OnlyFounders

How Saying Yes Built a Business | Elissa Zylbershlag | Ep04

• Anne Gillaspie • Episode 4

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0:00 | 54:17

She built a mentoring program before she knew it was her business.

What happens when the thing people keep pulling you aside to do quietly becomes the thing you can't stop building?

Elissa Zylbershlag, M.Ed., is the Founder of Work Wise Labs, helping new leaders build the confidence to lead, manage, and hold a room. She's spent 20+ years in professional development, with leadership roles at the Anti-Defamation League, the NJ State Bar Foundation, and the NJ Division on Civil Rights, and she's Certified in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She built her own IP-rich curriculum from scratch and grew her practice from 3 paid programs in 2023 to 7 the next year, all while working full-time. Now she runs monthly public workshops and coaches leaders through the exact confidence gap she's had to close herself.

In today's episode, we talked about:

• Pricing yourself for the first time, and why "I don't know what to charge" isn't a character flaw, it's a rite of passage

•  Why every discount should cost the client something too ("that value is the value")

•  The moment she blurted out a service she hadn't built yet, and landed a six-month contract anyway

• Bombing a 250-person keynote after crushing the same room two years earlier, and what that taught her about the difference between a facilitator and a speaker

•  Her framework for confidence as a fundraising thermometer: insecurity first, then the skill, then the stumble, then the win


Pull quotes:

"We are all in the same business, and that is the business of making money."

"Facilitation is guide on the side. Speaking is sage on the stage."

She still doesn't have a will. But she's got a company, a client list, and a keynote she's determined to nail, Toastmasters and all.

Resources and links (Elissa Zylbershlag)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissazylbershlag/

Website: www.workwiselabs.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workwiselabs/


Watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/20jKUdIdaQ8

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PuNBpWpZKzCnuwmFQOPI4?si=97a26df7e350478a

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/onlyfounders/id1832541527

Follow Anne Gillaspie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annegillaspie/

Follow Anne Gillaspie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annegillaspie/

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Visit our website: https://theannegillaspie.com/ 

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SPEAKER_02

Receiving feedback rests in self-awareness. And self-awareness has two components. One is I call it the mirror and the portrait, right? So the mirror is like typical traditional self-awareness. Like I know what my goals are, my aspirations, I know what I like, I know where I fit in, I know what my desires and my values are, right? That's self-awareness from the mirror perspective. But the portrait, and this is the part of self-awareness that people don't understand or recognize as self-awareness, is how other people see you, your impact on other people. That is self-awareness. And that portrait that they paint of you may not like it. And you may not agree with it, but it has been painted. It is on the canvas. And so understanding why someone painted that of you is self-awareness.

SPEAKER_04

Welcome to this episode. I have an exciting guest for you today. I'm your host, Ann Gillespie, and joining me is Alyssa Zilberschlag. We had to practice that one a couple of times before we get to the show.

SPEAKER_02

You did it. You did it. It rolled off your tongue. It was like natural.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, cool. I can't wait to introduce you guys to Alyssa. She is really fun to talk to, which is why we're here. We wanted to hit record on all of the juicy details of our conversation of getting to know her. So I'm going to ask Alyssa, what company are you working on right now?

SPEAKER_02

My company is called WorkWise Labs. And we are a company that helps new leaders feel more confident at work. Ooh, okay. So I love that. So feel more confident doing what? Leading. Leading and managing and supervising. And you know, leadership and management is different. So, you know, we work on that. Love that. Okay. And we do it through, okay. So I'll tell you just one more thing. We do it through leadership development, team building, and one-on-one professional coaching. Love it.

SPEAKER_04

So is it, would you say, more of a consulting company or a coaching company? Yes. Perfect. That's a great answer. Love that. And is WorkWise Labs the only place you are trying to grow and work on right now at this moment in time? Yes.

SPEAKER_02

It is my baby that I am nurturing.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, how long have you had this baby?

SPEAKER_02

I gave birth in 2023. Uh-huh. And I did it while I was working full time. So yeah, that was a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04

A lot of our listeners would resonate with that, where they are working full time and they are growing and building something in the wee hours of the evening and the weekends where you find the energy to do it. I want to talk about that because that's interesting. So, how did you do that in 2023? Because that's really hard.

SPEAKER_02

Well, 2023, the reason it started was people started asking me to do things, and we were actually sitting at my son's, I have two kids, and my son was at camp and we were at his visiting day and we were sitting all around in a circle. And my father's an attorney. And I said, Oh, you know, this university, this local university just hired me to do a program. And like I had already done a couple, and people were starting to hear about me. And he said, You know, you really need an LLC. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I listened to my dad. And so I was like, All right, can you do it for me? So he did it for me, which love dad. Thanks. Love dad. Thank you, dad. Which is actually kind of a miracle because I still don't even have a will. And I've been asking him to help me with a will for like 20 years now. How old are your kids now? Um, 19 and 17.

SPEAKER_04

So have you been struggling to do the will since they were born? Yes.

SPEAKER_02

And I and I said to my dad, please, please, can you do the will? I actually think a few years ago we ended up doing it on like legal zoom or something like that. You know, thanks, Dad. So but I'm not sure. But this was a good dad moment. This was a good dad moment.

SPEAKER_04

That's a good dad moment. So I have a will and a trust, and we have not revisited that since having children because in the will and the trust, it says, should there be children to Trent and Ann and I'm like, oh, we have three, and there's seven, almost nine and eleven. And that's how many years we've gone without revisiting that thing. So I feel you on that. Usually when kids are in the picture, you're like, oh, I need a will and a trust. Let's go ahead and update that. And then it's like, nah, we can't get to this project because it's shitty. And you're you even have a dad who does it. We had to hire an attorney, and we're it's just it's hard. Okay, so legal do legal documents, we don't want to talk about that. But now that's like thank you, Dad. We got the LLC. Okay, so the advice and the kind of work, the intelligence was already there. You were already being sought after for this work, and then someone's and you need your LLC. So now you have your LLC. And what did growing this specific business in 2023 look like for you? Like break it down tangibly, because there's a lot of people here that are like, what does that mean to start a consulting, coaching, all of it business? And then well, it wasn't coaching.

SPEAKER_02

It wasn't coaching then. So I am an educator, and I have always been an educator. I've always been an education, adult education. And so I was at the time I was working for the New Jersey State. Uh no, the New Jersey where was I in 2023? I know. Okay. I don't really know where I was. I'd have to look at my LinkedIn. Somewhere in New Jersey, would that be fair? Yes. I was working either at the New Jersey State Bar Foundation or the New Jersey State Division on Civil Rights. So I was either at one of those two places in 20. Oh no, I was at the Division on Civil Rights because I think I started there in 2020. And um, people started asking me to do things. I was like, yeah, sure, I'll do it. And um, and and the way that it happened in the beginning was people came to me. And so that first year, I think maybe I did two programs, three programs all year. And I was working full time. But it was really program then. What did the program that you refer to entail? It was a training, a workshop. I'm a facilitator. I'm a facilitator. So I facilitate conversation with that. I'm an educator and facilitator. So I'm a I create and I write trainings for a living, and I've been doing that for over 20 years. So I have a ton of content that I have written that's intellectual property that is mine, and that I've developed over the years and that I've done in different arenas. I've worked for the um I've worked for many different nonprofits over the years. And so I actually have my little chart, you know, my how many did I do in 2023? I did three in 2020. Love that.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, cool. This is great. Okay, so we did three facilitations in 2023. How did that workload?

SPEAKER_02

What? Well, I want to tell you, okay, go ahead. I was gonna tell you the progression of how like how it worked.

SPEAKER_04

I do. I want to talk about the progression, but I want to ask because for me, this is something personal. When I was just starting my business, I was a numbers gal back then. And I thought I had to have so many brand sessions and so many consulting hours with clients. And the workload to even get one was tough, right? Your first year of business, that's heavy. So we have three. So, what did that feel like to you energetically doing those three while you were still working full time? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I do because I already had the trainings. So I it wasn't new content. What was new to me, and one of them, I'm not gonna tell you who it was because they asked me to never like they asked, they said, please don't share. So some places say you can talk about it, some places say you can't. One of them was a friend of mine, and she ran a place and she asked me to come in. Um, one of them was this university, and one was another, it was a different state government place. And I had done all of those, but the state government place I pitched. And I will tell you, I was terrified. Terrified. Uh-huh. I worked with them through at my division on civil rights job, DCR is the acronym that I will henceforth use. Um, so I worked with them at DCR and um they come through and I was like, I think I can sell them on this. And my brother, well, I actually come from a family of entrepreneurs. So everyone in my family, I have a brother and a sister and a mother and a father. And all four of them own their own business. Wow. So I was the only one, I was the only one who my brother said had a real job, but I actually disagree with that. So my brother has since become like, he was my mentor then. He's like my mentor, but I didn't, I wouldn't have called him that then, but he was the one who pushed me. And I was like, I think I could get them, I think I could get them to buy this this training. And he was like, do it. And I was like, what do I say? I don't even know how to have that conversation. And I remember buying it from like, oh my gosh, I have to talk to someone. Right. Because all of the programs that I had sold up until then were free because I worked for nonprofits and government. And so everything was free. So here I am charging money. I didn't know how much to charge. I didn't know how to have that money conversation. I didn't know what to do. And I remember I was lying on my bed and I was like, oh my God, I'm so nervous. Okay, wait, what do I say? What do I say? And I'm like taking notes on the notes app of my phone. And he's like, This is what I say. Now, my brother owns a mold remediation and asbestos abatement company. That is not what I do. Totally different, totally different, totally different lane. Yeah. Different lane yet, business. And my brother says, and he's right, business, we are all in the same business, and that is the business of making money.

SPEAKER_04

Amen.

SPEAKER_02

Now we are lucky if we care about what we do. We are lucky if we're passionate about what we do, but we're all in the same business of making money. So he he talked me through what he says. I was like, okay, I asked to have a meeting with them. They said yes. And I was sweating. I mean, my palms make I remember I was sitting there, I was so neat.

SPEAKER_04

The MM song, palms are sweaty, mom, spaghetti, like all of it's coming to me with your first pitch, and you're like, Oh, my armpits, my hands. Yeah, we still sweating right now, thinking about it. We're sitting in the sweat. Yeah, I was sitting in the sweat, I did it, and she said yes. Okay, how long did that pitch take you to deliver to her before she said yes?

SPEAKER_02

Like, how long was I talking? Yeah. It felt like 10 hours. No, I don't know. I I don't know. It felt, but it was probably a couple minutes. I mean, I love that. Of ums and ah. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_04

You know, like so we're progressing. So we have the nervous first, right? And we have this pitch, and we're like, holy shit, we're doing this thing. And then you're progressing for, and that was three facilitations in the first year. What does 2024 look like?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, I'm going in.

SPEAKER_04

Because I know you have your tracker up. I want to know. I love data. I love that you tracked this.

SPEAKER_02

Seven.

SPEAKER_04

Seven. So you doubled plus one. So you then get seven. Well, are you still working full time in 2024?

SPEAKER_02

Full time. Okay. So then I get seven. And one of them was another university. And when I was at that, and I did a team building for that university and on giving and receiving feedback. Yes. And at the end, she really liked me. And at the end, I I went over to her and she was like, This was amazing. Thank you so much, Alyssa. And blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know, I also work with leaders. I mean, I don't even know where it came from.

SPEAKER_04

It came from your gut and your intuition because you knew you knew what you offered. I knew what I wanted.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And at DCR, I had started a mentorship program. I was, I was on the executive team. Everyone was coming to me for things. And I was like, this is good. I'm good at this. I was mentoring people. And I was and I had created a mentoring program for other people to mentor other people. And it was a I had a great thing going there. And and I just said it. And I don't even know. It was like, it just came out of me. And she was like, oh, that's interesting. Can we talk about that? So I said, sure. So we talked about it.

SPEAKER_04

When she said, Oh, that's interesting, and you hadn't yet built the damn thing, but because you had interest, were you then talking as if you already had this thing built with her, but then it was giving you ideas of what to actually build?

SPEAKER_02

It's a great question. And it is a question of style. At my last job, I worked with Scott, who is like my work husband. I love him so much. My style is say you'll do it, then build it. Yes. His style is build it and then say you'll do it. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04

And both are fair.

SPEAKER_02

Both are fair. We used to do this. Now the benefit was I was the director. So he had to do it my way. Love it. Anyway, we built, I mean, I was hired there at DCR to build um an education and training unit. They had none. And within four years, we won the Attorney General's award. We had other states coming to us asking us how we built this. We had probably 15 trainings running, some like running. We were booked a year out. I mean, I built this amazing program over, I mean, with a team, it wasn't just me, but it was my vision and my leadership. And that's that's how I do it is I say I'll do it and then I have a deadline.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Well, what I love about how you do it, and now tell me if this isn't how you do it, but this is why I love to do it that way in my way, is when I say I have something and then I go build it, there's room for feedback, there's room for flexibility, and there's room for pivoting. So when I say, Oh yeah, I have that, and then you go to build it and you do check-ins, or you do feedback loops, or as you're building it, you check in and say, is this really valuable? You can also check in with the person who you're building it for and make it feel a little bit more custom because you're building it alongside their need for it. So you can gather feedback. Hey, we have this new feature, or I'm working on this part of the program that I think would really be awesome. Does this fit with you? For me, it allows some room for flexibility. Whereas if I spend five hours building a program to then go sell it, but then it's not selling, or the people say, Well, I wish it had X, or we really need this. Then yes, I'm spending time on the back end, but I wish I would have had that information when I was building it because I'm already spending time in it. So for me, when my energy moves on, it's really hard for me to get back into the energy of the thing that I'm building to go back in and finesse it, right? But but everybody has different energy when they work. And so that's you and Scott have very different energy on how you work. Whereas my preference is, well, shit, when I'm done, when I just built that thing and I'm done, I want to be out of it. I want to just go sell it. I don't want to go back in and continue finessing it because that just feels like that is not me.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, say I feel we're very different. Our process, you and I, and this is this is the way the world works. Our processes are different. I do not do it that way. I do an intake and I ask all my questions up front. So very often people come to me. I mean, this is, and this is how I've always done it in the nonprofit world. You know, like I the selling I've always done. So I get all that information up front. The truth is, I'm an educator and I understand pedagogy. So when people tell me the way it should be, they don't know what they're talking about. Like 99% of the time, they're like, I really want this. And I'm like, that doesn't work. And here's why that doesn't work. Um, also, people come to me and they say, I would like a training on having difficult conversations. Well, great. There are like what kind talking about change, giving feedback. There's a conflict. There, so people come to me and they don't even really know what they want. They don't know the language for it. So part of the intake is me pulling that language out, parsing it out, finding out what happened. Yeah. Because when I find out what happened, I'm like, you don't need a conversation on difficult conversations. You need a conversation on this. And thankfully, I have that for you.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So, so like, yeah, like on effective communication or something, you know. So, like, that's foundational. Clearly, people are not communicating. And I have a really great training on that. Let me give it to you and I'll do it with your team. So, you know, so so I had that with her, and I did not have anything. I went home, I said to my brother, oh shit. And he's like, That's okay, Alyssa. You got this. You got he is like my biggest champion. He's amazing.

SPEAKER_04

So your family has been pretty supportive and incremental in like not incremental, foundational, influential. This is the word I'm looking for. It is the afternoon here. That's where we are today. I love, I love how much your family is in on all of this because you don't hear that that much. I love this. So your brother says, not a big deal. Alyssa, you got this.

SPEAKER_02

You know, you know, and I was like, Yeah, I do know what to do. I I know the content, but it was like the selling of it that I struggled with. So I wasn't scared of the content. I have that, I know that. That's here. I've been doing it for 20, 25 years. So we had our meetings and it was big. It was a big contract, and it was a six-month contract, and she fucking signed. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04

And all because you said like one word. You know, I do this. Like you just intuitively that's what you knew you did, and I really want to use this as an example. Okay, we're gonna do a full stop here. When you work as an entrepreneur for yourself, your energy comes from your gut, your intuition, your knowing. You know what you deliver and who you deliver it for, regardless of it being a part of your business model or a part of your marketing package and what you currently sell. If you find yourself in a meeting saying, Oh, yeah, I do this or I work with them, and it just flows from you, that is such a gift. And I want to pause and appreciate that gift because as a founder, that doesn't always happen, but that is your intuition coming to light in natural form. And I think we need to listen, right? Because I've had some of those instances as well where I'll be on some call and just randomly I say, Oh yeah, and it also includes this. And I'm like, No, it doesn't. Where did that come from? But I knew in my brain somewhere that was, I knew that would be helpful to them. And then I sold it and it was an upsell. And I'm like, holy shit, I don't even have that, but I will because intuitively I knew that's what I wanted to help them out and provide. And I could, I just wasn't doing it, right? So it's almost like improv. I think improv is so important for people in business because it's the yes and philosophy. So you're building on these conversations with yes and I also do.

SPEAKER_02

I can, you know, let's do this too. Another thing I want to share with you about that, about that negotiation.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because I didn't know what to price it. And pricing is a whole conversation in and of itself. I mean, that's another podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

We can talk about pricing, but well, that's another facilitation session with you, perhaps, is pricing.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

That is called a consultation. And yes. And okay, so I didn't know what to charge. So I was going back and forth. I didn't want to be too high because I didn't want her to say no, but I didn't want to be too low because I didn't want to undervalue myself. So where is where is that sweet spot? And I didn't know. So I put out a number that I thought was okay. You know, I like Googled shit and like researched. Okay, so you Googled, got it. Googled, I talked to people that I knew, but it was like nobody had any concrete. Now I know I charge way too little. Um, now I know what my pricing model is and I feel conf confident and comfortable with it. But now I did charge too little, but that's what got me in. So I actually am really happy that I charged too little, but it was a big number for me, especially at that time. And she negotiated. She negotiated it down. And one of the most helpful things my brother said to me is when somebody negotiates down, you have to remove something with that. They don't get something with that. That means you don't just give a discount. You give a discount and you remove a service or you lessen a service because that that value is the value. So I did. So I did. I did these like round tables, and I think I had 12 and she wanted it less money. So I said, okay, I'll do nine or something like that. I can do nine, and I can do this many coaching sessions instead of six, I'll do five, and that'll lower the price. So I lowered my the offering to also lower the price. And that was a very valuable piece of information for me. And yes, it sounds obvious, but it is not something that I thought of.

SPEAKER_04

No. Well, and as a new founder, that was something I that took me years to understand as well. Because in the beginning, I did just want the work to feel valued to also put the rep in of my service so that I could do the thing to then improve the thing. And I would also discount without removing something. And it does feel obvious now, but I think when you're in the beginning, it wouldn't. And so because you have uncertainty around your price in the first place, you go, well, I don't really know. And then they come back and say, could it be 2,000 less? Or whatever you go, oh, maybe it should be 2,000 less because this is market research, right? And so there's, I think, the difference of being a new founder and quoting your work for the first time and figuring out your pricing. And don't use an actual pitch call, a sales call with someone who you want to close as market research. Use their feedback as this is my value, this is what I'm gonna sell to you today. And if you Can't afford that, or if they negotiate, then the actual service that I offer needs to change, right? But you're not going to use that call as market research to say, Oh, well, they're negotiating me down, so then I should actually be less. That's not how that works, but it's really hard in the beginning to know that. And I'm glad that your brother told you because it took me years and years of discounting my work to where one of my goals years ago was this sounds really stupid again now, but back then it was like, I just want to sell a project at my full rate and not discount it to win the work. And people were like, wait, what? Like, how why is that a goal of yours? You should be selling it always at full rate, which full rate is your brother's mantra. If it's the value and that's full rate, well, then it's still full rate, even if you're negotiating down, they're just getting less of you, which is still your full rate. So it still holds value. So I think that's a really important lesson. It took me a long time to learn that. And when you do, I mean, I actually bid a big contract last year for a big city here in Colorado for a branding work, uh, branding consulting job. And it was similar. It was, I've never bid this kind of work before. I was actually working it with a city. And we're branding a location and a street and like a destination, and I've never branded something like that. So they weren't quite my normal small or medium-sized business that I'm branding. And so for me, I used, I went back to that kind of early day, 12 years ago, startup mindset and started devaluing myself. And when they I said, I don't really know what to price this contract. This is so different for me of work. Well, went to Google, went to AI, went to all of the things talked to people. But then at least I stuck to my learned lesson of exactly what we're talking about. I am not new to this work. I'm new to the container in which I'm bidding this work. And they're still gonna get a brand executive of 15 years doing this work. So when they negotiated, which they did, I then did what you did. And I was so proud of myself because that wasn't always the case. But I said, well, instead of doing this many hours in focus groups or this many hours of events or this much in the surveying, right? The setup, we're gonna take it back a notch. I could still do a really good job for you delivering this amount of time, which would get you closer to your budget. And I think that's really important because this conversation does not always happen publicly. You know, pricing, people don't talk about pricing. They don't talk about how to figure shit out when you're just on your own and you don't have, you know, an entire business model of experience behind you. I think pricing is actually probably, would you say, one of the biggest challenges in starting your own business?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, pricing and talking about money, like just the money conversation in general for me was the hardest part. It's ick.

SPEAKER_04

Yep. And I have financial trauma from my childhood. So, like going back and doing some inner child work with finances and how I was raised, there's so much that lives in our nervous system as human beings with energy around money that in business it can always just feel ick everywhere. And the more people you feel secure confiding in and talking to about money, I think this conversation needs to be more of an open book than it is personally.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And there was a moment where I really came to terms because I actually care what I about the people. I care about what I do. I I help people. I mean, that's what I love, and that's my business is helping people. But I was really torn between helping people versus the business. We're all in business to make money, right? Man, Alyssa, you and I are the same, right? So I have this little sign here. I'm gonna share with you that is a sticky note on my computer that I came to this realization that feels so obvious, but it was such an aha moment. It says, I care and I want the business. Both can be true.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. So I have a mantra and it's an alarm on my phone every day at 8 50 a.m. Because that's usually when I'm danking around or commuting or I'm free before I go into my powerhouse mode. And it literally says, I can care and I can also make millions.

SPEAKER_02

And I think and I want the business.

SPEAKER_04

Both are true. And I've had to do a lot of financial reconstruction as a human being and a woman, and especially a woman business owner who does want to help everyone, and my work is my mission and my purpose. I tell everyone if I could work for free, I would. If I didn't have to manage books and money and accounting in a family of five with finances, I wouldn't. I would just literally go do my craft for the world and I love my work. It is a mission work, right? Yeah. Yeah. But there is a point where you're running a business for 12 years and you go, oh shit, I actually haven't been the best CFO, financial, you know, CEO of my businesses. And this was a big realization the last couple of years for me that I did some coaching for just to overcome this very issue because I was giving away all of my time. There were brand projects I had, you know, six of my contractors, my creative team working on it with me, and I paid myself last. And I did all of the project management, all of the client management through the whole brand project, and I would not pay myself for that time. And I had so many people say, Anne, you are delivering the brand experience with all of your creatives and you're not billing for that time. If you weren't doing that job and you hired someone, what would that be worth? And that was the aha of holy shit, I care so much. And also, I can bill and make millions and I can grow this, you know, business model. And millions is just my my vision, of course.

SPEAKER_02

But no, that's okay. I'm taking over the world. I don't know if you know. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

And I'm building my global empire.

SPEAKER_02

I'm building an empire.

SPEAKER_04

We're pinky in the braining right now, and we're like, I will take over the world. And we're we're building our global empires as we should, and those are going to require millions of dollars and a lot of really smart people. And a private jet, of course. Duh, of course, and some condos, right? I literally have on my dream list I want a condo in Asia, I want a condo in Europe, and I want to have my mountain house here in Colorado because I want to have space to invite community with me around the world as I grow my global empire, right? Because community is so important. I want to host people, I want to host networking events, and I also want to travel and speak all over the world. So I'm gonna need to have pop-off spots like my own condo so that I can create a safe, comforting midpoint either direction that I go around the world, Europe or Asia, you pick, and then I can, you know, be in my genius because I've had two days in my space as a layover before I get to your event to go activate your audience, right? Of course, there needs to be properties.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and you can borrow them from private jet whenever you want.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Alyssa. So, and you know what? We'll just do some more podcasts from that private jet. You know what? You should have jet facilitation sessions where they get to ride in your jet, and that is the facilitation training. Yeah, I'm in it. I'm in it. I mean, so yeah, why not? I've thought about having a private jet and having private dance parties up in the air because we dance, right? So let's go have like a jet dance party as we jet off somewhere and let's like reinvigorate our souls.

SPEAKER_02

But there's one thing that you said, Anne, not but and there's one thing that you said that I want to comment on because I also think everything you said is true. And I would add in the beginning, charge low, it doesn't even matter. It's all experience. Every single thing that you do. Every time you charge too low, you're learning. Every time you charge too high and you lose the deal, you're learning. And it's all learning. So you you can do it for free. I mean, do you read loss leaders I've done? I have done a and and that is a term I did not know before David, my brother. Thank you, David. This is a David. Is he said, do do a loss leader. You can you if so I found when I did when I worked for like associations or if I spoke at a conference, doing that for free was great because I had this huge audience of people from all different places. Sure, I'll do that for free because something's gonna come out of it. And and more than something. Like I did a conference last year. I literally just got off the phone with with the woman who I met who was in my audience last year. And I've already done a workshop with her. I've already like I've already done multiple things. She's hiring me again for the fall. She wants to do this, she wants to do that. So much came from that one lost leader that I did with just one client. Well, let's talk about speaking because you are a speaker.

SPEAKER_04

Are you intentionally growing your speaking business, or is that just a side hustle?

SPEAKER_02

Oh this is something, this is a hole in my knowledge. I am a facilitator. I can go in any room and I can facilitate any conversation. I it's a strength. It's a superpower I have. And I love it. You don't need a lot of knowledge about the thing to be to facilitate. You just need to know how to work a room, how to facilitate, how to pull out of people, how to make the magic happen, which that is my superpower. I was asked to do a keynote this past year from a woman who I met at my last job, who I facilitated for. And she was like, Oh, well, you come and do a keynote for for this group. It was 250 people in in Atlantic City. And I was like, um, oh yeah, I said yes, because that's what you do. Yeah, everything, yes, of course, I can do that. Yes. So I went and I bombed. I bombed. I mean, I I had I had done a program two years prior when I worked at DCR for this conference. And I was the hit of the conference, right? Like because I was facilitating that. And I did this, I facilitated, I had 80 people in my room. And I, and when I got to this conference again, and I had a table and I was the keynote, and a guy came up to me. He's like, Oh my gosh, you were here two years ago. I remember your and you said this, you changed the way that I think about this. And I know I was like, whoa, wow. Because that's what a lot of what I do is like I go in, I do my thing, and I leave, and you don't know the impact, but I I mean, I really impacted this guy. And it was a a workshop on implicit bias. And he was like, I move in the world differently now because of that. And I was like, and the woman who hired me was standing right next to me. That was good. Anyway, so then I go up on stage.

SPEAKER_04

You just gave me an idea. I want to document this here because you just gave me an idea. Okay, what is it? So I'm not gonna take this note. It's you just said something, which as growing a speaker business myself, we don't get feedback after we activate an audience, right? We don't get the feedback loop. And so that made me think you know how we can always put like a QR code or a contact slide up on the screen, and there's a way to contact or connect with the keynote, oftentimes you get a slide, right? And I was thinking on my QR code, there's different ways in which you can connect with me, my community, some of my courses, some documents, these are all things that I'm building, right? It's the follow-up. But you just said something from a market research standpoint that I love from my past career in marketing, you know, 15 years ago, that the feedback loop, if you're gonna go in and activate an audience and speak, what if that QR code was a form or a survey where you could actually ask them, what was one thing that shifted from when you entered the room this morning to after Ann spoke or after Alyssa spoke or facilitated? What was one shift? And you could even have, you know, a drop-down of specific topics that you hit or just like a short paragraph form, but you could literally prompt one to two different little survey questions super easy. And then the next step is to click to join something in your sales page, right? Your sales funnel for them to join your community or for them to set up time with you or for them to buy your course, right? But it could be the first question. And I haven't seen a lot of speakers do that myself, where you click to go contact them or where they want you to go where they actually have feedback. Now I've seen the cards.

SPEAKER_02

So I do that in every single workshop. Like I just did a workshop this morning. Okay, and I put at the end, I have a QR code that I put up, and then they it it goes to a survey because that feedback is invaluable to me. Yes. I and I was just reading it, right? It's actually sitting up here on my screen. Um, and so many people. Everybody liked it and one person didn't. And so that is the feedback that I want to read.

SPEAKER_04

That's it. Yes, because we don't go to the five out of five reviews, we go to the one-star reviews. When we're looking at reviews on something, we go to the lowest because we want to.

SPEAKER_02

I want to understand.

SPEAKER_04

Yes. Okay, so you bombed this this speaking event. Tell me, what do you think the difference is between being a speaker and a facilitator? Because you started by saying, I'm a facilitator, I'm not a speaker. What is the difference?

SPEAKER_02

Facilitation is about getting people to realize I have I have a point that I want to make. And I ask questions or or have created an exercise to get people to come to that conclusion on their own. And through the conversation and very often they come up with conclusions I never even thought of. And so it's it's like an exploration. Facilitation is an exploration. I get to learn just as much as the group. Today, this today, somebody I asked a question, somebody said, somebody gave an answer, and I didn't, I was like, that's a in my head. I was like, that's an interesting answer. And so I said, What do you tell me more? What did you mean by that? And then they went on. It was brilliant, and it was not a perspective that at first I was like, huh? What are they talking about? You know? And then they said, and I said, tell me more. I don't, I don't know what you mean. And they told, and it was, and the whole room was like, Yes, yes. Like, you know, and and this person brought everyone in the room in on that. And that's good facilitation. Where that love that speaking, speaking is you know the you know the best way to say it? Facilitation is guide on the side. Speaking is sage on the stage. Look at you. Did you just come up with that? No. Oh. I have a workshop on facilitation and how to facilitate. And that is how I differentiate in the workshop. So that's yes. I could go through that um more, but that's how I that's how I talk about it in the workshop. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

So what do you think was a reason, one of them at least, that you bombed the keynote speech?

SPEAKER_02

I don't think I was prepared enough. I don't think that I was confident enough. Although confidence is, I have a confident, a confidence model that I share. Um, and confidence is about insecurity. You cannot even work on confidence if you don't first have insecurity. So it's about insecurity, it's about learning the skill, it's about practicing the skill, it's about having trouble with the skill, it's about figuring it out, and then it's about having a small win, and then you feel confident. Yes. And your confidence gains. I talk about confidence like a fundraising thermometer, you know? It's like little by little at a time. That is how confidence raises. You don't just all of a sudden you're super confident, right? Yeah, it's through all of this insecurity and all of these little things you learn and practice and bomb and you know, and grow, and then you get a win, and then you feel more confident, and then you try it again.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, yes. I love that. And I also want to also bring attention to the feedback loop because you can't build your confidence without feedback. So you could actually have a false sense of self and go deliver something, and then you think you did great, but without a feedback loop, half of that audience could disagree with you and say we really missed this one thing we were hoping for from her. Or, you know, I've gotten someone, you know, did research on me before having a conversation, and they're like, Oh, I was really hoping you were gonna talk about this. I'm like, wait, holy shit, how do you know that? And they're like, Well, I, you know, I looked at your Instagram or something, I was like, whoa. Like you have no idea who's in your audience and what kind of preparation they've done to be with you. And so as a speaker, I think it's really important to gain that feedback because you are just, you know, you're you're judging yourself on the metrics of, did I deliver? I was on the stage. Like, did I remember all of my points? Right? It's very inner self. It's did I uh stumble on my words or did I deliver with the kind of poise and confidence that I wanted to? But for them, they don't really care who you are and how put together you are necessarily. They care about the the meat, the the activation, the shift, the mindset, uh, you know, juiciness that gets in there that's raw, that makes them think, right? It could be anyone of their delivering, but it's what you're doing for them. And so that's why it's so important. And I want to talk about feedback because uh this is a new course that you have, and I want you to be able to share it. Can you tell us this new course that you're sure that you're really excited about?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I can I certainly can. So I have a giving and receiving feedback course. It's a mini course. So I love that. Yeah, and you know, feedback, I mentioned it earlier, even when we were talking, right? It's one of those difficult conversations that people have. And it doesn't have to be because feedback, when you're giving someone constructive feedback, if you're doing it in the right way, and I have a whole way, you're giving it because you want someone to grow and you want to nurture someone, you want them to be better. You want, and it's not about they're a bad person. It's about this thing, this one thing. You're amazing, and this one thing needs to needs to improve. And here's here's let's talk about improvement. Now, I really, I really, really, really want to highlight that my giving and receiving feedback course is not the feedback sandwich. I do not believe in the feedback sandwich. I think it's a sandwich full of baloney. Dad joke. Dad joke. Nothing but a bullshit sandwich, right? Yeah. I mean, think about, think about like when you've ever had to give feedback and you've used that feedback sandwich. And for anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's the idea of praise, feedback, you know, praise, criticism, praise, right? So when I've had to give feedback, I'm not talking about the praise right now. Feedback is meant for praise or growth. So wherever you're gonna give it, give it and be direct about that. But when you meant to water it down.

SPEAKER_04

I saw your stance on this and I absolutely agreed. I hate the sandwiching bad news, conflict resolution, feedback, all the things. I hate the sandwiching because here's why. I'm all against performance. I'm all about honest presence, right? And so when you think about the positive with the negative with the positive, there is a positive that's fake. I feel like it's so performative when you do the sandwich. Because if you're there and you have a job to lead someone and help them grow, and your feedback, feedback is almost always going to be perceived as negative because it's something that wasn't good that you should work on. And there should always be that because it is something that you should be working on because it's to grow you, and not everything can be wonderful. Because if so, then your end of your life, you've done everything perfectly and there's nothing left to work on. So what's the point? So that's the whole thing. When I saw that, I was like, yes, because it eliminates the performative bullshit that we have to deal with and the niceties of working together. It's everybody gets a medal just for showing up. No, that's not how it works. And I'm not gonna sit here and try to think of uh what's a what's a nice, you know, layer here that is disingenuous. Yeah, it just feels fake. And so when you are getting that feedback sandwich, which I've received very many times, where that first positive, I'm like, oh fuck you, shut up. That's so fake. Like immediately I go into my vulgar sailor cussing, like just deep on off putting. Yeah. And like whatever. That sounds so stupid, right? That sounds so fake. And then it shuts me down for hearing the thing in the middle because it's like they're performing and it sets you up and you know what's coming. So then when they actually deliver the real raw feedback that you view as negative, you've already been like, ugh, whatever, I'm done with you, because the first positive that they had to give in their feedback sandwich felt fake. It felt performer, right? And so I feel like I like I love your approach because I think your course is going to be invaluable for so many leaders with team management to have direct, clear communication and view feedback as a tool of growth instead of a negative conflict resolution conversation that we have to go into and have. Well, conflict and feedback are different. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes that use it for more. Well, that's what I'm saying. And that's what that's why I want to draw that distinction. So feedback is about growth and improvement and development and support. Conflict is when there's a disagreement between two people. Right. And that and that I have a one-to-one strategy that I and a training that I run. Actually, I just did it. You do.

SPEAKER_04

It's yeah, it's so you have you have a feedback and training for everything. But what I was gonna piggyback on was your, I love your feedback loop because a lot of managers and leaders will use a meeting to give feedback or constructive criticism as a conflict conversation because they'll they'll mold it around some issue they're having with someone that disagrees. So that the recipient views the feedback as a conversation that. They disagree on. And here's the thing: feedback is not something you can agree or disagree on as I'm going to debate you on this because I don't agree. It's someone's opinion. That's gaslighting. It's someone's opinion. It's you can't gaslight them and say, well, you really don't feel that way. Maybe you feel this way about my presentation. It's like, no, the feedback was the feedback. The conflict could be something different, but there shouldn't be conflict in feedback. But I think a lot of people view feedback as conflict.

SPEAKER_02

So I want to I want to make a distinction, be very clear on on a distinction here from what you're saying. Yeah. Um, you can disagree with feedback that you get.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

You can. And there are many people, and especially people like us in a business and and as an entrepreneur who will tell you what to do or how you're doing something wrong. And you disagree with that. That is feedback that you disagree with. It does not have to turn into conflict. And the way that I think about it is if somebody depends on me in some way and I disagree with them, that matters and it's worth a conversation. So a person on my team, my boss, my children, my friends, that matters to me. When someone gives me feedback that I disagree with, and they're not, as Brene Brown would say, in my arena, they've got they've got nothing going on here and they don't know what they're talking about. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. It doesn't matter. So um another time I accept feedback that I disagree with is when it's someone who knows more than me and is really seasoned in something, and they say something, and I'm like, I disagree. I want to understand why I disagree. I want to understand their opinion. Oh, I love that. That's good. I want to know why I disagree. And sometimes I'm right, and sometimes I'm not. My disagreement is wrong. But there, you have to be able to discern when you disagree with some. I do think you can disagree with feedback. And when you disagree with feedback, with somebody's impression of you, and that's what I talk about receiving feedback. Receiving feedback rests in self-awareness. And self-awareness has two components. One is, I call it the mirror and the portrait, right? So the mirror is like typical traditional self-awareness. Like, I know what my goals are, my aspirations, I know what I like, I know where I fit in, I know what my desires and my values are, right? That's that's self-awareness in the from the mirror perspective. But the portrait, and this is the part of self-awareness that people don't understand or recognize as self-awareness, is how other people see you, your impact on other people. That is self-awareness. And that portrait that they paint of you may you may not like it and you may not agree with it, but it has been painted. It is on the canvas. And so understanding why someone painted that of you is self-awareness. Ooh, I love that.

SPEAKER_04

Ooh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02

Receiving, and that's part of receiving feedback. That's part of the mini course. Love that clear feedback.

SPEAKER_04

So, in addition to this feedback mini course, what are all of the courses that you are currently pitching right now? What do you really want people to be aware of with your line of work? Because I think you have a fabulous history and a lot of credentials around the trainings that you do. So tell us more.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the best, I think the best way to see kind of comprehensively everything that I have is to go on my website, uh workwise labs.com. But I also do um two, every month I do two workshops. One is a 15-minute workshop called Just a Touch. And it's usually around the first or second week of the month, and it's 15 minutes, and it's just a touch of a longer workshop that it that I do the following week. And that's one hour. I do these monthly virtual workshops, and every month is a different topic. The Just a Touch and the Monthly are the same topic. And so you can come for free to the Just a Touch, see if you like it, what you think, and then you can come, and then the monthly right now is only $29. So it's easy, easy access. It's 12 noon Eastern time. So it hits all the time zones in the states. And I have people that come. I have people that come from across the country. And um, yeah, and it's it's only $29. So it's super accessible. Yeah, this month we did conflict resolution, for example. And I don't know when people are listening to this, but next month we're doing creating high-performing teams. And last month we did, gosh, what do we do last month? I mean, everything it jumbles into each other. Last month we did um, oh, effective communication. Love that. Okay.

SPEAKER_04

This is a great way to work with you and get a flavor of what you even do. This is a great way to even experience what your facilitation could feel like uh when you attend a workshop and how you actually go through the systems. My question is, and I think this is a really good final question for this really awesome conversation today, is for the keynote that totally flopped. Will you go back? We're gonna go back to that. Will you go back and try again? Or are you saying that that was feedback that says you are a facilitator and not wanting to do the keynote thing again?

SPEAKER_02

I get asked to do keynotes. I have to say yes. I'm in business. My business is making money. I have to do these keynotes. So I actually just joined a um Toastmasters. Okay. That is my beginning. Yes. That's where I'm starting. And I want to put together a keynote. I want one keynote. That is my goal. I want one keynote that if somebody says, Oh, can you give a keynote? Yes, I can, and it is on this.

SPEAKER_04

I love that. Alyssa, I love that. You said it, and that so it you it must be true because it's gonna be on air. You want one keynote, and you can have one keynote, and it coin it can be amazing. And then you can keep building and developing that one keynote. And I think that that's smart, especially if you're getting asked to do it. Um I'm glad. I'm glad that you're gonna go try again. And I think that suffering, like you said, is a part of the confidence track. And every time you feel that you didn't perform the way you should, from your own feedback as well as outside feedback, it's a confidence built builder. One little step in the thermometer at a time. I'll look at you using my yeah, I love it. Well, because I was on the PTA, right? So of my kids' elementary school. So I just remembered every fundraiser we had that silly thermometer in the hallway. And you kept seeing your progress, but the visual is really, really impactful. So I see that. I see every single little notch in your career is a confidence booster, and I love that. So, Alyssa, thank you so much for all of these amazing truth bombs today. I think that you've really delivered some great stuff. I've wanted to talk with someone on pricing and the struggle of pricing and the early days of even valuing yourself and what you offer. I think the struggle is real. I think if you guys want to have a deeper conversation with Alyssa and all of the things that she helps you with in facilitation and her courses, uh, I'm definitely interested. I'm super excited. So, Alyssa, help plug all of your spaces, maybe your website again, and then your channels of where people can find you if they want to get in touch. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02

The best, the best way to find me is on my website, which is www.workwiselabs.com. And I'm also on Instagram at workwise labs, and I'm also on LinkedIn, WorkWise Labs. So you can find me there.

SPEAKER_04

That is cohesive branding. Everything is workwise labs. I love that. Awesome. Well, thank you for your time, Melissa, on OnlyFounders. That does it for us. Thanks for listening. Everybody, have a good one. Thanks for having me.