#9 - Jaime Arredondo
Episode #9 - Jaime Arredondo on finding the answer while practicing, and Super Mario.
Show Notes
On this episode of The First 10 Podcast, I talk to Jamie Arredondo, who is a coach on many of Seth Godin's Akimbo Workshops, as well as running Bold and Open, helping entrepreneurs launch their projects, making them profitable and impactful from the first minute, without expensive investments or complicated strategies.
Key Points
"We are not selling our skill, we are selling the final result for the customer"
"Find the people for whom this is important"
"Find the answer while practicing"
Show Notes
Getting everything you can out of all you've got - Jay Abraham
Double Your Freelancing - Brennan Dunn
Contact Details
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimearredondo/
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Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, copywriting, customers, conversations, find, person, great, business, metaphor, podcast, practising, important, workshops, idea, started, sell, words, ready, work, create
SPEAKERS Conor McCarthy, Jaime Arredondo
Jaime Arredondo 00:00
The First10, generally we don't know what we're doing. We don't know how to talk about it. We don't know what benefits the people we're talking to are looking for. And sometimes, if this is something you hone after talking to 5 or 10 people, you start seeing their objections..and this is what you can use to build, to tweak your offer and your messaging and everything you're doing for the next 10.
Conor McCarthy 00:30
Hello, Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the first 10 podcast where I interview Business Builders on their first thing customers, who they were, how they found them, how they talked to them, and what effect they had on their business, so that you can learn what worked and what didn't. My guest today is Jamie Redondo Jamie coaches, multiple akimbo workshops, as well as running his own company bold and open, where he helps entrepreneurs launch their projects, making them profitable as early and simply as possible. And he is no stranger to the first 10. In this podcast, we talk a lot about his early pitches to prospects, and the things he learned that greatly increase the success rate. Really, there's two things in particular that are really fantastic that he picked up. We talked about letting go of perfectionism, and finding the answer through practice. He has a really great analogy for communicating value to your customers that involves the video game character, Super Mario, you won't be able to forget it once you hear it. And it really is truly valuable. We talked about copywriting and the mindset tools that will help you find those first 10 customers. There's loads and loads to dig into here. It's short and sweet. And I really hope you enjoy it. Every successful company out there started with their first 10 customers, and my job is to help you discover who they are for your business. If you'd like what you hear on the podcast do get in touch at first 10 podcast.com that's 10 with a one zero. Enjoy the show. Hey there first 10 podcast listeners. I'm here today with my friend Jamie Redondo Jamie, first of all, thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us here today. I have a very quick question to start with. Are you more of a mountain metaphor guy or a iceberg metaphor guy? Yeah, thanks for inviting me. So the first thing I read this normally, I am feel more like I'm a metaphor person. Like physically, I am more of a mountain person. I don't like the sea. And I like water. I just like to hike. I did lots of mountain biking. And then when I started intrapreneurship I really saw this as this mountain to climb and the goal to reach and lots of stuff. Lots of micro steps to be added to do to reach idle. So yeah, okay, your remote mountain metaphor. And so, tell us a little bit about your business story so far, and what you're working on right now?
Jaime Arredondo 03:03
Yeah, so how, where do I start? So I started as a in management consulting in I was working in India, then I was moved to London. And then while this world wasn't for me, because I was making money for people who already had a lot of money and wasn't really meaningful. So I started a must an MBA, to do to start intimate businesses. And then I met my wife, which lived in France. So I had to leave the employer the employment that I was looking for, and start my other point in time I started a startup, it was a crowdfunding platform for challenge places. So idea, for example, was these few. If you're a woman, and you're fed up with a dates, that could bring you lunch a challenge, and you ask people to solve the problem. So you've got to find a price together. And if somebody found the solution and chatted open source for anyone to create it, we would run them the brace. So we had a few successes, but the process the project was not perfectly designed. So we made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I ran out of funding and I and my team couldn't make it anymore. So we closed shop. It was a bit heartbreaking. But I learned a tonne from it. Learn how to gather communities, how to gather an audience how, how to organise myself as a startup entrepreneur. So at that point in time, I didn't know if I wanted to employment or I was going to sell my own thing or start a new startup. But I decided to take it the safe way because I didn't have much funding anymore. So it was more about Okay, what can you do now, but can you sell and who can buy for you from you That's when I listed everything and you have to do. And I went, I made a list of all the people like, I pick one. I chose this one. And then who is this? Who can this be useful for? And then I started validating it going to each person to a few people say, Okay, I'm starting this new thing. What do you think about it? Would you be interested in it? And in the beginning, I was very scattershot. I wasn't sure what I was doing. The more I was doing good Fazio it was getting. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing was, at this point was getting ready to accept rejection. You can read more about more about this later on.
Conor McCarthy 05:49
Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah, we'll come back to that for sure. And, okay, right, really interesting. So you, you definitely have a history of putting things out there engaging with ideas, taking the steps to create them and make them come true. And we'll talk about some of your learnings along the way, what have been some of the kind of big ideas that suppose that you've picked up.
Jaime Arredondo 06:16
More, there have been many, but one that keeps sticking with me, is about letting go of perfectionism. I've been always a guy who likes to be ready before I start. And I guess some preparation is needed. Before we get started. You have to have skills and you have to have our foundation to start with. But sometimes after that, it's better to ship to get into action, and find the answers while practising, then getting ready for everything that might happen before you're doing. That make sense?
Conor McCarthy 06:52
Yeah, totally. I love that finally access what the answer is while practising, because it's all practising in the early days, there is no, there is no perfection, to be had. But I think you start to approach it, the more you do the thing, the more you talk about it, the more you study it and understand it. It's really interesting. But was there anything? What was difficult about approaching people with, with these ideas, you mentioned you, you would have an idea and you'd go literally person to person and say, here's my idea, and tell them about it? What What were the hard parts of that?
Jaime Arredondo 07:25
Well, there were many. I think the first one was there, as I spoke for refer is a fear of rejection. Like, Kevin, I know this person. She might find me Susie, and I might break the relationship, and I might go broke and never have anything to anyway, under average, if this doesn't work, so like you, I think when you restart, we put so much pressure in these first people that sometimes it breaks a relationship for sure. Because you're just putting too much pressure in it, instead of going godziny and say, Okay, I'm trying this, I don't know what I'm doing. Can you help me figure it out? And if it's, and if it's interesting to you, that's great. I can, I can provide it. But I many, many of the freelancers I see that really succeed? Are bootstrappers is people who will are ready to go wide. Like, I don't know who is this for, but I'm going to try 50 or 60 or 100. Before I decide I this is a good or a bad idea. Because the first thing, generally we don't know what we're doing. We don't know how to talk about it. We don't know what's, what benefits the people. And we're we're talking to are looking for. And sometimes, if this is something you have after talking to 510 people, you start seeing their objections, see what laser eyes and this is what you can use to build to tweak your offer and your messaging and everything you're doing for the next 10 and so on and so forth. And by the time you've done this very times, you're pretty good.
Conor McCarthy 09:09
You're a lot braver. It's really important, what you said, like hearing the objections. And then after five or six or seven times you, you start to tweak what you offer. So there's almost an understanding there that you're going into the conversations with your customers, knowing that you're wrong. And it's absolutely it's not perfect, but your customers, your market will tell you what's right, tell you what they actually need. And being open to that.
Jaime Arredondo 09:36
Yeah, exactly. Well, I was speaking to a client the other day and she was telling me a story about another consultant. And an interesting approach is a hit when he has some somebody who invites him to accept his invitation. He says, Okay, I'm going to be very straightforward with you. I really want to work with you. How can we make this happen? You need. And I found interesting like, okay, I don't know how we can work. But I'm really curious to find out what we can do today together.
Conor McCarthy 10:09
That's a that's a great approach for certain types of consultancy. I think, you know, I think we've both been in conversations where there's a certain energy or a good feeling of this trust. And yeah, you just want to work with that person. And you'll kind of do it for them and with them, like within reason. But when that happens, you kind of say, let's just, let's just find something to do between us or like, I really want to work on one of your projects, because it's exciting. And that's Yeah, that can be a way that can be a great way to find early customers. It's very trust based. It's very in the room. I suppose there's, there's something there that you have to feel out more, it's less sales. And that makes sense.
Jaime Arredondo 10:49
Yeah, absolutely.
Conor McCarthy 10:51
And you mentioned there bootstrappers. And of course, you you're you, coach. So many of the akimbo workshops I've watched, right? And like so we both we both coaches, workshops, and you've been head coach on a few. And I'm curious as to your experience there about him how people approach finding their first 10 customers.
Jaime Arredondo 11:12
The third question, generally, the people who take Akimbo workshops are people who have already found their first and the thing is they the problem I find most often is this people haven't honed on one thing they're doing. So they base this, the people around them, they see different needs, and they try to adapt themselves to needs around them. And the problem with this is that they can't build some foundation on which they can scale or build a proper business on top of. So yeah, as a freelancer, you can do copywriting and social media and this kind of stuff. But this isn't building a body of work that will help you find new clients or get referrals, because if you did copywriting for one and social media for another person, they wouldn't be able to direct you to the work that you want to do your best that. So yeah, I think it's more about this thing on one thing in which to do parties that I'm going to start from, and then inform people for whom this is interesting. Or this is important and letting go of all of the opportunities that you might get be able to grow, but the tournament supporting this path that you're starting to carve.
Conor McCarthy 12:33
That's, that's so, so important. I have definitely fallen fail to this myself, as we've talked about in previous conversations. Yeah, just going going too broad, because there's a fear of missing out on, on work on some kind of forward momentum. So you tend to throw it all out there and say, Well, I can I can do it all. But that doesn't help your audience when they're trying to talk about you. And the best products and people I think we know, are super specific in what they do. And they're the person that comes to mind when it's, I need this done, this is the person to do it. Because that's it. That's all they do. That's all they're thinking about. They're not thinking about these 50 other things. The really good takeaway from the workshops, and I would agree it's the it can be scary, to narrow down to just say, I do this thing. But actually, in most cases that that one thing then expands out into being more than you can handle.
Jaime Arredondo 13:36
It can become a monster. I don't know how to feed anymore. Yeah.
Conor McCarthy 13:41
And what's been your sales and marketing experience over the years? Have you had any kind of formal sales and marketing training?
Jaime Arredondo 13:49
I'm not really I've always picked up things on my own, I think in courses but I've never been formally trained to either why was we my work must my startup site was learned around marketing positioning, how to reach out to others how to create remark ability and people terrific idea. But then when I started as a bootstrapper, freelancer, I was more I was curious about sales. But I picked a few good books that taught me to go present what you're doing to film the pain points and and the value you're doing, of what you're doing. Like my main key key takeaway was like, the value for doing is what the because of what you're doing, minus the want ever you help the other people gain from working with you in money and physical or psychological well being and this kind of stuff, or when you save them in the risk of not working with you. For example, if you're While you're, and you help someone reduce a fine from 10,000 to 1000 euros but your brother 9000 euros in value. And it should cost less a fraction of that, then it's a no brainer to hire him. But you have to show them this value. And this was Yeah,
Conor McCarthy 15:21
that's, that's a really well said and a really great example. And, and I feel like it's something that maybe isn't talked about like being, you're not giving anything away by showing the value you're not, it's not like you tell them and then they can go do it themselves, but proving that you will save them more time or money, etc. At the far side, it's quite simple sounding. But I think it's maybe forgotten about a lot of a lot of the time a lot of people want to talk about what they do versus what they what the result of the interaction will be for, for the client or for the customer.
Jaime Arredondo 15:56
That's actually Yeah, sometimes we complete our skills with the value of what we're doing. And we're not selling our skill, or our product or whatever we were doing, what we're selling is the final result for this person. So that was a very interesting metaphor from, I think it's user onboarding platform that teaches people to create onboarding. But they had this graphic with a Mario Bros. And we're from and be Mario Bros. And he said, like, you're going to the small Mario Bros. The mushroom is your product. And the big Mario Bros. launches, flame balls, he This is the superpower that there is unresolved that happens when you climb it's your product or you sell this. So you're selling this weather superpower, you know selling a flower.
Conor McCarthy 16:52
That is brilliant. It's such a good allow that to my metaphors list. And it's a great way to to remember all the time that yes, this is this is the actual value you're providing. That's what you need to focus on. Any books spring to mind? You mentioned some books on sales. …
Jaime Arredondo 17:10
yeah, there there is a way that I noticed this, because I knew I was going to forget them. There is one from Jay Abraham called getting everything you can out of everything you got. It's about covering and presenting your pitch in a concise and unique way to show your real value. And yeah, I will say this our other guests, and then there's a free course from Brennan Dunn. That's called double your freelancing rate, which is also a pretty good about how to delete an interview to the value that your service has for the people in front of you.
Conor McCarthy 17:57
Okay, cool. I'll add those in the show notes
Jaime Arredondo 17:59
there. They're really good.
Conor McCarthy 18:01
And are there any books that aren't maybe business related that have helped you understand people better?
Jaime Arredondo 18:11
Hmm. Well, yeah, they're, I wouldn't say they're in business related. They're there. There's some business relation that the people I've learned most to understand the psychology of others are copywriters, how they think about this idea that people aren't interested in your they're interested in what you can do for them. And then going to listen to what they're saying, to understand what this is what they're looking for. and helping them pull it out or, and then use it as well. So that you can be can help them get what they want to go. Because if you don't get the message, right, they will not trust you. And if they don't trust you, then you're neither of you. Going where where you need to go. Yeah, this is.
Conor McCarthy 19:06
I know I'm a bit of I'm a bit of a copywriting nerd as well. I feel like it's the unsung hero of of the internet. There's a great I'll link to it in the show notes is a great page that was made like 15 years ago, it's just a simple black text on white background. And it's, I forget who wrote it. It's a guy just kind of going These are words I'm communicating to you across the internet. I can say a thought and it will appear in your head. And it's just a really basic kind of, oh yeah, words matter. You kind of forget that these words matter. And I'm a sucker for a good copy. Maybe you do the same, but I save good copywriting that I see. Something that really kind of pulls me in draws me in and makes me kind of go wow, how did they How did they know? How did they know? I think I'm spent understanding the written word through copywriting is, is time well spent.
Jaime Arredondo 19:54
Absolutely. Because very skilled. Totally.
Conor McCarthy 19:58
Have you ever been in someone else's? First 10 customers?
Jaime Arredondo 20:03
Um, no, not that I know of. I'm one of your first in the podcast.
Conor McCarthy 20:17
That's true.
Jaime Arredondo 20:21
First one for me. I'm not sure. Or I didn't realise that, then. Yeah, I'm sure.
Conor McCarthy 20:31
Okay. And just going back in time a little bit, do you remember any of those early customer conversations when you you were going one to one with your ideas, bringing them to people do any more details on how they went any of the preparation that you thought about? Or what it was like in the in the actual conversations?
Jaime Arredondo 20:53
Right? Yeah. So I think what the first step was thinking, Okay, what can I do? What's the value for this person? How can I present it so that they will understand what I'm trying to do and how it's going to help them reach their goal. And then I think I drafted an email and send it to two to three people I had in my network, just to not to go to what else? I'm going to say if it is true, three things don't work. Like, just and then 111 suggests I went to the meeting, and they presented to them and I saw the questions. Okay, so what are your challenges to understand where I can help? So what what is this costing you? What? What is the risk of not achieving this goal? And then showing them okay, I can offer you have this, this and this that can respond to this challenge. And take you from here to there, which is where we think you want to go and then send the proposal. Yeah, that's Yeah, I think yes. Well, that was the first time
Conor McCarthy 22:08
the first thing so a lot of understand a lot of listening up front.
Jaime Arredondo 22:13
I wasn't listening at the beginning. It was also a big my, my recording with me the smartphone fully, and I can I can record you. So I make sure I don't miss anything. And then I reuse like this separating trick by reuse their words, to put them in the in the proposal. So I was sure to use but they the words they would they hadn't been mined. And so they could recognise that I was understanding what they meant.
Conor McCarthy 22:41
That's it. That's just my thing.
Jaime Arredondo 22:45
Yeah. So so so since I think this three, four times to really wrap my head around this. And after that, after a while you get to the hang of it the angle of what you need to know down. And it was very important for me to record this really go through it. And yeah, I was going to save it wasn't really important, I guess.
Conor McCarthy 23:08
Like that is a really smart thing to do. Like understanding how the customer describes their struggles and their problems is so important. And it's very hard in the moment, because you're thinking of you think of yourself, you're thinking about them, you're thinking of the product or service. And it's hard to kind of notice what words they actually use, but recording it and being able to reflect is pretty, pretty powerful. Actually, it's a really good idea. And I like that over time. You got better in the meeting understanding?
Jaime Arredondo 23:36
Exactly, yeah. Yeah. What were the thing? Well, I wasn't going to say is that since the moment I did this, I had, like, 80% of the people accept my proposals, like, no questions asked about the price, or they might be a minor tweak here or there. But let's say wow,
Conor McCarthy 23:52
from that, from that one practice,
Jaime Arredondo 23:54
yeah.
Conor McCarthy 23:56
That's pretty impressive. And what would you say to someone then starting out to find their first 10 customers?
Jaime Arredondo 24:06
So I, it's just to, to to, to focus to decide what one thing I'm going to try and give it a real shot, like, go for 1020 people first, before you decide it's good or not. And among these 10, fertile first 20 people you reach out, you might have one or two people who buy what you're doing. And this is normal. And the more you do it, the better you get at finding the places where these people are and how to sell to them. And the more you do it, hopefully then people will recommend you or refer you. And there's one simple trick that you can do at the end of for working with them. It's asking them like well, you know, all the people who could use this service, this is one thing like I didn't do it on the printer And I started doing it. People were thinking, Okay, yeah, yeah, I can think of two or three people for you. And then you can can I send you an email to to introduce us? And then it's very easy and you have your next prospect and you don't do much work. I was just asking if this is something that really undervalued
Conor McCarthy 25:21
Absolutely, yeah good, the best sales channel of all it just word of mouth referrals.
Jaime Arredondo 25:27
And you don't need to be closed because the people that are referring you are ready to sit up at the prospect. So this is really powerful.
Conor McCarthy 25:35
Yeah, it is really powerful and and to go back to the very start of our conversation, you know, if you're if you're excited in doing the work with someone, chances are they know other people like them. And and that also be a good relationship there, too. Yeah, yeah. I thought that's that's brilliant. That's not the last five minutes alone this two smartest record the conversations and ask for referrals. Don't be afraid to ask, because I think people might feel a bit of fear around it. But yet when we're asked, Do you know anyone else we've no problem referring if we can.
Jaime Arredondo 26:08
They're interested. People are happy to have you back. Especially if it's just a matter asked like that.
Conor McCarthy 26:13
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.
