To Learn More about Katrina Sawa, [click here] to view her Media Kit.
Janine Bolon: Hello and welcome to the thriving Solopreneur show. This is Janine Bolon and today I have with me Katrina Sawa. Now, what’s really cool about Katrina? I just got to take a moment. Yeah. Yeah, she has a bio and I’ll read it in just a minute. But what I loved about Katrina is that she is a woman after my own heart. She and I connected in so many ways. She was too busy to really notice what I was doing but I took one look at her I ended up taking a course that she offered it was 297 bucks and I knew I was just getting a powerhouse of a program and I watched a program and I sat in it, why? I paid that 297 dollars because I just wanted to see how she taught because I wanted to make sure that anybody who I referred to her would be in good hands. I should not have worried, she was everything that she said and more. So let me tell you a little bit about this woman, she is the jumpstart your business coach because she helps entrepreneurs make more money doing what they love and she is fast.
Most people say I’m fast, Katrina outstrips me. Okay, this woman runs faster than I do. She is the creator of the Jumpstart your Marketing System, a teller[?] it like it is kind of speaker. Yeah. If you don’t want direct you need to go somewhere else. Seven times she has been the international best-selling author with 11 books including “Love Yourself Successful” “Jumpstart Your Business Now” and the “Jumpstart your and fill-in-the-blank” compilation book series Katrina has a no-nonsense approach to showing entrepreneurs how to develop consistently profitable businesses and implement proven marketing and business strategies. She has been featured on The Oprah and Friends XM radio network, ABC, The CW, and dozens of influential podcasts like Yours Truly and radio shows. So Katrina was awarded the national collaborator of the Year award by the Public Speakers Association and a two-time nominee for the Wise Woman award by the National Association of Women Business owners. She speaks to groups of all sizes, holds live training events annually and she is the founder of the international speaker Network. So find out more.
I really encourage you to go to her free trainings online at www.jumpstartyourbiznow.com/freetrainings. This is the thing about Katrina. Most people talk about oh, they’re very giving people. Katrina has so much free stuff. It can almost be overwhelming but you need to go through it because she has a lot of good stuff to offer you so welcome to the show Katrina.
Katrina Sawa: Thanks, Janine. I’m really excited to be here because you’re a power-packed rockstar business trainer yourself mind you.
Janine: Right.
Katrina: You do a lot of stuff.
Janine: Yes, we do, we both do and that was one of the things I’m going to just bring it out in the forefront. I’ve had many people say “But don’t you and Katrina teach the same thing and aren’t you competitors” To which I start laughing? I’m like “No, I do not see that because Katrina helps people get started with their minimum viable products and getting themselves online if they’ve never been online before if they’ve never run a business before. She can help you get going. She’s got amazing teams that support her and she can do it very inexpensively.” That’s the other thing your prices are incredible. And so that’s for me, that’s what I recommend. I’m like “when you’re ready to kind of really grow or move to the next level you can show up at my camp if you want to, my boot camp, but really Katrina can get you a roll-on. Talk to us a little bit about– I’d love for you to chat a little bit because a lot of people don’t know this, that the first thing you need to do is sell something online and that’s that minimum viable product. If you don’t mind sharing that a little bit because some people have no clue what we’re talking about.
Katrina: Well, and then other people are told oh, you need to have a course or you need to have a whatever product, right? But that’s not always the best thing to do first when you’re starting a business because if you don’t have any followers or if you don’t have anybody on your email list and nobody’s watching you on social media, then nobody is going to buy the thing you go off and create. So I recommend that you network and connect with people as many as humanly possible frankly in the beginning because that’s how you’re going to build a network of potential prospects and referral sources and then, honestly the fastest] path to cash is selling one on one services if you can. Because then you only have to talk to one person and if you have a higher-end program, it could actually be the amount that you need to make every month. You don’t have to have a product although everything you do you should record and therefore– then will become a product so you can get them over time.
Janine: Well, and that’s the thing some people are so busy making content they forget to run their business, they forget to do that one-on-one. Now, there’s a lot of gurus out there and hey, if you have spent any time on YouTube, you’ve seen all the ads. Everybody is fighting over different demographics and I just start going, “oh my gosh, are you kidding me?” We have more entrepreneurs, we have more solopreneurs than have ever existed in this country. And you guys are making it sound like the other guy is bad. First of all, Katrina talk to us about how you bring in a total newbie like “I’ve never run a business before in my life. Oh my gosh, help me. What do I do first?” Just gently walk us through some of your systems that you’ve set up for them.
Katrina: Well, the first thing you have to do is figure out what you’re selling because you can’t really set up a system or a marketing plan or anything to go get clients until you’re super clear on what you’re selling. And in my world what you’re selling is either a package, a program, your yourself as your services. It could be a product could be a network marketing, could be anything, but it’s more to it than just what are you selling? Yes, we want to know the transformation that you provide or your product provides, but you have to know the price points and the various levels that you’ll take people in. Otherwise, when you have a sales conversation, then you’re not going to know exactly what thing to drive people to or how much to charge them on the spot when they’re ready to buy right then. So you have to be clear on the price points, the packages, the programs, and all the offerings first and then once you’re clear on that, then people are usually a little bit more confident to go out and get more visibility and connect with more people.
Janine: One of the things that I love about your trainings is if people will get on your newsletter list, which I highly recommend I’m actually on your list and one of the things I love is every time you’re doing a new training that’s coming online, you’ll talk exactly about these points. I love the most recent one that you had which was, “I will help you set up your price points. If you are freaking out about that, here you go. ” Do you mind chatting a little bit about that latest training?
Katrina: Pricing is one of those things that I would say most entrepreneurs are extremely uncomfortable with, most not all, and I would say the people that are just starting their business always, almost always they will be priced too low because they think “oh, I’m new. I’m just starting out so therefore I can’t possibly charge more like the people that have been in business for a longer time” Regardless of the fact that they might have 30 years of experience in whatever it is they’re going to teach in their own business, they don’t think like that and regardless, they could be certified in something yet It’s their first year in business so they still think they should be lower price. So, please stop that. Please stop that thinking and you can come out of the gate in a high price with high confidence and high value and so just as easily as anybody else but it requires a little bit more confidence. I usually say around pricing please charge as much as you can say without stuttering.
Janine: That’s a brilliant way of saying it. One of the things that I like to remind entrepreneurs is whatever that price is, like what you can say without stuttering and then multiply it by .35 because Uncle Sam, you are a solopreneur and now on people or you’re an entrepreneur. Uncle Sam is going to take one-third of everything you make. You have to make that up. You may not be used to that, having worked for somebody else most of your life. So whatever you can say and then realize Uncle Sam is going to take one-third of that. I do that as a rough estimate just because I like to shovel a lot of cash in there so I’m not having– we have to pay taxes every quarter. So those are one of the things that I like to throw on or add to it, but if adding that causes you not to be able to speak then please take Katrina’s advice and at least go as high as you can say just realize Uncle Sam gets one-third of what you make and then you’ll be okay.
Katrina: I like what you said there and I don’t think about it that way but that’s true when I talk to people about how much money they need to make every month, we come up with a need number. I have a need number worksheet that is on that free training space[?] that you mentioned, it’s four pages. Because there are so many things to think about in regards to creating a smooth running money-making business consistently. So a lot of times people think “Well, I can’t I’m not making money yet, I can’t hire an assistant. I’m not making money yet, I can’t hire a business coach. I’m not making money yet, I have to do my own website instead of pay for a web designer.” Well, those are all false. You just need to invest in your business just like you would if you were going to buy a store like brick and mortar. You got to invest in your business. The point is though that you might need to put those investment fee [inaudible] items into your need number so that you make your goal bigger every month so that you don’t put out a goal that’s too low. So you’ll never get to the consistent revenue-generating business.
Janine: And we want that for you because one of the things that Katrina and I see over and over again is entrepreneurial burnout you work so hard trying to do everything yourself being the Jack of all trades the master of none, that you end up burning out and we want you to stay in business because we need back up. There are more freelancers and entrepreneurs than ever before in the United States and trust us when we say we need all of these entrepreneurs to be doing what you are called to do. Talk to us a little bit Katrina about, somebody comes to you and they say, “I have this idea or I have this passion, but I don’t know how to put the pieces in place.” Talk to us a little bit about how do I really hone in on my passion? So that keeps the midnight oil burning so to speak when times get a little challenging.
Katrina: Yeah. Well, your passion is usually what we build our businesses around. Every once in a while someone will come into the business world with something they know they’re good at but then after a year or two, they don’t have that excitement, right? You really need to be as an entrepreneur because it requires so much self-motivation and determination and just stamina to keep going and you can’t let people get you down and negative energies and people around you will do that and you can get in a funk really easily. So if you don’t stay motivated in on top and around other entrepreneurs, it’s going to be really hard to keep that momentum going. Yeah, I just– I forgot what you asked me.
Janine: That that’s okay. I love it because she gets this look on her face like yeah, and that’s it. And so it’s my turn to jump in. It’s great. No, it’s all about your passion and purpose. What you feel you are here to share with others. And so one of the things that Katrina offers is that she has a variety of different trainings some free some are paid opportunities, and I cannot tell you she has amazing different price points. I don’t care what your budget is you can afford her and there are places for you to learn from her. If you don’t mind guide us around the things that got you started in your business, what is your why? Why did you even decide to do this? Because it takes courage to be an entrepreneur.
Katrina: Yes. Well, I used to– I’ve been in lots of sales and marketing jobs throughout my life and it was just really easy for me. And I love to– I will never forget the times where I worked in my friend’s mom’s flower shop when flower shops were more, around D’amore and I would work there for the Valentine’s holiday. I would take actually off school and work and my own job and just to work in her flower shop because it was so much fun to get in there and just be that little salesperson when the guys would come in looking for some flowers for their wife for Valentine’s, I be like, “Oh, yeah, and you need some balloons you need this teddy bear and then you need this box of chocolates and here you go” And I would triple or quadruple the amount of money they came in to spend but they would be walking out the door with this huge package. That was something that really made me– like I was thriving on that.
I thrive on that energy in a way. Not to say I’m going to sell you all these things you don’t need or whatever or upsell you now, but when I started working with entrepreneurs when I was in advertising sales, which was one of my last jobs, I would go in and they’d be like, “Okay, let’s run my business card as the newspaper ad and we’ll see how it goes” and I’m like, “Whoop[?] no, I’m not going to run your business card as an ad in the paper because first of all, nobody cares about your logo or your fax number or address like stop it” You’re going to run what I tell you to run and then– and you’re not going to do it just one time because that’s so silly, you’re going to get no results. You got to do it this many times. It’s a frequency thing, it’s a repetition and you need court action and a big headline and when I would teach them that then they get people in the door and are like “Great, this is great Katrina.”
But then they would fall flat on the follow-up and the continuation of the building of the relationships with those new customers and that’s where I had to go in and do extra consulting with them and I’m like, “Wait a minute. I need to get paid for this. I’m just to like add some” And so I had to leave that so I could go help the entrepreneurs, the business owners with all these other things. It wasn’t just about advertising. In fact, I don’t even want people to advertise these days. I want to do free first then pay. What can we do for free to get you clients and build your business and then where do we really need to invest money perhaps for some businesses?
Janine: Well, I think you nailed it on the head when you were talking about consistency. It’s not just doing it once it’s like you have to be consistent and that’s the discipline of it. And that’s why I always giggle where people will say “Oh, so you work for yourself? Well, that means you have all this free time and you can just do anything you want. You don’t have to worry about anything.” I’ve had people actually say that to my face and I started laughing so hard. I was crying almost spilled my coffee, you know how that’s precious. So tell us about– talk to us a little bit about just consistency and what are the things to do on a consistent basis for business people?
Katrina: Well, lead generation, marketing, follow-up and sales. That if you just– if you stop those things your leads their fleet flow is going to stop, your cash flow could stop and we can’t just get a big client then go, “Yeah, you can go work with a big client.” Then all of a sudden whoop, that client just decided to stop working with you, and then now you’re in urgent need to get another client, right? So you constantly have to have those lead generation, marketing follow-up and sales processes in place. That doesn’t mean you have to do a lot of it, you can but there’s a lot of different marketing strategies and strategies in that arena where they can be automated, they can be delegated to an assistant too, you can put things on your website to make it easier for people to find information and go through a process, through your website and your shopping cart and you have to set those systems up. You have to set it up before you need them because when you are too busy and you need them, you will not have time to stop and set them up. So set them up now in the beginning and that’s some of the stuff you just have to invest in your business. It’s the cost of doing business.
Janine: Right. And I find it a lot of fun when people really resist me on I don’t want to be a marketing person. I don’t want to be in sales and I’m like, “Then go work for someone else”
Katrina: Yeah.
Janine: Because as an entrepreneur you are always in that mode of looking for different demographics, looking to see how you can serve other people. And so that’s one of those things that this is just the nature of like you say doing business. So say I’m somebody that this is my first time I’m hearing about you, you have so many books that it’s easy for somebody to get overwhelmed. What would be the starter package? What was the book you would recommend for somebody that’s just starting out?
Katrina: Well, it’s funny. I do have a lot of books, but I don’t sell a lot of them because they’re not my books, I would chapter in I’m right. I sell actually five books right now and three of them are my compilation book. So if you like to read chapters from other authors about their expertise and different tips and things then those are the fun books to write. If you like those kind of anthology books, those are fun. But I also have a package like you can buy both of my books, my “Love Yourself Successful” book and my “Jumpstart Your New Business Now” book for 25 bucks platinum shipping. So if you can find it on my website you can get that. It’s like secret secret. [inaudible] my shopping cart upsell page or something like that.
Janine: Well, one of the things that I absolutely love about what you do is you really keep things simple. Everything that you recommend, it’s not complicated and you talk about the marketing basics and consistent cash flow and how those go hand in hand and there are ways that you can train in that. Do you have a training on that or is there something that people can go to for that?
Katrina: Yeah, like you mentioned earlier, I have a bunch of free trainings and those are places to get started and things but when you’re serious about learning on a specific topic like you really want to get the right marketing in place. Well, I have the Jumpstart Your Marketing Program training. And then if you know, you’re getting some leads coming in but you’re not good at closing the sale. You want to jumpstart your sales training, okay. And if you want to do a live event or a virtual event either a one-day or a one-hour or a four-day, there’s a Jumpstart Your Events training. There’s a lot of different trainings. There’s even a 90-minute training on how to start up a Facebook group. There’s a lot of different little things that I do because I create a lot of content doing free calls a lot. And so I record those and then I sell them for like 25 bucks or hundred-something bucks. So they are some really inexpensive things that you can do that you can– you’ll feel like you’re in the class yourself because that’s how I teach is like a zoom call with 12 to 20 people and you’re going to feel like you’re there live really when you go through it and recording.
Janine: Right. And one of the things I want to make sure everybody understands is Katrina was doing this long before 2020. She had this better business model in place. So I highly recommend that if you have enjoyed what we’ve been talking about that you go to jumpstartyourbiznow.com/freetrainings to get her free stuff. And every time you buy something from Katrina, she always guides you to other places on our site where you can get checklists and templates and a lot of this is free, some of it’s paid for it just depends on what you’re learning. But even if you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, I know there are gold nuggets that you can get from her training. So anything else you want to share with us before we leave today Katrina?
Katrina: I would say just don’t wait. People wait and they overthink things and they over plan and they don’t take action and that is the single biggest thing you can do to fail faster. Stop it like. You’re going to waste so much time where you could be making more money and if you’re– if you don’t have a job, then you’re watching your savings dwindle down spiraling until you’re almost out of money and then you’re in desperate mode. So before you get to desperate mode, please figure out what it is you need to do and just go do it. You don’t have to be perfect. It’s never perfect. There is no perfect. It’s just done.
Janine: It’s practically imperfect but yet it gets the job done. And that is Katrina Sawa in a nutshell. It’s like she can help you get where you need to go. So no matter what area of your business you need to work on. She has a training on it I guarantee you and you will be very happy that you invested in her. Katrina, thank you for taking time out for me today. I know you’re in the midst of multiple trainings. You got the speaker network that you’re running and you managed to fit us in, so thank you for doing that.
Katrina: I love entrepreneurs. Anything I can do to help entrepreneurs succeed faster.
Janine: That’s right. So this is the thriving Solopreneur show Janine Bolon wrapping it up. And next Friday we will have another wonderful entrepreneur on to help you with your business. So make use of these people they want to help you. Thank you Katrina, and have a great day.
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