The Second 90 Days of Business: How to Turn First Clients Into Real Growth

Everyone wants more clients.
But scaling too early is one of the fastest ways to burn out, undercharge, and build a broken business.

In this episode of The CEO Lounge, Derrick Thompson and Joselyn Flores break down what actually matters in the second 90 days of business—and why your first 3–5 clients are more valuable than chasing 20.

This is the phase most entrepreneurs get wrong.

Instead of chasing volume, this stage is about proof, process, and positioning—so when you do scale, you’re ready.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why scaling too early can hurt your business
• Where your first clients should actually come from
• Why your network is more powerful than social media early on
• How to turn your first clients into testimonials, case studies, and referrals
• The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make in the second 90 days (rushing)
• How to refine your pricing, process, and ideal client
• When you’re actually ready to grow

If you’re in your first year of business, this episode will save you time, money, and frustration.

The first 90 days build your foundation.
The second 90 days prove your business works.

And if you get this part right… growth becomes inevitable.

Subscribe to The CEO Lounge for real conversations on entrepreneurship, business growth, and building something that actually lasts.

For blueprint documents that correspond to this episode and others visit our website at www.theceolounge.net

Chapters:

0:00 – Intro: What Are the Second 90 Days?

1:16 – The Real Goal: This Is Your “Pilot Phase”

2:27 – Why You Only Need 3–5 Clients (Not 20)

4:28 – It’s Not Growth—It’s Proof

7:22 – The Biggest Mistake: Rushing Too Fast

10:22 – Why Your First Clients Are Your Best Marketing

12:05 – How to Get Your First Clients (Without Ads)

14:29 – Why Social Media Won’t Save You

18:06 – What Your First Clients Teach You About Your Business

22:03 – Refining Your Offer, Pricing & Capacity

31:01 – Turning Clients Into Testimonials & Case Studies

33:11 – Building Proof That Lets You Scale

37:12 – Final Advice: Be Patient & Do This Right

#Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #StartupTips #BusinessGrowth #CEO #ServiceBusiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Days. You know, you're never gonna get this time back. So this is kind of like for real, for real, the final time before things get crazy.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to the CEO Lounge, your blueprint for success. This show was founded by Derek Thompson, a 30-year entrepreneur and CEO who has built multiple ventures from the ground up. And I'm Jocel Flores. I'm five years into my own entrepreneurial journey, and I'm here just asking you all the questions of how you did it, because I want to do it too. And I'm sure many other people do too. So follow along as I ask Derek all of the questions of how he was able to build everything that he's been able to do. And today we're talking about the second 90 days of business. So if you're tuning in and you haven't watched the first 90 days of business, we obviously suggest you do that first. In that episode, we spoke about just building the foundation of a business. Um you can go ahead, check it out, and you'll see everything from the making your business exist. So LLCs, um, domains, emails, bank accounts, all right, just setting the foundation, business plan, um, making sure that you're taking your time. And now we're taking the next step. So the second 90 days of business.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

In this episode, we will be covering uh the real goal of the second 90 days, where your first clients actually come from, why your first clients are so valuable, um, how to turn your first clients into assets, and what the second 90 days are preparing you for.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

All right, okay, so in the first 90 days, we built the foundation, the business plan, the structure, the website. Now we're in the second 90 days. What should the focus actually be right now? Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So, again, as we spoke about in the first 90 days, you know, you you never you never get that time back. You never get that time to um prepare, plan, do all those things to make your business successful. You kind of want to carry that into the second 90 days. You know, you're never gonna get this time back. So this is kind of like for real, for real, the final time before things get crazy. You know, you haven't gone out, you haven't done the crazy marketing blitz. You know, the clients that you get in this stage, you're gonna learn from and you're gonna take that information, and then that's gonna help you really, really go forward. So it's kind of more the kind of the pilot stage, I would say. If I were to frame it, I would frame it, frame it that way. But you want to get your lessons learned, get your case studies, get your testimonials, understand where your profits should be, understand, you know, are these the type of clients I really want? These are all the things you want to learn in in the second 90 days.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

And for everybody listening, I just want to kind of like it's such a testament to really this journey of um being able to interview you through this process. Before we we film, of course, we have multiple meetings and we go over different topics uh and we break down the episodes. And there's been multiple times now where I've presented an outline for an episode and I've had to rearrange it, right? Because of your knowledge and your wisdom. And I came into the second 90 days, like gong ho. I'm like, we're full on marketing now. Like we exist as a business. Now let's get all of the clients. We're gonna do outreach, outreach, outreach. Um, and you're like, let's scale it back, right? Those let's focus on those first three to five clients.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Um, yeah, and to me, I was like, why? Let's go to 20. I know. No, let's scale it back. And because those three to five clients teach you so, so much.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

And you said, I just want this episode to mainly focus on that, and we'll do some soft outreach and soft uh all that, but there's so much that you can take out of these first three to five clients.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

And I think it's so important to say that because especially when you're uh starting out, you're so ready to just go in.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

You're ready to go. And one of the traits, and we'll talk about this even in our our next show when we talk about is entrepreneurship. You know, for me, you know, one of the biggest traits that you have to have as an entrepreneur is patience. And you know, you don't think about that when you think of entrepreneur, you think of someone that's gung-ho, someone that's you know going crazy, making it happen. And yes, you're doing that, but you still have to have the right patience in certain situations. And if you don't, you're gonna crash and burn or you're gonna get so discouraged. So patience is a very important trait.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Patience is a virtue. It's hard, but it's so important. Um, so I mean, just like me, most people assume the next step is getting as many clients as possible, right? So I kind of came into it thinking um this is what we should be talking about. And then we reeled it back. Uh and you said before that the second 90 days is not so much about like that immediate growth, right? It's about proof.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

So what does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, so with proof, there's so many, so many ways I could answer that one, right? But I would say overall, what that means is you want to make sure that you know you're working with the right, the right industry, right? I've learned, I've changed so many times um in my history of working, working with clients because I've learned, okay, uh, this is not my, this is not my ideal client. So one of the things that you do in those first 90 days is you're building a buyer persona, right? So you're building a buyer persona, which is a fictitious character that represents who you're going after, who you're doing business with. So now that you're actually working with the client, now you can level set and say, oh, okay, wait a minute, you know what? I thought the person that I was gonna deal with in order to get business would be this particular role, but I'm learning, oh, it's actually this person, right? So I'm gonna have to cater all this money that I'm gonna spend in the next 90 days. I now know where to push that. Yeah, you know, um, so all those different types of things. Um, you know, case studies that you can build, you know, there's all of those, those things are important, but you really want to learn as much as you can about your business um and how you actually are gonna operate um by these first clients. You'll also learn how long things actually take.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

You know, you because that's gonna impact how much you charge and whatnot. So again, with that business plan, you were going off of more of what you thought was gonna happen. Yes. You know, but now you're working with real projects. So if you if you shortchanged that and you dumped all this money into marketing and you went and got a hundred clients, but you had a very critical part wrong as far as how long it was actually gonna take you to do this work, then you're starting off behind.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yep. So that's and then so in the first 90 days, we discussed right the foundation. And one of the things that we talked about was that client persona. Right. Was like identifying who that client persona is, who you want to service. Right. But now that you have some clients, you you still have time to tweak it a little bit before you're stuck with 20 clients that you're realizing we're not, I'm not compatible with this avatar that I created for my ideal client. Absolutely. When I have 20, 15 of the exact same, and I'm realizing I'm it's not compatible, I'm realizing, oh, I would like to shift it. So patience. Right. Right? It's and it's hard to be like, but if I could get three and I could get five, then I can get more. But there's so much you could learn from those first three to five clients.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Uh so what's the biggest mistake you think entrepreneurs make with their first few clients?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

So they're they're rushing. I I say that's probably the biggest, the biggest mistake because the best marketing for you is going to be the clients that you have. So you've got to do an excellent job. You have to really knock that out of the park. You want your clients talking about you, and you'll be just fine as an entrepreneur. But again, a lot of times we don't have the right patience and we're rushing and we're just trying to get the job done. Yeah. And you know, we're so worried about volume.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So I'd say that's probably the biggest mistake is that we're not taking our time and really learning because there's so many things that you're gonna learn. So I would I would go to just rushing. I think that's the biggest mistake.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

And I love that you said, like, even when you you're realizing how long things take uh and learning that early on, because then if you sign on, there's like that's very real, that's a very real thing that I've gone through where um as a social media manager, right? I used to present a monthly content calendar.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

And I realized creating a full month in advance, it's like not only it's not very sustainable for many reasons, but things change throughout the month. I've started doing two weeks. So I present two weeks and then two weeks. So two full weeks done, two full weeks. I've learned that that works for me. It may work differently for somebody else, but for me, now anytime that I meet with a new client, or you know, I go, oh, present two weeks at a time, and it's working perfectly that way for me. But I shifted. Yeah, I it was something that I realized early on. This is not working for me, for my cadence, for like my workflow, I would rather do this. And I was able to shift it early on when I realized with working with the first few clients that this this doesn't necessarily work for me. But if you were to sign on so many clients and you sign 10 contracts, let's say a monthly contract, I mean a monthly content calendar will be presented to you by this date. Now you are you by contract, you need to present 10 people with that when you could have like tweaked a little bit what the expectations are going to be.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Like we, you know, we deal with this with TNT Creative Group for the last year plus. We have been trying to make some major adjustments within the company and tweak some things, but that's that's difficult to do when you're full blown. You know, you've had so many other things that come up that are planned, that pop up that aren't planned, it's hard. So against one of those, you're never gonna get this time back. So utilize this time to make those adjustments now because you're constantly gonna have to make adjustments, but it's gonna be so much more difficult to make those later. It's gonna take more time.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

So before we move on to the next segment, because we're gonna touch on a lot of these uh these points, but as an overall, and then we'll break it down. Why are those first three to five clients so important for a business, especially a service-based business?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, yeah. Because in and you know, as part of your marketing, right? So let's look at it from that standpoint. People want to know what you've done. They want to hear from other clients. So this you can utilize uh that to for you know for your marketing to grow your business. Because it's all about what you've done, what you have in your portfolio, building those strong, strong case studies, getting those advocates. Yeah. So you can utilize that, and that will decrease the amount that you have to spend later because your work will start to speak for itself. And if you're again, you can sit here and spend$20,000 and try to get a whole bunch of clients, right? Or you can spend uh, you know,$5,000, do a great job. Now you've got all these advocates, now you've built up a marketing machine. What's more, what, what's more cost effective?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So yeah, I'd say that's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Okay, and we're talking about these three to five clients, right? But somebody's probably like, this is all beautiful, but I have no clients. It's like, how do I get to that? That one, that two. Like, I hear you. And like, and and we're like, before you go to these 20, focus on the three to five. And somebody's goal is just getting that first one.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Or like their dream is like to be able to talk about that three to five clients. So I have two questions for you. If someone is brand new, so brand new service business, where should they realistically look for their first clients? And um, do you think entrepreneurs today rely too heavily on social media? So, first, where should somebody realistically look for their first clients? They have nothing.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

So you want to start with your your network, right? Start with your your friends, your colleagues, right there. That's where I would start for sure. Um, secondly, I would get involved with a with an organization. Okay. Now, there's two ways to go about this. There are networking groups, right, that you can be a part of. I would I would network and go to networking events, but I wouldn't necessarily join a networking group. Okay. And I'm not going to put any names out there, but you know, we have maybe in real time, maybe later, right? Uh for that. But actually, what I would do, this is one of the best things I did when I was starting out and how I was able to really um, you know, get out there and meet people, was um I joined a civic organization. I joined the Rotary Club.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

And it was great because with the Rotary Club, I had everybody like asking me about my business, what I do. I wasn't selling anything. And I truly didn't join it from a business standpoint. I you know, saw to date myself, so adding a paper about some. They they had actually donated to like one of the local clubs and whatnot. And I thought that was cool. Went to a meeting. And so I just started, you know, being a part of that. And but in this group, yeah, it was like mostly business owners. And I started getting all this business from being here because again, people do business with who they know, who they like, who they rub shoulders with on a certain level. So I would strongly encourage people to, you know, get involved with a civic organization. And you'll definitely start to be people. But that's the thing. If you don't know anybody, it's about meeting people. Yes. So, you know, you want to have as many coffee um meetings as possible, as many lunch meetings as possible, just getting out and face-to-face meeting people and letting them know who you are. One other thing I want to touch on though, with this is with those first clients, you'll also learn how much you can handle. Right. So that's one of the most important things because you need to understand what your threshold is and how much you can handle. And then that's when that's when you'll know when you can say no.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Because then you'll say, okay, I can handle 20 at a time. So then you're not going to get in a situation where you're dealing with 40 because you know your threshold is 20.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

And at some point, maybe you can then hire more and you'll be able to handle 40 or more. So those are just those are that's another reason.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Yeah. And then even too with that, learning how much you can handle, um, especially with service-based, I think when you're very first starting out, right? Like your solopreneur, you're starting out, your pricing's probably gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

And so if you sign up with 10 out of like, you know, your lowest price because you just started out.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

That's a great point.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

And you can't handle this and you're not making enough. And what you realize, if I had waited, I've been more patient, if I had secured this these three first, focused on them, then realize my threshold, how long things actually take, when I'm willing to price it. Now I can handle more clients because I can uh I can charge more and I can outsource certain things, but I you can't afford to outsource when you're not making enough to be able to outsource. So like take your time, really figure out these clients. You learn, you learn so much. Um, and then with the with finding clients with like your already your network, something that already, you know, when you're starting out, a lot of times you'll announce, hey, I'm starting this business and I'm providing this service. And sometimes family members will come up or somebody that already, somebody that already owns a business, you know, be like, oh, you know, and maybe that's not gonna be your forever client, but you learn so much.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

And you and at least you get like somebody who's giving you a chance. A lot of times family members or friends of family members will give you a chance in the beginning to be like, you know what, let's test this out. And maybe they won't be your forever client, but at least you booked somebody and you can learn so much if it's not you made a ton of money off of it, but you can get so much experience from it. From that. What are you what are your thoughts on like cold outreach in when you're trying to get that first client?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I I don't like it. Okay. I don't like the cold outreach. Uh, you know, some do it, some do it well, supposedly. Yeah. But I'm not a big, a big fan of it. If it leads to burnout, yeah, yeah. I mean, man, you're gonna get a lot of rejection from that. So, and again, depending on your type of business, you might have the type of business where you only need one or two clients. And it's a numbers game. And okay, you know, great. But for me personally, that was never that never my my thing. Um, you know, I my strength, you have to play to your strengths. So my strength was building relationships, you know, making people feel comfortable, um, being trustworthy, those things. So the more people that I could build a relationship with, then those were the numbers that I needed. Yes. Versus just cold calling.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah. And building relationships. Yeah. And I mean kind of going back to our networking episode, right? So if you haven't watched that, watch the networking episode. Because that basically breaks down kind of this whole little segment that we're speaking about right now. Yes. It's just like you want to get clients, and of course, you got in business, especially service-based business, you need clients. If you're like at zero right now, um, I would really suggest you watch that episode because it's not just about like meeting a ton of people, but it's about these genuine connections. And people work with who they know, who they like, who they trust. If you're already somebody trustworthy and you present this the service, they're like, you're more likely to get a client that way because they they already trust you, they already know you. Now they know that you offer this service, like, oh, of course, you're the first person that I'm gonna give give a shot to.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

That's it. And you had mentioned social media too. So I didn't I didn't answer that. Um, so it was do people rely too much on social media?

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah, so I was gonna two, I was gonna do a two-fold in that one, okay. Which was um, I guess we can start off with do you think, especially young entrepreneurs or early on your entrepreneurial journey, some especially right now, we're relying too heavily on social media to attract clients?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, I would say yes, overall. I think a lot, a lot of people do, uh, especially young entrepreneurs. So you need to keep social media in perspective. So it needs to be one of many things that that you are doing. Social media is more of a it's keeping people aware of all the things that you're doing, but you're it's very rare that you're gonna have a situation where you post something out about you know your business, and then you know, you're gonna get you know direct business from that. It's more of staying top of mind, um, letting people know you're there. Yeah, it's more of more of that. Um I hear a lot of comments about some of the things that we're doing on social media, and people won't necessarily post anything as a message, but as I'm out and about and I see people, they go, Oh, yeah, you know, I saw you on that video shoot. Oh, I they'll like comment verbatim of things that were said on social media. I'm like, oh wow, okay. But, you know, it's that that this kind of goes to the whole marketing aspect of a lot of times, I think just in general, a lot of the content that people put out is for people that are ready to buy. It's closing content.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Whereas you need to have a lot of the earlier content. Yes, you know, 60% of your content needs to be more addressing problems that people are having. Yeah. The problem that you're solving. It needs to be more informative.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Whereas typically, what do we do? It's hey, I've got a deal, buy this, you know, it's it's that closing content.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

But people typically aren't at that point to where they're ready to buy. Yeah. You want to uh talk about the problems that you're solving, so then you're top of mind. So when they are in that point of business where they need it, then they think about you. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Yeah. With like social media, especially now, we kind of expected a lot of times to solve so many issues, right? And I've seen so much, like I I created the page and I posted. I'm providing, I don't know, lash services. And we just like sit back and wait for but it's like, but I posted, I created the page. Uh I I post every once in a while. And like you said, it's like to show people that you exist, to keep top of mind, to be consistent, so people constantly see you. Uh, I very like a long time ago, like when I was first starting, I I did a reel, right? And I got a client off of that reel. Somebody uh in Ohio reached out to me and he was like, I love the content you're creating. I want you to create that for me. Said, beautiful. I took that as, oh, this is the way that I'm gonna get every client.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

And so for a bit, I was like, just post, post, post, post, post, post and kind of forgot about all other forms. Yeah. Uh because I had gotten this one client through that. I was like, this is the way. Um it was a way, but not the way. It can't be the engines, especially in the beginning, that like you seek and you look to to get you all these clients. Like you have to put boots on the ground. You do use your use the people around you. That that network, your existing network, your the people that already you already connect with instead of trying to convince a stranger through a screen, which I'm sure it's possible, but like you can also look a lot closer to that network that's already, that's already around you.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

So yeah, too. Sometimes we rely too heavily on social media.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Okay, so now we gave you some tips on how to get those first clients. Uh-huh. And we can't spend too much time on it, but I would again suggest that you go to that networking um episode to dive deep into it. Check that out. But we're focusing on like those first three to five, right? So now we're we're we want to talk to somebody who already has those three to five, or if you don't have those three to five yet, we believe that you will get them. But this is what you have to do when you get those three to five. Yeah. So don't rush it. Take your time, really, really, really uh understand the value that it is and taking. Your time with these three to five clients. So, what do the first few clients reveal about a business that you couldn't see before?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

So, a couple of things. So, definitely time, how long it takes to do certain things. That is one big one that we've talked about before. Another one that you'll learn, because again, you're early on in your business, and it's something that you establish early on is am I going to be a solopreneur? You know, or am I going to be the type of business that's going to have employees? How big of a company am I trying to create? And that's something that you'll learn early on with your first few clients because, you know, and it may go one way or another. You know, you may work with those first few clients and go, oh man, you know what? Okay. I think I want to do more of this myself. I think I want to be more of a solopreneur. Or you may want to say, nah, forget this. I'm not trying to do this. You know, I'm gonna grow beyond this. I'm gonna have people doing this, you know. So those are those are definitely some of the things that, yeah, yeah, you like. And then you learn who's a fit and who's not a fit. And especially more who is not a fit. Again, I I worked with um another company. Um, we used to send each other business, and I thought one of the coolest things he had was he had a document of the exact types of businesses that he would not work with. And what did that come from? That came from experience, clearly, of working with those companies. And then he knew, okay, nah, that's not that's not a fit. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Yeah. Have you ever had a moment where a client taught you something about your own business?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, oh, for sure, for sure. So um early on, and again, technology changes, the things that you know pay companies for changes. But when we started TNT, you know, being a digital agency, um, we dealt with a lot of logos back then. Okay. And now there's so many other resources to get logos, you wouldn't do that. But that was one of the things I learned early on. I was like, oh my goodness. Like a logo was one of the most um aggravating and annoying things to provide to most. Now you'll have your home rent. You might get fooled because you may have that one that's super easy to work with. You create that logo and they love it and great. But man, oh my gosh, you'd have it, or I'd have the, you know, the the first person that hired me, you know, for that would love it. Yeah. But then what would happen? They'd go show it to somebody, yeah, show it to somebody else, show it to somebody else, you get all these feedback and all that opinion. And I was like, good gracious, it's so much easier to build a website, you know, for a client than it is a logo. And that that just baffled me because you would think the logo would be easy, but nah, people would be so, so picky. I said, nah, I am never touching this. Yes. So yeah, definitely learn about it.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

So when somebody's building a website with you, normally they already have the logo.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah, typically. But we we ran into, and so that was something that we learned. Um, because um there were some that didn't have it.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

And and then then you kind of get caught to where, okay, well, then the food uh knowing that you can provide that service, yeah, well, you know, you already have them, you know, you get caught up in price. Oh, okay. Well, you know what? Yeah, I can I can just do that for you.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Or you might not charge really what you should charge for it. So yeah, got got caught up in in that a lot. But most had it, but some didn't.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

So that's really interesting. And uh that maybe this would be like an off-the-cuff question, like we, but that makes me think of because then that's also kind of adjusting your client persona, right? Somebody who is like, I I no longer want to work with somebody who has nothing. When you're when I'm building a website for you, yes, your branding's already set.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

We're creating your website.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

So that shifts the client persona.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

So that so that's actually that's something I was gonna talk about later. But this no, no, no, but this is the perfect time to talk about it now. So that's something that with our business, this will relate to everybody, especially being a digital media company. We and we still have to deal with it now, but now it's different because we're fighting AI. We always had to stay two and three steps ahead as far as what we provided our clients. Because when you get into marketing, it can be aggravating.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Because it's one of those industries. It's not like construction or some other things to where, you know, it's a skill set that you don't just pick up, right? A lot of people claim to be, you know, marketers or even graphic designers. So what would aggravate the mess out of me would be, you know, have a client, they love it or whatever, and then say, oh, well, you know what? Yeah, well, my daughter just graduated from uh see, I know you deal with this a lot, you know, just graduated from, you know, high school or college or whatever. Yeah, you know, she really wants to do it, she really wants to take a crack at it. Or, you know, uh John over in uh you know, whole nother department, yeah, you know, he, you know, he he's been working on the site and whatnot. And I was like, oh, heck no. Yeah, we are not gonna be doing a service that somebody can just wake up and think they can start doing.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

So that's why we had to get way more advanced. So I don't, that's why I don't even like on the show saying we build websites because there's levels to it. Yes. You know what I mean? Because we, yeah, we do websites, but we do super, super high. Like we're building custom applications that allow your website to interface and integrate with other tools and all that type of stuff. We we build the type of websites that people use to actually run their business. Yeah, it's not just a billboard. But when we started, yeah, we did just your basic, you know, basic site. And I quickly learned, I said, okay, no, we we cannot be in this in this field. You know, when it came to video and and and animation, you know, you can just imagine, okay, with video, yeah, that's something else that for the most part people can think they can pick up and pick up a camera and just do. Yes. So that's why we had to say, okay, no, we got to stay way ahead. Yeah. We're filming, you know, there we go. I know Joe. Joe knows about that. You know, we're staying more high-end or we're doing, you know, 3D animation that you know has all these, you know, different, different layers to it. So that was always something big that I learned early on. Okay, we cannot provide something that folks think that somebody can just pick up and do. We have to separate ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah. And that's so important because it's again that patience, right? Because it can be so tempting to be like, okay, my my the foundation is built. I know who I want to service. I've but registered as an LLC. I have my business bank account. I set up all of my social media platforms. I even built my website. Now I'm gonna start marketing and I'm gonna be, you know, uh promoting, I'm gonna be doing ads. Like I have the budget, I even have money aside, so I'm gonna do ads, ads, and now I have all of these inquiries. But I haven't actually officially worked closely for a period of time with clients on one-on-one. So I you are not, if you haven't done that, you are not ready to take in all of these different inquiries. You're you're not ready to actually answer all these questions that these potential clients are gonna have for you because you haven't taken the time to really learn what your clients truly want, what processes actually work, what works for you, what you're willing and not willing to do. So you'll be in those potential client meetings saying yes to a lot of things that if you had taken the time, you would probably be like, no, I don't offer, I don't want to offer this. It's like patience, patience, yeah, patience.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Absolutely patience. And I'm a good thing. That was funny. You did that, that was like military grade, man, crawling across. That was good.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Okay, so patience, right? Patience. You if you don't have if you have not taken the time to learn from those three to five, you're not ready to take, not only are you not ready to take on more clients, like you said, you're also not ready to sit through all of these potential client meetings because you do not know yet what you're willing to say no to, what you're willing to say yes to. So you're gonna be sitting in meetings with a ton of potential clients saying yes to a lot of things that you probably don't realize yet. I don't want to do this because you have not taken the time to work with these three to five and go, actually, had I taken the time, I would have said no. I don't want to offer this anymore. I don't want to say commit to pro to uh delivering it within two weeks. I feel like I should extend it. Right. Take your time, figure out all of those things. It's gonna teach you what clients actually care about, what parts of your service actually create more value? Again, what you're willing to say yes to, what you're willing to say no to. So now we've taken our time, we have these clients. Okay. Please, please, please take your time. How do we turn these three to five into assets? Right. So, first, when should somebody ask for a testimonial? How long after having your that first or second client is the correct time to be like, hey, can you give me a review?

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, just at least finish the work. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Have you ever had Oh yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so now again, people get gung-ho on that. Yeah. You know, I'm like, okay, well, I don't even, it's going good so far, but I haven't even seen the finished product if you're asking for it. Right, let me see the finished product. So I'll but I will say after that, you know, what once you finish it, but I would give them an incentive for it. I I think that's good because that's so valuable. It's worth the incentive. You know, any testimonial that you have for a client, that will lead to future business. So I wouldn't do it with a discount on your work because you don't want to, you know, low, don't get caught up in that. But I would probably do like a gift card or something like that. You know, a token. It doesn't have to be anything big and extravagant. But, you know, just some type of, it can be, you know, Starbucks or something, you know, coffee cart or just something to acknowledge their time to take the time to do that. Yeah. Uh, that's impressive. Yeah. And that'll help you a lot because you really need that. And that's what's gonna allow you to then charge more down the line. Because until you have a portfolio and a lot of great work that you can show, you're gonna be limited. So you you need that.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yeah. And if you have again, we keep saying that number three to five, but if you have that amount, whether it's three, four, five, right, uh, and you take your time and you provide quality work and you provide great service, then you can add those three testimonials to your portfolio. You can provide examples of your work to your portfolio. And not only can you add it to your portfolio and have these testimonials on your website and use this as proof, as marketing for your business, that now you can show other clients and you can charge more money because now you have proof that you're able to deliver quality work and you're able to to provide the service you're saying you can. You can also use these as case studies, these three to five as case studies. Yes. How can we do that?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

So, um, because and so with that, with the case studies, and I'm gonna also bring this to something that we're doing with CEO Lounge right now, but with the case studies, you want to focus on the problem that you're solving, the problem that you solve with them. Because everybody that you are providing a service for, you are you're taking care of some issue that that that they have. So, and again, we talked about that in the first 90 days is you know, what problem are you solving? Yeah. So with your case study, yeah, you want to make sure that you really hit that and focus on that. So that would be the number one thing is to have your client, if they are, even if in the if if you're recording uh, you know, the case study or if it's something that's written up, you want to lead with that problem. Yeah, that's very important. And then we're doing that with CEO Lounge. You know, we are in the process of launching our community, our membership area, where people can post their weekly wins and all of that. And so we have it set up, yeah, but we are actually um we're we're um doing a boots on the ground uh approach to that, to where actually sending individual invites, seeing how it looks, you know, making sure that it's user-friendly, just taking the time. Yes. So then when we have a mass promotion of it, we already know what it looks like, we already know what put you know what could have, you know, gone wrong. We've already resolved that. So again, that's where that patience comes into play.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

And you said this in the first episode of the first 90 days, and you said it again uh today, which is you're never gonna get this time back.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

And a lot of people are going, like, oh my gosh, Derek, you keep telling me to be patient, you keep telling me to take any time. But like we're we're you you are speaking from a place of experience, of having built something that has lasted, that is successful, that you are now reaping the benefits of it. So you're not just speaking from like a oh, you know, this is what here you go, do this. No, it there's a reason behind all of this. And like those case studies of how you were talking about, right? Now I know how long it's gonna take me. Now I know uh what's what what part of my service delivers the best quality. Now I know how to get them the results uh in a much better way than I did a couple of months ago. Now I even realize, hey, I could improve this and I can improve that, and now I can charge more. But it but if again, if we don't take the time and if like you're never gonna get this time back to learn as much as you possibly can about your business, about your services, about who you actually want to work with, about your clients, you are going to be advertising to so many people, and you're gonna be signing on, you know, 10, 15, 20 clients, and you're gonna realize, shoot, oh my gosh, I don't know how to answer this question. I didn't take the time. Oh man, I wish I had taken this service off because I don't want to actually provide that anymore. But now I have to. Now I'm committed. Now I have to actually do it. These are your first three to five clients. They're your marketing, they're your case studies, it's your your your learning period, your research. That's that's no question.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

And you probably won't say shoot, probably say something else.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Say so they're not the first 90 days, it's not about the second 90 days. Sorry, it's not about skill, it's not about grow, grow, grow. It's about proof. The first 90 days was about foundation. That's right. The second 90 days is about creating that proof. Can I actually deliver the service that I've said I can deliver? That's right. This is the 90 days to prove it, to learn from it, to tweak it, um, to use it as marketing and and be ready. That will lead you to being ready to, you know, now those 20, those 40, 50, however many your heart desires, you'll know what you can handle. That's right. You will know what you can handle.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

You'll know. You'll know. All right.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

So by the time you finish working with your first two clients, you should understand who your best clients are, what problem you solve best, what your process looks like, how you deliver results, that proof. And then, then only then are you ready to go, okay, now I can take, I can take more.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

So if somebody's listening right now and they're in the first, you know, couple of first months of business, they're feeling a little bit discouraged because they only have a few clients, what would you say to them right now?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Just be patient. Be patient, utilize this time. You're never gonna get this time back. Learn from it, understand who your target market really is, understand what your buyer persona is, understand how much work you can really take.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Decide are you gonna be a solopreneur or are you gonna grow beyond yourself? All those things that are gonna be very critical and hard to adjust later.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Take this time and get it, get it right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Because it's gonna be hard to make a lot of these changes later. So take take advantage of this time and look at it as an opportunity. Yeah. It's all about the mind, the mindset. You you can look, you can you can look at it two different ways and feel totally different.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

So think about it that way, and you'll be you'll be all right.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

And I just want to end it with that line because when you said that last time, which was you're never gonna get this time back, I was like, Oh, man, what great advice. I wish you know I had heard that a lot earlier on. Of like, if you are right now, you're feeling discouraged because you're like, I only got two, I only got three. You're never gonna get this time back. Use those three to the most. Take as much information out, as much research out because you're gonna regret not having done that later on. All of the mistakes you can probably avoid with when you're growing and beautiful, but you're never gonna just how you said in the first one, you're never gonna take the time back to really build the business from the that foundation. Right. And you're never gonna get the time back of those first few couple of months where you're like, I want more.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Really, it's coming.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

It's coming, it's coming. If you treat these two, these three, these four correctly, yeah, it's gonna come.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

So you're never gonna get that time back. That line stuck with me from last time, and I'm like, I tell myself that now, which is plenty of things. And I'm like, take your time, build the foundation in all of these other areas.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

That's right. Beautiful. You got it, you got it.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

So the second 90 days, it's not about building a massive business, it's about building a real one. Serve a few clients well. Serve those first few clients well. Learn everything you absolutely can about those first few clients. Refine your process and watch the first 90 days if you haven't.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah, check it out.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Check it out. So awesome. And I I think from this we're gonna keep building on. Well, right right now, we are we built a foundation, we're working on building that proof. Stay tuned for what's coming next. We want to make sure that you keep following along and that we're helping you in this journey. Yeah, and yeah, anything else you want to say? You want to add on?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Yeah, too. You you can do it, you know, you can do it. Um, a lot of I I've had a lot of conversations, um, looking forward to you know, talking about this more. But, you know, I I've just talked to so many people that are stuck. You know, they're kind of stuck or they're they they're scared to, you know, take that next step and you know, just kind of spinning their wheels. So um, you know, just establish those weekly wins. That's something you're gonna hear us talk about every single episode. It's about taking it one step at a time. Make those long-term goals, but then break those down into weekly wins.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

You have those weekly wins, you will be all right. But you have to write them down, you have to stay accountable. Go to our website, vceolounge.net, to sign up to start posting your weekly wins, and that will get you there. Because I know so many people that have talked about it, yeah, but then they get stuck, they don't stick with it. And if you don't stick with it, you're not gonna, you're not going to accomplish your goals. So you have to be diligent about that.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

So make it happen. And if you can serve five clients well, you can eventually serve 50 well.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

But if you but it starts with those five.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

So take your time and thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

All right, thank you. Thank you. All right, see y'all next time.