093: What working with Jenna looks like
If you want some help applying some of the things I talk about on this podcast, and you’d like to know more about what it looks like to team up with me, this episode is for you.
Hopefully this episode helps you make a more informed decision on whether or not I’m someone you’d like to work with to make the most out of the time you have available for your business.
In this episode, I share
a few things that inform how I work
what the process of working with me looks like
the kinds of results you could expect from our work together
some real client examples
a mistake I made with a client, and why it's important to me that our work together is collaborative
Mentioned:
Productivity Ecosystem podcast episode 057
Minimum Viable Effort blog post
Consult call and client experience episodes
Productivity Ecosystem summary
Check out current free resources
Grab a screenshot of the episode and share/say Hei on Instagram
Want to leave me a note? You can do that here.
Reasons why our business investments don’t always pan out
I’ve had some experiences where I’ve paid good amounts of money and spent a lot of time or effort on a course, a service or coaching program, and afterwards felt like maybe it wasn't the best investment.
And from talking to so many business owners over the years, it’s seems like many of us have had these kinds of experiences.
a) I didn’t really have a full understanding of what the process would be like or what was expected of me
b) the results that they promised weren’t results I could realistically expect in my situation
c) I didn’t realize the person’s values differed a lot from mine and so, the strategy or the approach didn’t match what I was willing to do
So – hopefully this episode helps you make a more informed decision on whether or not I’m someone who you’d like to work with to make the most out of the time you have available for your business.
First I’m going to quickly go through a few things that inform the way I work, then for the bulk of this episode I’ll talk about what the process of working with me looks like, and the kinds of results you could expect from our work together. And I’ll pepper in some real client examples, too.
Three things that inform the way I work
There are three main things that affect how I approach my work:
My training as a psychologist helps me consider your personality in my advice + offer new perspectives. However I don’t have a license to practice as a psychologist here in the US because the system is different here compared to Finland and I don’t really want to work as a psychologist anymore.
My experience as a photography business owner has made me very familiar with the challenges of running a service-based business on my own.
My tendency as a Finn is to look for solutions that feel simple, practical, and doable.
The best way to get started with me (at the time of this recording) is to book a consult call.
When you sign up for a consult call, a prep questionnaire will pop into your email. When I have background information on you and your business upfront, we can spend our time on the call more effectively.
During the consult call, we’ll talk about your most pressing challenge and determine what's ACTUALLY causing it.
Before talking to me, my clients often think that something was wrong with *them* or their mindset when they can’t just push through their challenges.
But *most of the time* our challenges can be traced back to things that are much simpler to tweak or to tackle than mindset. I actually believe that most solopreneurs who have been at this business thing for a while probably have a pretty great mindset already!
(I also believe that what is talked about as “mindset” in the business world is a much watered-down version of the actual definition of mindset which makes lots of the advice out there unhelpful or even toxic.)
The ability to be productive and do this business thing in a sustainable way is dependent on so many factors – not just your mindset. If you’re curious to hear what I think those factors are, read the summary of my Productivity Ecosystem.
We all just tend to be a little too close to our businesses to see what’s going on, and not figuring things out can be depleting. My *faaavorite part* of calls with clients is the moment when they realize that nothing’s actually wrong with them. There’s just something in their practices or business that could be tweaked to be more supportive.
Essentially, figuring out the root cause helps you stop thinking “I’m the problem, it’s me” and it frees up your brain to identify tangible solutions that can bring relief quickly.
After we’ve identified what’s causing your most pressing challenge, we come up with real, practical solutions to it.
II do my best to guide you to solutions that *you* feel are practical and doable. Those solutions depend on your values, goals, priorities, business, circumstances, resources, capacity etc. For some of my clients, sometimes getting a new perspective on their situation has been all they needed – and the more practical solutions have been secondary.
Finding what fits you, your business and your life makes everything easier to sustain – because it feels good to you. And for almost every client, we’ve come up with solutions where at least one of them quickly brings a change.
After your call, you’ll get the audio recording and a report. The report includes detailed notes from our call in a Google doc. This way, you don’t have to make a ton of notes during the call and can instead be present. What I like about the Google doc is that you can add comments or ask for clarifications directly inside the document.
Consult call example
As a quick example of what a consult call could look like, I thought I’d tell you about a call I had with copywriter who wasn’t spending her work time as effectively as she would’ve liked to.
It would've been easy just to start developing ideas for productivity hacks she could try to spend her time more effectively. BUT, I wanted to understand more about why this was happening, because that’s how I help my clients find solutions that make the most sense for them, right?
When we dug a bit deeper, she mentioned that she felt like she was being pulled in too many directions all day, making it hard to focus on the deep work she wanted to do. It was also hard for her to batch content creation; she didn’t have big enough gaps in her days for that.
That led us to talk about what are the things that she feels pulled by, and what are the things getting in the way of having time for batched tasks, and what came up were client calls. Because they were sprinkled throughout the week, there weren't big enough gaps in the schedule to dive into deep work *or* her brain was distracted during deep work because she knew she’d have a call in a few hours. I’m the same way – if I know I have calls coming up, my brain tends to get occupied with them hours beforehand.
So the solution we came up with for her was to only schedule calls on specific days of the week, so that she would have days when she could focus fully on her deep creative work.
Another idea we played around with was to have one week a month blocked off from calls entirely, so that she’d have the brain space to focus on things like marketing and business updates.
These ideas would not have come up if we hadn't dug into what was going on first. Basic productivity tips wouldn't have helped as long as her schedule was mismatched with her needs and those sprinkled-out calls were on her mind.
How we can team up after the consult call
You can book another consult whenever you want to troubleshoot something new, or if you feel like you’d benefit from some ongoing support when you're implementing the solutions we came up with during your consult, I’m here for that too.
My ongoing support includes regular calls, plus you’ll have messaging access to me inbetween calls, so you can ask questions and be coached while experimenting with your solutions.
You’ll spend less time second-guessing things by yourself, because you can get my perspective quickly and don't have to wait to make progress. I don’t respond to messages 24/7, but this is more effective than waiting until a call to ask all the questions.
What kinds of results you can expect
One result that I think pretty much everyone I've worked with has experienced is that when they understand *why* they’ve been struggling or the root cause of their struggles, they stop being so hard on themselves. That already frees up mental bandwidth and energy, which makes it easier for them to take action and make progress.
But otherwise, the outcomes you experience from our work together depend on a lot of things – the typical results my clients have seen tend to fall into two different camps:
Camp 1: These are business owners who have a workload that is too big in relation to how much time they have allocated for the business.
A designer cut her time spent on marketing in half, and went from a 6-day workweek to a 5-day one – without it negatively impacting her progress
A brand strategist freed up time to go to regular workout classes (3 times a week), when she didn’t used to have time for herself outside of the business and being a parent
A self-care product online shop owner can now stop working by 6pm, so she can spend time with her family and wind down before going to bed – and sleeps better. Her business has grown despite working shorter hours. She also grew her team to meet that growth since she makes physical products.
A digital marketer freed up time in her schedule for two additional clients a month, and she made time for self-care, let go of the guilt of self-care
Camp 2: These are business owners who feel that their workload is doable, but they feel unfocused and would like to spend their work hours more productively.
A website designer who was procrastinating on business updates and stretching out her client work longer than necessary was able to take action on the business updates she had been putting off, while also reducing her work hours – which gave her time to dedicate to a couple of creative hobbies
A video coach was putting pressure on herself to do *a lot* after taking a long break from the business. During her consult, she realized that by planning too much, she was setting herself up to fail, making her feel terrible about herself and dipped her motivation. We concluded that defining a Minimum Viable Effort for her would be useful at this point in time. So she’s defined the minimum amount of work required to make some progress right now, while still honoring her capacity. She described that she feels less pressure and that the thought of a Minimum Viable Effort felt really exciting – and actually doable.
A brand strategist was struggling to work ON her business during slow client seasons, so we came up with a system to help her be clear on what to tackle on days like those – and she’s gotten that motivation, that spark back into her work
These were just a few examples of what business owners have experienced after our work together; you can find out more through my testimonials and case studies.
Whether your workload needs simplifying or you need a boost to be more focused and productive, there are limits to the results I can help you get.
For example, I can’t promise that I can help you go from working 50 hours a week to 10, or I can’t promise that I can help you spend every second of your day productively. I’ll do my best to help you come up with a handful of things you can do to improve the situation, and how much it can be improved depends on the current situation, your business model, etc.
If you stick with me for ongoing support, that gives us a chance to improve more practices and areas of your business over the course of our time together.
My approach is collaborative
It’s important that we collaborate when coming up with your solutions. I can provide a fresh, holistic perspective and personalized advice, but I try not to be prescriptive.
That said, I made a mistake while coaching a client last summer. Because of the human tendency to take on too much, I’m always paying attention to where my clients could be doing less. So when a client talked about updating a course that she had already created previously, I said something to the effect of:
“Because people are buying it already, you probably don't need to put effort into updating it – maybe your time is better spent just selling it."
I felt a bit weird after the call, and on my next morning walk, I realized: OH, I FEEL WEIRD BECAUSE I TOLD HER WHAT SHE “SHOULD” DO. (Or what she shouldn’t do.)
That went against my intent of NOT being prescriptive.
So I sent her a voice note and told her I didn’t feel good about telling her what to do. (Or what not to do.) And that if updating the course makes selling it easier, go for it, and don’t listen to me.
My client did end up updating her course. And I’ve been following along in awe at all the amazing marketing content and emails she sent out as a result, because she’s felt more confident in selling that course after updating it.
I’m telling you this story because I don’t want to pretend that I have all the answers or that the solutions I suggest shouldn’t be questioned. I want my clients to feel comfortable to tell me if something I say doesn’t sit well with them. And if I say something that I later realize isn’t aligned with how I want to operate, I will also reach out and adjust my advice.
Because this is the thing:
Even if I can offer a fresh perspective and advice that you may not have thought of, you’re the person who best knows whether the advice fits you or not.
If you feel that [the thing you wanna do] is the right thing, if doing it will make [what you want to accomplish] easier or more exciting, that will be the most sustainable way forward for you.
Final words
I’m always trying to better and evolve my process, so things may not be exactly like this in the future. But I think that, on the whole, most of the things I’ve shared here will be relevant even if my services change.
If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to reach out – you can DM me on Instagram or email me at jenna@jennahellberg.com
And if all the things I talked about sounded good, and you wanna make the most out of the time you have available for work, grabbing a consult with me might be a great way to start and experience some results quickly.