The Ramsey Show - App - Learn How to Pivot Your Business During the Coronavirus (Hour 3)
Episode Date: April 14, 2020Christy Wright, Business Boutique Theme Hour Tools to get you started:Â Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting:... http://bit.ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQRÂ
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king,
and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America.
It is a free call this hour.
Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author of the book Business Boutique,
A Woman's Guide for Making Money, Doing What She Loves, joins me.
The phone number, if you want to talk to Christy or me, 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
So, Christy, welcome back.
Thanks for having me.
Glad to be here.
I've got this idea that there are a lot of ladies during this shutdown that have decided it's time to start that business that's been down inside of my being for too long.
It's time to let the world know what I'm good at.
Yeah, I've been seeing it.
I've already been seeing it happen on social media.
I think it was the moment they realized this is going to last longer than any of us want to.
So my calendar's cleared.
I'm not taking the kids to soccer and swim lessons and school and packing lunches.
I've got this margin.
Now, there's a problem there, of course, with your kids are home.
You got to get creative with child care and all the craziness that that also creates for
you.
But it's amazing how in this margin of a clear calendar, a lot of women are taking this opportunity
to do the thing that they, quote unquote, never had time for.
The thing that they wanted to do, thought about doing, might be scared to do.
They're stepping out and they're experimenting and trying stuff and it's been really cool to see how some businesses i've been working with are pivoting and they're helping people in a new way
they're adapting their offer some of the things i'm coaching them to do to survive in this business
landscape and then you've got people that are like you know what i'm going to go for it just
like you said i'm you know what have i got to lose? Let's try it. Well, I got laid off. Yeah. So I'm either sitting at home collecting nothing or unemployment, or I can make more than $350.
Right.
So I'm going to get after it.
Right.
And I'm going to create this side hustle, and I'm going to hustle and grind, and I'm going
to do something.
And I suspect that there are probably a bunch of them jumping on Business Boutique right
now and saying, yeah, I'm going to learn how to run a business.
I'm going to learn how to do this.
I used to be that.
Now I'm this.
Yeah.
And you know what's really cool?
We talked about this.
I think it was even last week.
There are innovations that are going to come out of this time in businesses all across
the country, across the world, that some of them are things you never would have tried
had you not been forced into this position.
Some of them might just be temporary just to survive.
Other things, you might actually like the way you're doing it better
and you carry it through even when life gets back to normal,
whatever that means.
And so it's really interesting to see how even those businesses,
the innovations in existing businesses,
but even business ideas that are coming to the surface
for some of these people in this new landscape
just because we're in this position that we would have not thought that way otherwise.
Christy Wright joins me.
The phone number is 888-825-5225.
Ramsey Personality, she is a popular speaker in leadership and business settings
and always empowering people, always giving people, particularly ladies,
the ability to overcome fear and go do that thing, whatever it is.
Amy's on the line.
Amy's in Tennessee.
Hi, Amy.
Your question for Christy and me.
Yes.
I have a physical location where I do events and summer camps.
I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing you.
Can you speak directly into your phone, please?
Yes.
I have a physical location where I do camps for kids, events, birthday parties,
things like that, and I'm positioning my business to be more of a mobile
and online business.
What is the best way to let my customers know that I'm just changed and I've been thinking that I'm
going out of business.
I didn't catch the end, Amy.
What was that?
Let your customers know that you've changed and what?
That I'm changing my business model a little bit, but I'm not going out of business.
What is the best way to let them know that?
Yeah.
So, Amy, the thing that I keep reminding all of the businesses that I'm working with right now is there's no playbook for this.
So there's no, like, here is the formula.
You always follow these exact steps whenever you experience a coronavirus and the whole world shut down.
There's not a playbook.
So what I would recommend you do is you just tell them.
Like, you don't have to have a special template, a special email.
There's not a certain way.
I think you just tell them.
You just say, hey, guys, we're pivoting.
We still want to serve you.
We want to help you celebrate.
We want to help you have events.
Here's how we're doing it.
We're so excited about being able to reach you and help you in this new way.
A good friend of mine, Jennifer Allwood, she has a big event every year, and she's taking her event online.
You're seeing other influencers, people that are doing events do this.
I don't think there's a certain way that you tell them.
I think you just tell them, say,
hey guys, we're so excited.
We're still gonna be able to help you.
Here's how, here's how to engage with us.
It's a lot of the Donald Miller stuff, Dave,
where it's like you tell people exactly
what steps they need to take with you.
But Amy, I think you just tell them.
I think you tell them what you're doing
in a very positive light.
And I think one of the things I would recommend you do, Amy, is be flexible. Because if you going online
is a temporary solution for the situation you find yourself in right now, then your plan needs
to reflect that. And if this is permanently going online, even when you're allowed to have big
events, again, you're not going to, it's going to be somehow an online service for people.
Then I think your plan just needs to reflect that.
And Dave, I think that's one of the challenges right now because people aren't sure how long
some of these effects are going to last.
And so they're having trouble making temporary decisions or permanent decisions when it comes
to that.
Well, the thing about a forced hard right turn, a forced pivot like this is you don't know if you're going to stay in it or not.
You know, in a normal environment, you would have tested it before you just turned the whole ship right.
Right.
You know, or left or whatever the metaphor is.
But you may have to turn it back.
Yeah.
Or you may partially turn it back when things in quote in quotes get back to normal whatever the
flip that is but the uh so so i i think amy is you know like for instance we're saying you know
financial peace university right now for the first time in 30 years uh because of the situation
online is a 14 day free trial i don't think we will keep doing that exactly that way. Now, we will take
some of the things we learned from that offer, and as things quote-unquote get back to normal,
we may not even be doing that a week from now, you know, as they trend back towards normal.
But then, who knows? It may go zoom-zoom, and we may just do that forever. It may be a permanent change.
So I think you don't have to decide, but you do have to, as Christy said, have a plan to go, okay, if it does keep going this way, I'm going to keep going this way, and I'm going to cut the other stuff off and never go back.
Or if it doesn't, I'm going to do a hybrid between the two, or I'm going to go back to where we were, one of the two.
You may find that the online experience doesn't work out exactly the way you think.
As a matter of fact, it's not going to work out exactly the way you think it's going to.
It never does.
But, you know, some version of what you're trying.
So I think you can just communicate that.
The time that we're in gives you an unusual permission just to say it right like christy said it doesn't have to be
slick it doesn't have to be you know thought out it's just the truth is you know we're slapping
financial peace university out there for a 14-day free trial and never done it before we may never
do it again but it's it's in a unique situation a bunch of people are at home it's a good time for
them to go through the course it's a way we we can help. It doesn't cost us a lot
because it's an online delivery, so our cost of goods
sold is not huge. And so we're
not going to lose a boatload of money on it.
And it's a way we can help. So I'm
trying something. And I can just say that
out loud as the owner of the business.
And it's okay. Christy Wright
joins us this hour answering your
questions. She's the
creator of Business Boutique. This
is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, I get lots of questions about ID theft since it's a huge
problem. Most people just worry about financial fraud, which is a big mistake. Tax refund fraud, for example,
is out of control. Last year, the IRS paid out over $10 billion in fraudulent refunds. Thieves
are stealing your refunds. They're also hacking into accounting and tax preparer firms to steal
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They even protect your kids for free on their family plan.
Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282.
It's just the smartest, most affordable way to go. Welcome back to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Joining me this hour, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and popular speaker and podcast conductor or whatever you call it.
Host.
Host.
Thank you.
There we go.
Host.
That works.
Christy Wright is with us.
And Christy, going into the break, we were talking about the idea that businesses and ladies in business in particular have been doing, all of us in business, have been doing a lot of pivoting.
There's a lot of opportunity.
There's a lot of uncertainty.
A lot of just straight up weirdness yeah out there to deal with uh you
you know the old saying the entrepreneur is the only person that can go from sheer terror
to sheer exhilaration and back every 24 hours has been particularly true in the last three or four
weeks that's right and it's like one minute you're going yeah that's gonna work and another
minute you're going god please get us back to work work. And another minute you're going, God, please get us back to work.
Yeah.
And no, we don't want anybody to be sick.
We don't want anybody to die.
But we also don't want everybody to go broke.
So it's just the cure is going to be more deadly than the disease by the time we're done.
And people are just business people.
Entrepreneurs are just pulling their hair out.
So one of the things we did around here at Ramsey was we looked at all of our product lines.
We said, how can we pivot?
What can we do to make those things helpful and targeted in this particular time?
And one of the things we did this with is the Business Boutique Academy.
Now, the Business Boutique Academy is a unique
offering to start with. Talk about what that is for a second. Yeah, so this is my online training
and coaching group. This is where I train women through video lessons, much like a course would be,
and then I also coach them. So real-time, live coaching, I give them feedback, I train them and
answer their specific questions. And what's interesting is, and a lot of businesses, just like you said, had things planned this spring, whether it's events or launches or whatever.
One of the things we had planned this spring was our open enrollment for Academy.
We only do it twice a year.
And we came into this with everything going on, going, okay, what does this mean now?
How do we need to adapt or adjust in light of this environment and
a lot of the women i work with and you know this day from speaking in our events
they struggle with selling anyway and they struggle with making money anyway so you put
these business owners in this position where what do you mean by they struggle with making money
they they feel guilty for it you talked about this before they feel guilty for i don't want
people to feel like i'm taking advantage of them i And make plenty of money. Yes. If they follow your training, but sometimes they feel like they
shouldn't be making money. They feel guilty for it. They feel guilty for selling and they've got
these ideas around sales. And so one of the common questions I've gotten during this whole pandemic
is how do I market during this time? How do I sell during this time to stay in business,
pay my payroll, pay my rent, lease, overhead, and not come across as insensitive.
And so here's kind of what I've walked them through.
I said, I'm seeing a lot out there.
I'm seeing a scale between you've got some people on one end of the spectrum
that are just saying, I'm going to give everything away for free.
It just, here's all the things, just all for free.
Okay, that sounds nice, but that doesn't help you pay the bills.
You have the other extreme where I'm seeing some people that are doing their launches,
doing their launches,
doing their marketing like nothing's different.
Tone deaf.
Totally tone deaf.
No filter of sensitivity.
No filter of compassion. Just like running that sale like nothing, you know, running their business like that
nothing's going on in the world.
I said, what you need to do as a business owner is figure out where you fall on the
scale.
How can you say to your customers, I see you, I hear you, I'm in
this with you, I want to help you and serve you and keep the lights on yourself. And a perfect
example of that is what we've done with the Academy. So the normal price of the Academy for
six months of the membership is $244, which that's a steal in and of itself to have coaching with me
in this community for six months. But we thought, okay, how can we say to our members,
new members and existing members,
I see you, I hear you,
I want to help you in this environment
when things are really hard
and businesses are struggling to make their bills.
We came up with a crazy low price, which is $99.
Just saying, you know what?
For six months?
For six months.
Yeah, that's almost giving it away.
It is.
But not quite.
Right.
But what's so cool is it allows us to still
run our business still bring in some revenue for our real expenses to operate and it's still going
to help people it allows them to have a lower barrier to entry to get into this coaching group
to get the community that they need i think you're going to have a lot of people come into this
at 99 just because they're ready to launch yes and this unique they're going to launch right now
in this unique environment because they're out of work anyway right or they got time on their
hands at home or whatever it is and they look up and they go I can jump in there and Christy will
personally coach me on my launch yeah and you can launch right in the middle of this you can just
decide to or or some kind of such a major pivot with your business that it feels like it's
a launch yeah well what's really cool is during these coaching sessions we there is so much energy
in this group dave where we are coming up with some of the most creative awesome ideas let me
give you an example of katie okay katie's one of my academy members i did this deep dive coaching
with all of my members a week and a half ago just helping them through this coronavirus every day i
went live at 10 o'clock giving them feedback and And Katie was like, okay, what do I need to do to stay in business? I need to cover
my expenses. Here are my expenses per month. I run an ice skating business. So she does lessons.
It's a lesson-based business. She also has ice skating services like sharpening the blades of
the ice skates. Okay. So her entire business model has been shut down as no one's coming to the rink.
The rink is closed. So we brainstormed ways for her to adapt her services to a pickup drop-off system for her skates. So
she's still able to provide the services of sharpening the blades. And we explored taking
all of her lessons from on the ice to off ice online training. There's all types of stretches
and strength training and different things you can do to stay in shape and keep your skills sharp,
even if you're not on the ice. So she is is and she's already seen a huge success from this this is a business that would have been shut down had she not had this community
skating in the living room that we sure are i had a horse boarding business i was like we got it we
got to explore this i don't know maybe you just practice on the arm of your couch i don't know
i was like we're gonna have to get just got an email a minute ago there is a lady that has a uh animal sanctuary in california and she is selling her llamas
uh a a folk i mean she puts up a camera in front of her llamas and you can have a llama join your
zoom call for 100 bucks if you want to just look up and see a llama on your Zoom call for $100. Can I add her to the Academy?
And so she did.
She's done 300 of them at $100 apiece.
$30,000 of llama Zoom calls.
I mean, that's brilliant.
That's hysterical.
It's hysterical.
I'm going to get my shih tzu and do the same thing.
One of my ladies, she makes jewelry.
She decided, just as a funny experiment,
to make hoop earrings that have
a little toilet paper on them they're blowing up she's selling i'm selling faster than she can make
them i mean it's just you're seeing innovations even in the darkness even in the difficult times
but i think one of the things that's key to that dave is the community we are already isolated at
home i think community is more important now than ever.
And the energy in the academy community, just seeing these women lock arms, we're bouncing
ideas, we're coming up with new ideas, innovations, adaptations.
It's just, I think it's more important now than ever.
And I just keep reminding people, everyone listening now, everyone at home, now is not
the time to give up.
We need your ideas.
We need your business, your gifts, your passion, your solution.
We need you. Do not pack it up and go home. Don't tuck your tail and give up
because it got hard. It just means you need help and community to get through this because we need
you on the other side. We need you now and we need you running your business on the other side of
this. So how do they get into the academy for 99 bucks right now? Businessboutique.com, but it's
only until Thursday night. So we intentionally focus on open enrollment for four days,
and the rest of the six months I focus on serving my members.
So I'm in marketing mode right now.
Thursday night I'm shutting it down,
and I'll go into serving these members for the next six months
as I walk them through this crazy time.
Okay, so you've got like a day and a half.
Yep.
But depending on when you're hearing this,
if you're hearing it live, you don't have but a day and a half to get it done.
Yeah.
So, no, two days and a half.
I'm sorry, Thursday night. Yep. Thursday night atursday night at midnight yep okay so businessboutique.com yep
to join my coaching group join the coaching group of the business boutique academy
what you want to click on it's only 99 for six months and it's got all kinds of
video instruction plus your one-on-one what's group coaching, your personal live coaching online.
And I'll tell you the most common question that I get when it comes to around the academy,
people say, but is it for this type of business?
But I have a fitness business, a bookkeeping business, an architect business, a personal training.
Yes, you're all in business, and we help you run your business.
That's what we do.
Yeah, and that's why it's a number one best-selling book. That's why
when we do the event in the fall, it's always
a complete sellout between
3,000 and 4,000 people at the event.
Ladies, primarily, 99%
at the event. And the Business Boutique
Academy,
the Business Boutique book,
which is only $10 at DaveRamsey.com right now,
by the way. So check all of that
out, but jump on her website right now, businessboutique.com,
and look at the Academy for $99.
That's a deal.
It's a serious deal.
I'm going to get Rufus.com, though, for my Shih Tzu for Zoom calls.
I'm just saying.
Go get that right now.
This is the Dave Ramsey Show.
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freshbooks.com slash, Ramsey Personality, joining us this hour answering your questions.
She's the founder of Business Boutique and the author of the number one best-selling book, Business Boutique,
A Woman's Guide to Making Money Doing What She Loves.
Ashley is with us in Texas.
Ashley, your question for Christy.
Hi, guys. I just wanted to say thank you to Christy first off because I have a second sign-up for your academy.
Welcome, Ashley.
That's awesome.
So, yes, it's done wonders for my business.
My question is I'm going to cut to the chase here.
I'm a photographer in a very niche market.
I'm actually a birth photographer.
Oh, fun.
Needless to say.
Yes.
Oh, it's a blast.
My clients are amazing, especially the itty-bitty ones.
It's awesome being able to watch them take their first breath. No, the grandparents. The grandparents are the best.
True. It's amazing being able to watch the little ones take their first breath in the world.
It's so cool. At the same time, right now, as you know, with crazy corona, my access to the hospital is extremely restricted.
And I was already planning on doing a slow transition into another niche, adding it into the company this year.
I was planning on doing it this spring.
And this kind of sped it up a little bit.
So it's a catch-22.
I have extra time on my hands to do the transition.
However, I have a feeling the transition is going to be a little bit more than a transition. It might just be a switch because I do not see them loosening those
restrictions anytime soon on photographers. Um, and I'm a little nervous about that because
the niche market that I'm switching to is the polar opposite of what I've been doing. I'm switching to boudoir.
What?
Oh.
Photography.
And PG rated, not anything crazy.
However, the niche that I'm in,
obviously going from babies to strictly young ladies,
it's a big jump.
And I've been doing it for years on the side, you know,
like kind of as a side niche.
So I'm experienced in it.
But since births are pretty much going to be restricted, I have a feeling I'm going to have to switch strictly to boudoir.
And I'm nervous about that transition because it's like a 180 from what I'm
used to doing.
I used to joke that I did births in boudoir.
What about home births?
What about home births? I can do home births, and it just depends on, like, how many, like,
how many are in the area, because I only take two a month just due to the, you know, the relationship
with the client. Oh, you only do two shoots a month now, or back in normal times? Yes, because
if I'm on call 24 hours a day the second
they hit 36 weeks well you ought to be able to find that many home births yeah i would think so
and it's interesting because the way that she's describing it the restrictions aren't going to be
lifted anytime soon which i understand but you need to you need a strategy to keep the lights
on regardless like i guess what i'm hearing from you ashley is like this what's going on during this time is forcing the switch and i don't think that it is because with home birth two a month or even
just front porch photography to keep the lights on until you decide what you want to do i just
think some really cool front porch yeah i think you've got more options than you think ashley and
dave we've talked about this before where i don't like it when i have just one of two bad options I like to have like 50 options and we always have more options than we think
so Ashley I would encourage you to think through okay what would it look like to transition now
what would it look like to not transition until the fall till things are like we said quote unquote
back to normal whatever that means and you actually put some intentionality into this
rebrand what would it look like to have a middle ground right now where you just do some
front porch photography to pay the bills? I think you have more options and even maybe three or four
more options I didn't just describe. So I think you have more options than you think, Ashley.
And when you lay all those out, you'll be able to pick the best one. You won't feel forced into
this 180 as you described, which I just don't like being forced into any decision when it comes to my
business or anything. I want to pick it because it's the best one, even if there's some limitations
in the environment. Yeah, a 180 can be okay, but it would only be if you were miserable.
Yeah. And that's the only reason I would want to do a 180. And the right timing,
the right reason. I mean, the branding, the whole thing, yeah. Angela's in Texas. Hey,
Angela, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I went
through a health crisis a couple of years ago that caused me to leave medical school and leave my
doctor dream behind. Wow. And throughout my experience and everything that I learned, I
adopted a non-toxic lifestyle. I did a lot of research and now I have friends and family
contacting me often for my opinion on their own health situation.
And sometimes that takes hours at a time.
And I love it.
I'm so passionate about health.
I'm just really not sure what direction to go in or if I can generate money or make a business from this
because it's my experience.
I don't have any credentials.
At the end of the day, it's just my opinion.
So I'd love your advice on that.
I also have a little baby, so I'd love to look for something flexible
and I can do from home.
So thank you.
What would be the – let me ask you, is there not something that you could get
certified in that would set you up?
Because that sounds like that's around the edge of nutrition and some other movements
that are out there that you can probably get certified in, couldn't you?
Yes.
I thought about a life coach, but what I've been helping people with more, and I'm not
really sure if this exists, it's kind of like a health navigator.
So looking at their medical records, helping them understand all the jargon
that comes through with it, looking at, you know, what does an endocrinologist do versus,
you know, a gastroenterologist, things that I feel like is common knowledge, but for many people,
it's not. So I've been doing more of that and then also helping to consult with nutritional changes
and lifestyle changes. Yeah, I love this, Angela, because there's an advocate. Yeah, there's several
different ways that you could go about helping people. And I just want to first affirm you,
because I can't tell you how many women I work with that their whole business idea started because
they got a lot of questions from family and friends. Oh, well, I have a lot of family and
friends asking how I got my house to be minimalist or how I paid off my debt faster
or how I fill in the blank, whatever the thing is.
And so it's amazing how that can spur in you,
hey, I'm solving a problem for people.
I bet there's more people like my friends and family
that I could actually possibly turn this into a business.
Now, as far as the medium,
whether it's coaching, consulting, an ebook, online courses,
there are a variety of ways
that you could actually help people and get
that knowledge to them and that's where I would just encourage you to think of yourself and what
you enjoy the most and what you're the best at if you're not a writer maybe don't start a blog and
decide to do an ebook maybe you talk to people you know through online coaching through consulting
or through courses through teaching that that format so the format I would just encourage you to think about what you enjoy and what you're good at.
But I love what Dave said, because there's as far as certifications or credentials,
if you stay in your lane as I'm going to teach you and be an advocate for you,
you probably don't have to have a lot of those letters behind your name.
But if you start to bleed into this space where there could be liability or you need a certain expertise or certain credentials, you'd need to know that
and just kind of have a lane that you stay in depending on, you know, what you're qualified
to do. But I would just encourage you to think of the medium, because I think that you do have a lot
of knowledge and experience that you can solve a problem for people, more people than just your
family and friends. And that could even be a source of income for you. Yeah. And it could start on a very primitive level, just very simply.
You're just charging by the hour for coaching someone through something or for advocating
for them through something.
Here's I walk you through these nutritional issues on the toxicity.
I'll walk you through these definitions.
And here's who you need to see for that.
And I'll help you guide you for so much an hour.
And then the things you learn while you're doing that,
you'd find the most commonly asked pain points, no pun intended,
to address with your written materials, with your coaching classes, with whatever,
and you can create a more generic thing.
And so not unlike what we did here this
whole Ramsey thing started with me doing one-on-one financial counseling primarily with people in
crisis and so I sat down with them with a yellow pad and a calculator do a budget well I figured
out I needed budgeting forms later on we call it every dollar of the budgeting the world's best
budgeting app but that's
30 years later.
But by doing the one-on-one, I got the learnings that I needed.
So the Business Boutique Academy, normally $240, $244, includes coaching from Christy
online, is only $99, and the enrollment is only open through midnight this coming Thursday.
Go to businessboutique.com and get signed up.
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Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 327, do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.
Helen Keller said, alone we can do so little.
Together we can do so much.
Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author and the creator of Business Boutique Academy and Business Boutique, the event,
joins me this hour answering your questions.
We've been talking about pivoting a business or launching a business,
pivoting a business, changing your direction in the middle of the coronavirus shutdown
in order to temporarily survive and or permanently change direction.
And we've also talked about the idea that you know a lot of people
lost their jobs a lot of ladies have lost their jobs and are some of the 17 million americans
affected by the coronavirus shutdown can you imagine 17 million i can't even get my brains
to that doesn't ah it's amazing and so the but in that case they've got the opportunity
to start something they've always wanted to start
and that is Christy's specialty
equipping women
a woman's guide
to making money doing what she loves
equipping women to make money doing what they love
and it
coincides with we were scheduled to
launch the Business Boutique
Academy open enrollment,
which we do for a very fixed period of time, and then it is cut off so you can pay attention to the enrollees.
That way we're not in continuous marketing mode with you on that product anyway.
It was scheduled to be in a couple of weeks or a couple weeks ago?
It was scheduled to be last week, and we bumped it one week to get some things in order.
I did a workshop specifically last week, three steps to helping people stay in business.
That's a free workshop on my website or on my Facebook page if they want to see it.
But we wanted to get some things in order to figure out how can we make this a huge give for people in a time when they're struggling.
And that's when we decided to drop the price from $244 for six months to $99 to say, hey, I know these are hard times, but you need help now more than ever.
And this community is what you need.
And my coaching and the training and the academy is what you need to get through.
And I really believe, Dave, come out stronger on the other side.
This is something where you have an opportunity to not just stay afloat, but to learn new things that, like you said, will carry you through on the other side that actually improve your business in a way you wouldn't have imagined.
Well, you've got the time on your hands.
Yeah.
In a lot of cases, if you're listening to us, ladies.
And, again, we're doing everything we can at Ramsey across the board on our product lines to find places where we can chop prices down to near nothing.
Yeah.
And this is a two-thirds cut it's a
70 off yeah kind of thing down to 99 on what's normally 244 and so um now it gives you the
opportunity to access some material here for what you would have spent eating out one night and
you're not going to be doing that so you got that money one lady said to me today on facebook i was
i'm going live on Facebook a lot
to answer questions about the Academy.
And one woman said,
I was planning to join at 244 anyway.
I'm so pleased to know that I've got this extra margin.
She said, this is,
I'm able to have six months of coaching
for less than I pay for Netflix in a year.
And I was like, wow, that is good.
Cause you imagine how this is going to help your business,
your income.
It's just incredible to hear that perspective. It really fun and we have some amazing so Christy or Ozark Christy or Tiger King what is light what is dark
but even we had a caller earlier Ashley said she's been in the academy and it's helped her so much
I love seeing these success stories and that's what I want for these people listening right now
that have never experienced what it's like to have that coach and friend and community in your corner, especially at a time like this.
Well, and the thing about this community that's on there with you when you're coaching is it's not just you that way.
You've got all these other people cheering you on.
You've got cheerleaders encouraging you, holding you accountable, pushing you out of the nest, giving you ideas.
Totally. leaders encouraging you holding you accountable pushing you out of the nest giving you ideas totally there's a tremendous amount of emotional energy that comes with this to uh to fight through
tough times or to launch something in the middle of scary times or whatever but you might as well
yeah you might as well and we've been saying that around here a lot of why wouldn't i yeah you know
well right now why wouldn't i why not now why not now i did one i did a one of the coaching things i did last week was buddy
them up we've got a big group you know coaching we do and i put them in in buddies and pairs so
i was like this is your buddy it's your accountability buddy y'all are walking together
through this craziness and i gave them assignments so yeah it's just like having that community is
huge absolutely carrie is in tex. Carrie, your question for Christy.
Hi, Dave.
Hi, Christy.
Thanks for taking my call.
Like so many other businesses, I've had to close my store because of the shelter in place.
And so how can I continue to connect with my customers while those stores are closed?
Do you have an online presence?
Do you have an online store?
We do have an online store, yeah. Okay. And social media presence? But we have an online store? We do have an online store, yeah.
Okay, and social media presence? We have a retail store as well.
Sure.
And a social media presence?
I have a social media presence.
I'm on Facebook.
I'm on Instagram.
I don't use that as much as I should.
How good is your email list of your customers?
Work in progress.
Okay.
All right. What do you think you need, Carrie, in terms of numbers, just to cover your expenses? Have you looked at your numbers short term right now,
thinking, okay, for the next month, two months, just to stay afloat, here's what I need. Have
you kind of run those numbers? We have, and I think we're okay in that department. I just don't
want to lose the connection with my customer,
and I don't know what to post on social media.
I'm so used to posting about our products, what we're doing,
getting people to come to the community because we're in a tourist area.
But I don't know.
You talked earlier about not wanting to promote your stuff at this time,
so I just kind of don't know how to connect with them online.
Well, I want to be careful there, Carrie.
I am absolutely an advocate for you promoting your stuff during this time
because it helps people and serves people.
We're just talking about putting a filter or a layer of sensitivity.
Just don't be tone deaf when you're doing it.
Yeah, just putting a layer of showing, hey, I see people.
You're sensitive to what's going on.
So a tornado came through East Nashville a few weeks back,
and one of the venues that got knocked down had a painting on
the mural on the side of it before it got knocked down, and everything but that wall got knocked
down, said Nashville Strong. And so Nashville Strong, with that exact emblem, t-shirts,
start popping up everywhere and being donated, some of the proceeds being donated to help some
of the tornado victims. And so if you've got a unique community stance, a tourist destination type thing,
you can tie into something like that and say, you know,
Carrie's community, whatever that is, fill in the blank, strong, coronavirus strong,
we will survive, or I don't know, come up with something that ties into that,
that ties into your retail offering anyway, that rallies the people around you.
Carrie, I want to give you one other tip, and I actually just talked about this on Facebook Live earlier today.
This is a lot of people ask me, specifically Academy members ask me what their content should be about, which is kind of what you're asking, like what to talk about on social media.
If you could picture, you can't see me now, Carrie, but if you could picture two circles that are interlocking,
and one circle represents your customer's problems that you solve.
There are problems that you, there are a lot of them.
And then the other circle represents your wheelhouse, so what you're known for.
Where those circles overlap is your core business, right?
So you have specific things that you help them with.
You have specific problems of theirs that you solve through your core business. But there's a lot that falls in that circle, that overlap of that circle
that you can be talking about that doesn't cannibalize your core business. So let me give
you an example of like real estate agents. The realtor, they know how to buy and sell houses.
That's what they do. The service they provide people, their customers problems are they need
to buy and sell homes. The overlap,
there's their core business. But there's a lot of stuff that falls in that overlap
that isn't just the buying and selling of a home. So how to improve the curb appeal of your home?
What areas of your home that you could remodel to get ROI on the fastest? There are tons of
things you can put out content on that solves your customers' problems, answers their questions,
fills their needs, that doesn't cannibalize your core business.
That's what your content should be about on social media.
So, Carrie, in your example, what types of things are your customers interested in,
asking about, that still falls in your wheelhouse?
How to look cute when dressing for a Zoom call waist up.
How to accessorize things and still be comfortable and play with your kids where
it's not earrings your baby's going to grab when you're at home i'm just making this up carry but
think of things that you know about that's your wheelhouse and things your customers are interested
in that's the problems they solve where that overlap occurs is what you're talking about on
social media and then your core business only supports that but it helps you get in front of
them and love on them and serve them uh during this time from home and if you'll take all of that and stir in that unique community of
yours yes and say you know we're going to print we love nurses t-shirts and use some of the proceeds
to uh have uh food catered in for health care workers or i don't know you make it up as you
go here but there's a lot of good you can do in the middle of this as well.
Christy Wright, thanks for hanging out.
Thanks for having me.
BusinessBoutiqueAcademy.com.
Open enrollment is good through Thursday.
We'll be back before you know it.
In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,
and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.
In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope.
For the very first time ever,
we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days.
Go to DaveRamsey.com slash hope so you can watch from home.