#12 - Ash Roy of Productive Insights
#12 - Ash Roy on getting clarity, having an alter ego and morning pages
On this episode of The First 10 Podcast, I talk to Ash Roy, who, amongst other things, is the founder of Productive Insights, a community that helps businesses leverage their online infrastructure with a view to maximising profit. It's a great resource for those looking to build their online authority, and grow their business with a ton of useful productivity strategies.
Key Points
"Price is a signal"
Empathy helps you step into your customer’s world and solve their problem not as you see it, but as they see it
Content marketing is a conversation that’s already happening between a buyer and a seller right now. The only question for you as a seller is - are you going to be a part of the conversation?
Show Notes
Seth Godin on Productive Insights podcast
Ash's 9 Step Framework for growth
The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman
James Clear on Productive Insights podcast
Contact Details
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashroyhelps/
Transcription
SPEAKERS Conor McCarthy, Ash Roy
Ash Roy 00:02
People seem to think that you have to have clarity before you take action. But it's exactly the opposite. In 99% of the cases I've seen, clarity comes from taking action and not the other way around, you don't have clarity and then take action. You take action, and then you get clarity.
Conor McCarthy 00:23
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the first 10 podcast where I interview Business Builders on their first 10 customers, who they were, how they found them, had they talked to them, and what effect they had in their business so that you can learn what worked and what didn't. My guest today is Ash Roy Ash is the founder of productive insights and community which helps Business Builders build their online authority and set themselves up for success. He helps them grow their businesses with apps a tonne of really useful productivity strategies, everything from marketing, right down to the nuts and bolts strategy. Ash is a really great guest not just because he has a great history in business, and obviously as a growth mindset. But he helps other people start their businesses. And in doing that, we talk about the nuts and bolts of things like revenue versus profit versus cash flow, the value of content marketing, the subtle power of using morning pages to get clarity on the problem you're solving for your customers and those customers who seek to serve. We also chat about the concept of having an alter ego, and how that helped people like the Beatles, and David Bowie and Beyonce, and what we can leverage from that idea in building new identities for ourselves. It's pretty wide ranging conversation because a lot of fun I really enjoyed it actually also gave me a sneak peek into his membership platform, I have to say it is stuffed with amazing resources, everything from mindset tools to workflow systems, marketing strategies, there's so much stuff in there, I'll link to it in the show notes. Please do make sure to check out the show notes because there's lots of stuff in here we're seeing including ashes own podcast. Without further ado, please enjoy this episode with ash Roy. Hey there first 10 podcast listeners. I'm here today with my friend ash Roy. Ash, first of all, thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us here today. Can you tell us a little bit about your business story so far and what you're working on right now.
Ash Roy 02:16
Yeah, so, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak on your podcast, it's an honour. I am currently working on helping small business owners, mainly consultants of different kinds people with an HR background or lawyers or various x corporate specialists who have decided to start their own business. And I'm helping them to grow their businesses using online and offline strategies. By way of background, I started off in the corporate world, I did my a 997. I did my Master's in business. In 2004. I myself worked in corporate as an analyst and strategic advisor to large corporates for about 15 to 20 years, I really did not enjoy that. The closer to the top I got the the less I found business in those circles was aligned with my values. So I decided to start my own business. And I've never been happier. It isn't as lucrative as my corporate career was. But I was doing pretty well in the corporate world. But I am very happy. So in terms of how I started, I started off as a writer, I was trained to write by a guy called john Morrow who used to write for a website called copyblogger. He was a senior editor there and I really enjoyed writing. But I found that difficult to monetize. So I pivoted into podcasting. And that was five years ago. And I fell in love with the whole marketing thing, because I've done marketing, even back in corporate when I did my MBA, and I really enjoyed offline marketing, and I fell in love with online marketing. So to interview some thought leaders in the marketing space, including our common friend, Seth Godin, and I really think I hit my stride there. A lot of the guests that I've had on have really enjoyed being guests on the show. I was deeply honoured when said said I was a good egg and a fine correspondent that meant the world to me, because I think very highly. I pray Yeah, and coming from a set that means a lot. So, yeah, so my business these days is, podcasting is the front end of the business, if you like it's a way in which I offer value at no cost to my audience. And then some proportion of the audience decides that they like what I'm about they like the ideas and principles that I espouse explicitly and implicitly and then some of them decide to join me in my membership community, and I have a small membership community with many from all over the world, mostly small business owners, and a high proportion of them are consultants of some description. And there are some bricks and mortar business owners in there as well. There's a couple of e commerce people there as well, but predominantly people who are knowledge workers, or who were knowledge workers and are working in some consultative capacity. And we meet twice a week to do these things called productive sprints, where you're probably familiar with this format, which I know set does as well, or sets, akimbo does, where we work on our own agenda. But we do it in 25 minute increments with five minute breaks in between. And we have two mastermind calls every month, where we just do a hotspot and go through helping people. And then there's a whole lot of content people that can access behind a paywall inside the membership portal.
Conor McCarthy 05:56
Wow, you have thanks for that you do you do a lot. And you It sounds like you help a lot of people in a lot of different fields. Yeah, was this so with with your membership community? Let's just take that through the frame of the first 10 Was it hard to find those first 10 people to sign up to the membership community?
Ash Roy 06:14
Well, it wasn't so hard to find them. What was hard was to muster up the courage to believe that I was good enough to offer it to them. And then to believe that I had enough to offer in terms of charging them what I what I charged them at the start. So when I was first going to launch my membership, I was planning to launch it for 19 US dollars a month. And fortunately for me, someone said to me, you're being an idiot, you might as well go and work at McDonald's. And fortunately, I took that advice. And as in I didn't go work at McDonald's. But I decided not to launch at 19. But I instead decided to launch it, launch it $99 us a month. But I was terrified that I wouldn't give enough value at that price. So here's what I did. I gave away for one hour face to face calls, which were all redeemable in the first month. It and that was my way of convincing myself that I could give them value. And this was very much a reflection of my own mindset, as you can probably tell. But the way I saw it was Look, I'm just going to keep upping the amount of value I can give. So that there is no doubt in my mind that they will get more than $99 worth of value. The deal was you can cancel anytime. The other anxiety I had about wanting my membership was at some point, the first person is going to be the first member right? So what am I going to say to them like a lot of other membership, people I spoke to said, you need to have about 60 people to launch? Well. Turns out, you don't have to have 60 people to launch a membership. You can have one person if you're honest about it, which I was. And I said, Look, you're my first member. And the upside of this is that you get pretty much unlimited access to me. Because at the time I was charging $500 an hour for my time as a consultant online. And also, you know, the MBA and the CPA also helped because I had a background in marketing and so on. So I said I'll give you that much, I'll give you four hours of my time. And I will drop the amount of access to me in that first month going forward. But you get this because you my first member did that for the first handful of members. So fast forward to two years later. Now that same membership cost 399 us a month. And the people who joined at 99 a month will founding members. So they got grandfathered in, they still pay $99 a month. And that's a retention strategy. But if you're joining today, unless you have some extenuating circumstances. And we do have, you know situations where people have been badly affected by things like COVID, or you know, people who are in certain marginalised minority groups, we take it on a case by case basis. But basically, that same membership is now 399 a month, because we have a lot more members, there's much more proof of concept. There is a $99 plan, but there is now a light membership, which is pretty much just you access the content, but you don't get access to me. And then there's a third level that I've created, which is an $899 plan, and that includes 245 minute face to face sessions with me one on one every month, and the prices are generally going to continue increasing over time.
Conor McCarthy 09:54
That's fascinating. Thank you. Yeah. So that that first, that first follower, if you like That was a really great deal, I guess. But it also helps you get over that mental block
Ash Roy 10:05
spot on. And the way I chose to see it, because a lot of people told me this as well. They said, You're an idiot for doing it for 99. You're undervaluing yourself. And price is a signal, right price is a signal in the market. And you're signalling to the market that you're not worth a whole lot. But my view was, I was not interested in what signals the market was getting at that point. All I wanted to know, for my own value set was, if I'm charging them 99, I need to know that I'm going to give them at least 99 in terms of value. Now, the next question is, well, how do you measure that value? For me at the time, that was I want to see $99 a month into their bank account, at the end of say, three months when I've had some time to work with them. But since then, things have changed. A lot of people telling me, Look, I don't I'm not interested in seeing the money going in my bank account, I'm interested in getting your knowledge or getting your insights because the value will come and they believe that will come in the future. And that's okay. But I still like to see people depositing the money in their account that they're paying me, that makes me feel a lot more comfortable. But I've learned that over the years that a large part of that depends on what actions people take as well. But I certainly do my very best to give that value. And I like to see that money entering people's bank accounts. If they're paying me that.
Conor McCarthy 11:30
I like that, that is a really very honest way of doing things. If that makes sense. It's kind of you want to give back at least what they're paying in every month as soon as possible. Yeah,
Ash Roy 11:38
but I also have caveats. So when someone starts with me, I do say to them, Listen, this is not a done for you service. You know, that's a lot more expensive than 899 a month, even my top membership plan this, that's just you're just paying for the one to one sessions. This is you know, you do the work. It's like the gym analogy, right? You want to go to the gym, you want to build muscle, well, I can't lift the weights for you. You got to do the weightlifting, you got to do the training, I will tell you, I'll give you an exercise plan, but it's totally on you. So that generally makes me feel a little bit more relaxed about things.
Conor McCarthy 12:12
Yeah, I love that. And and you're you're interacting with a lot of people for whom making money online is probably a brand new concept if they're coming from a corporate background, and with a certain set of skills, and they want to go out into it into a consultant consultative capacity. How? How do you help those people find their first 10?
Ash Roy 12:35
That's such a good question. Well, for me, it all comes down to the customer, and empathy. And this is what Seth Godin and I talked about at great length. Seth talked about generosity when he was a guest on my podcast on episode 200. And I talked about empathy. And I think both are very important. And they're probably two of the least used words in marketing, at least in the marketing that I've seen, a lot of online marketers appear to be talking about how many millions they've made. And there's a lot of bluster about these things. But first of all, making millions means nothing to me if I put my CPA hat on, and even if they didn't have a CPA, I could tell you that profit is, is more important than revenue in most situations. And you could be making $10 million a year. But if you're spending $12 million to make that $10 million, you should be you know, wrapping your business up today. And then cash flow is, again, as important if not more important than profit, because you can be profitable, but you can be cashflow negative, and you do that for too long, and you're not going to have a business to make profit from. So I think that, you know, in order of importance, you know, it's cash flow, then profit and then revenue. So I'm not interested in revenue numbers, I'm interested in profitability. I'm interested in profit per hour, and I'd like to help my audience increase their profit per hour. But let's circle back to that later because I'm not answering your question. Your question was, how do I help my, my members get their first 10 members? Well, to me, it comes back to understanding your customer. And creating a customer avatar is important. Absolutely. You know, how old are they? What do they do? What's their background? And who was their customer? You know, who do they serve? What problem do they solve? And I have this nine step framework that I've created for my membership programme. And the first step is about getting clear on your mission and your why, you know, what change Do you want to make the world? What are you really bad, and the second step is, understand your customer. So do a customer avatar fine, but I like going one step further. After doing the customer avatar, do an empathy. map this was first created by I think it was a man called john grey or David grey, I can't remember. But it's basically saying what is my customer hearing, thinking, feeling seeing doing? And if you can say that, answer those five questions, what is my customer hearing, thinking, seeing doing feeling before they use my service or product? What are they hearing, thinking, feeling doing seeing while they use my service or product? And what are they hearing, thinking, feeling doing seeing after they use my product that kind of maps that buyer journey, it maps the transformation that you deliver. And it allows you to step into their world. So if you can indulge me for a moment, I can give you a little bit of a use case as to where the just doing an avatar, or customer persona falls short. But if you do the empathy map, it takes you one level deeper and is worth doing. So here's the here's the use case, or here's a scenario, say, Connor wants to buy his first washing machine, he's 25 years old is decided not to wash his laundry at his friend's house anymore. His mom said it enough, you got to get your own washing machine. So he goes off to buy a washing machine now kind of goes and starts looking online. And he sees ads from this company a that is saying our washing machines are the best in the world and made a stainless steel, they'll last a lifetime, you know, surgical steel and all this sort of stuff. Meanwhile, Connor is trying to figure out the difference between a top loader and a front loader. He doesn't care about surgical steel, he's not there yet. Just tell me which one I need. Right. So he types into Google top loaders versus fat loader. Google calls this the zero moment of truth. And we can come back to that later if you want. and up comes this beautiful article that talks about top loaders versus top loaders. And it gives him this questionnaire or this sliding scale, easy to use. And it says how many people in your family let's pretend Connors married. Now, how many people in your family? How often do you wash? Do you do heavy, you know, heavy loads or light loads? Do you do delicate wash blah, blah, blah. And then at the end of it, it says, okay, Connie, you need a full kilo washing machine because you watch three times a week and you have four people in your family. And you need a top loader. And that article with that whole framework happens to be sitting on company B's website, who is kind of going to buy his washing machine from. So I think that empathy piece helps you to really step into your prospects world and solve the problem not as you see it as the business owner, but as they see it in their world as they experience it on their journey. And to me, that's what empathy is about.
Conor McCarthy 17:55
That's fantastic. And yeah, your your nine step framework of which that's one of the early steps is brilliant, and I'll link to it in the show notes. It's, it's really important I think for, for a lot of people, it's probably a very what it's difficult to issue true empathy into, especially in relation to something you're trying to sell to, to those who wish to serve. And are there any other? Are there any ways that you help people with when it comes to practising that empathy as they look for their customers?
Ash Roy 18:30
Great question. So for one thing, I have tried to replace the word sell, with the words purchase facilitation in my head. So to me, selling is almost redundant in today's world 50 years ago, before Google came along, but maybe 30 years ago, when you wanted to purchase something, you were reliant on the salesperson to give you information about whatever it is you're buying, they held all the product knowledge. And if the salesperson was kind and gentle or, or was trying to, in some way, educate you before trying to make the sale, you would probably feel like there was some knowledge transfer, there was some respect. And you may have paid Person A a couple more dollars, even though Person B down the road was cheaper, because they afforded you that courtesy. And they were, you know, trying to do a good job with sales. But regardless, but Person A and Person B held the power in the transaction, at least in terms of knowledge, it was asymmetrical information. But Google changed that. And that's the zero moment of truth. Right? So that so the first transaction you had pre Google was called the first moment of truth in marketing circles. The first time we came in touch with a brand or a product, and then Google came up with what they called z mots, which is basically zero moment of truth. Where, if I want to get knowledge about most products these days, I just type it into Google. And I eventually find the product. And often companies are discovering the customers at the point of purchase, where the customer is about to hit the Buy Now button, they still don't know who the customer is because they don't have an identity. Right? Right. And this is where content marketing comes into the conversation. And Chris Garrett, who taught content, marketing it in a university in Canada, put it beautifully. In Episode Six. He said, content marketing is a conversation that's already happening between a buyer and a seller right now out there. The only question for you as a seller is, are you going to be part of that quick conversation? In other words, are you going to create useful content. So the playing field has changed that the playing field is, is now levelled because of the internet, the seller no longer holds power over the buyer. And so the only option the buyer really had or the seller really has, is to be able to facilitate the purchase rather than make a sale. At least that's my take on things. So the only option we really have now. And that's how I probably should have always been, is to serve and deliver as much value as possible, and then let the buyer make their decision as to whether they want to buy from us or not.
Conor McCarthy 21:24
That's fascinating. I was reading to sell as human, the Dan pink book. And he has an interesting phrase for it. He said, we've moved from a world where it was caveat emptor, let the buyer beware to caveat venditore that the seller beware. Because Yeah, because people now have so much access to Yeah, to information about what they're about to purchase. How can you make a difference? How can you
Ash Roy 21:53
and there's other major shifts happening as well, Connor, I mean, people are moving from owning, willing to pay for wanting to pay for ownership to wanting to pay for access. So that's one of the reasons I started a membership, you're seeing a lot of large corporates like apple. And you know, I mean, Netflix kind of started this whole bingeing business, but they started the trend of moving from wanting to, from ownership to access, you know, but to me, I think iTunes was doing even before that, where they started to turn away from the whole buying of DVDs business, to you just pay for access, back then, the internet wasn't quite there yet. We're talking probably 10 plus years ago, so it took ages to stream and streaming wasn't even an option. So you download the movie overnight, and then watch it the next day or whatever. But I think from what I understand, anyway, Apple sort of got rid of the whole DVD business first, and then Netflix that started with this whole thing of they would send you the DVDs and you know, the renting thing, they then switch to the streaming thing, which now is far more feasible, and then 5g will be even more so. But the world is also moving to being willing to pay for access over ownership, where before you would you know, want to own the vinyl record and so on. People still do sometimes, but it's more of a novelty than the norm.
Conor McCarthy 23:19
So just to go back to empty for a second, are there any other kind of blocks that people might have when it comes to finding their first 10 customers like people who in your community that they're going out to find that their their early business? And what you know, what are the roadblocks might they be, they'd be heading?
Ash Roy 23:38
So from what I've seen, it falls into a simply a few key problems. One big one is lack of clarity. So what problem Am I going to solve? Another one might be, who do I want to serve? And the two are kind of intertwined? And often that leads to the question, well, what's my mission? And this is where a lot of the first four or five of my nine steps are kind of quite interlinked. And you know, although the map is presented nice step mind map is presented in a linear way. It is quite nonlinear in that you may say, okay, you know, my mission is to help small business owners grow profitably. And then you go one step further and you start saying, okay, who's my ideal customer? There you go, hang on a minute. I'm not sure who my ideal customer is. So then you say, Okay, my ideal customer is a consultant, but then you might say, but I don't want to work with people who are who manufacture weapons, for example, or who are involved with x y, Zed industries. So then you might say, oh, but hang on. So my mission is not just to work with any consultants. It's to work with this particular kind of consultant people who make the world a better place and that You know, they kind of feed off each other. And that then might mean that you change your offer. And your then might mean, you might make the offer, you might serve a few people and you go, Yeah, but I don't like this part of what I'm doing. So then you go back and you say, you know what, now I'm refining my mission further. And it's an ongoing process of refinement. But least for me, and most of the members that I've worked with, clarity appears to be the biggest problem. And this is particularly for people who are starting off. And the other problem is people seem to think that you have to have clarity before you take action. But it's exactly the opposite. In in 99%, of the cases I've seen, clarity comes from taking action, not the other way around, you don't have clarity, and then take action. You take action, and then you get clarity. It's not one action that delivers clarity, it's iterative action. It's like, you know, you try something, you do a bit of it, and you go, Oh, no, this is not quite right. But now I'm at a new vantage point, and then you sort of refine things a bit. And it's kind of an ongoing process. In almost every case, you I have seen in business, people start off with one thing, and they end up doing something very different.
Conor McCarthy 26:24
Yes, I, I've seen that happen quite a lot, too. I, you know, talking to people who are trying to find their first 10, like you really don't know, on day one, what you have you You only know what you have through the eyes of others, and through the thoughts of others. So that I love that idea by taking action to get the clarity, because that will the feedback will shape.
Ash Roy 26:46
Yeah. And this is where, you know, some some phrases come to mind. one phrase is, you know, I like what Ted says, what change do you seek to make in the world? Right? So this is something that Seth Godin talks about. And I really like that. Another one is, what problem do I want to solve? And that's kind of another way of saying the same thing. But what problem do i think is important for me to solve? And then you might say, Well, what are the things that I am good at? that people will pay me for? That I can solve a problem around? And who do I enjoy working with? That I would like to solve that problem with? And the combination of those things, the intersection of those four things might help to get some enough clarity to take action. But again, it's iterative. It's not like this bolt of lightning comes from the sky. And then you have clarity,
Conor McCarthy 27:45
yes. And totally, I mean, taking action on on your business, whether you're consultant or any kind of founder will always pay off, and there's dead ends, and there's roadblocks, etc. But it's the only way to figure out what what you're actually doing.
Ash Roy 28:01
And that's how you cultivate empathy. The other thing I would say that's helpful for someone who's trying to get started with this with empathy is write things down, man. I mean, I bought this iPad Pro, because of this thing, where you can scribble thing they have on the iPads now where you can handwrite stuff, and then it converts to text. The act of physically handwriting sort of has some kind of a different cathartic effect to typing, typing is still good, because you get to see your ideas and thoughts out on paper, and it stops going around and around your head and driving you nuts. But the morning pages, which I noticed that mentioned in one of his recent blog posts, I've been doing that for the last six months or so. And that has had a big positive impact on me, even though at the time. Often it has felt like a waste of time, or it felt like what am I doing this for, but there's something about writing down your thoughts on paper that releases blocks, it might and often is the case that I start off writing. I don't know what to write, you know, or I can't be bothered doing this. But I the commitment is to write three pages. And I'll be honest, I don't do it every single morning when I wake up. But I do try and get to it most days sometimes I'm doing the morning pages in the evening, but I do some writing.
Conor McCarthy 29:25
I did the morning pages a few years ago and I agree it's it's not easy. But when you get into the flow of it, it's incredible. What actually what you actually start to dig up in your mind and and put on paper.
Ash Roy 29:38
I'll tell you what the kind of it's a lot easier than not doing it in the long run.
Conor McCarthy 29:43
That's very well said. Yeah, yeah, that is a good practice. Yeah, okay. Morning pages that didn't didn't didn't expect us to go there. But it's it's it's a really good way I suppose to. Yeah, when you're when you're when you're hitting a wall and you're hitting a problem to sit down and write it out longhand. I Yeah, that's one of the that's the cheapest way to think and
Ash Roy 30:03
write about your customers day. Write about your ideal clients day. What is she feeling when she wakes up in the morning right about that? What is she thinking? What is she hearing? What is she seeing? How does the world look? What is the problem she's trying to solve? Why is it important for her to solve it? How many children does she have? Maybe she doesn't have children, you know? Is she married? Well, what does she have for breakfast? Does she have breakfast? Hmm. You could be you could write endlessly about the ideal customer,
Conor McCarthy 30:32
or they're just all mad about understanding people. Are there any books that have helped you to really understand people?
Ash Roy 30:41
The guy who wrote pre suasion, I can't even unbelievable with Cellini, Robert Cialdini, he's written a lot of books, but some things that I'm not a big fan of, like, I'm not a huge fan of the whole scarcity thing. It was he who talked about right thinks the scarcity thing. Yeah, so I'm not a big fan of that. I mean, it works in some situations, but I don't like using it a lot. And I see being severely overused. But a lot of his content is good. I like set. Flynn's general approach. I like that his general approach to marketing is rooted in trying to understand the audience. But for me, personally, the books that have been most helpful have been written in the recent past, the alter ego effect by a guy called Todd Herman and I interviewed him on I think, Episode 176 of my podcast. And it's a it was very useful to me because I have struggled with mindset issues for most of my life. And the alter ego effect is all about creating this alter ego, which it turns out, a lot of very successful artists have used so the Beatles had Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which turned out to be, you know, a landmark album in western music. I personally prefer the White Album and revolver. But anyway, Sergeant Pepper's was actually a brainchild of Paul McCartney is because the Beatles had reached a point where they could play anything on the guitar, or they could just play one chord, and we'll go to number one, they were like, this is ridiculous, we want to actually do something different. And they were innovators. And, and that was how they were able to innovate by forming this other alternative persona, you then had, beyond they, I must confess, I haven't listened to any other music. But she she had Sasha fears, and I believe that was her first album. And then David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust. So it's quite a well known phenomenon. And for people like me, who've got a whole lot of these mindset issues, or carrying this, you know, I'm not good enough kind of baggage, which is quite common in, in the world, from what I've seen, adopting an alter ego and making this super person and activating that alter ego with these totems. And these artefacts can catapult you to this different personality that allows you to completely sidestep all your history and step into the super u, which then allows you to do the things that have held you back. On the other end of the scale. I loved what James clear had to say. He was on episode 175, I think he talked about the incremental approach to habits, habit creation. And what is interesting to me, though, is James clear also says that every time you perform a habit, you're actually making a vote for this alternative self, this other self of yours, that you are seeking to become as a result of forming the habit. So let's say you know, you want to be a writer. You don't just wake up one day, according James and say, I'm a writer, although you could you could form an alter ego and do that. That's one way. But the other way is, you might say, okay, as of today, I'm a writer. But I'm going to prove that to myself by writing every single day. And so each day that you write is a vote towards you being a writer. So yes, you do take on the debt, the label of a writer at any time you want, but then you need to put in the votes. You know, do the reps, yes, to be that writer. So that book is called atomic habits. And that was a wonderful book. And the practice from Seth, Seth Godin, that's an excellent book as well. It's again about practice. And, of course, there's The Warlock that was another wonderful book tune.
Conor McCarthy 35:04
Yeah, that's a, that's a an awesome book list you've just laid out. That's a great first brief primer for people who are looking to understand more about, yeah mean about people and about the practice, again of doing the work like that James clear idea about making a vote for the person you want to be. And that builds identity, I guess, as well.
Ash Roy 35:27
Exactly, exactly. And as you do that, over the years, you are consolidating that identity, if you like, you know, and in a way, the alter ego effect thing. That alter egos effect approach, also is kind of getting you to do the same thing, because you're forming this alter ego that is then allowing you to take the action that your normal self doesn't seem to want to take. In both instances, though, while I can't name a book off the top of my head around how to develop more empathy, what I can say is if you would adopt the persona of being an empathetic marketer, or an empathetic business owner, then you would say, Well, what does an empathetic business owner do? They sit down and they write about their customers world? Or their ideal customers world and the problem that customers trying to solve? Not as I see it, but as she experiences that in her life, what is her day look like? Where does the problem fit into that day, and you develop the empathy muscle that way. And then you go out, and you try and solve that problem for one person, two people, five people. And by the time you get to the fifth person, you have more insights, because you've tried to exercise the empathy muscle, not just in writing, but actually trying to help them and found things that didn't work, maybe, but took you to new vantage points. That's so good.
Conor McCarthy 36:58
Yes, just sitting down and writing, practising empathy through writing, I think is great, because probably, I think there's definitely an intellectual understanding. And it's an ongoing practice for people but sitting down and putting it on paper. That's, that's a powerful practice. That's really great. Yeah. And maybe just one last question. Just to wrap us up, what would you say to someone and you say this all the time, but to someone starting out to find their first 10, what would be your advice,
Ash Roy 37:27
set yourself a goal to serve 10 people, within the next 10 days, 30 days, give yourself a timeframe. And say, I want to help 10 of these people now that these people would ideally be someone that would benefit from your product or your service. So if you have a membership programme, like mine that helps clients grow their businesses, most business owners have one of two problems, either they don't have enough leads, or they don't have enough time, because they have so many so much business, that they're struggling to keep up with a business. But in both instances, well, in the first instance, if they can't find their customers, they're going to be out of business soon. In the second instance, if they can't serve their customers, because they've got too much business, then they're going to hurt their brand, because they're not going to fulfil on the promises they're making. So in those instances of a woman, starting again, I would hone in on those two problems. And I would say, I want to find five people who don't have enough customers, and I'm going to help them find customers in whatever way I can. That makes sense. And I'll do it for free if I have to. Because to me, that's market research. And that was, by the way, my thinking when I was giving away those four hours of time for $99 a month, and they could cancel after the first month. That meant they would get $2,000 worth of value for $99. Nobody cancelled after the first month. No one. They basically actually Sorry, I'm wrong. One person cancelled because he never logged in and he had a death in the family. But basically, people got enough value that they didn't want to leave. So solve a problem over deliver on the value under promise, over deliver. document your findings. And repeat
Conor McCarthy 39:37
magic. That is a great way to wrap up this episode. Thank you so so much for imparting all that knowledge today.
Ash Roy 39:47
Thank you for having me on.
Conor McCarthy 39:49
I have a tonne of notes, of course the show notes and a link to all the podcast episodes of your own podcast, which is brilliant. I highly recommend people check that out.
Ash Roy 39:58
Yeah, I'll be happy to send you the links. If the audience would find it useful, I'm happy to send it send the links for ash.
Conor McCarthy 40:05
Thank you very, very much. You're in Sydney. So I think you're about to go to bed probably. But thank you very much for being on this call.
Ash Roy 40:11
Thank you for having me.
Conor McCarthy 40:14
And that's a wrap. I really hope you enjoyed this episode, and that there was something in there that was actionable and insightful for your business. Do check out the show notes for more information on what we discussed, as well as ways to contact my guest today. Helping you identify and create those first 10 customers is what I do. So if you like what you hear on this podcast, please do get in touch at www.first10podcast.com, or on Twitter @TheFirst10Pod.