Episode 139 – Kyle Grappone

Automated Transcription

Kyle Grappone 0:00
When you’re pitching a product, like you have to go straight to the bat, but you have to respect the fact that your buyer net doesn’t have money to throw around. You know, this is not a situation where you can go to a huge billion dollar company and they have millions of dollars of budget dollars, and you could just grab something without really have to try. You know, a lot of times, especially with services like mine, you are dealing with people who have a limited amount of budget. And writing is tricky, because some people see the value in it, but some people don’t. Because writing at its core is something you can do. Like all the type of writing that I do, if you want to get technical, the business owner could do it. That’s where I have to come in and point out that mine is going to be of a higher quality. I know the best practices and more importantly, I’m taking this stuff off your plate. Because if you’re writing your own website, you’re not setting your sales targets. You’re writing your own social media copy, you’re not focused on the big picture. So it’s really about kind of that delegation helping some of these entrepreneurs understand where their focus should be.

Richard Matthews 1:03
Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

Welcome back to the hero show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have the pleasure of having back on the show. Mr. Kyle Grappone
. Kyle, are you there?

Kyle Grappone 2:06
Yes, I’m here.

Richard Matthews 2:08
Awesome. So since we last had you on the show, you’ve had some changes in your business, why don’t you start off telling us a little bit about what has changed and who you’re serving now?

Kyle Grappone 2:16
Sure. So before last time I came on the show, I was talking to high school and college students. And now I’m working with more older individuals, people in their 20s 30s, even 40s and 50s, who want to gain clarity in their life. So they want to understand where they’re supposed to go next in life, what they’re supposed to be doing, just kind of cutting through the noise. And the three things we focus on is helping people who want to make a significant career change, want to start a side hustle or want to actually launch your business and transition out of their nine to five.

Richard Matthews 2:47
Awesome. So what brought about this, this change for you? Why did you sort of make the market shift from working with high school college students and what you were doing with them to moving into the, the market you’re serving now.

Kyle Grappone 2:58
So I think it was kind of a perfect storm of a number of things that happened towards the end of 2019 or early 2020. So I think the first thing that happened was, I was getting a lot of positive feedback from older individuals, the people that I just described to you about how even though my content wasn’t for them, they were still enjoying that content. So that kind of always got my wheels turning because the people that I serve now are a little older, so they have kind of more funds available to purchase products and services, which is an important part of the business aspect. As opposed to marketing to students where you have to market to the student and the parent simultaneously would be challenging. Um, so that was kind of one part of it. I think a second part of it was, I had started a side hustle kind of separate from what I was doing, where I was leveraging my branding and marketing and writing skills. So I was creating content for companies and I was doing you know, not only was I writing copy for their ads, their website, blog posts, we’re kind of putting a real strategy behind it, helping them develop a brand voice. So that was kind of two things that was going on. The third thing was I met I’ve partnered up with or met a few people who were kind of pushing me in a different direction, we’re kind of kind of making me rethink who I should be serving. And then once COVID hit, a lot of educational stuff got put on pause. So I kind of came to the realization that I can take my branding side hustle, and kind of work in it as a pillar of my business. And now brings us to today where I work with people who want to either start their own business or build their own personal brand. And I can help you if you have no idea what that is if you have some idea what that is, or if you’ve already started a business, but now you need to get clear about your messaging your audience who you’re supposed to be targeting, that’s something that I can kind of help you with, as well. So that’s what brought us to, you know, today and kind of the current iteration of to the next step.

Richard Matthews 4:51
So just sort of with that, since you sort of you mentioned the pandemic, everyone’s dealing with this and you know, the changes that are happening having to refocus their businesses. Or change, you know, change up what they’re doing? How is that sort of? How, how has that change been for your business? And then like, what are some of your recommendations for businesses that are struggling with the same thing? Obviously, you you restructured your business a little bit changed, your audience changed a little bit of your offers up. So you’ve had experience doing that for other businesses that are having to do the same thing was sort of your, your, you know, hindsight is 2020? How would you, you know, did it go? Well, for you, would you change anything,

Kyle Grappone 5:25
I would say it went well, for me, but also, you know, I, I was a little bit ahead of the curve, because um, my, it’s not like my business was, quote, unquote, booming before COVID, a lot of what I was trying to do with schools was inconsistent, but we would have done every once in while we’d have not good months. So for me to make a shift was a lot easier, because it was like, okay, like, I’m not gonna wait to see if school assemblies come back, because I wasn’t getting a lot of them in the first place, we’re getting some, but not enough to really build my business on. And for me, as a writer, you know, I think business kind of improved a little bit, because a lot of people were realizing, okay, I’m selling things through the internet, now, people are going on my website more often, like, I need to make sure that it’s coherent, because the same, it’s the same story with entrepreneurs, and I don’t blame them, because this is how it works. But you, you start you, you launch a website, and you write your own copy. And then you go a few weeks or a few months or a few years, and you realize that yeah copy is not up to snuff, it’s not high quality, it’s not selling anything. Um, you know, I look at a lot of websites, and I see that it was written by a non writer, which I get, because we’re not all writers, we all have our own different skills. So for me, you know, I was able to really kind of leverage a lot of these entrepreneurs who either were seeing increased traffic because there was no more foot traffic, or people who decided to take this time, either they because they were laid off, or because they no longer had to commute, whatever it was to finally start that side hustle to finally start that business to finally, take that website that’s been sitting dormant and do something with it. So for me, I’ve been very lucky, I’ve been able to do a number of different things. You know, as for other businesses that are similar to mine, my advice is always the same. When you’re pitching a product, like you have to go straight to the value, but you have to respect the fact that your buyer net doesn’t have money to throw around. You know, this is not a situation where you can go to a huge billion dollar company, and they have millions of dollars of budget dollars, and you could just grab something without really having to try. You know, a lot of times, especially with services like mine, you are dealing with people who have a limited amount of budget. And writing is tricky, because some people see the value in it, but some people don’t. Because writing at its core is something you can do. Like all the type of writing that I do, if you want to get technical, the business owner could do it. And that’s where I have to come in and point out that mine is going to be of a higher quality. I know the best practices, and more importantly, I’m taking the stuff off of your plate. Because if you’re writing your own website, you’re not setting your sales targets, you’re writing your own social media copy, you’re not focused on the big picture. So it’s really about kind of that delegation and kind of helping some of these entrepreneurs understand where their focus should be.

Richard Matthews 8:15
Absolutely. So with sort of all of that in mind, I know you’ve had a couple of things you want to chat about for this audience of entrepreneurs or people who are having a career change. And you mentioned you wanted to talk a little bit about like some of the unseen obstacles that people are going to run into, why don’t you start off? Tell us a little bit about that?

Kyle Grappone 8:34
Sure. So really, to me, the reason a lot of people fail, and making a change is because it’s for a few reasons, is because they don’t really see the full picture. I think a lot of people kind of think about what that change is going to look like for example, I think this is a big problem with people who try to lose weight, myself included sometimes is I think people think to themselves, when they say I’m going to lose weight, they think about the end result, they think about what they want to look like, at the end of this journey. So they think about themselves, running five miles, looking skinny, feeling good. You know, they there’s a there’s a myth out there, that running is effortless. It may look effortless, but it never is effortless. But nevertheless you see people and you think, oh, that’s, you know, that kind of running. It’s effortless, and I look good, and I feel good and everything’s great and I’m eating healthy. And what they don’t really realize is all the steps it takes to get there. Because if you are if you haven’t gone to the gym in two years, you’re going to run a couple 100 feet and get winded. And then the next day you’re going to be super sore because your body is not used to it. And when you if you’re eating going from junk eating junk, to eating healthy food, your body needs time to react. And it’s been proven that if you cut off the junk cold turkey, you get headaches, you get nauseous, your vision can get blurry, and those are all things that people are not necessarily prepared for. So how that translates to becoming an entrepreneur or making any kind of change is that When you say, Okay, I want to change careers, or I want to start a side hustle, you think about the end result, you think about yourself feeling happy, feeling good being in that new career being in your business. But you don’t understand that before you can get to any of that there are obstacles you have to get over. And the first obstacle you have to get over is your mindset. Because if you’ve been working in a job, for the last 10, 20, 30 years, you have a certain mindset, I call it a consequences mindset. Because as a child, we face consequences. That’s why we do things we do some things we don’t get in trouble. In school, we do things. So we don’t fail our tests and work, we do things so we don’t get fired. And that’s a mindset that gets ingrained in us. So now all of a sudden, I’m asking you to do something where there’s no real consequence. Because if you don’t start that side, hustle, the world doesn’t end, you don’t get fired from your job, you don’t get in trouble. Now, the consequences is that you don’t follow your dreams, you’re not as happy as and fulfilled as you could be. But that’s different. like that’s something you could technically live with. And I think a lot of people

Richard Matthews 11:00
a non-tangible consequence.

Kyle Grappone 11:02
Exactly. So I think it’s a mindset thing to understand that, you know, you are going to have to motivate yourself, you’re going to have to realize its long term. But you also have to realize that your brain and your brain is there to keep you safe. It’s not there to make you happy. So your brain is always going to push you back towards safety, push you back towards routine, that’s why people struggle to go to the gym after work. Because the brain is going to look at that and say you’re already tired, I don’t want you to do something that’s going to make you more tired, I’d rather you go home and lay on the couch because that is simple, that will keep you safe. That’s the routine. That’s what we’re used to. So you know, it’s a big thing about what you’re used to, you’re used to going home every night, you know, having a couple beers and watching Netflix. Now all of a sudden you’re plopping down in front of the computer for another three hours doing more work that you’re not getting paid for upfront, that’s challenging. And that’s something that you have to adjust to, because your brain is going to tell you, you know, you’re too tired, and you’re gonna have to push through, then you’re going to kind of have to retransform yourself a little bit. Another obstacle that falls in line with consequences, but also falls in line with mindset is fear. It’s a fear of what other people are going to think it’s the fear of ridicule. I mean, I think we all feel fear failure, before we can even talk about failure, we need to get to the fact that some people don’t even try, because they don’t know, they don’t they don’t know what people gonna say, I’m gonna start my own business, people are going to tell me, you know, you shouldn’t do that? or What gives you the right to do that? or How are you an expert, or my personal favorite, somebody else’s already doing that? I love that one. Because there’s so many, there’s so many market leaders out there that we’re not the first company in their field. I mean, I think Google was like the 23rd search engine that came onto the market. And now, we don’t even say the word search engine anymore, we say the word Google. So to me, you have to understand that there’s people that are going to tell you that you shouldn’t do it. And if there’s people that are going to kind of push against you, but you have to have that type of mindset. And you have to understand that you really shouldn’t care what other people think, because it’s not their lives, nobody’s coming to save you from your life. You know, their opinions in this matter don’t really matter. And you’re gonna have to figure out a way to get over that. And for some of us, it’s tough. Some of us are super people, people pleasers. And that’s what we want to do. So for me, whenever I start with a new coaching client, we spend the entire first session talking about mindset, we talked about sacrifice, sacrifice is another big thing. Because again, people don’t think about, okay, if you’re going to start your own business, what are you going to do it, if you have a family, if you have a full time job, when are you going to do it, this means you have to give up something, it means that you might not be going out and doing the normal things. If you go out every Wednesday night and do something, you might not be able to do that anymore. And that’s a sacrifice. And for some people, they can’t sacrifice that short term pleasure for that long term satisfaction. So these are all things that people need to understand. Because if you think that you can just wake up one day and start a side hustle, you’re going to be in further awake, because you’re going to be tired, you’re going to be unfocused, you’re going to be afraid. And that’s why a lot of people I think, kind of stay in their kind of comfort zone. Because as soon as they get out of it, as soon as they try to make some sort of change, they’re hit with all these obstacles they weren’t prepared for. Like, it’s one thing to say. Like, it’s one thing if you want to start a business, right, and you’re like, I don’t know anything about websites, and then you try to build a website, and it’s a pain in the ass. Like, it’s kind of okay, because you knew it was going to be a pain in the ass. Like you knew that this was going to take some time. But if you’re all excited about something, and then all of a sudden, you know, your mind is not in the right place and your mind is is your enemy. In a sense. That’s something that a lot of people just kind of go back and say, Oh, I guess this isn’t for me. So I think that that’s something that I have.

Richard Matthews 14:43
Yeah, I run into that a lot in because you know, my wife and I travel full time. And so we meet people all over the country. And one of the things that people say to me all the time, is Oh man, I wish we could do that. And and I used to think that you know You know, of course, you can just go out and do it right if you wanted to. And the reality is, is most people, they’re, they’re lying to themselves, they don’t really want to do that they don’t wish they could do that. They just liked the idea of you doing it, right. It’s It tickles their tickles their mind. But they like their routines, they like their lives, otherwise, they would do something, change it. Right. And it’s it’s a, it’s an interesting thing. You see the same thing with entrepreneurship, where people are like, Oh, man, I wish I could have the results you have. Right? Yeah. But they’re not willing to do the work to get those results, right. The actual, like effort that goes into it is significantly more than most people are aware of. And there’s more risk, and there’s more problems. And there’s more like, you know, everything from if you’re traveling, cleaning out toilets that explode to when you’re working at, you know, as an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, it’s things that don’t go your way. And months that are terrible, and, you know, problems that just are really, really difficult to solve. It keep you up at night, and those kind of things. And, like, sure, the results are nice, but the work that goes into getting those results is something that not a lot of people are, are truly willing to wrap their arms around.

Kyle Grappone 16:04
I absolutely agree. And I think that that’s the biggest thing is like people don’t understand the work that goes into it. You know, I used to say that, I would I would get a lot of comments from people who would say things about, you know, the success I’ve had and the things that I’m doing. And I’m like, Yeah, but you don’t see, like, what goes into that, like, you don’t see the late nights, you don’t see the Saturday mornings, you know, like, I wake up every Saturday morning at six o’clock. And I’m working by 7am Saturday morning. And I know a lot of my friends, you know, sleeping till 10, 11 o’clock, and that’s fine, because they have their careers and they have their paths. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But people don’t necessarily understand kind of what goes into it. And I think it’s exactly like your point. You know, people think that they want to be an entrepreneur, but really, they just want, you know, the money, or they want to be their own boss. You know, I think that’s another thing that is a myth that I try to get people out of is that when you start a business, you don’t have a boss anymore. Um, you know, I can make an argument that I have more bosses than ever, because I have clients that I have to report to you. And yes, it’s not the same thing. And it’s not nearly as grueling, and it’s much more satisfying. But, you know, I mean, I’ve had people since I left my corporate job and did this full time, you know, they asked me questions, and they’re like, well, could you just, you know, wake up one day and decide I’m not going to work today. And I’m like, Well, I mean, I guess I yeah, I probably could do that every once in a while I was like, but there’s gonna be ramifications. Also, because each day has its tasks. I was like, and they’re gonna have to get done at some point. And I can’t delegate those to anybody. So like, I do have flexibility. Like last week, I was able to rearrange my schedule, and I was able to go on a trip for an extra day, like, you know, there is that freedom sometimes, but it’s not as glamorous as people think. And I think it takes a certain type of person and a certain type of mindset, to actually start your own business, it’s one thing to come up with the idea. It’s one thing to say I could do that idea, but can you do everything else that’s associated with it?

Richard Matthews 18:02
Yeah, and the the freedom is an interesting thing, right? Because it’s a double edged sword. Sure, you can take the day out. And I have on numerous occasions and but you also have to be prepared for that, do you have the ability to delegate in place, you still going to be able to hit your deadlines for stuff that you’re working on. And, you know, I spend a lot of time in my business working on, you know, helping with employees and getting systems in place. So that I can I can take the amount of time that I can take off without things blowing up and increase it, right. But it’s, it doesn’t start off with like, you started your own business, and you can take a week off anytime you want, right? Like it takes a lot of effort to build a business to the point where you can take a week off and your business doesn’t explode.

Kyle Grappone 18:42
Exactly. It takes time. You know, even if you want to do a side hustle, you know that side, hustle is still going to take time, away from the other things that you want to do. So it’s really about I think, being fully prepared for about what you’re about to get into.

Richard Matthews 18:58
Absolutely. So with those sort of mindsets and obstacles in place, what are some of your recommendations for people who hear all of that? And they go, yep, I still want to do this, I still want to move forward.

Kyle Grappone 19:09
My first recommendation is, honestly, you know, to identify what kind of mindset change you need to make, you know, like, you need to be honest with yourself, like, do you have a problem seeking the approval of others? If you don’t, that’s great. You can move past it. You know, I mean, do you have the type of mindset like are you willing to go, you know, weeks and months worth of work, working on something without getting paid? If that’s, if that’s bothersome to you, that’s something you need to think about, you need to understand, you know, the other things you may want to think about is where are you going to perform this work? Is there a local library you have to go to? Is there a room in your office? You know, is there a room in your house, maybe a spare room that you’ve kind of set up a makeshift office, you know, what are the hours you’re going to work on this are you going to work up to one hour, an hour Are you going to work three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Are you going to work all day Saturday? You know, the other thing I would say is who buy in? Do you have to get, you know, if you have a wife or a husband or a significant other, it’s important to get their buy in on a certain level, because you might be spending some funds on this business. If you want to change careers, that may require a dip in pay for the first year, you know, can you afford that? Can you do that? You know, do you know taking it back a step? Does your significant other even understand why you’re doing this? You know, are you doing this because you’re unhappy, but you’ve never told her that you’re unhappy. Some of my clients put on a face. And they don’t really tell their significant others what’s going on. And then all of a sudden, they find out they’re in coaching. And they’re like, what are you in coaching for? Well, I want to do this, I didn’t know you wanted to do that. So I think spousal buy in partner buy in is very important. But I will say the caveat with that is that they may not necessarily understand what you are doing right away, they might not necessarily understand that you’re going while you’re doing this. And even if they do, they might not fully understand your idea yet, because you might not fully understand your idea yet, your idea is going to change and it’s going to shift and to morph into different things. So that’s kind of the beginning advice I would give before you start thinking about the business aspect. Yeah, absolutely.

Richard Matthews 20:45
So with the whole with that, with all of that sort of in mind. And people wanting to get started with their business, do you have any, like recommendations for how to do some of the first steps like gut check things? Like, is there a market? Like is there? You know, can you actually sell in this in this space? Or, you know, some of the competition checks? Like, what are some like your first steps for someone who’s thinking maybe I want to make that change from being corporate to entrepreneur? And maybe I should, you know, instead of just throwing it all out the window and quitting my job and starting this thing? What are some of the first steps they should take?

Kyle Grappone 21:52
Sure. So I think my first the first step is to not quit your job. Because I just think that what happens there is that if you quit your job, the amount of pressure for you to be successful right away. And it kind of doesn’t let you play around. It doesn’t let you experiment. Because if you have a full time job, and you need and you know, you want to start a business, you can start with a side hustle. And you really can start with one product. And if that product doesn’t sell, it’s not a big deal, because you really weren’t counting on that money anyway. And I think that’s the important thing. And also, the important thing is that if you have a full time job, and your product does sell, you can take that money and reinvest it and launch another product. So I think that’s the most important thing is to realize that it’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint, you should be starting to start small. And honestly, before we even get into the competitors out there in the market, the most important thing is to clarify your idea. You know, I have a course that I sell, that goes into great detail about this. And we talk about figuring out what is your idea? Because at the end of the day, it’s really about what kind of skill do you have that can be packaged into some sort of service that you can sell? So that’s kind of one type of side hustle, right? Another type of side hustle is maybe some sort of product that you want to create, you know, are you capable? what is that product? What is that thing that you want to create? Who are those people that you want to sell to? And that’s really just about getting it off the ground, you know, before anything else, and I don’t really worry too much about, you know, competitor analysis or anything like that. Because if you have something and you have, and you can confirm that people want to buy it, you know, like, for example, if you see that there are businesses that are severely lacking in their graphic design, and you want to create something that let to make let them create their own images, then it doesn’t matter who else is doing that? It matters that how are you going to do it? How are you going to be a little different, why somebody’s going to buy yours. So maybe your price point is a little lower, or you can look at those competitors, and say, okay, you know, these competitors, they give a lot of these type of images, but they don’t really instruct people how to do it. Or they they show you how to create graphic design, like Canva is great for creating graphic design, it doesn’t really tell a new entrepreneur or new business owner, how to use that information, like how to use that those images, how to use those in different campaigns and stuff. There’s no marketing strategy behind it. So maybe that’s what you do. But it’s really about figuring out, you know, the time you’re going to do it and then figuring out what is that first product, you may want to sell a bunch of things. But what is that first product?

Richard Matthews 24:26
Absolutely. So with like picking out your first product or or developing your first service? How do you go about getting your first client or getting your first sale? And actually like seeing whether or not there’s there’s a real market there?

Kyle Grappone 24:41
So I think you know, we cover this a lot in my course on the first thing is to really figure out, you know who your customer is, who is going to value who’s going about who’s going to find value in this product or service. You know, what is their buyer persona, we have a whole module on buyer personas and you can also Google buyer persona to create one for yourself as well. And it’s figuring out, you know, when you figure out who’s gonna buy it, how do they get their information? You know, where do they go to get that information? Where do they go to buy a similar product? You know, and then there’s different types of strategies depending really dependent. And this is kind of where the one on one coaching comes in. For a lot of people, they buy the course. And then they end up buying coaching package, because we talk about, you know, how can you generate that brand awareness, you know, one strategy, and again, this really depends on what you’re selling for one strategy that I told people to implement, is what I call a local to global strategy. And I’m sure it has an official name. But to make it simple, I called the local to global, because for some people, it’s about, you know, if you’re selling a physical product, selling it to people in your community, generating that buzz in the community, and then kind of building yourself outwards. Otherwise, you know, again, if you think that your product is bought by people through Facebook ads, then you can educate yourself on how to run basic Facebook ads, and what goes into that. And then once you start selling some courses, then you can reinvest or selling some products, you can then reinvest that money into hiring, marketing, you know, a marketing professional hiring a freelancer to do different types of marketing tactics based on you know, your industry. Yeah, and

Richard Matthews 26:22
one of the things that I do now that I’m a little bit more established in my business, when I’m, you know, building a new service or coming up with a new product, something like that is I actually test market to existing clients, but I noticed is different than, you know, where, where people who are just starting and starting their side hustle, but one of the things that I do, is I’ll go into existing clients be like, hey, I’ve got an idea for this service, here’s what it is, here’s what the outputs and everything are looking at, would you mind if we test it out on you? Right, and we’ll do it at cost right at what our cost is, for the first month, first two months, let’s see what your see what you think of it. And a lot of you know, your clients who actually are trust your stuff like that, basically, you’re working for free, because you’re just covering your costs for it. But it allows you to, you know, figure out all the little nuances and problems and things that you’re gonna run into, and you start going to market with it. You also find out from real people, like, Yes, I’d be willing to pay for this. Yes, I like the results, or no, I don’t, or here’s where the problems are. And I know you can sort of apply that into the space that you have get into, like networking events are the things that you can find businesses or find people who would be ideal fits for your product or service. And get some of that, like, sample customers, so to speak, and sort of get that initial market feedback.

Kyle Grappone 27:34
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I’ve done in the past is I’ve offered services, you know, for free, and again, you only do that, depending on what your cost is, right? Like coaching services, do not have a lot of, you know, costs attached to them. And essentially, you can give away a coaching session for free. But at times, I will like I ran a beta program over the summer, where I coached a couple of people at no cost. Just to understand how would this session sessions work? What’s popping up that I didn’t really realize, but more importantly, those people turn around and give me a testimonial. You know, they refer people to you. So that’s an option as well.

Richard Matthews 28:12
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So is there any other sort of topics that you want to cover for someone who’s thinking about that transition from, you know, corporate life to a job into entrepreneurship? And who’s you know, especially considering that during you know, these turbulent times that we’re sort of in for For whether or not they should take the next steps,

Kyle Grappone 30:04
I would say that the biggest piece of advice I give to people, just start is to just get going in some way. And don’t think of it as some like, massive statement. Like, if you want to start your own business, don’t think about well, don’t think about everything that goes into that business, just figure out how can I start? You know, and it could be as simple as putting up a simple website, and selling one product or selling one service. You know, what can I do today to start making a little bit of money to start moving in the right direction? And, you know, take it even even further is that don’t necessarily worry about, you know, how am I going to advertise it? How am I going to sell, we’re going to my social media channels, what is the actual product and confirm that somebody’s gonna buy? What is the actual service and confirm if somebody’s going to purchase it? I mean, I think one of the things that I find is that more and more people are not necessarily selling a physical product. A lot of people have skills that can be packaged into a service that, that other entrepreneurs, or other business owners or other companies will find successful. So you know, for some people, it’s about thinking about what have you built up in your career, because if you have a long line of being organized, of managing projects of managing up keeping the trains running on time, there’s a lot of people out there that may not be able to afford you full time, but would hire you on a freelance basis that would hire a company that would come in and take care of some of the admin stuff, some of the less desirable stuff. But that, but it’s, it’s so it’s not about necessarily, how am I going to create this business and make a quarter million dollars a year and support my family? It’s really just about, you know, starting and realizing that it doesn’t take a ton of money to start. It’s just about what is the one thing I can do today? What is the one thing I can start selling, and then let that kind of snowball.

Richard Matthews 31:55
Yeah, that’s an interesting thought, too, is a lot of people who work in a corporate position, a lot of times the work output that you have for that company, there are companies who can’t afford to hire someone in house to do that. And you could take the same work that you do for your your job, and packed it into freelance services and serve a lot of companies and get into the be your own boss sort of world, which is a it’s a it’s a good way to transition is taking your existing skills and transplanting them into your own business.

Kyle Grappone 32:20
Yeah, absolutely.

Richard Matthews 32:22
So I think, you know, the, the whole next step is a next steps is a good, a good way to sort of introduce your your products and services that you offer. So someone is in that space, and they’re looking to either get coaching or to go through your courses, what are some of the things that you offer for people who are in that space, that they might be able to take you up on

Kyle Grappone 32:43
Sure. So right now, we offer a couple different services. So we offer clarity coaching, and the best thing about our clarity coaching is, and we’ll throw a link in the show notes. So everybody can kind of take a look at this and kind of digest it a little more. But the great thing about clarity coaching is you get the first session for free. So no matter what we talk for, it’s usually about 30 to 45 minutes, but I block out an hour, if you want to take full hour that you’re right, because it’s your session, and we talk about where you are, where do you want to go? And how can we help you get there. And a lot of times, you know, we find, you know, we kind of at the very least we’ll take four or five ideas, and at least whittle it down to one or two, because a lot of people say I want to change jobs. But I don’t know what I want to do. Or I there’s so many things that I want to do. I had a client who wanted to do four different things. After about a 20 minute conversation, we realized that only one of them was actually viable. And the other ones were you know, either kind of pie in the sky or just really weren’t reasonable for where he was in his life. So our clarity coaching in our standard package is five packages, 45 minutes each. But more importantly, I have you email me every week in between our sessions, to tell me what you’re doing what you’re working on, ask questions, and then I respond back to you. So it’s that accountability piece. So if you’re somebody that wants to make a change, but feels like you don’t have anybody to hold you accountable, kind of hold your feet to the fire. That’s what I do. Like, I’m an accountability partner, just as much as I am a clarity coach. And it’s good because people will email me on Sundays and say, This is what I want to do for the week, and I’ll approve it or I’ll change it and then they can kind of move forward with confidence. They know Okay, I know I’m doing the right thing because my coach explained, this is why I should be doing these things. So you can check that out. Like I said, you get a free session, which is great. Our course right now that we’re focused on is called 30, day side hustle, and 30 day side hustles basically, it’s online on demand. The entire course takes about an hour to watch. There’s there’s worksheets as you know, homework with that. So I would say that anybody honestly could get through the entire thing in a week I say 30 days because I think it gives you time if you want to take time in between if you have a busy life, but if you’re really motivated, you can get through the entire thing in a week, you know, each, each video is roughly about 10 to 20 minutes. And then there’s a lot of worksheets and the worksheets help you get through your problems that kind of help you map things out, they help you fill out your buyer persona, figure out your audience, figure out where to find them, all that stuff. And then that course is great, because there’s deals as well, you can buy coaching packages with that course, as well. I have people who buy the course and then buy three 30 minute coaching sessions, so they can take what they learn, they can ask their questions, and we can kind of make sure they’re on the right path, you know, to launch in that side hustle. So you know, and again, the one thing I’ll say I want to close with, because we didn’t talk about too much. I also do a lot of work with people who want to change careers, even we’re not necessarily interested in being an entrepreneur, but they want to make a significant career change. And we’ve kind of go through the steps on what that means. So we have people who are coach, we coach them through that as well.

Richard Matthews 35:53
Awesome, and where is the what’s the website, people can go to check out some of these things.

Kyle Grappone 35:58
So my website is to the next step.org, you can check out everything on there, you can request more information. Like I said, there’s another link that I will share, I’ll actually I will share a link with your listeners, for them to actually download my free ebook. So we’ll give that kind of a way. today. Um, you guys can download free ebook, it’s called Cut the crap four steps to career clarity. And again, anybody who downloads that ebook gets a free coaching session. So, you know, at the end of the day. I like the title. You know, there’s no reason to me, there’s no reason to at least sign up for your free coaching session, it’s the same day, it’s the same thing as watching a Netflix episode. So, um, but regardless, the Ebook is something that’s gotten a lot of positive feedback, I’ve really enjoyed writing it, you know, helps you cut the crap, it helps you cut through the noise, because that’s the thing, we have a lot of noise in this world today that are telling us do this, don’t do that. They’re pulling us in a million different directions. And before you can really do any of the types of changes that we’ve talked about, you have to be clear about where you are, where you want to go, and how can you get there. So like I said, I mean, the website is to the next step. org, we’ll put the link in the show notes for the free ebook. You know, and after the Ebook, it’s going to be your call whether or not you want to book a coaching call, you want to book it, that’s fine. The ebooks still yours. It’s all good. I think you’re going to find value through it no matter what. Awesome. Well,

Richard Matthews 37:23
thank you so much for coming back on today, Kyle and talking about, about that sort of that really interesting transition from you know, being in the corporate world to getting into the entrepreneur space. I know, we talk a lot about entrepreneurs being heroes. And you know, I still think that the world needs more heroes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you for coming on sort of sharing that perspective. If you’re in that space, and you’re looking at maybe getting started, definitely reach out to to Kyle, we’ll make sure the links in the show notes. So you can pick up that free coaching session, and a free ebook and check that out and really do a gut check to see if you want to make that transition and become an entrepreneur and move into this space. And work with someone like Kyle who can really help you make that happen. So again, thank you for coming on, Kyle, really appreciate it. It’s good to have you back on the show.

Kyle Grappone 38:08
Well, thank you so much.