Jasmine Star 00:00:00  As you look at your content, I want you to understand that I am not buying a cake. I am buying a piece of a baker. When I'm buying a course, I am not buying a course. I'm buying a piece of the teacher. When I am buying lemonade. I am not buying the lemonade. I am buying the child who has a lemonade stand in front of my neighborhood. We have to understand that people don't buy photographs. They buy a piece of the photographer. Welcome to the Jazmin Starr Show where we talk about business mindset and all about you. Your questions. That is what we're doing today. I have to tell you, I absolutely love when I have the opportunity to see what people are doing, how they're watching this show, how they're listening to the show, when you're walking the dog, when you're making dinner, when you're working out. So as a big thank you to you, for people who are tagging me specifically on Instagram, I went to Instagram and I asked for a business Q&A.

Jasmine Star 00:00:51  So here we're going to do a flash fire business Q&A session. We're going to cover the gamut and I hope it serves you really well. I also said a big shout out to the people who gave generously of their time for these questions. Let's start off with Meg and Maro. Is it inappropriate to ask for testimonials from past clients if it's been years? The answer is no. The only thing you have to lose is, quite honestly, nothing. Maybe your ego gets a little bit bruised if a client doesn't want to respond or want to give a testimonial 3 or 4 years after you rendered the work, no problem. But in my mind, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It is always an opportunity for somebody to give you a positive review or explain about it so that you can use it in current day marketing. And guess what? Ask. Have no attachment. Whatever they give back to you is going to be a total win. I want to get into another one of our questions and shout out, what is the best way to talk with an employee about his performance and improvement plan? I want to dive here for a second.

Jasmine Star 00:01:51  When I first started doing one on one check ins with my direct ports, as we started growing the team, I was given the best advice, and I hired a consultant on how I might be able to become a better leader on a virtual team. And when it came to the one on one giving feedback, what she had told me to really focus on is facts, not feelings. She said, you do not want to get into a performance review. You don't want to sit one on one and say what I think is, or I feel like you're not living up to your potential. Nobody cares about how I feel. And furthermore, that's.

Jasmine Star 00:02:25  Super.

Jasmine Star 00:02:26  Not effective for an employee to say like, okay, great, so you don't feel I'm living up to my potential, but what are actually the facts? So when she said to only lead with facts and not feelings, it forced me to deeply prepare for every single one on one. So I'm leading with facts. Are they hitting their deadlines? Are they reaching their KPIs? Are they clearly communicating with the team? I distinctly remember one specific conversation where I said in my mind, okay, this is not something I said to them.

Jasmine Star 00:02:56  In my mind, I just felt like the way that they were communicating on slack was pretty brutal. It was just to course, it was sometimes a little bit rude and a little abrasive, and you knew that that wasn't that person's intention, but that was distinctly how it was coming across. I couldn't go to this person and say, I feel like you're being a little abrasive in slack. I feel okay. And I knew if you go to somebody like that, they're going to probably ask when, how, why? So what I had to do is I had to go through and I had to get screenshots from slack. I went through an I screenshotted clear instances where that response was just not healthy. It was not the type of culture we were trying to create. So when it comes back down to your question about how to deal with somebody, the first thing would be facts, not feelings. Collect clear data and analytics as to how or why this person is fully stepping into the role, or if they're missing the mark.

Jasmine Star 00:03:46  So as I'm speaking to the directors within my team, I'm asking them specifically when somebody is coming up for a performance review. They are telling me this is how we're preparing. So at the time of this recording, just before starting the podcast recording, I had a particular leader on the team say, I have a check in with person X in our last check in, and we have quarterly check ins. So three months ago she mentioned to this person, I'm going to need to see one, two and three. Are we clear about one, two and three. Do you feel supported for one, two and three. So it was I need to see. Do you feel supported. Do you have any questions? That was three months ago. So the director came to me and said, hey, I just want to fill you in on how things have been. I have not seen fill in the blank. I have seen fill in the blank. She was like, as I go into this one on one meeting, I need to say that this person did not hit the expected metrics, the KPIs, the timelines and the communication.

Jasmine Star 00:04:48  She's like, as a result of that, I'm going to come in and I'm going to say, we're going to go into a PYP, a up performance improvement plan. Is that the thing I want to hear? Absolutely not. Do I think the person on the team is actually going to get everything that they need to get going and reframe? Absolutely. Because we had clearly denoted path to success. It wasn't achieved clearly by data and analytics. So then we say if we want to ensure that you actually fulfill and what you said, this is going to be your plan. So this person is not going to be on a performance plan. So the long answer and then I included some very personal examples was that backs not feelings. Talk specifically about what they did, how they can improve. Are they supported and do they need anything to achieve their goal? Our next question is from Leticia De Muse, a fine art. I'm an artist. How do I make my product? My own paintings work for me on Instagram.

Jasmine Star 00:05:39  How do I market them? Instagram doesn't work for me. Well, Leticia or Leticia, depending on where in the world you are. I have to tell you, Instagram and TikTok are going to be the best place for you to market your business. Here's why I know this to be true. I follow artists on Instagram and TikTok, and I can't help but want to buy their paintings. But they're not showing the end result of the painting. What they're showing is the behind the scenes. What they're showing is the process. What they're doing is having a really cool time lapse edit for how long the painting took. When you show the process of what you do, your consumers are no longer buying the painting. They're buying a piece of the painter. As you look at your content, I want you to understand that I am not buying a cake. I am buying a piece of a baker. When I'm buying a course, I am not buying a course. I'm buying a piece of the teacher. When I am buying lemonade.

Jasmine Star 00:06:33  I am not buying the lemonade. I am buying the child who has a lemonade stand in front of my neighborhood. We have to understand that people don't buy photographs. They buy a piece of the photographer. And when you go back and you look at what it is you're selling, ask yourself, how do I show what it is that I do. How do I show my process that is different? How do I bring people in on the journey? How do I expose the not so glamorous parts of being an artist, so that when somebody sees the end result, they cannot help but want a piece of that magic to friend? Change your mindset. Instagram and TikTok will be the largest opportunity for you to market your business and bring in revenue, as long as you're showing the process in the story behind the scenes, that is what creates value. Okay, let's get into a question from coffee with Christy. I want to help train aspiring podcast producers. Do you recommend a PDF? A course one on one? So if you are listening and you right now want to create a program for X, even if it's not for podcast producers, this is where I want to tap in and talk about how do we know what to offer and when.

Jasmine Star 00:07:42  And so right now, depending on demand, if you have a large social following and let's say you want to make an offer to people who've been following you for productivity, and you have an idea for a planner. Well, you have a lot of followers, so you just need a small percentage of those people who are already following you around the topic that you become known for to buy your product or service. But depending on what that demand is, if you want and have a desire to make an offer, and you're not quite sure how many people in your audience would buy it, I would be very cautious, spending a lot of time and energy creating a course because it takes so much time and energy, you're probably going to have to charge a little bit more for it. And if your audience isn't there to substantiate that investment, I would say pause on that. That's coming. It's coming. It might not be yet. What I would do with the PDF, I would be creating multiple PDFs around targeting different people who need podcast producers.

Jasmine Star 00:08:37  So I would have a PDF that's targeting people who are building personal brands, people who have a podcast. And then I would create a PDF. How do you find the best podcast producer, or how do you train somebody on your team to become your own podcast producer, and you're going to be sharing this information that's going to be positioning you as the authority in training people in podcast production. But who are you ultimately going to be selling it to, the person who has the money and the bandwidth to actually afford the podcast producer? That's going to be one arm of the marketing. Then you're going to create a different arm of the marketing that's focusing on the podcast producer themselves, aspirational podcast producers. These are all going to be PDFs that you're going to be creating, that are just driving so much value around who you are, your expertise and your experience. If I was in your position, I would first create a small group coaching program. Here's why. You will get the greatest testimonials. You will get the greatest completion rate, and you will get the most amount of questions and pressure and questioning around the content that you're teaching.

Jasmine Star 00:09:42  So let's just say you do a four, six, or eight week small group training program to become podcast producers. As you're building up that content, those people are going to be coming with you with pressure points. Questions are going to be saying, can you fill in the gaps? Can you help me with this? And the more questions you get from that small group coaching, the better. Refined. The small group coaching offer is going to be in subsequent offerings once you have refined that process, and once you have a waitlist for people who do want to become a podcast producer, then I would consider a very simple, short, small course for that. But in order for a course to be effective and worth your time, you're going to have to have a lot of demand. I have always maintained that any time you want to start something and test it, small group coaching, small group offer is going to be the best way so that you immediately get cash. You learn how to talk about it, you learn how to sell it, you get proof of concept, and then you have the people who paid you to do that give you direct feedback on how to make it better.

Jasmine Star 00:10:39  So the very, very short answer is small group program expand from there. But as it comes to marketing it, I think that you're going to have a much greater opportunity to get people to buy from a pre-approved audience by people who have the money, people who have the desire, and people who have the wherewithal. Who are these people? People with strong personal brands, people who are in a C-suite who want to expand or learn how to do that. And so then you start teaching them that a podcast is a great way to extend their personal brand. So that way you start teaching them what a good podcast producer is, what they should be looking for, and then how to either spot it in recruiting or cultivated on their own current team. Because if you can have that person pay for somebody on their team to do your program. Game over, game over. Okay. Hey Teena Marie, she asked, how do you decide what to pursue and what to leave behind when you are a mom? Now, for those of you who've been a part of the podcast and even on social, I actually don't talk too much about motherhood and entrepreneurship.

Jasmine Star 00:11:44  Not because I am not the luckiest person alive to be a mom, and not because I am madly and obsessively, compulsively in love with the business. None of those things. I just honestly don't think that I want to put myself as somebody who is an authority on motherhood and entrepreneurship. I don't want to position my brand to be like, I am a mom. Preneur. I am an entrepreneur who's a mom. I am not a mom who is an entrepreneur. Those two things are different in my point of differentiation. How I've classified it is during my working hours. It is as if I am in an office, not at home, I am at home and in my office, but I function as if I am autonomously working elsewhere. This means that while my daughter can come into my office and ask me to read a book with her, which I love and do, while this means that oftentimes I will take my lunch break whenever she has her lunch break, just to hang out with her. While it means taking a walk around the block.

Jasmine Star 00:12:49  By and large, when I am in meetings, when I am working, I am first and foremost an entrepreneur during working hours. So when people say, Jasmine, what did you leave behind when you became a mother? I don't like talking about it because I think it's a little bit atypical. I didn't leave anything behind. In fact, I added more things. I decided that I was going to work like a mother. I was going to do more because I was responsible now for more. I was going to do more because I had more purpose in my life. I was going to do more to show my daughter what she's capable of. But I understand that I am in the lucky and fortuitous position to have a life partner and a business partner who cosigned as being our daughter's primary caretaker until she gets to school. This means that we co-parent 100% of the time, but he has parental responsibilities during business hours at the time of this podcast recording. Our day officially began with a team. At 830 in the morning.

Jasmine Star 00:13:49  Our daughter woke up at nine. I know, let her be. She's four. Let the girls sleep. Her brain is great. I am literally the hippy mom that's like, baby girl, you sleep. Go ahead. You have the rest of your life to wake up early. I will not be the person who's going to wake you up. Dream baby dream. So she wakes up around 9:00. I am recording, I'm sitting in front of the camera no later than 915. I'm watching my husband and my daughter leaves at the back door all the way through the backyard and exit out. They will not return until podcasting day is over. So what have I given up as a mother? Nothing. What if I gained as a mother? Everything. But it doesn't mean that this is the way I think it should happen, and it doesn't mean that it thinks we should work. I had a clear and open conversation with my partner about how it was going to work for us, and so that is why I don't speak about this all too much because it is extraordinarily atypical.

Jasmine Star 00:14:42  But it's not impossible if there are people who are watching a mother or a father, and you want to define how you parent your child while you build your business, that is on you. I think that I am an entrepreneur, I'm a business and I'm an entrepreneur. My life. I look at my life and say, what kind of life do I want to live? And if I can get my partner to co-sign it and we support each other. I have never been more supported by a man to pursue what it is that I want. And same way I have never been more supportive. I look at my husband and I say, these are the things you want. How together can we lift each other up? While it might be a little atypical, it is absolutely my reality and I just wanted to take a little bit of time to actually give a little bit of insight in saying there's not a right way and there's not a wrong way, there's a way that you want. And as long as you take time to define it, as long time as you ask for it, and as long as you take the time to defend it, it is absolutely yours.

Jasmine Star 00:15:29  It's yours for the taking. Let's be real, okay? The nanny method asked do you have tips or strategy for breaking down complex topics in order to teach in an easily digestible way. So this is one thing that I am going to come out. Clearly, the best teachers who make teaching and learning a concept look and feel easy. Or the people who know the content the best. If you are struggling to find a way to teach it, first and foremost, give yourself an honest assessment. If you do not know that topic or the content at a ten out of ten, I would first and foremost spend all of my time to get to a level ten out of ten knowledge comprehension that I understand it, that I can rote for memory repeat what it is I want to say. Once I am at a ten out of ten, I feel confident about the thing that I'm gonna talk about. Because here's the thing I've only ever believed. I only talk about things that I know. I only talk about things that I have personally experienced.

Jasmine Star 00:16:27  I only talk about things that I practice. Anything beyond that. I will not talk about it because it is not a ten out of ten for me. Once you're at that level, I would then encourage you to think solely in frameworks. A framework is a clear thesis. What is this about? What do I want you to do? Or what would I want you to know? And then a very clear conclusion, aka a transformation. So you have your thesis and you have a transformation. And then in the middle you need to create a framework. How is somebody going to look at your thesis around what it is they want. They want to lose weight. They want to teach their kids how to read. They want to become a better public speaker. Thesis. This is how you do X transformation. Thank you for watching or listening. Now you know how to do X in the middle. You need to create a framework. What is an easy way for somebody to get from theses to transformation? I would easily suggest if you're just beginning anywhere from 3 to 5 tips, as you've been watching and following along the podcast, every podcast where it's a solo podcast, where I'm teaching something, it's following a framework.

Jasmine Star 00:17:30  We literally create a go to market strategy framework. We teach how I create my keynotes framework. We're literally getting a concept with a thesis. What do you want to know, do or have transformation? Now you know how to get, do or behave how you want. And then I give 3 to 5 ways. And here's like a bonus tip. If you can create an acronym like okay, this is super cheesy. Why is this the only acronym that I remember right now? So growing up I went to VBS, Vacation Bible School and they said they said, why am I so embarrassing this? They said that the Bible is an acronym for Basic instructions before Leaving Earth Biblically. Come on, don't worry isn't the only thing I remember. Guess what? Guess what? I learned that framework when I was six years old and I still remember it. Frameworks and acronyms. Acronyms teach people how to learn, and they teach people how to remember. So step number one become a ten out of ten expert around what it is you want to teach so that you feel really confident breaking it down.

Jasmine Star 00:18:34  And once you break it down, follow a framework and a bonus point. If you can create a framework that follows an acronym, it makes it so much easier to understand. Thank you for asking that question. Now let's get into the last question. This is from Jennifer Fabiola. How to get out of the pit and keep thriving one step at a time. Let me tell you, I don't know what pit Jennifer is in, and I honestly don't know what pit you might be in as you watch or listen to this. But here's one thing I absolutely will say. Being in a pit is normal. Life is a series of pitfalls. Mountain tops, tree tops. There are peaks and valleys. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And the thing that I notice is that every time I have been in a freefall or a very low pit, the thing that I have done to get back on the climb has only been to do work. Now, I am not saying that's the right way, I am simply just saying that's my way, that I find a deep balm in my brokenness when I say, well, I don't know everything, and I don't understand why this situation is the way that it is, and I don't understand why I don't have the outcome that I deeply think that I have earned, or even that I deserve.

Jasmine Star 00:19:49  Side note we deserve nothing in business. Just because you have an idea and you have an offer, you don't deserve to get a customer. We only deserve to get a customer when we have presented so much value to a person who clearly sees it and will pay us for it, we don't deserve anything we earn. But whenever I'm in that pity point in my life where I'm deep down in the pit, I think to myself, why not this? Why not now? Why not me? And I could sit there for a very long time, and for years I struggled with depression, and the amount of time that I was in that pit has gotten less and less over time. When I have developed the tools to understand that staying in the pit is a choice. Getting in the pit may have nothing to do with who we are or what we did. It's just a fluke, an accident, or just the way that life had happened. I didn't choose to fall into the pit, but I have a choice.

Jasmine Star 00:20:42  If I'm going to stay in the pit or if I'm going to get back on the climb. I don't know exactly what to say to somebody when they're out there trying to get on the climb, but what I can say is the things in the moment that I have decided now is the time that I work, now is the time that I explore. Now is the time that I test. Now is the time that I start asking people what are the greatest pressure points? Now is the time that I start studying other industry experts, other professionals. Now is the time that I start reading data and analytics. Now is the time I start asking myself, what is the thing that you want to do with your one wild, precious, amazing life? It is often times that the pit causes me to create a bigger dream for an ascension. My husband and my business partner has always looked at me and said, it is darkest before dawn when I think that things can't get worse. And then they do. He looks at me and he says it is darkest before dawn.

Jasmine Star 00:21:33  If you are in the pit and you're looking for a way to get out, you have to first acknowledge that it is something you want to do and then acknowledge you are the person who has the power to get up and to get out from that. The second or third thing that I would do, first thing would be to acknowledge that you're in the pit. The second thing is to make the decision that you are the person who will get you out of the pit. And the third thing is simply start doing the work. And if you don't know the work you should be doing, then you say, I'm going to be testing and figuring out the things that I should be doing. I'm going to be testing ideas. I'm going to be testing philosophies, I'm going to be testing practices. I'm going to be testing myself along the way. And every step of the way. My whole focus right now is if I don't know what to pursue at this moment, I'm going to pursue me. I'm going to become the happiest, the most healed, the most elevated, the most purposeful person that I can do.

Jasmine Star 00:22:22  I am going to pursue me and pursue being at the highest rate that I could possibly be, so that when I do that, I understand, and I trust that the path will reveal itself in the right time. How do you get out of the pit? Number one acknowledge. Maybe it wasn't fair that you got there and it was beyond your control. Number two, say that you are in control and you could choose to get out if you so choose. Number three is to do the work and simply test. And number four, if you don't know what to do next, you don't know what to pursue. Pursue yourself. Pursue becoming an entirely different person so that you get an entirely different result so that the pit no longer looks like a pit. It looks like a place that catapulted you to the mountaintop, where you want to be, where you deserve to be, and where I hope you are. Thank you so much for listening to The Desmond Starr Show. These Q&A sessions could not be done without you, so thank you for the time, the energy.

Jasmine Star 00:23:15  If this has meant anything to you, please leave a comment, a review, or just tag me on social media so that I can be engaging with you. Thank you. A thousand times over.