It's Not Rocket Science! Five Questions Over Coffee

Five Questions Over Coffee with Amy Lanci (Ep. 59)

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Episode notes

Who is Amy?

Emma helps creative people get to their next level of business success through accountability, business and strategy coaching. Her coaching work often centres around confidence building, mindset work and designing strategies to move people from where they are to where they want to be.

Key Takeaways

1. If you can explain what you d in a simple way that a child can understand - you can explain it to a business owner in a memorable way

2. If you are unable to explain the thing you do you may feel that your work is not useful and that is not true

3. Embrace rejection, because we know that, sometimes when we hear something negative or something constructive, we take it as Oh, arms up, shields up! We have to fight or be defensive or run away. And really, it's about just hearing what the other person has to say, and then you can figure out what to do with it after that which is growth.

Valuable Free Resource or Action

One free week at https://www.milkcratemastermind.com/

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

milk crate, talk, mastermind, programme, give, amy, business owners, feedback, elevator pitch, third grader, audience, working, great, vulnerability, coaches, coffee, question, people, messaging, words

SPEAKERS

Stuart Webb, Amy Lanci

Stuart Webb  00:00

Hi Hi, and welcome again. It's not rocket science Friday. Coffee, I'm here actually not the topic. Right at the moment, I've got some water in front of me because I've had probably way too much coffee already.

Amy Lanci  00:35

I hope you're feeling good. If you got your coffee were there and I actually got my tea. It's a it's a, it's a mix of green tea and peppermint tea. Wow, that sounds very calming, I'm sure that's short. It's not what I need rather than

Stuart Webb  00:48

calming. So I'm here with Amy Latty. Amy is a communications consultant who has a real sent simple mission. She wants to help you to tell your story so that you can honour the life you've lived and tell the world about it in the way to activate your know, like trust factor and coal and cover the gold brimming with energy, which I think is a wonderful aim, Amy. And so let's start with my usual question to you, you know, who is the person that you're trying to reach with that message I'm trying to work with, the person that I'm trying to reach or that message are someone who's a coach or a consultant of various of any industry, really, someone who is trying to rise above the noise. And the reason why I paid to this target market is because I know that there's a lot of there are a lot of coaches, and my very first business was as a health coach, and I failed in that business, knowing that there were a lot of health coaches, and there were a lot of coaches. And it was just really hard to rise above the noise. And it was also really hard for me at the time to articulate. What is it that what was it that I really did, and the way that people understood in a way that stood out to? So the person I'm really looking for people who struggle with what do you do? Like, how do you how do you answer that? It's something that causes a lot of anxiety and people. Yeah, it's tough, isn't it? I was having a conversation only this morning with somebody that was was struggling. And you know, the, the one thing that they were struggling to do was to be succinct about what they did. They couldn't they couldn't talk. I mean, in fact, we ended up and it took him two hours to explain what he did. And eventually I boiled it down to about about three sentences. He went, Yeah, that's it, though. Okay. But it's taken you two hours to explain it. That's too long. If somebody wants to get to know you quickly, isn't it two hours is just too much. You've got to, you've got to know that it's such a way that you can actually explain it fairly succinctly.

Amy Lanci  02:49

Yeah, know, exactly. You gotta be able to explain it in you know, 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes. I mean, even one sentence, the biggest messaging lesson I ever learned was from a friend of mine, who is a voice and messaging coach, and she did this years ago, she said, Amy, if you can tell a third grader, what you do, that would be amazing. And so I remember sitting in the car with her for 10 minutes, I was completely silent. And I just finally said, I help business owners find the right words to describe what they do. And then she looked at me, she said, bingo, I was like, Okay. I love it. So that really leads us to the sort of second question around me, which is what is what is it that those business owners have tried to do on their own, and have not necessarily succeeded as well as they might with with, with that sort of help you give them they try to come up with a really impressive elevator pitch. So they will and when when I mean, impressive, I mean, you know, it'll, it'll have all kinds of flowery language. And really, when it comes down to it, it looks like a five minute commercial in a 32nd time slot. So in their mind, the more words they add, the more impressive they sound, and really, the last people within the first 10 seconds, so you know, that that's, that's an issue because, you know, if they're in a, they're in a room, you know, things are opening up now. So if they're in our actual room, or if they're in a Zoom Room, or everyone is giving the elevator pitch, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you're one of the people who are just starting a lot of words. People are not gonna remember you, unfortunately. And then they're looking at networking groups being like, I don't know, networking groups are really my thing. I don't know if I really should be here. And you know, the truth is that, you know, depending on the group, obviously, you know, your people could be there and they could not be there. But the most important thing is that if People are not coming to you to talk to you after you give your elevator pitch, even if they end up being a business colleague and not a prospect. There's something going on there and then you end up. You end up talking about your business in a silo in a vacuum, and then you're wondering why, why is nothing working? Maybe I'm not meant to do this. And then that gets a dangerous territory. Oh, I'm gonna probably give up on my dream. It's like, no, don't do that. Don't do that. You just need to seek help. Yeah, yeah, no, I love it. So and this is where I hope you're gonna you're gonna talk us through something that's really quite wonderful here. You have got a you've got to, you've got to, you've got to, you've got to like from one of the previous guests on the on the podcast from ad lib, riada, Whirlpool, who's watching us at the moment. And she's just she's just loving what you're saying. I suspect that something that Aiden really does resonate with, because she does a lot of great vocal coaching as well if you if you're serious, but but I know you've got a great free resource that I'd like to sort of just talk about now, which is, which is now going across the bottom of the screen. And that's from milk crate mastermind. Do you want to just talk us through what's that valuable free resource that you've got to build great mastermind. So essentially, Melkor a mastermind. It's a membership programme that I started about a year ago. And it's a it's a safe space, where business owners can can work on their messaging in a group setting. And so while it is a membership programme, I allow everyone to come for one meeting, as a guest, you know, with free of charge, so that way, they can just check us out and see what our process is. And I feel like I need to take a moment Stuart to talk about why did I name them mastermind the milk crate, because I know we're gonna be real, like, that's not sexy. That's not pretty. Like, why did you name after some objects that we store things in, and that we use as a stepping stool sometimes. And the reason why I needed that is because two years before I started the mastermind, I had a vision of someone standing on a milk crate in a public square. And when they were standing on that no crate, it, they were using it as if it was the real stage. And they were speaking the heart out. And it was just, it was just an emphasis that my mission in life is to make sure that people are heard. And so I went on to create a few different other programmes before I actually jumped on this vision because I was given no instruction manual whatsoever. And then, and then I recognised that when I went to networking groups, and I noticed that people would say that elevator pitches are talking about what they did. And it was a complete, it basically is the arena, like people are going to either react or not react. And then when you're left wondering how to change elevator pitch, and when you see that people don't resonate, you don't know, you don't know how you don't know how to change it, you know, because no one's actually coming up to you saying, I love what you said about this. But I wish he had talked about this not as many people are going to do that maybe that some good samaritan will. But most people will say, or whoever they want to talk to that person. And so I created the mastermind to be that practice arena to be that place where someone can answer the questions that we asked them, and then answer to the best of our ability without judgement. And then we as the facilitators, and the other participants can give that real time feedback of, hey, you know what, I really liked it when you said this. But this other thing you said, made it really confusing. So maybe you don't mention that part. Or maybe just say this part in a different way. It said that that's the value that we bring as a mastermind as a whole because we give that real time feedback, because that's what we are designed for.

Stuart Webb

I think that's a brilliant, that's a brilliant safe space. I love those ideas. Because, you know, we so often, you know, if you can, if you can, if you can just allow yourself to be exposed to some friends who will give you that honest feedback. And so often we go to people who are friends and contacts and they won't necessarily tell us the complete truth but actually, if you get to a group of people like that, who are all building each other up and try to learn from each other, you can get some really good honest feedback that you will be able to use and so long as it's taken in the right way. I think that's absolutely brilliant. It's wonderful. And I as soon as I saw milk crate I got it I knew what you were trying to say with milk crate it's obvious when you think about it is a stepping stone it's a stepping stone for growth far far greater thing so explain why milk crate I think milk crates are sexy I really do. I love that we should make that to mean like just just is there a particular book or concept or, or programme of activities? which has really inspired you that you think you should like to pass on to the audience watching and listening.

Amy Lanci

I love that you had this question as part of the interview, because what came up immediately was Brene Brown's TED talk the power of vulnerability, because and then the reason why that popped up was because it's been so influential in my life, as someone who was always emotionally sensitive. You know, I always thought that was not a great thing growing up, because it made me it made me vulnerable to other people. And then therefore, I that was a bad thing. But then when I saw Brene, Brown's, the power of vulnerability. For me personally, it was like, Oh, I feel so vindicated. Now, like, I feel like I have a superpower. And then also just when we are working on ourselves, when we are working on a communication, it's not just words, and not just projection, not just delivery, it is all of that. But really, to be able to communicate, you have to be willing to have a certain degree of vulnerability. Because that vulnerability, you allow people to see the human side of yourself. So often, we think that, Oh, if I put on this mask, and it's a wall, then people are going to like the wall and like me enough, that we're all going to move forward. And, you know, business is business, but people don't trust you, they can't see the person that you are, they're not going to take a chance on you. And so there does need to be a certain degree of vulnerability when it comes to communicating to your audience. And also, when you're working on your message, when you're working on what do you do, you have to be vulnerable enough to be willing to accept feedback from other people, because that's another thing like sometimes feedback is hard to receive. But if it's coming from a place of truth is coming from people who are really rooting for you. And also, if you're able to embrace that rejection, then it's easier to see, okay, this is what I need to work on and then grow from there. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's sometimes difficult as business owners, for us to put our, our ego to one side and accept those, that feedback, you know, we often we often don't want to seem vulnerable, but actually, to use feedback as a positive to use it as a way to say, you know, you don't make mistakes, you just learn. One thing is, you know, if you if you ever sort of, if you ever, if you ever just allow a failure or something like that, to pull you down, you've used it in the wrong way, you need to allow failure, or you need to allow feedback to be the thing that makes you grow, once you've done that, but that's a huge step forward. It really is. And that's actually the second principle in Millcreek, you know, embrace rejection, because we know that, you know, sometimes when we hear something negative or something constructive, we take it as Oh, arms up, shields up, we, you know, we have to fight or be defensive or run away. And really, you know, it's about just hearing what the other person has to say, and then you can figure out what to do with it after that that alone is growth. Absolutely, absolutely. I like that. That's about growth. So, you know, I, I've asked you, I've asked you questions. And and I guess, right at the moment, there's one question that you're thinking, Well, you know, he really should ask a much better question than what these are so far, so. So what is the question you would like me to have asked you, which I haven't? And then once you've asked that question, how would you like to answer it? So one question that I wish you would have asked me when it came up earlier was, you know, how does someone go about talking about what they do such that a third grader would understand? And what I had to say to that is, you know, in order to put that together, you got to think about okay, first think about the audience. And when you think about your audience, what is a title you can give them that is at most one or two words. So in my in my case, it said, business owners, or you could say coaches, or you can say consultants, so that way it forces you to name the audience with one or two words. And then think about what is the ultimate problem that they are struggling with? So, for me, it was okay, people are really struggling with figuring out what they do. So describing that is tough, right? They don't know. They don't know how to say that into words. So if you're thinking about your audience, like what is the problem that there's that is number one on their mind. And so if you just go able to say I help or some verb, and then the audience and then the problem, then you get that third grade statement.

Stuart Webb  15:10

Great way of breaking it down. I love it. Amy, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. It's not rocket science by questions over coffee. I'm just going to finish by saying, If you a bit like eating just now where we're wanting to be able to get hold of advanced notice of when we have great people like Avi on the call so that you can pop in, maybe ask questions or make comments. In real time. You can subscribe to our mailing list and that's it. TC a dot FYI, that's TC a dot FYI, forward slash, subscribe that gets you onto the list so that each Tuesday when we do these, I give you an email, let you know who's coming on and so that you can prepare and you can come and listen. And you get to meet wonderful people like Amy. Amy, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us here on it's not rocket science. Five questions over coffee. Thank you so much for for telling us about some of the great tips. really look forward to seeing how many people get into that milk crate mastermind and improve their message so much better.

Amy Lanci  16:18

Thank you so much, Stuart. This is awesome. Thank you

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