How I Booked Out a New Offer in Less Than a Week Without Social Media, Ads, or a Complicated Funnel

When people say relationships are the key to business, it’s usually code for “go network more.” But this episode is the story of what it looks like when relationships are the business model — before social media, before funnels, and before most people reading this could even drive.

This is my untold scrappy startup story built on trust, reputation, and the kind of generosity that opens doors you didn’t even know existed.

WHAT’S INSIDE THIS EPISODE:

• Why my most “successful” marketing efforts barely moved the needle
• The “unicorn” opportunity that came from a decades-long relationship (and how to be ready when your version of it arrives)
• What I learned about marketing before I knew what marketing even was
• The growth strategy that was my rocket fuel (that is WAY underutilized by people in online business)
• My origin story I've never told… involving MySpace, major record labels, and street teams
• The subtle but powerful shift in how relationships serve you at different business stages
• My unfiltered take on visibility strategies that didn’t work — and the two that still matter most

Resources: 

• Predictable Sales: a secret podcast around making predictable – even daily – sales
• Your First 10 Sales: a secret podcast perfect for if you're not making consistent sales yet

Connect with Adriane: 

• Adriane's Instagram
• Visionaries' Instagram
• Adriane's LinkedIn
• Visit the Visionaries website

⭐️ Love this episode? We'd GREATLY appreciate a 5-star review! ⭐️

Transcript

00:00 Welcome back to The Visionary Files. I want to share one of the craziest stories of my life when I think back on this, and that's a really big thing to say, but honestly, like, I cannot believe that I was pretty young and I was able to completely book out a new offer in less than a week.
00:24 And I don't know that it felt that weird at the time. I don't know that it was like, wow, this is probably really surprising in a lot And I was probably most people don't do this because it just sort of felt like it was just sort of the thing that was happening.
00:38 And I didn't really know any better cause I was young and, but looking back on it now, I'm like, that probably it has not happened to anyone.
00:46 It was, it was, it was. It was an extraordinary circumstance and having had a lot at this point, decades, actually two decades since this has happened.
00:57 So obviously the business landscape is not quite the same, um, which I will also address as we talk about this.
01:03 But having had some distance between then and now and then also now being someone who is a business strategist, a scaling strategist, an operations strategist, I understand, you know, I've worked with a lot of different people in a lot of different business models and helped them with a lot of different
01:22 ways. And I can say without a doubt that this is one of the craziest stories of my life. Like, I cannot believe that we're even really having this conversation when I think back on it because it was such, uh, an incredible result.
01:32 And you know, when I I've restarted the visionary files a few months ago. I wanted to move into a case study format.
01:42 I quickly was like, you know, I don't really love this. I like it to be a little bit more fluid.
01:46 Um, now I'm thinking I might want to go a little bit back more toward the case study format. I'm always changing my mind.
01:53 And, and that is, I think, my right. Although, I do want to figure that out. Um, but I don't know why I didn't think about doing presenting this as a case study because this is a wild case study.
02:05 So we, uh, that's exactly what we're going to talk about. The time I booked out. A new offer in literally less than a week.
02:13 I did not use social media. I did not need ads. I had never run. I never even thought about running an ad.
02:19 Um, I did not do anything like what people would, with label now is like, I didn't use. I didn't have any fancy funnels.
02:26 I did technically have a funnel. If you have, if you have a way for people to pay you, you have a funnel.
02:31 Um, but it wasn't like an automated funnel. It wasn't an intentional funnel. Like, I had no idea what I was doing.
02:37 So, uh, what I will say is, That, before we get into this, I want to welcome a lot of new listeners.
02:47 I've noticed that the listenership on this show has gone up, but like, I think pretty impressively. Like, it's more or less doubled and, And a couple of episodes, I'm like, wow, this had, like, they went, so all my funnel episodes just went nuts.
03:03 Have so many more downloads than any of the other ones. So welcome if you are new here. Um, if you are new and you have not already followed the show, I would love it if you cl- it's a little plus sign to follow it so that the episodes are automatically downloaded.
03:18 I think, I think they're automatically downloaded when there are new ones, but I know it does help the show. Um, if you want to support the, you know, support my business, support small, small podcasters and thi- things, it does help getting, it used to be like more review based and now it's more, like
03:35 the more downloads that you get, the more it boosts your show. So what appreciate that help? And I realized that there are a lot of reviews.
03:43 If you haven't left a review, that'd be amazing. I love seeing your feedback. But there are a couple of new reviews that I was like, I didn't even notice that these came in.
03:50 So I just want to shout out. I'm gonna try to shout these out as we, as we get them rolling in.
03:57 So I want to acknowledge Brie. Thank you for listening. Brie said Adrian's new 2020. The five episodes are everything. Thanks.
04:04 Uh, her honesty about the highs and lows of being a visionary are exactly what we all need right now in a sea of success reals.
04:11 Adrian is real and raw. I cannot wait for more episodes, which I greatly appreciate. That was super nice. Um, so without further ado, let's get into this.
04:22 So what actually was this offer? Um, because it was, it was a while ago, as I mentioned. So it was, um, when I was teaching voice.
04:32 So if you are not familiar with my background. I started in the arts when I was 12 years old. I started teaching both, uhm, I started both teaching piano and I started a graphic and web design agency.
04:45 Agency was just myself, but I called it an agency. And, uh, I taught my- myself to code and I taught myself how to use Photoshop or Corel.
04:55 I don't even remember what it was called. Draw. I don't remember what it was. Um, but I taught myself a couple different graphic programs and I just started marketing them to local businesses.
05:04 I did both things when I was 12 years old. And they both grew and lasted a really long time. The music studio wound up evolving and that's really what this episode is about, is the evolution.
05:14 What, like, Rin it really properly started to evolve and what that looked like. In terms of going from just a really small home base.
05:22 The studio, which was in my, it started in my parents, uh, in my parents living room and then it moved into my grandparents, a spare bedroom in my grandparents house.
05:32 And then it eventually moved into a brick and mortar. So this episode is really more about, like, the evolution of how I actually- wound up getting to a place where I needed to hire more teachers and get a larger location that could support, like, a lot of students and expand services and capacity for
05:49 things and things like that. But the, the graphic and web design agency also went on to do. Thank you. Quite a lot of, quite a lot of things.
05:56 Uh, particularly, and this is really gonna date. I've already said that this was like, well, when I was 12 years old, that was almost 30 years ago.
06:04 Uh, at this point, I just turned 40 this year. But, um, to really date myself on, like, in just. Without actually telling you how old I am, the graphic and web design agency did really well because I got very niche, actually just sort of by accident in building out custom my space pages.
06:23 I custom coded my space pages for bands and music. And that actually, I was not planning on telling that part of the story, but it really follows a very similar trend to what this episode will follow.
06:35 So maybe I actually will sort of add that in a little bit more anecdotally because it's not, it doesn't have such a big growth trajectory attached to it.
06:43 Where the music studio definitely does, like, it was such a pillar, uh, it was such a proponent of how I was able to actually grow things, whereas the graphic and web design agency was sort of always, was always sort of like a secondary project, which was why when the music studio got too big, I wind
07:02 up walking away from that, but it was still like, I was in my late twenties when I walked away from the graphic and web design agency, so it was, I mean, it was still almost like 20 years of my life.
07:11 It was a long time. So is that right? Am I doing the math right? Yeah, it was almost 20 years and even still, like, I still do web design work.
07:18 Like, I have clients who hire me to build show it websites for them now and think, you know, it's part of my agency work.
07:24 So anyway, anyway, anyway, moving on from that. Let's actually get into the case study and what this actually looked like.
07:30 So I had our already been teaching voice or I had already been teaching piano rather for almost eight years at the time that this is properly going to start.
07:39 Voice is the service that I was adding in. So I had started teaching piano when I was twelve. I started playing piano when I was two.
07:45 And so when I saw, like, it's really a long story that we're not going to get into. But I was like, I should make my own money.
07:51 Um, because, because, because I was having a hard time paying for, like, school lunches and there was a lot of miscommunication between my parents and they were getting divorced and like, there's a lot of stuff going on.
08:01 And so I was like, I would, I don't want to have to be. Depending on anybody else, strong and dependent woman from the time I was 12. You know what?
08:07 I heard somebody say the other day that a lot of us start businesses out of trauma responses. And I was like, oof.
08:13 There it is. Um, anyhow. It was, I'm just going to casually drop that one into this podcast episode of like, how about we start business out of trauma responses and then casually move on.
08:25 But yeah, so I'd been doing this for a long time. And when I was 18. And I graduated high school.
08:33 My parents and my grandparents were like, you should go to college. And I was like, I'm so burnt out on school.
08:38 I don't want to do it. And so they were like, you should get a real job. And it didn't occur to me that a real quote unquote real job could be my music studio or my graphic design agency.
08:47 Or graphic and web design agency, which I was already doing. And so I started working for the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.
08:54 They are a combined entity or they used, they used to be anyway. I think they still are. Um, where they were like under a partnership umbrella.
09:02 And so I worked. In sales development as more like an assistant than anything. It was a sales assistant, but I wasn't doing anything with sales.
09:10 It was more just like relationship management. And I, eventually the companies got sold. The Gannett wound up buying a different.
09:19 The other. Paper and then night ride. The parent companies of each of the two paper brands want like one of them swapped to, uhm, invest in the other and then it was a whole thing and it was it shook everything up and I was like, I don't want to be here anymore.
09:34 And so I was like, you know. I think I want to go back to starting my own business. I think I want to try it.
09:40 Because I'd really never stop teaching. I'd slowed that way down teaching piano. Like as I had lost students, I didn't, I was not finding new ones.
09:48 And it was harder because this was like the only time in my life I've ever worked in and. Office and of like a nine to five setting.
09:54 And I was not getting home until like six o'clock at night. And so it was kind of harder. And I was like, if I want to start teaching voice, which I think I really would prefer to do.
10:05 I'm gonna have to quit this job, which is what I wanted to do anyway. It was. It was a, it made a lot of sense in my mind.
10:11 And I was like, but I have to make this work, right? Like I'm getting a very steady paycheck for being 20 years old.
10:16 I was working in a job like I was, but I was decades younger than anybody else who was doing the same job as I was doing.
10:24 Because I could type really, really fast. Um, they test him and they were like, you can type like 100 words a minute.
10:29 Like what even is that we've never had somebody test that best. Which I think is probably way more common now.
10:33 But they were like, what is this? And, you know, I tested really high on my skills. And so they were, they put me in a job that.
10:40 Like, most people were like, wow, I can't believe you got this this young. And no, but this doesn't happen to anybody.
10:45 And interestingly, I got that job through a relationship because my mom had a client who was the director of human resources, the director of something.
10:53 And she got me in the door. Relationships get you in the door, which is the whole theme of this. And so I decided to start the voice side of my music studio.
11:05 So I went from just sort of like, I'm sort of teaching piano and it's a thing that I'm doing and it's not really like a real thing.
11:12 Like, I didn't have business cars. I didn't have a website. I didn't have anything proper. It was just sort of word of mouth.
11:18 My mom would tell her, my mom had her own salon. And so she would just sort of tell her hair clients.
11:25 Like, oh, if you ever need a piano teacher, you should hire my kid. And sometimes that got me students and that was really it. Like, it was never really that serious of a thing.
11:37 And the, at that point, the graphic and web design work was way more serious for me. But I was like, I think I want to teach voice.
11:42 And I, Told my music teacher. This is the catalyst. Here is what this all comes down to. Here's what happened.
11:50 Is essentially one person gave me my entire student load. And this was, I mean, this started with my music teacher.
11:58 This was Tracy. And she was like, Like, over the moon. She always told me, you should be teaching. You're such a good teacher.
12:04 I would come in and work with, like, her younger students. And she would, she would tell me from the time.
12:08 She was my music teacher since I was two. She started me, she was my piano teacher that started me when I was two years old.
12:13 And I worked with her forever and ever. She's still to this day. Like, I just talked- I heard this week.
12:17 She's still someone who I'm- who I'm very close with. She's like a surrogate mother to me. And she, like, tells stories about when I was, you know, two years old, I would, like, take older kids around and, like, show them how to play duck duck goose.
12:29 She's like, you should be teaching. Coincidentally, I also have a master's degree and I just- and teaching has become a very large part of my life.
12:36 And so when I told her, Tracy, okay, I'm gonna quit my job and I'm gonna start my, like, a properly started music studio.
12:45 The Adrienne Gallia studio, voice and piano, was officially started. I bought the domain, AGMusicStudio.com, I'm pretty sure was the name of my first, uh, music domain that I bought.
12:55 And I got the business cards and I got post, post cards and I made posters and flyers and all these things.
13:00 And I was gonna do it. But Tracy was the catalyst for all of this. She wound up giving me her entire weightless. She had a really phenomenal reputation for working with, like, the best of the best students in our area of Detroit.
13:17 Which is, so it's downright, I'm from a part of Detroit that's called Down River. And I would say that she, at this point in time, have like the A plus stellar reputation.
13:27 If you were serious about music, you studied as a kid with Tracy. And, so I really benefited from her reputation.
13:35 One, in that she even had a- And two, that she was getting that caliber of student. The people who were serious.
13:43 And then they took her recommendation quite seriously when she said, I have a student. Or a former student who was, was I still, I probably wasn't a former student at that point.
13:52 I probably was still studying. With her. Um, regardless, was like, I have a student that I deeply trust. And I know you're waiting to work with me, but I think you should work with this person.
14:03 And she gave me her entire weight list. She sent an email. And then I followed up. With people on the phone.
14:11 Now, I would have never called these things sales calls, but that's essentially what they were. But it was basically just like shooting the breeze with people.
14:17 Um, it was very fun to me. I was like, I can talk to people all day. And what I, my like side note here that I would interject here is that that is a sales call.
14:25 all In a nutshell, there are a lot of like tactics that get taught about how to close a sale and how to like bust objections and ask specific questions so that, that you can lead people to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and repeat back to them and do this thing in that.
14:41 And I completely understand that selling online high ticket services and high ticket coaching thing is absolutely not the same thing as asking someone to pay, you know, a hundred dollars per month, or probably what was nowhere near a hundred dollars per month at this time, point in time when I was first
14:58 . Starting, um, for your kid to come take it like a 30 minute music lesson every week. And, but really at the end of the day, like, I will stand by.
15:06 It is a hill that I will, I have lots of Roman empires to mix metaphors here is the hill that I will die on that if you can.
15:14 If you a conversation, then you can sell. That's really all selling is. And so she gave me her waiting list.
15:20 She sent a message to all of them saying, I trust this person. It's going to be a while before I have room.
15:26 If you want to stay on my waiting list, you're more than welcome to. But I hide. I really recommend you at least check Adrian out and start working with her instead.
15:36 Which is an extraordinary, um, testimonial to make for someone, right? And I followed up with them. And that's really what, that's, that was the catalyst.
15:46 That was it. And so, even though I was doing other things, like I wound up, I mentioned I made postcards and flyers and I had business cards and I was doing things and like I was, you know, we think of this would have been 2005. And so, you know, like in 2005, how did, how did- one market their services
16:04 ? Facebook? Was I even on Facebook at the time? I don't- Facebook was so new at that point. I don't even know that I was- I don't think I joined Facebook until 2007. 2008? I don't know.
16:13 It was short-lived because I haven't really properly been on Facebook in many, many years. I use it- only for business things when I absolutely have to.
16:20 But I don't- I don't- I'm 99.9% positive that it was at least 2007 or 2008 before I joined Facebook. So like, social media was literally not a part of this equation at all.
16:32 And so it was basically like, I just- It's pretty good. I it out flyers with a local print shop and took them around.
16:37 And I wound up getting- it was a lot of effort. I remember going from, like, store to store to store and using a lot of gas.
16:45 I went to, like, all my local Paneras and all my local coffee shops. And at- went up- Yup. I went the counters and said, hi, I'm teaching music.
16:53 And do you, like, I've got these flyers? Do you mind hanging them up? And there were probably half of the locations that I went into.
17:00 We're like, no, we don't allow that. Which was, I got a thick skin real quick from that. Having to ask in here no- So many times.
17:08 And, but I hung them up. And all of that effort, I think I got two students from it. And they were not serious.
17:16 I don't want to say that they weren't the best students. But what I mean by that is they weren't serious.
17:22 And part of that. I mean, I would say most of that was because I didn't really know how to market what I was selling.
17:30 And then I didn't understand how to message what I was selling. It was basically just like, do you want your kid to take voice less on our piano?
17:33 I'm sure it was voice or piano. But like you could find it. You could throw a penny and find a piano teacher.
17:39 But voice teachers, I don't know if this is still this way now, really. I'm not that all that tapped into it.
17:44 Like if this, at this point I only work with people who are, if someone was going to come to me for a voice lesson, it's because they're like on Broadway.
17:51 At this point, you know what I mean? Like, that's, I'm really not working with someone who's going to just like enroll their 10 year old into a, into a voice class.
17:58 And so I don't even know, like how, how many of these people exist out in the world? I don't, I don't know.
18:02 I don't actually know. And so, but at this, at this point in time, it was really hard to find a voice teacher.
18:09 And so I was like, well, you know. No, there's a, it's a, it's a, I would not have had this, this phrase, but like it's a blue ocean out there, guys.
18:16 And I would never have known that that was a term. But that's essentially what it was. So I was like, it's got to be.
18:22 So it was basically just like, you know, enroll with me. If you wanted, you know, you're, if you want your kid to Thank you.
18:27 Take lessons and the, the people, the two students that I did enroll for voice lessons that were not direct referrals.
18:35 They were both people who wanted to be like, pop stars. And at the time I was like, oh, that could be fun.
18:41 One of them wanted to legitimately like. Record, she wanted to make a record. She was about to graduate from high school.
18:46 She was only like two years younger than me. Two or three years younger. And she, like, wanted to make a record.
18:52 And she played guitar and piano. And she was really fun. I haven't talked to this person in years. I would be very curious to know.
18:59 And what she's up to. And she was very talented. And I did really enjoy working with her. The other one was like, her parents wanted her to be the karaoke star.
19:08 And that I did not have fun with. I remember, she was like, I remember having a conversation. This is a total side note story that has happened.
19:15 Absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this. Welcome to me. Umm, I remember her being, she was like 13. And her name was Kayla.
19:22 She was 13. And I was 20. I was 20 years old. I remember her being like, umm, are you 40? And I was like, no?
19:29 Are you, are you kidding? I'm 20. And she was like, you're so old. I was like, ah, oh my God.
19:36 Anyway, kids say the darnest things. And now being 40, I'm like, man, that was so long ago. Anyway, it was just like not a good fit because I had no idea what I was marketing to.
19:46 It was just so, vague and generic. Also, imagine how long it would have taken me to do anything of the sort.
19:52 If I wanted to, but when I say I booked out, I probably had 25 students. Ish. And they all came from referrals.
20:01 They all came from referrals. Most of the- M came from Tracy. But then there were also a few of the parents, once I talked to them, wound up passing my name onto other people within their community because they, when you meet people who are, and more at the top of their name, they know people.
20:19 Right? So even though- these, when I say like, oh, they were at the top of their name, they were like 11 year old theater stars, community theater stars, but they know the other 11 year old community theater stars.
20:27 And so that word started to get passed around. Oh, you know, you've been wanting to work with Tracy King and she blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and she's so great at what she does.
20:35 Well, this- she's got a student that- that she's now, you know, she recommended it and now my kids taking lessons with her and, you know, if you've been wanting to get in, like, you should- you should get in too.
20:44 It'd be fun for our kids to take lessons together. And it- it just started to spiral. And before I knew it, with- in a week, I was 100% full.
20:54 100% full. And it took so much less effort for me to- I mean, a lot of that was done over many, many, many, many years of developing a relationship with my music instructor.
21:07 And that is- so I can appreciate where that is absolutely not even remotely a direct equivalency to anything that you could be doing as- if you're like an online service provider or an online coach or something like that.
21:19 Not even remotely close to a direct equivalency. And I also under- I understand that most, you know, if you have like, you know, I think- I would never call Tracy like she was my voice coach, but it's, you know, you could call her that.
21:32 I would say teacher. I don't think coach is really the right word, but it's a coaching relationship. It's the same concept behind the relationship.
21:40 And, you know, there are not too many online coaches who would naturally be like, I've got a waitlist and let me give you the entire waitlist.
21:48 So I understand that this is not a direct, uh, direct equivalency, but I will hang my hat on the fact that relation- relationships were the catalyst for everything that happened.
21:59 And that continued, that trend continued as we went, as we went on. That year, my first year of properly having the Adriene Gallia studio voice and piano.
22:12 Was, I didn't have to look for students the entire rest of the year. I did want, I was bored. I was so, but I was like, I don't need to market.
22:20 Like, there's no more. I was so full with students. That, because I was, I didn't want to, I didn't want to teach on the weekends.
22:27 So I was working, like. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, starting three o'clock when kids were getting out of school, or probably more like 3.30, because I didn't, I had a lot of really young kids.
22:35 Um, so I don't know that I had very enough high school students that I would have even started at 3 p.m.
22:40 Probably more like 3.30 or 4 p.m. and working until eight or nine o'clock at night. It was completely booked solid.
22:47 With either, you know, about 25 students that were either taking multiple half-hour lessons, so I had a handful of students who immediately went into a higher package instead of a half-hour per week.
22:58 They went into an hour per week. I did not- At that point, I didn't offer a 45-minute per week option, so they- a lot of them went into an hour per week option.
23:07 I definitely upsold that. Like, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was like a half an hour goes by really, really quick, and I upsold so many of them into a package that was double the price, and- it booked me out even faster because I was able to show them, you know, if we're only doing a half hour
23:21 lesson, like, so much of that is going to be technical work. It's going to be doing exercises and, like, shaping the voice so it's even ready to sing.
23:27 And then if you want them to, like, do songs and stuff, like, you need an extra half hour. My- Bye bye.
23:32 I mean, even as of today, like, I could do a 90 minute lesson that's all just vocal technique. It's so, like, there's just, there's so much technique that you can do.
23:40 And so, it was so easy for me to just upsell, like, I wouldn't have thought of it as upselling, but I sold them bigger packages.
23:46 And so, it was, I had nothing to do after that. Because I literally had no more room for students. Unless I worked during the day and started to try and work with adult students, but I didn't, I don't know, I've always been very multi-passionate and wanted to do a lot of different things.
23:59 And so, I did my web, I was still doing my web and, web and graphic design work. I did that during the day.
24:04 And so I was like, I may as well get another job because I've got the time and what am I doing?
24:08 And I, like, I can't, I don't, I've never sat still well. And so I got a job at Chili's. And that's, if you've been around for a while, you might know that I worked at Chili's for a very, I, for like 10 years, I started as a server, then as a- Artender and then moved around to all the different, I learned
24:24 hosting, I learned cooking, I learned all the different things, they eventually put me in a, what was called a JC38, which was their management position, their, like, shift manager, not like a full on proper, like, salaried manager, but just like an hour- early shift manager, and I was on the training
24:39 team, and I took over the training team for the area, and then became the regional training manager, uh, for all 17 corporate locations in the state of Michigan, and, and and it just kept building, and it was very There is.
24:53 And it that if I wanted to go, wherever I wanted to go, and chilis, that that was available to me.
24:57 And so it just sort of like grew alongside all these other things that I was doing. But my music studio became the catalyst was relationships to come back to what the thesis.
25:09 And the of this episode is relationships were the catalyst of this because I never had to market all that hard to get more students when I had so many students who were advocating for me because their parents would naturally tell me, oh, love it.
25:25 And you should go take lessons with her. And I had students that came to me when they were 11 years old and stayed with me until I graduated high school and then continued to come back when they, they went off to college for music and they would come back in the summers and take lessons.
25:39 Or they would call me, oh my gosh. It's probably only just recently that I've stopped getting so many like, can you help me pick a song?
25:46 Like these people who are well out of college and like choosing songs for professional auditions, for like national tours, I guess, and things.
25:53 Can you help me pick a monologue? Can you help me pick a song? And, you know, they, They stayed with me forever because retention and relationships are, I would argue, especially when you are moving from a starting phase of your business into a growth phase of your business, are probably going to be,
26:13 the biggest drivers of the most profitable type of client acquisition, or sales acquisition. And that is like the, You could argue, I love ads.
26:24 I love ads. They're my favorite way to get visibility because I would s- so much easier for me to just, like, pay to put a message in front of people than it is to, for me to think about, like, oh, can I make this on social media?
26:37 And I need to post more and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I would just rather do it with ads. But even then, when you are starting and you're wanting to get to the point of, 6 to 7 figures per year.
26:47 And there's, I know that that's a wide range. And the big scheme of things, like, that's not that huge of a range.
26:52 But I understand there's a big difference between a 6 figure business and a 7 figure business. Relationships, referrals, and retention are going to be not, Not only your biggest drivers of growth when you choose for them to be, but they will app, this is the, where I will, this is a hill that I will 
27:09 die on, is it will absolutely be the most profitable form of lead generation. And the lowest acquisition cost, because, If they're essentially your evangelists, you know what I mean?
27:21 Like, you have super fans that are going out there to say, I, I think that you should go work with this person.
27:27 So developing referral relationships, they might not be the one like I had with Tracy. Like, ah, I understand that that's a complete unicorn situation.
27:34 But every last one, I would say, by the time my business got to the point where we were ready to, and it took a lot of time because I was not, I didn't know what I was doing as far as like operational capacity.
27:46 I would argue that I had less of a marketing, marketing, and visibility problem that I did have an operations problem.
27:53 I just didn't know how to make it work at a bigger level. Um, and once I figured that out, and I removed me as the bottleneck, and I had the relationships in place, and my reputation at that point preceded me.
28:06 Because I eventually did have the reputation of I was the person who got kids into college for this. I was the person who had students who were working in this place, that place, and the other place.
28:17 At this point, I had a theater company. At this point, I was also teaching, acting. Like, I had a lot of things that made me- very specialized.
28:23 And what I did, and I had a- I had at this point, I also had students who were coming so far as from different states.
28:30 I had a student who was coming to me from Ohio once per week. Driving, you know, it looked like it's not that far from Detroit, but, you know, an hour every week.
28:38 So it was a lot of, like, reputation building, combined with relationships, was I did not need to do anything else.
28:45 And when I did finally go into a brick and mortar, and I did properly start to really look at advertising, that's when I got into Facebook ads.
28:52 And I did a lot more with event. Marketing, I was holding open houses and things like that, but that was my, that was my growth driver.
29:00 It was all relationship building. And again, I understand that it's not exactly the same as online business, which I know is why a lot of you are here, but develop relations.
29:10 relationships with people who will champion you. It will not look the same as this. It probably won't look the same as this.
29:16 I hope you can find someone that could potentially be this large of a relationship driver for you or a client acquisition driver for you.
29:24 But realistically, like probably it's probably not going to look exactly like. Like this, because this was an extraordinarily fortunate situation.
29:30 But develop these relationships with people who will champion you and your business and your skill set. That's, that's, that's the note.
29:38 So with that said, I have just opened founding member spots. I'm. If you know, if you've been around for a minute, I started to build a networking community last year.
29:48 I got really sick at the beginning of it. And I was like, I don't think this is going to be sustainable.
29:52 I need to do more of the education stuff, um, in order for me to be able to sustain this financially and this and not the other.
29:58 And so I went more into, um, doing more on the education side, but I am getting back properly into building the networking community.
30:08 So the Visionaries Collective is officially open for founding members. It's going to properly. I'm going on Monday, June 2nd, uh, with the circle community, it's going to open on the same day.
30:20 I would love to see you on the inside. Um, right now, if you are one of the first 100 members to join, we'll be considered founding members and you are the people who will.
30:31 Shaped what this community winds up becoming. Um, there's going to be live community calls that are designed to help you build strategic relationships.
30:40 So, you know, find the finding visibility partners, collaborative partners, referral partners. Eventually, I want to get into more of. Like, funding relationships to get into, I've written a lot of grants in my life.
30:50 Um, in fact, every grant I've ever written for, I've received, uh, as a knock on wood, as I'm actually looking at writing a couple more grants, and I have a feeling that that's going to take my, it's going to take my, it's going to take my percent.
31:03 It's going down a bit, but that's okay. Um, but I've written for and received a lot of grants at this point, and so I eventually want to get more into like the funding and the startup side of things, but this is where you can come meet your visibility partners and strategic partners that can, you know
31:17 , they will become people, you can refer each other. You can do social media lives together to grow your audiences together.
31:22 I want to run collaborative events where, you know, there are speaking opportunities and visit, you know, other types of visibility opportunities.
31:29 Um, we, I want to do calls in the beginning and probably only do like two days of calls per month or two.
31:35 A two weeks out of the month will do calls. Um, I don't, whether it will be on like one day in each of those weeks or over more than one day, but things aren't like relationship focused, pitch free networking.
31:46 This is not going to be a space where you're going to get pitched. This is not about like, you're not going to be allowed to sell your I'm going services if you get people on coffee chats and you wind up pitching them unsolicited.
31:56 Like, that's, that's a, that's no go. That's not going to be, that is absolutely not going to be permitted in this community just to be really clear.
32:02 Um, it's going to be very relationship focused. Um, we're going to do things like. Take a look. Um, give and ask CEO matchmaking, which is where you're able to show the first part of it.
32:12 It's going to be like, you raise your, you let people know. This is what I have to give to the community.
32:17 Like, I'm a podcast. So for me, it would be, I'm a podcast host. You know, I'm currently booked out with Get.
32:22 This is true. I'm currently probably. I've booked out with guests, you know, for like several months in advance now. Like, it's through at least summer.
32:28 I'm booked out with guests, but, you know, I would love to, um, if you are interested in being on my show, like, I would love to, if you have a case study that's interesting or you have an interesting journey, I would love to hear about it.
32:38 I'm actually, this is a true thing. I'm actually. You're thinking about starting a couple more podcasts. And, um, so then that's your give and then you can make your ask of, you know, I'm, I'm looking for people who might be copywriters who could promote this specific type of service or I'm looking for
32:51 , you know, like, you can make it, you can tell the community what you've got to give and then. And make your ask and then the second half of the call will be like the matchmaking side of things where, um, you know, you can find people who can, you can partner up with and do things that you can like 
33:06 actually get what you're looking for or find other people who are interested in taking you up on your give it to the community.
33:11 Um, there's going to be quarterly planning calls, which I very often get told that, like, everyone loves these calls. They're very, very helpful.
33:18 Um, then, you know, I've got resources in there, but the community is going to be the, the highlight of if you want to be in a room with people who are generous.
33:27 They do. Genuinely want to see you succeed. I mean, of course they want to see themselves succeed too, but they also want to see you succeed because they are generous community over competition minded people.
33:40 This is, this is the place. This is the room that I want to build. This is the room that I've wanted to be in.
33:44 It's been hard for me to find a room that's exactly like this. And this is, this is what I'm building right now.
33:51 And I'm also open to suggestions from you on what you would want to see. I know the room that I want to build is more about the vibe.
33:59 I want to build a r- I want to build a community that has a certain feeling to it. And I know what that feeling is.
34:05 That is the thing that I'm going to relentlessly, strategically build toward. But all of the different pieces of how it comes together, the calls that we offer, the days of the week that they're on, the- how the frequency that they're being held, the cadence of the way the calls work and the community
34:21 works and all that. I'm complete- I'm an open book. I want feedback on what would work, uhm, best for you what you would be looking for.
34:28 Obviously, I'm not going to be able to make everyone happy with that. But like, I'm really going to be- I know the vibe of the room.
34:34 I'm looking for guidance from everyone else. I'm like, what's going to be the most beneficial for me? What do you want?
34:39 What are you looking for? Um, so if you were interested in learning more about this, I'm going to drop a link in the show notes.
34:46 You can also send me a- DM on Instagram with TVC. So the Visionaries Collective is what that's TVC is what that stands for.
34:57 Um, if you send me a DM on Instagram at Visionaries Online with TVC, it will automatically prompt you. Um, it'll- it'll it'll- it'll- it's a- many chat automation that will fire you back some information on that.
35:08 So I would- I would love to see you on the inside. I think this is going to be a really extraordinary community and relationships to get back to what the thesis statement of this was.
35:16 Relationships are catalysts for growth and find- find your You're, find people who can champion you and what it is that you do and become expanders for your growth, if not directly for your business through referral relationships, but expand you as a business owner and who you are, how you're showing
35:32 up in your business and in what you're doing. And with that, I will- catch you in the next episode. Have a fantastic day.