How to Set Up Your Business For Success with Mary Scott

Hey everybody, it's Tara Bryan and you are listening

to the course building secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach

or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on

your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide

them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give

you practical real life tips that you can use today to build

your online experiences that get results and create raving fans.

Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people

without adding more time or team to your business? If you're

looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and

use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hey, everybody, welcome to course building secrets. I am

here today with Mary Scott. And she is going to talk about

giving some advice and tips on getting started in your business

and what that looks like. So welcome, Mary, we'd love to hear

just a little bit about your background. And, and give us a

little bit of a some tips and tricks for how to get started.

Okay, thank you so much, Tara, I'm really happy to

be here. I'm Mary Scott, I'm originally from New York, I was

a videographer I did business to business videos, companies all

over New York City metro, I did two documentary films that made

money, one of them actually got nominated for an Emmy. And when

COVID hit, I thought, Okay, I'm tired of carrying around the

equipment. And let's see if I can get paid for what I know

rather than what I do. Having had all that experience, my

connections and my resources are the likes of which most people

can't imagine. So and I've always given businesses,

connections and advice so that they would look good on camera

and be able to get more business rather than just having me

videotape something that that I showed up. So landed in St.

Louis, in the startup ecosystem, and started actually talking to

the various resources in the startup ecosystem, who at the

time, kind of vaguely knew each other was there but didn't

really talk to each other. Well, I'm a fan of one stop shopping,

I remember how hard it was, as a startup to actually get find

what I needed, much less get off the ground faster. So I

collected all the links to as much of the business of the

startup ecosystem as I could I put it into STL startup

ecosystem.org. One stop shopping, so startups can find

what they need here. And all the resources can know who each

other is. Because if you're not in the same book, well, you're

not on the same page, you are in the same book. Yeah, yeah. So

that's where that goes. And so I've been consulting and doing

workshops to help startup businesses be wildly successful.

Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm super curious

about your journey from actually going out. And and, you know,

kind of being out in the field to transitioning to more of, you

know, moving online or doing things that that, you know, see

sort of had had to change how you were working, and package

what you were doing in a different way, tell me a little

bit about that experience, and what that look like and how you

went from really being out there to pivoting differently and

growing your business, either online or in a different way.

Oh, one of the first things was to get used to being

on camera for a change instead of buying the camera. So that

didn't take too long, because Zoom is a very user friendly

format. So not only was I able to connect with a lot of people

on Zoom, but because I was a video editor, I could always do

what I wanted to with the recordings that I made and be

able to edit recordings for other people as well. So that

was that was really useful. And the fact that we can now connect

globally, rather than just locally, has made a huge

difference as well. So those are things to just not be afraid of.

And if you're a little nervous. You start with Hi, I'm Mary

Scott, I'm new. Tell me about you. Yeah, yep. And let the

other person tell you who they are and what they need. And that

way, you're not just telling them what you can do. You're

telling them what you can do for them. It's, it's ultimately it's

all about customers. ervice

I love how you pivoted from being behind the

camera to on camera and then showing up and helping your

people. And, and solving that that need. That's awesome. So

give us some tips. So if somebody is, you know, just

thinking about maybe packaging their expertise and, and getting

started for the first time and growing their business, like

give us a couple of tips for how they can start thinking about

getting started.

Okay, well, I'll tell you tips in the context of

three of the top 10 Mistakes startups make. First thing you

have to do is validate the idea, whatever product service thing

you want to do, ask people if they think it's a good idea. And

ask people if they would be willing to pay for you, for your

idea for your product for your service. Ask people who know

you, and then get some bravery and go present to an

organization like 1 Million Cups where you can ask total

strangers the same questions. Is this a good idea is Am I on the

right track? And would people be willing to pay? How much would

they be willing to pay for this thing? The second part is to

really know your market. Who's what problem does this solve?

And know really specifically what problem verify that that is

an actual problem. And that this solves that problem. Now, this

may also solve other problems. So that's a nice place to do

some brainstorming. And once you have validated your idea, and

you have a really good idea where the market is, make a

business plan, every community has something called the Small

Business Development Centers, they're at usually located on

university campuses, it's the SBDC. They're funded by the

Small Business Administration. So it's free services, and they

will help you create a business plan. So use that service.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great advice.

Everybody do that, before you go out and start selling your

thing. Because most of the time, right, and Mary, I'm sure you've

dealt with this before in helping people is they go out

and try and or they they spend all this time building the

thing, before they've even asked if it's actually something that

people will pay for it, or if it's something that solves a

specific problem. So do your homework. First, make sure that

people liked the idea and that they're willing to pay for it.

That's key. What we do in in Learn Academy, which is one of

our signature programs of teaching people how to create

package and sell their online courses is like, don't build it

first, right? Like, make sure that you're finding not like

your mom and dad or your friends or your spouse, don't ask them

if they like it, ask somebody who needs it, and then see if

they're gonna pull out their credit card. If they don't, then

you've got to keep honing in on what your idea is. So I love

that. Because I think that the misnomer is you just can just go

and throw it out there. And, and get started. So I love

to do a Google search. Make sure that nobody

else has this already. Right? Or if they do you have a better

version? Or if they have something similar. Maybe you

should collaborate, right? That's a good hole founders do

much better in the Success space than single founders. Right?

That's so good. Awesome. Well, Mary, give us one

like tool or resource or something that you can't live

without as you are running and building your business.

I can't live without my CRM, that's a customer

relationship management system, CRM, there are a ton of them out

there. Some of them are, you know, $150 a month, the one I

use is $15 a month. And it's a way to keep your contacts and

all the things you do with them in one place. It connects with

your calendar, it connects with your scheduler, it connects with

your email, it connects with your your contacts, your phone,

text messages, so that all the notes about whomever you talk to

are in one spot with them.

Yeah, that's smart. You use Mary,

I use less annoying CRM. That's what that's what

it's called. It was surprising to me because they're actually a

startup in St. Louis. They're only about 10 or 12 years old

now. And I was one of their early adopters. So I love these

guys. The best thing about less annoying so CRM apart from the

fact that it's reasonably nice is that you can get a hold of

tech support practically within an hour. Oh, that's sending them

an email, you will get an email back really quickly. If you need

to get somebody on the phone, you will get somebody on the

phone pretty quickly, like within the day or two, they'll

be on the phone with you and they can talk you through stuff.

They're amazing. They're so customer service oriented. It's

wonderful.

Yeah, that's awesome. I love that name. I

will such a sucker for any really good name. And so I'll

have to go check them out. But go check them out. Mary

recommends them see her CRM. It's fabulous. All right, Mary,

I'm happy to share links to the CRM and to I have a

downloadable for free that's called set up your business

legally in 10. Easy Steps.

Perfect. That's what I was gonna ask is how can our

listeners get a hold of you? So that's great. We'll put those in

the show notes and and make sure that you're able to get that

information from Mary. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mary for

joining us today. It was great to have you as a guest on the