LY Podcast Ep. 32: 10x Your Business in a Year with Danielle Cevallos

Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is the launch yourself podcast, episode 32 with Danielle Cevallos. Welcome to the launch yourself podcast. My name is Melissa Anzman. I'm a bestselling author and the CEO of two businesses, an employee experience company, and launch yourself where I help entrepreneurs diversify and scale their business by launching digital products each week, you'll hear mindblowing interviews where we peek behind the curtain of other people's launches, as well as actual tips and strategies that you can implement in your daily work life to create launches that actually make you money. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started on today's.

Melissa Anzman (00:42): So is someone I am proud to call my friend and also collaborator Danielle Cevallos. Now Danielle is the owner of firebrand communication strategies where she helps seven and eight-figure business owners improve their copy and communications. So her shop forward bag says, Jesus Starbucks puppies, reality TV. She's a New York city girl born and raised. She's straight to the point 90% of the time. The other 10%. She's just a little bit sweet things. Two years of living in the South, she's obsessed with helping people with real solutions and book more clients. She is one of the best copywriters I've ever worked with, and she also has a behind the scenes look and many, seven and eight-figure businesses. So today we're going to talk about her launch and how you can launch in a service based business or not as well as some behind the scenes information about launching and digital products and services from seven and eight figure business owners that we've been able to peek behind the curtain.

Melissa Anzman (01:50): I'm sure you're going to love this conversation. It is definitely straight to the point. Lots of great tangible nuggets for you. Hey Danielle, thanks so much for coming on the launch yourself podcast today. I'm really excited to have you. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. So Danielle and I met randomly through a another online sort of group that we're both in and she was an expert. She's a featured expert feature copywriter in the group. And I was so in love with what she was saying and really jammed with her approach and her philosophy. And I second layer loved her company name and I'm like, she's my girl. So Danielle and I became friends and have partnered together a bit. And I, you know, have, haven't looked back since so happy to have, we have some good Voxer conversations we do. We do when I can remember how Voxer works. I'm just kidding. So, you know, here at launch yourself, we really define it as a moment in your business that you decide to take action changed directions, go bigger, maximize your potential, everything along lines. So with

Danielle Cevallos (03:00): That in mind, I'd love to sort of first have a little bit of an outline of your business and then we'll dive into your launch. So if you could just share some background information about what you do and who you serve, that would be great. Yeah. So I currently, I'm a communication strategist for seven, eight figure business owners, but I did not start there. I actually have a master's in education. I was a teacher for 12 years, but I always kind of had like a little entrepreneurial thing in me, which is actually really not super normal for teachers. I, you know, did some MLM things, but I was terrible at them. I'm so bad at that. I really thought that it was like free stuff, but it wasn't free. I was paying it was it wasn't very good. It wasn't very good.

Danielle Cevallos (03:50): But it was, you know, I, I went to college and graduated at a time where this whole world didn't really exist yet. Like, it wasn't a thing. But I did start out blogging and we adopted our daughters and I kind of blogged through that whole journey. So fast forward a few years later we were living overseas and I got bored, wanted to do something that I could wear leggings for. So I became a personal trainer. I ended up actually hating, hating trading people, which is so funny because now I think about like, I like working out by myself with my headphones on nobody talking to me. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea, but the like, so I was overseas and I couldn't work at a gym there because of like visa things. And so I had to start the business online.

Danielle Cevallos (04:33): And so I hired a coach and she had a coaching company for fitness pros and then a digital marketing agency. I'm also for female fitness pres kind of play that out, grew that a little bit. And I did grow my online business. I realized I don't really like it, but I did grow it. And we moved back home and she and I were talking and she's like, you, right. Don't you. And I was like, well sort of like I have this blog and it grew pretty big. And I told her, yes, so I ended up writing for her and all of her clients. And so for two years, I like hardcore learned how to copyright for other people because it's really different writing for other people than it is write blog or for yourself. So I did tons of setting did hundreds of hours.

Danielle Cevallos (05:18): She, her company was really growing. So we started out with just, you know, eight or 10 clients. And by the time we finished, it was like 40 different women. We were ready, everything, sales pages, emails, blogs, social media post, literally like everything lead magnets. And I also got to see kind of the inner workings of all of these different businesses, not just this one woman's or not just mine. It was sort of all of the behind the scenes of all these different people. So I was teaching at the time I was super burned out when you're a teacher and you do a good job, they are like, here's more work. And so they made me in charge of all these things can get paid anymore for, but I was in charge of them. And so I told her I had to stop. She ended up closing her digital marketing agency and focusing solely on her fitness program.

Danielle Cevallos (06:03): And I swore off business forever. And I was just going to be a teacher and like a month and a half later I got bored. I was really close to the summer. So I started my own business again. And I decided to do some marketing strategy for fitness pros. And it was, we actually grew that from scratch. Like nothing, no Facebook group, no Instagram followers, literally like hardcore messaging people and inviting them to a group and teaching on my video, all those things. And I just kind of bumped up against time. My I was still teaching, I was coaching cheerleading and I was coming home and doing these like hour long calls with clients back to back. And I just was working til 12. Like I would literally come home, come in the little office and do these calls. And so it wasn't sustainable.

Danielle Cevallos (06:54): And everyone had issues with their copy and I was like rewriting sales pages for people and not getting paid enough for it and doing all these different things. And I was like, this is not, I can't keep doing this. I had a coach at the time. And she was like, this is not a sustainable way to live. So you either need to create some sort of big group thing or, you know, maybe think about copywriting because at the time, you know, even if I was doing a lot of writing, it was still on my own time. I didn't have to like come and be in front of a computer for these appointments. So whenever I wanted. And so I went back to copywriting in March of last year and I have granted ever since I went from like side hustle to full time gig.

Danielle Cevallos (07:40): And I have evolved over the year into, I went from basic email marketing to firebrand communication, communication strategies. But it's spinning long fun, tiring process out here. So now I do communication strategies for seven, eight figure brands, but that evolved over time. I love that one person. Sorry. No, I it's so interesting because I like one of the things that a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners get confused is it's never a straight line ever, ever, like I've followed, I've been in the game for a long time. So I've, I've followed a lot of people for 10 years now or longer. And I've seen there are 18 different businesses, right? And when you join someone who's already successful or already killing it online, at least from the look you don't realize, they've spent 10 years, 18 businesses trying, moving, shifting pivoting to launch differently, which aligns with really the type of launch that I'd love for you to share with us, which is like a little bit different.

Danielle Cevallos (08:50): We're not sort of talking a bout a digital product launch, but I'd love for you to share with us a launch you want to talk about today. Yeah. So I, we were talking before and I was like, Oh, I kind of launched thing is like not really normal. As a copywriter up until probably I would say like August of last year, I really miss just going to be a freelancer. I was just going to take one on one clients on a few at a time. My, you know, I was a teacher, so my income goals were small. I was like, I just wanna replace a teacher salary, which is not hard. And so I didn't have these like big plans to like launch anything massive. And so I sort of shifted even how I want to grow over the last year and a half.

Danielle Cevallos (09:44): And I decided to bring on some other writers, which is not something I ever thought I would do. I remember telling my current business coach, no one will ever be able to write, but like I do like, okay, sure. You're the only one who can learn it yet. And she's like, well, how are you going to make money? If you're sick one day or you can't go to work. And I was like too shy. So I started, I created a recurring monthly retainers for clients. And and when I kind of got that model in place, I thought, okay, well maybe I could do like some sort of launch, you know, where I can just sell to a group at one time. And because prior to that, I was really just, everything was referrals. I did have to really hustle to get like my first five clients.

Danielle Cevallos (10:35): But then after that, it was literally just like a ripple effect tonight, even now. Like people still just call me and that's like a great problem to have. So do you want to say, I want to give you some props because I don't think that you will the clients that you have are huge and big name people. Like I don't want to underplay your hassle. Yes. But you have amazing clients. So you do a great job or they would have already moved on. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I'm very lucky to be able to work with some really big time businesses and sometimes it's I mean, I work, I do, I do work hard. I will not in anybody say this is just chill. I'm just chilling. I mean, my last, I said, you know, I agree my business, 10 X, my income from April to December of last year.

Danielle Cevallos (11:29): But I also worked probably 60 to 80 hours a week. Which is why some shifts have been made. But but there's no, you know, there was no just like chilling on the sidelines. I was definitely out there doing some work. But I had never really thought about launching because in my mind it felt really overwhelming to bring on like multiple clients at once because how it had kind worked was like, I'd get a call from one person. We do their stuff. I get a call from another person it's just sorta like a slow trickle. Right. and so I started thinking like, Oh, I have these writers, I can do this. And so we my coach does a launch called the live launch and I was like, alright, well, I'm gonna try this. Right. So it is, and I had a Facebook group, but you know, you do this in a Facebook group.

Danielle Cevallos (12:18): And I had one because I started going for my podcast and I just did a lot of free stuff. I kind of went back to like my coaching, like when was your marketing coaching? And I was doing all the things and I was like, Oh, they're already in there. Like, I can totally do this. Right. So I started my lunch and I I think I did email marketing cause that's kinda my emails. I love writing emails. And I'm pretty sure it was like a five day email marketing workshop and I sort of halfway did it. I would never tell her, I fully did a live. I did it. I did not promote it. I just sort of was like, I'm just going to do this one day. Right. So about four days before I decided I was going to do it, my poor VA was like, Hey, we're going to do this. Can you make a bunch of things? Can you actually get ready for this launch? You have me working for. So I I put it together pretty quickly. I don't think it was four days. It was probably like a week. And I was like, all right, I'm doing this right. So did the first four days are just straight teaching and people were obsessed. Oh wait, it might've been a content. I don't even remember. I don't even remember what it was.

Danielle Cevallos (13:28): It might've been a content strategy, one, but either content strategy or email marketing. And so got to the fourth day where you like sell. And I was going to put together like a, a monthly package, this many emails make blogs, this my social media posts. This is your bonus. Did the pitch. I got three people within the first day, which it's a pretty big sale for me because it's multiple months and it was over a thousand dollars a month. And then I realized, well, I don't know how many more of these I can sell. Cause I was I'm thinking like, I don't know how much more my team can write on a monthly basis. So we ended up that was Thursday by that Sunday we had sold two more. So I had five people onboarded and I was like, crap. Like I can't, I can't tell any more right now because it does take a little time to like get people onboarded and set up.

Danielle Cevallos (14:22): And then I do have to kind of stagger stuff for writers because if not, I mean, they'll just be writing 3000 hours a day. So I just sort of stopped like, so you're supposed to keep going. There's this to have testimonials from clients. There's this, I literally was just like, I did show up. I did do like training the last two days, but it was super like, all right guys, I didn't talk about the offer anymore. I just did some followup. I tried to take the videos and you're supposed to take the videos down and she said, say, couldn't get them down. Like my VA's like, they, I can't get dates two and three down. They won't come down. It was like the hottest mess of the wealth successful launch. And put, if I told you the numbers, it was a great launch for me.

Danielle Cevallos (15:03): But but like not, I don't know, it just didn't work. So I was like, I'm not thinking of it a launch anymore. And I haven't really launched since technically in that capacity. So yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's really a good conversation and a good example because you, so many of us launch and we're like, Oh no, no, no, this is not the work I want to do. I actually can't sustain this launch. Like I didn't maybe think it through enough beforehand or I'm following a hot trend. Not saying you did any of those, but like maybe one or two. Right. But at the end of the day, you still want to deliver what you're selling and you can't, that is a huge pivot of you are already in front of these people. You're already talking about your offer and then you're like, just kidding.

Danielle Cevallos (15:57): Yeah. Yeah. And I think so it was super helpful for me because I I've done a couple of workshops. I did some course I did, of course once, and I will say that every process helps me refine more, who I wanted to work with and because I was able to onboard these clients and then I had another sort of big thing happened where I was in this big community and brought in a lot of clients from that. I realized cave. There were certain types of clients I want to work with in certain types of clients. I don't, you're kind of an anomaly in that. I'll be honest.

Danielle Cevallos (16:38): I came in through that community and that she was like, yeah, I'm just not sure you're a different kind of breed. There was a couple that did, that were amazing. But at the time I didn't know who I wanted to work with. So I'm one of those, like I just said yes to everyone. I was like, yeah, we can. Cause I thought to myself, can I write that? Yes. Can I make money writing that? Yes. Okay. Let's do it. So as you're growing, it's like, I need to make money. I need to grow my business. We don't say no. Like, yeah. And I think there is a season where you're, everyone has to go through that where you're, I don't think you can figure out your niche or who you want to work with or what you can do until you do those things.

Danielle Cevallos (17:19): Like you don't really know. You know? And so I did a lot of that. And then through this launch process, I realized a couple things. Number one, what I'm selling is easy for me to sell, but I don't want to deliver on it. I don't want to have this this way. Number two, I realized I really had some limitations in my team and this is really my head. She said you, cause I realized I was pulling back from selling. She's like, you shouldn't be, if you have a team that can do this. And I realized I didn't have a lot of confidence in the team I had. And so I knew that every person I said yes to would probably fall back on me in some capacity, even if the team was writing it, I was going to have to spend all this time editing it.

Danielle Cevallos (18:01): And so she and I talked about, and she said, you got to get rid of this team and get people that you feel confident in selling, you know, that you feel like you can go and say yes to everyone. You want to say yes to, and then it's not going to be a a hundred hours of work on you. So it really had to pull out some of those things. But I realized very quickly there are some holes on the back end here. I can get up there. I can settle. I'm good at what I do. Like I have clients who can say that, you know, yes, they're good at what I do. And so that part is easy, but I had all these little gaps in the back. So that, that sort of just made it obvious, you know? Yeah. And it, it left you open for like true disaster if you weren't able to fix it, right.

Danielle Cevallos (18:43): Like, especially as you grew your business, when you 10 X your business, first of all, when you do that, everything that isn't working is going to be amplified right. Quickly, the growing pains are real, but you also have the added pressure of, if you can't plug those holes or figure it out, quick enough, you lose your current clients. Those who've been you or, you know, the referrals could dry up. So it's definitely, it was a good experience if nothing else to learn what those gaps are. Yeah. And I think that there, I wasn't ready to grow as fast as I did if I'm being completely honest. I mean, remember like I was in April of last year, it was just going to be a freelancer and I was still teaching full time. I was still cheerleading coach. Like I was still very much in this.

Danielle Cevallos (19:34): I don't really think this level of success could happen. I remember my big goal was just to make 5,000 a month because that would cover my salary, like the insurance for like what we'd have to pay when I didn't have it. And by like month, three was completely blue. I mean, completely blew that out of the water. And I remember thinking like, Oh, like it was almost like, I don't even have a goal. What do I do now? Like, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. So I was not prepared. I was not thinking like, I was always people he's like, I'm going to be, I'm going to make six, seven figures. Like I never thought that never, never I just wanted to make a living and not do it teaching. And so I'm also one of those people who I will make it work.

Danielle Cevallos (20:17): My clients won't be unhappy, but I will kill myself in the process. So what I realized was I can make this work and I can cover for all the writing that I don't think is happening well, but it's at the state, like at the cost of my own mental health or like time. And normally, you know, like it just it showed me that I had to fix some things first or I was going to burn completely out. And there were a lot of things that weren't working, even though on the outside, they were very successful, like right. Yeah. The outside was very, it looked good. And I mean, my bank account looked good, but well, yeah. I mean, I talk about this a lot with one of my clients in particular because their, their business looks really good on paper. Right. Like, it looks really good, but they have no direction.

Danielle Cevallos (21:12): They don't know what they're doing. They feel like they're having a nervous breakdown every day. They don't have system like, so that's cool for a minute, but after like a month or two, you can't keep it up like good on paper doesn't mean a successful business. Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, like it's not, I do really think, you know, money goals are great. I think you should have. I think it's always nice to hit something like a milestone of some sort. But they're not as amazing as you think they are. Like, I feel like we just put so much stock in all these things and then you're like, okay, cool. Like, that's great. Like I still have like 8 million hours of work to do. And it's sort of like, cool. Like that's great. Yeah. So I feel like there's some level to which you have to build your business, how you want it to be.

Danielle Cevallos (22:07): Not that I think, I mean, I've never been one of those people who thinks every part of your business needs to be life giving and joy filled. And like, you should never do anything that is not in your zone of genius. Like I think that's a load of crap. And I think that everybody should just handle the fact that if you're in business, you're going to do some stuff you don't want to do, but amen. But you, but you know, you want to have feel like you have some of the freedom that you left a job to have. So I do get to wear leggings every day, which was, I love that goal. I love it. Now. I so agree with you. And I think that for people who are listening and are like, well, that's great. She can say that she's, she's making money.

Danielle Cevallos (22:50): Right? Like money goals are art making six figures. Yeah. It's only not cool cause she already is. Right. But you're probably making more, but we don't need to talk about that. That being said yes, but or yes. And is the conversation, if you are only making six figures and you're not living a life you want, you're not spending time that you want you're you're in your business or outside of your business again, is it sustainable? It's not right. It's not something that you can do. And conversely, you're not going to have a four hour work week. Like you're not going on a beach and making six figures in your first 10 or 20 years of owning your own business. It's just not reality. And so it is, I agree with you, it's a balance having, whether it's a goal or a client

Melissa Anzman (23:46): Goal or a, you know, introduction or a hustle goal, but like you still need to make sure that you're building and adjusting in a way that matches what, why you left your job, why you're not in corporate America, so to speak.

Danielle Cevallos (24:02): Yeah. And I think what is really most important about all of this last, I don't know, I guess close to two years a year and a half have taught me if you don't love the process as much as just the end goal. Like you should probably quit too hard. It really is. But I also really love it. Like I actually like love the hustle and the heart not, I mean, I know I probably create a little bit more hard for myself than I need to. I don't love all of it. And they just, you know, bringing on someone to kind of help behind the scenes to not make me make it a little less messy, a little less hard. But I really do like the process. And actually it's really interesting because the way I work with clients now, I'm very much in all aspects of their business.

Danielle Cevallos (24:50): It's not a project thing. It's like an ongoing thing. And I like that too. Like, because it's hard. I mean, I work with people making insane amounts of money and they don't work less than I do. They work differently than I do either working on different pieces of the business. They're really managing their team and they've got leadership in place, but they are working just as hard. They're, you know, they're still hustling. It's just a very different, they're not hustling to get a client maybe, but they're hustling to grow a team or they're hustling to get, you know, this type of visibility. I mean, there's still a level of like hustle and all of them. And it's interesting to me that this idea of like, you don't need that or I'll just have one launch, like one launch a year and it'll just set me up forever. Like I just don't know. None of these people think like that, you know, like there's no, I don't know.

Melissa Anzman (25:46): No. I mean it's yes. Like you couldn't have said why I do what I do more succinctly, because what drives me crazy in the online space in particular are people who just copy and paste someone else's program or business. Like they buy a course because somebody told them you can make six figures selling a course. And it's like, but there's so much that goes into it. Like it's not going to be your first launch or your first course necessarily. And their process needs you in it. Like there's so many things wrong with that idea where at the top, whether that's a six figure seven, eight figure Mark, like whatever that is, people are working really hard in and at their business. It's not an a, okay, good. I made the six figures to your point. It's it's

Danielle Cevallos (26:44): What's next? How can I keep improving what we have working? Yeah. And I think even more than that, what I realize is that you have to be willing to like get grading and do the work that nobody really talks about. So we see these people with like the massive podcast audience or the massive Instagram following that is so hard to build. It's so hard because building a 10 years ago, when all of them did is so different than building it now. And so like it is messaging people. It is responding to every comment it is going live every day. It is doing more podcasts than you want. It is, it is all these things that everyone says, you don't have to do that. And I'm like, really, because it is, it is, it is paid for marketing as well. Like it is affiliates. It is.

Danielle Cevallos (27:35): I mean, there's so many things that it is to your point that aren't talked about. Yeah. And you know, I, I look at, you know, how you and I met through one community, we're connected in a few others elsewhere and just how different the businesses are, but the leaders have the same mentality of hustle, of hard work of head down. And also of not overnight successing it. Right? Like that does happen. Yeah. And I think that it's so easy and I, you know, this is hard. I mean, it's hard for anyone. Like you see someone else's 10 year 10 and you look okay, like I can sort of mimic their launch or their course or their podcast or what they do on Instagram, but you don't get the same results and you think, Oh crap, like what's wrong with me? Well, number one, they've been building an audience for 10 years.

Danielle Cevallos (28:35): Number two, they've been nurturing an audience for 10 years. Number three, this is their 374th launch. Number four, they have a hundred million friends and all these clients' testimonials. And you have not allowed yourself to put in the work to do those things, to set yourself up for that $500,000 launch or that whatever watch. So I just think it's an unrealistic expectation. We all have that in us to compare, but it's very dangerous. I think it leads people to feel like they're doing something wrong. They're not, it's just that you're not at step 10 yet. You're still at step two. And step two is a fricking lot of work.

Danielle Cevallos (29:20): That's so true. That's why the process is so important. You can't hate the process and you can't fight the process because you won't grow. Yes, totally. And also like too, that as you're comparing yourself through somebody else's success or results, not only are you missing what they've done or truly what's happening on the backend, which is what you and I see a lot of like the actual work or for me the numbers, the spend the results, we're seeing all of those things. And you're not, you are seeing the polished front of the lodge and nobody, no lodge, not a single launch I've worked on after 25 million plus dollars. And however many incorperate dollars, none of them are pristine behind the scenes. Oh no, no. And I think that, that's what you really need to be careful of is when you're buying courses, paying for coaching, you know, doing all these things, Are you willing to do all the junk that needs to be done to get those results? Because I mean, I've worked with people. Who've had $2 million launches and they're spending 80 grand on ads. Now, 80 grand compared to 2 million is nothing, nothing, but they're spending 80 grand. And

Danielle Cevallos (30:49): Are you willing to do that? You know, are you, you know, I have one client he's launched like five times in the last five months, he's hired 16 members to help. Yeah. He's made fat, not even four months. Yeah. He's made over 500 K in loss four months, but he's brought on four different full time team members. Like he's pays for ads all the time. So there's an investment in everything. And I don't know, like that's a very normal thing. Like with, I was going to open a restaurant, like I would take out a loan or I would hire people. I would do all these things. And yet we feel like we should have these million dollar launches or $500,000 launches, or even a hundred thousand dollar launch and not have to spend any money and not have waving, but turn on a funnel. Like I don't understand that disconnect.

Danielle Cevallos (31:42): And when you really think about the big gurus, number one, they've done this for years, they built the audience of millions and, and they're spending hundreds of thousands on ads, not just for their moms. They're spending money on ads all year long. There's plenty money on full time team members to run their communities, to do all the things that make everything work. They're spending money on their tech, people on their software. They are showing up all the time. Like it just, it doesn't, you know, it's not just like they just show up and they're like, Oh, I'm going to do a launch. And I just do my webinar. And then I send out some emails. I mean, I'm a collaborator. They're paying someone a couple of grand for 10 emails. So like, even that, you know, and when you start, the point is you need to do all those things you need to.

Danielle Cevallos (32:36): And I, I am, I am opposite of what most people say here. So I may get a little controversial who would have ever guessed that. But I think if you over outsource things and you don't know enough to be dangerous, you haven't learned things like basic copywriting, basic, basic funnel, basic like whatever that is, if you don't learn those things and all you do is hire them out. You are never going to be able to grow big without a ton of pain. And over-investment in lost money because like the whole point of us starting small and growing is we can make mistakes and learn things the hard way when we don't have 10 million people in our audience and know enough to ask our copywriters, here's, here's who my audience is. Here's who I want to speak to please do your magic. Right? Like we need to know enough to be dangerous.

Danielle Cevallos (33:42): I mean, I wholeheartedly agree. I think you should be able to do all that. I mean, I can do, I can use all the software in my com like everything my companies is now, there are people who can do it better than me, of course, but I can run a Facebook ad myself. Like, can I pay my friend? Who's a Facebook ad specialist to do it a thousand times better. Absolutely. But if I have to go in there and fix it, I can set it up. If I decide tomorrow, like I sometimes do, I don't want to run this. I can go do it. I don't need to rely on someone else to do that. But it sometimes is a good investment to rely on someone else. And so I've seen that sometimes with copywriting. It's very interesting to me. Mmm. A lot of times newbies will just say, I don't know, what do you think?

Danielle Cevallos (34:25): And I obviously always have a thought, but you know, I'm not your ideal client now. I'm not always, sometimes I am, but I'm not always your ideal client. So I don't know, like if you don't have like ideal client research, if you haven't gotten on the phone, if you haven't done so many lives, you know exactly what your people want. You shouldn't be giving me money because you don't even know if your offers, you don't even know her offers that that's cotton right. In the road. But if you have a terrible offer, it doesn't matter. So it it's interesting to me that people will say, yeah, here's $2,000 to write a sales page, but you don't have market research to know that your product is something where people want. Yeah. Well, it is very much what I just said. Like they want to hand it over cause it's hard and they don't want to do it or take the time to listen to what something you and I would do 40 hours of a professional teaching us basics of copywriting investing in that either time and the money or a coach who CA like to help us get there or what have you, because it's hard.

Danielle Cevallos (35:30): The process is hard. It's hustle and grit. Really. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, it is. And I think that I just it's, it's worth the hustle and grit because you can't learn those lessons. And other way you really can, you know, like last year, yeah. I made a lot of money, but I was sort of like killing myself, but also like, I'm so glad I did that. I hadn't total clarity. I don't remember. In the beginning of this year, it was like the end of January. I went on a retreat with my coaching group and I had, I knew, like I knew what I needed to do. And I knew what I wanted to do. And the coach said, you know, can you tell me this, this and this? And I said something. And she said, exactly what, like I kind of knew already. And it was like this moment of like, yes, a hundred percent and everyone in the room is like, yeah, duh.

Danielle Cevallos (36:20): And I would have never gotten there. She had told me that like six months earlier, I would have never done it. Like, I wouldn't have seen the need for it until that point. And honestly, we were on a call, you know, nine months before that. And she said, you'll hire someone. You'll you won't look at everything that goes out. You'll fire someone. Who's like, never, I will never do that because I haven't gone through it yet. Like I had, I hadn't struggled enough. I hadn't seen a need for it. I was like, I knew all of this. I'm totally fine. And so I had to go through the hard stuff. I had to do the hustle and I'm still, I mean, I'm still walking through a lot of that. Like, I don't have any systems. I hate systems. I got, I was on the phone with, someone's going to be like an OBM for me.

Danielle Cevallos (37:08): And she's talking about this stuff. I'm like, I don't care. Just like set it up. I don't care if you just take this out of my life. I don't care what happens on the backend. Like now if I, if it doesn't work, I can go in there. I can send my own invoices. I can send my own contracts. I can do all, you know, like, yeah. But I don't know. I it's a constant struggle and growth process. And I just think if you rush that, if you try to skip that, if you opt out of that, then you're also, you're not going to have the clarity. You're not going to be able to grow. And you'll just kind of be there, like making excuses for why things don't work. So Danielle super great conversation. I'd love to hear some advice. What advice would you give to someone who is, you can pick, I'm going to give you a choose your own adventure person here.

Danielle Cevallos (37:57): So someone who is either in the middle of doing like a 10 X scale, like they are finding themselves scaling really, really big or someone who is just starting out looking to hustle hard. I'm gonna give you both. All right. I love it. If you're in the 10 X, you know, you're just in this period of rapid growth. Number one, I would absolutely get a coach. Not only who's been who's for way further, along than you are, but who is gonna push you a little bit, like not one of these, like it's okay. Do what you want. Like tell me what you feel because you will always opt for the easiest thing for you, which often is the hardest thing for you. You just think it's easy because it's comfortable and familiar. So I would challenge you to find a coach that does push you a little bit outside of that and who is a little bit scary in terms of where they are, because it will make you think differently.

Danielle Cevallos (38:53): And then you'll realize, Oh, this was a good idea. And I would be very, very mindful of how you want to grow. What do you want next? Because what I realized at the end of last year was I'm growing and this is great and I'm making money, but I don't want to keep growing this way. And I don't want to keep working with people like this. Not that there's any, I mean, there were I've, I've worked with very nice people. They're not, there's something on them, but I didn't want to do the things I was doing for them. And I knew I could sell it and I knew I could make money doing it. And that's where you have to get to the point where you're going to say, you know what, I'm going to take a hard right turn, even though I'm unsure, even though I don't know if these people will pay me.

Danielle Cevallos (39:36): And I do know these people will pay me because that's scary. Like I know right now I could go right back to what I was doing. And I could go sell 20 grand in like two, but I don't want to do that because then I have to do all that work and I don't want to do all that work. So I want to do a different kind of work and I'm still working hard, but I want to do a different kind of work. So what I would say is really be okay with getting uncomfortable and clear about how you want to keep building. Because if you don't ever stop and ever like, look at how you're building, you're gonna find like, dang, I'm in this place. I don't really want to be anymore. And that really sucks. So that's my advice for that person, for someone new starting out, I would just say you you've got, there's just, no, don't stop looking for quick fixes, stop consuming.

Danielle Cevallos (40:27): All the things, focus on getting clients. And if it's not going to help you get clients and think, is this really that important? Your website is not that important. If nobody is looking at it, I do think you should get a website, but I don't think you can spend three grand on a website when you have your new your Instagram feed being pretty is not that important. If you don't have clients. So you have to learn sales skills and you have to learn effective marketing skills, which includes copywriting. It includes messaging and positioning. You have to learn those things like, and you can't really learn them until you do them. You can't learn how to spell until you're on the phone with somebody trying to sell something. You can't learn to sell in like your room by yourself, because you're always going to say yes to you.

Danielle Cevallos (41:15): I'm just saying you have to, and you have to be willing to look stupid. You have to be willing to have people tell you, no, you have to be willing for your like gradient Susie to say, what are you doing? That's ridiculous. Like you have to be willing to do all those things, because if you aren't willing to do that, you will not grow. There's just no way around it. So suck it up. Do some sales calls, send some messages, get uncomfortable, send some emails, do live videos might think you're weird. That's okay. Like you have to just, you have to put yourself out there. You have to connect in. And obviously you have to serve. You have to, you have to know what you're doing. I would also say, I don't know if this is advice that I should give and I should probably stop talking after this, but there's a sense of like, anyone can just do anything, right?

Danielle Cevallos (42:06): Like anyone. No, no, no, they can't. Okay. So I would say like, sometimes what you want to do is not what you're the best at right now. And I would challenge you to start making money at something you're really good at first. And then you can grow and learn and evolve as you want to. So I'm a good writer. Like I'm better at that than I am at a lot of other things. If I had tried to make a lot of money doing something else, other than writing, I would have always felt like a fraud because I kind of would have been afraid like now am I the best writer? No. Do I need to still master the craft of writing? Yes. Like there's always room for me to grow, but I do know this is like as a core skill set. It's something I can do. So I need to do it. And then I can evolve from there. Does that make sense? I don't know if that makes sense for a peg in the hole.

Melissa Anzman (42:57): No, I, you know, I think it's part of that lie or fallacy. I, if I, if I'm being nice of being an entrepreneur is you can do everything. And the fact is, I mean, yeah, I guess you can, but you're not going to gain the credibility or the clients doing something you're not already really good at. And you can grow into something else. Like, as you become better, as you earn more money and get more testimonials and experience things, you can have a whole nother set

Danielle Cevallos (43:29): Of skills, but you should always start with what, you know, always. Yes. I agree. I should never be an HR person.

Melissa Anzman (43:42): Yeah. I mean, some will say neither shy, but they're there. Those are, those are the situations amazing, such a good conversation. Danielle, where can people find you online?

Danielle Cevallos (43:55): Yeah. So my company is called firebrand communication strategies. It's a little bit of a mouthful, but I tried to get another name and it wasn't available. You can find me at firebrandcommunicationstrategies.com. I am firebrand communications on Instagram and just my name on Facebook. So I'm amazing.

Melissa Anzman (44:15): Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks for having me to join free

Melissa Anzman (44:21): Launch your second workshop, where you'll learn, why your digital products aren't selling nearly as much as you planned for and how to diversify and scale your income by launching the right way. Tax launchyourself. All one word to: 44222.