once you nail your first $3,000 pay in full, you know, when PayPal beeps on your phone and says, this client is paid in full, your life completely changes. And that nervousness does tend to disappear because you get excited. You know you can do it. And so I often talk about it's the first big one. getting clients up to the first big sale is usually the most work because it is it's vulnerable, it's scary, it's new, it's, it's you asking yourself to completely back yourself, completely believe in yourself. And that's a big call, you know, for a lot of us,

it takes some, it takes some practice. The best way to get to that point is to do it all the time. That's what I've found, just do it all the time. And then you find that all the fears that you have around people being mean or people not liking it or whatever it is that we're afraid of. They just drop away. It's kind of a, you desensitize yourself to the terror of offering our own personal baby, you know, to the world. It's scary. I mean, there's no way around that.

It is, it is a leap. It is a growth thing. And it's scary for everybody. but you have to kind of decide do you want to do this or not, you know? And if you want to do it, we've got to move through that discomfort at some point. Well, and I guess you can say that for everything, right? Like one of the biggest reasons that people don't start podcasts is because they're afraid to put themselves out there and say what they actually think. And that once you keep doing it, you know, the confidence comes the more competent you become in something. So I think

You're exactly right. You just have to keep doing it. Yeah, and their voice never goes away. Like, this is something that I talk about all the time as people are like, yeah, but I'm doubting myself. Well, I do that every day as well. I think the thing that has changed is that I don't allow that voice to be the one I give power to. I've just recently done a launch with a training and we had a really tough first day where some, you know, difficult things happen. And that whole day, I was like, maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm not, you know, and I'm, I'm several years in, I still have that voice. And I had to speak to myself and say, hang on, I am sticking to my vision. And I think that's what it's important as well is to be really in touch with that vision and make

that vision that you have for your ideal life, that you truly want to have. And it's not usually about money actually. Money creates choice. And that choice is to have a life we truly love that's full, where we feel like we're creating memories that we want to share with our family, with our loved ones, with our legacy that become our legacy. And so being more connected with that vision than we are without doubts is a key piece of work.

Because there are always going to be things that come up. It doesn't. And actually, the higher level you go, the more money you start making or the higher level you take yourself, the tougher the challenges seem to be. And it's a practice, it's a constant practice of, no, I commit to me. No matter what happens here, I commit to me. And it's kind of a conversation with the universe of like, yeah, nice try.

I'm still doing this. I'm still getting what I want. I'm still going to be all of who I am and I'm going to serve people in the world. At my highest level, I'm not going to be knocked down off this idea because the vision I've received is real. And that voice is not. But we all have it. And it's always going to be there. So it's just a choice to shift that perspective and say, okay, I hear you, but yet you're not, you're not on my council anymore voice.

Well, yes, I love what you say about mindset and simplification. And you've said that there are really three daily activities that we need to do to make money. So what would you say those are? You need to turn up. You need to just like turn up and be serving your community. and then also making sure it's something that people often forget is if you ever have had a client before, we need to serve those clients at the highest possible level. So keeping on supporting those clients, it's six times easier for a previous client to re-sign with you than it is to find a new client.

So if you've ever had someone, even if it's somebody who's paid you very little, those clients want to stay with you. So one of the things I say, is like always be supporting your community. And then you need to be selling every single day. Find a way to do that. So I set a task for myself of one of the questions that I ask in the morning is like, how can I do this today? How can I make some money today serving somebody who I truly love?

The mindset thing is commit to you first. So my personal philosophy is impress myself first. It's something that I developed before I did my world record. ride riding a rickshaw, that came out of a mindset shift where I decided, oh my God, I have been impressing, trying to impress people my whole life, you know, trying to impress my boss, my family, my friends, whatever. I'm going to impress myself first. So if I was going to impress myself today, what would I do? Those are the things that are going to always make you money because you living at your highest level is really attractive. When you say we have to show up every day,

Are you talking about on social media, doing lives, doing a blog, like a mix of everything? How are we showing up? So I like to pick one place where you're going to be active all the time. It doesn't mean you have to be in there like in people's faces all the time, but you want to master being present in there every single day. So you could do that with scheduling. It doesn't matter the platform. It doesn't matter if it's a blog.

it doesn't matter if it's Facebook. As long as it's somewhere that you love to be, that feels kind of effortless for you to be present, then showing up, just like being available, showing up and showing the universe that you genuinely want, what you're asking for.

So it doesn't need to be a big deal. I know that people think, like, oh my God, I have to show up, I have to post, I have to do. Often I'm just turning up and sometimes I'll just pop a comment on somebody's thing or my energy is just in the group and I'm actually on a day off. And that makes a huge difference.

So just having a focus on that kind of consistency and it can be very little time. I'm super time poor guys. I am super time poor. I have a small baby. He doesn't sleep. And, you know, that can be done. Like serving your community can be done in very, very small windows of time. Like half an hour a day is the maximum that I.

commit when I'm really, really busy. At the moment, I'm getting one hour a day, which is like a luxury. So we don't need to have our own group. We can participate wherever we, our energy is taking us. Absolutely. But I would pick one place, like whether it's someone else's group or it's just on your profile or your business page or it is your own group, it doesn't really matter. It just matters that you're there a lot because people are not sitting at home waiting to see your post. they might eventually be doing that, but nobody's like, so it's quite likely that people are going to miss you, right? Because they have a lot of people in their feed. There's a lot of people in groups. I actually, the first time I sold out and maybe the first couple of times I sold out my first high ticket program was in someone else's group.

I had no community of my own whatsoever, but I was in that group every day. It's just about pick one place. I don't believe in being on all the platforms until you're making good money because expanding something that's not working is it, it doesn't make any sense. You make one thing work and then you expand it if you need to. I like that. It can be somebody else's group. It doesn't have to because it's hard to start a Facebook group and get engagement. And, you know, even if a ton of people come in, it's just, yeah, I mean, if you're building

a business as well, I think it's, yeah. And that's, yeah, it's also not kind of super effective, honestly, at the beginning. If you haven't nailed, like, how you're going to support people, then building your own community, it's great and everything, but you don't need a lot of people in your sphere to be able to sell well. And the group that I sold to, it was a very small group as well, which sometimes is actually better. I encourage my clients to stay in smaller groups that are more engaged because you've got a better success rate, because people see you and they know you and they feel connected with you. So it's so not about big scale and big numbers.

It's what I advocate is much more about small scale, intimate, relationship building, really being interested in the well-being of others and really wanting the result for people, which is what you're selling. The more energy that you can put into the truth of that, the easier this whole thing is. I am in your program, high-income digital nomad, and I love it so far. What inspired you to create this group? So I'm so excited you're in there.

This has been a development over several years. This program really has been the culmination of everything that has worked for me in my entire career. So I've been in coaching and sales for 17 years now and also working in the online world for eight years. And so there are obviously things in there that I have seen work consistently for clients who have gotten massive results, tens of thousands of dollars. And this is the way that I've made millions for companies and clients around the world. So I used my own process to create this,

which is map out the simplest, most basic steps that are going to get the result. And that's what my program is. Essentially, it's the simplest possible way to make money online, using your skills and experience. So it's some of the things that we've been talking about today. But it's really designed to create your first thousand in online income and that's whether you're brand new to online business you actually don't need to know anything about online business to be successful at it or and what I get most of the time is people who have been online for ages self-developing to the end's degree you know like learning everything downloading everything doing all the stuff I've had clients who have invested over $100,000 in other programs and other coaching

and just never seen a return on investment. And so I wanted to change that for people. I think that's horrific, you know, like spending all that energy and like that get up and go of like, yes, I'm going to make a go of this and never getting a dollar back. So this program is about changing that for the entire online industry. And it's great. I'm so excited you're in there.

Me too. So how can other people join? So I run periodically. I run trainings that you can. income and kind of get a preview, I guess, of the way that I work. It's really straightforward. Excellent. All right. Thank you very much, Crystal. Thank you. I love a good meaty how-to interview, and Crystal really brought the goods today. Again, if you want to join me for her free live virtual three-day training, the 24-hour secret sellout launch, you need to sign up this weekend, and you can

do that by going to postcardacademy.co slash high income. Starting the business, is kind of the easy part. What most of us really need help with is selling in a way that feels good and that actually generates the income that we want, right? Because we need money to be coming in or else it's just a hobby. So if you'd love someone to show you how to sell in a way that's direct, kind, and gives you as much happiness to the new client as it does to your bank balance, then grab a spot in Crystal's three-day live training right now at postcardacademy.com slash high income. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a

free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.