Ep #150: Majoring in the Minors

Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker: In this episode, we’re gonna dive into majoring in the minors, why some of you are doing it, and what to do to get out of it so that you can actually start winning as a fractional CMO

[00:01:08] Speaker: Welcome back, it’s Casey, and let’s talk about this idea of majoring in the minors. So I want a visual just jammed in your brain right now, okay?

[00:01:15] Here’s what it is. It’s a guy, it’s his first time at the gym. He gets a BOSU ball. Do you know what that is? It’s like a, like an inflatable ball with a board on the bottom, right? It’s like a ball over a hard plastic bottom, so it’s like a half shape, half of a ball. And he climbs on top of it holding light weights, and he’s just flailing around on there.

[00:01:33] And he’s saying, “I’m doing it for the to, to concentrate so that I can do these exercises so that I can do a mind-body connection or something,” right? Is there validity to that? I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not an exercise scientist. But I do know that spending that same amount of time squatting, bench pressing, dead lifting, or overhead pressing is probably going to get him more of what he wants.

[00:01:54] He’s majoring in the minors. He’s doing the small things that just don’t really matter. It’s like someone who’s doing wrist curls when they haven’t ever trained their back and shoulders and legs. It just doesn’t– it’s just not the thing to do. Majoring in the minors, right?

[00:02:13] It’s an idea I want you to lock into your brain. Where are you majoring in the minors? So here’s another one. A couple has people coming to visit. Maybe it’s, the in-laws or friends or something. And at the zero hour, the husband runs out and gets a ladder and decides now’s the time to clean the gutters That’s majoring in the minors.

[00:02:30] So you have clean gutters, but there’s laundry all over the living room, but there aren’t clean linens on the bed for the guests. Majoring in the minors is common. so where is majoring in the minors happening in your business today? I’ll give you one. Aspirations to write a book.

[00:02:46] Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You get all these ads. If you start thinking about, “Ooh, I wanna write a book,” and you Google it, your feed is gonna be flooded with all these people who make money on you running a you building a book, you writing a book, the, them coaching you on building a bestseller book, whatever, okay?

[00:03:03] Writing a book, is it a bad thing to do? No, I’ve written two. I think it’s a worthwhile exercise, but it’s not the thing you probably need, okay? You think “Oh, if I write a book, then I’ll be an esteemed author, and then maybe I’ll do a book signing, and think about how that’ll feel. And ooh, what kind of cake would I have for my book signing?

[00:03:19] Ooh, and then…” You’re like, you’re playing that game. That’s not the game to play. What’s the game to play? Get a client, make money. That’s the game to play. Get a client. Don’t write a book, get a client. What’s another major in the minor thing that people are doing? They’re building a website. It’s nice now.

[00:03:37] Maybe you’re gonna go vibe one out in Claude pretty quickly and get something nice. Cool. Great. Is having a website bad? No, I think in some ways you, you need a website. But really, I think you need a domain, and that domain can just redirect to your LinkedIn page. You don’t need a ding-dang website.

[00:03:53] You certainly don’t need a beautiful website. Maybe something factual. It does not have to be beautiful. People spend time building a website because they’re scared of going off on their own of being a CMO. I like that conversation. I like the conversation of, ” I’m scared, and I’m coming up with all this stuff to do to stop me from actually taking this thing that I am seeing as a risk.”

[00:04:14] We’ll get back to that in a minute. That’s a good conversation to have. All right, what’s another majoring in the minors? Making a beautiful menu of services. I, like- I see a lot of women come into the accelerator and they have this design eye that is just lovely, and you can tell with their, the backdrop of their video.

[00:04:32] It’s just well-considered. Like everything just vibes, and then they’re like, “All right before I can make a sale, I have to have this menu of services that matches my personal brand, and I have to extend my personal brand of like how I’ve always dressed or at least, since my last reinvention.

[00:04:47] And I need to apply that to the work stuff and oh, I love these other women and like this branding stuff that they do.” And like they just have to boil the ocean. They have to invent the universe before they can just make a damn sale. What’s another one? Headshots. Oh my gosh, headshots.

[00:05:02] And for headshots, maybe you gotta lose 20 pounds before you get the headshot, so you don’t get the headshot, so that delays everything, right? Like it’s all this be busy work. Let me tell you very frankly, I’ve hired some ugly people that were deadly effective and I’ve paid them very well. I’m sure you have too, right?

[00:05:18] It’s not about having headshots. Having headshots is for you. It’s like for you to feel like you’re ready. But listen, you’re ready. Go do it. Like it’s okay to be scared. So let’s talk about some of these feelings that come up, ’cause this is really what’s under it all. The first thing is that people come to me with is this idea of “I don’t think I’m capable That’s a great conversation.

[00:05:39] “I don’t think I’m capable of selling someone at a high price. I don’t think I’m capable of serving them.” Cool. Let’s talk about both of them. “I don’t think I’m capable of selling them.” Have you done it before? Have you ever sold something high ticket before? No? Okay. That is a skill gap that you have, and you can overcome that skill gap.

[00:05:55] It is very possible. Everyone who’s ever sold something high ticket had to sell their first high ticket thing before they could be someone who sold high ticket. You’re not alone here. Maybe you feel like you’re behind, you’re in your 50s, your 60s, whatever, and you’ve never done it. Who cares? Who cares?

[00:06:08] You have a ton of experience that you’re gonna bring and you’re gonna be valuable. So you’ve never sold before? Okay. Some of you have been an agency owner or worked alongside sales teams at companies, and you’ve helped package up $100,000, $500,000, million dollar packages, so you’re comfortable with that process.

[00:06:26] H- The way I see it is just it’s not hard to sell something that’s $10,000 a month. It’s just not hard. It’s a skill set that you might lack. Okay. Can you learn a skill set? I think you probably could. You’ve learned a lot of stuff recently. You’re probably spending a lot of time with AI tools learning a bunch of stuff.

[00:06:41] So just apply that learning to selling a higher ticket thing, and that’s what we do in the accelerator is like we coach people through it, and we give them a sales gym twice a month where they kind of practice in a group with other CMOs, and it’s really helpful. But just know that it’s an overcome-able skill.

[00:06:55] Then the next thing that you say is, “Okay, maybe I can sell, but I can’t service because I’m a CMO who has only done branding work,” or “I’ve only done turnarounds and I don’t really understand this part of the industry,” or something like that. You have blind spots. I have blind spots. I’m still deadly effective for the right clients.

[00:07:13] So what are my blind spots? I’m like, I’m not colorblind, but I have whatever that male color acuity issue thing is, where like reds and greens don’t really pop for me. And I just have always struggled with colors. I can’t do it well. I can tell you when something’s red or green, but you put them next to each other and I don’t really see a delineation between a ti- a line between them.

[00:07:34] Whatever. The guys listening, you’ll know what I’m talking about. A lot of men are affected by this. So I’m bad at design, like just generally bad at design. I’m okay with composition, but I’m bad at design. I can’t design. You know what I can do? I can hire designers. I can do that. I can hire someone with taste.

[00:07:50] I don’t have to have taste in everything. I can hire the person who will buttress my weakness, and I don’t hire them on my dime, I have the client hire them. So example, I work with a client and we decide we need a new brand ’cause this brand sucks, everyone doesn’t like it. We did this thing the company changed hands.

[00:08:06] We wanna change it, we wanna refresh it, we wanna be new. We want… Whatever. For whatever reason, we want a new brand. I was never gonna be the guy that was gonna doodle the brand anyways. I’m just gonna go out and I’m gonna find a couple vendors and I’m gonna get some RFPs and I’m gonna talk to the client and I’m gonna propose the ones that I like, and I’m gonna hear which ones they like, and we’re gonna come to a conclusion, and then we’re gonna sign on with someone, and we’re gonna get a package for branding, and that’s how we’re gonna get branding done.

[00:08:26] So do I know how to do branding soup to nuts? Do I know the whole process? No I really don’t. I’ve got a friend, she’s a killer designer, and she actually teaches designers, and she has these killer processes. Awesome. I love that. If I need a design, I’m gonna hire one of her folks. I’m not gonna try to be the guy that can do it all.

[00:08:43] That said, there are some th- things that I’m really good at. I like writing. I think that, to me, is like one of the last things I’m gonna hold onto is like writing. I like to write. I think it makes me feel human. It’s something I really enjoy. It’s a way that I can say what I wanna say, I like writing. You might be a terrible writer. You might be dyslexic. You might be scared of writing. I have no value judgment ag- against it. You might be like an amazing designer and a terrible writer. Great. You don’t have to be a great writer I’m sure you’ve worked with CEOs that are, like, like they can’t spell.

[00:09:18] Like they just can’t spell. They’re like, they look like idiots, but somehow they started and are running very successful companies. It’s because you quickly realize that the skill set required to be a successful CEO isn’t to have all of these minor skills mastered. It’s just to be good at a couple things and to focus diligently on those things.

[00:09:36] So when someone comes to me and says, “Casey, the reason I’m gonna build a website or do hedgehogs or whatever is ’cause I’m scared.” What are they scared of? I can’t sell the client, I can’t service the client. Fine. Those are both overcome-able things. Also, one last thing on that last one is, what kind of person are you?

[00:09:51] You talk to a client, you sign them, they pay you, and then they propose to you a problem. It’s a problem you’ve never seen before. Hell, maybe the problem’s never existed before because we’re in this new age of AI, like something new is happening. It’s a problem around Google’s new search, like this AI added to search thing, which it’s been pretty cool.

[00:10:09] I’ve actually enjoyed it. But like maybe that’s the thing, it’s like a problem to solve and you’re like, “I don’t know anything about search in the first place. What’s Google Search Console?” You don’t know how to work Google Analytics. You’re just stuck. What kind of person are you? Are you the person that turns to the client and says, “Pfft, you stumped me.

[00:10:24] Turns out you found out that I’ve been lying this whole time and I don’t know what I’m doing, and let me refund all your money and walk away with my tail tucked between my legs.” Or are you gonna say, “Ooh, okay. Give me a couple days. I’ll get you an answer by Friday.” And then you figure it out. You like figure out what you gotta do.

[00:10:40] You go on Upwork, you find somebody, you talk to your colleagues. If you’re in the CMO Accelerator, you just ask a question in a live call or you hit the boardroom on WhatsApp and you say “Here’s my thing,” and someone dives in and helps you. But like you’re the kind of person that can solve the problem, right?

[00:10:55] Like you don’t have to know the answer, but are you resourceful? If there’s a skill that I want for people on my team or people in my life, it’s resourcefulness. You know there’s someone in your life that just is gonna do it. Like they’re gonna figure it out. They’re gonna make it happen. They say, “I’m gonna do this thing.”

[00:11:10] And you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know.” Like everyone in their whole life is like, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if you can.” And like boom, every time it happens because they’re resourceful. You can be resourceful too. Just lean into the discomfort and figure it out. So again, you can sell, you can learn to sell.

[00:11:24] It’s a skill. And you can learn to service. It’s a skill. And it’s also both of them are skills that are always increasing over time. It’s not like the skill that I had to sell or the skill that I have to service is like limited and locked in at 2024 or 2022. It’s every day I feel like I’m getting better, and I think you are too, if you’re using all the new tools that are available to you and you’re just thinking and like monitoring what’s happening in the market for your industry, right?

[00:11:48] Like that kind of stuff. All right. So now let’s go one step deeper, which is I’m scared of failing. I’m scared of being a loser. What are you scared of? I’m scared of being teased. I’m scared of being seen as someone who doesn’t have their shit together. You might say “My parents were always the kind of people who would say they’d do something and never do it, and I never wanna be that person.”

[00:12:11] Maybe you have a conversation in your mind that’s “What if people find out that I’m actually a total dummy? Professionally, I can’t take the hit on this thing. This would be devastating if I launched a fractional CMO career and I failed.”

[00:12:22] Whatever brought you here into your mind, like to have that conversation with yourself makes sense, and also the way past it is through it, and the work you have to do is just… It’s funny. It’s you know the term fake it till you make it? I don’t think you should fake it till you make it. I think you should do it intently and work really hard and start acting as if you’re the person who has it together, because after a certain amount of time, if you do the right things, you’ll have your shit together.

[00:12:50] You know what I mean? It’s like I’m not asking you to pretend like you’re a successful fractional CMO. I’m asking you to do the things that a successful fractional CMO does, and before long you’ll be a successful fractional CMO. I also don’t think that you should launch and say, “I’m gonna be rich overnight,” ‘ cause it might take you a couple years to find the perfect fit clients that pay you really well, where you increased your rates to what you think the market can bear.

[00:13:11] You have some upside. That upside pays out. That might take a couple years for you. Some of you are full-time employees and just winning a client on the side that pays you three grand a month that is like a key to freedom that you’ve always longed for. That’s a big deal to have that. If you had that, like what’s next?

[00:13:26] A client at 5K? Leaving your full-time job and getting two clients at 10K? Moving that price up over the course of the next year to 15K? That stuff is really possible for a lot of folks. Don’t think that out the gate you’re gonna go from zero to hero if you’re coming in with baggage, if you’re coming in with this belief that you can’t do it, have never done it, right?

[00:13:45] It might take you a little bit of time. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthy thing to do. The thing that scares me the most is when someone comes into the accelerator and I catch them like on the third week still not sales ready, still just dragging their feet, coming up with some story about how they can’t do it because they can’t promote to their audience because they’re in a full-time job, or they don’t want to be seen as someone who’s changing their mind and they really want to be confident before they launch or whatever.

[00:14:10] Just get a damn client. Just go hand-to-hand combat and get a client. Just go figure it out. Like we’re here to help you, but don’t spend your time second-guessing. The people that do the best are those that come in with a level of conviction, and they can still be afraid. I’m not suggesting that like you don’t have to be afraid.

[00:14:29] What I’m suggesting is I got this idea from Dan Sullivan. He’s got Strategic Coach, and Dan said that there’s a difference between courage and fear. Fear is peeing your pants. Courage is advancing the battlefield with wet pants. It’s not peeing your pants. It’s not being afraid, right?

[00:14:46] It’s like It’s accepting that fear might be there and you still move forward. And what you find out is you send that message and you got a really nice person on the other side of the line, and they don’t think you’re an idiot. And whoops, you missed something in the email, and that, those things happen, and it just kinda, just glides past them, and you just keep going.

[00:15:03] And before long, you find out that all along you’ve been collecting all of this wisdom and experience and discernment and taste, and you’re able to apply that to a couple clients that really need it, and you just jump-started them. You took them from where they were to now, like, where they are, which is a light year ahead, and you did it fast.

[00:15:23] And yeah, you charged a premium for it, but, like, why wouldn’t you? You gave them the easy button to get them there. You’re gonna come in and you’re gonna identify that all these things are wrong, and you’re gonna choose the few things to focus on that actually moves the business forward. Incredibly valuable.

[00:15:38] Your discernment really matters here. So if you’re sitting on the sidelines or you’re like, you’ve committed but now you’re wafting of “Is this the thing for me? Is it not? Do I do the fractional CMO? What about being a consultant? Wait, I could do social media. You know what I could do is I could build apps for people.

[00:15:54] Ooh, I could vibe code stuff professionally. Maybe I could charge someone locally at the Chamber of Commerce $500 a month. Oh, wait, $500 a month doesn’t pay my mortgage. I’d have to get, seven clients for that.” Whatever your thing is, I’ll tell you that the fastest way to make an extra $100,000 in the next 12 months is to sell one client fractional CMO services.

[00:16:15] Some people in the accelerator are making they’re selling $15,000 a month clients. That’s $180,000 with one conversation can turn into that. We’re not talking about this being arduous, hard. Sometimes it’s a slog. It d- depends on where you are professionally, on how much work you have to do to be able to articulate how you can help people.

[00:16:34] Some people just need a little bit more time there than others. But the commitment is what matters, the commitment to move forward and not to let yourself get caught on these side quests of headshots or making a beautiful menu of services or building the website or writing a damn book that’s gonna take you nine months that you’re probably gonna sell two copies of, and one of those is gonna be to your mom.

[00:16:54] Just focus on the thing that matters. I started off this conversation talking about majoring in the minors. Major in the majors. Just focus on the things that matter. You don’t need a book to be successful. I didn’t need a book to make my first sales. I ultimately wrote a book because I wanted to, and it turned out to be a good move.

[00:17:12] But listen, I afforded that time because I had fractional CMO clients Right? Like a website, a nice website. Go to caseystanton.com. You’ll find not a very great website. I just put it together in, I think in an afternoon. Doesn’t matter. The website doesn’t matter. What matters is I talk to you, that we chat.

[00:17:29] That’s the only thing that matters. That I move forward with a prospect. That’s what you gotta be doing too. I hope this is a little sobering for you. I hope you’re realizing, okay, maybe that $29 a month software that I’ve been vibe coding that’s now costing me $40 a month in API tokens wasn’t the move, right?

[00:17:46] You’re not alone, and it’s okay. It’s okay to play. It’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to try new things. But do it with a sense of clarity that what you need to be doing is winning your next client, not goofing off doing side quests. Do the one thing that matters, and then afford the side quest. Or even better afford the team to do the side quest for you.

[00:18:05] Hire someone and just be like, “Hey, I wanna write a book. Interview me.” Get a ghostwriter. Now your book went from nine months to three months, and you’re more proud of it. It doesn’t feel like a baby that you’re literally gestating, right? It’s like it just happens faster. And if you want my help, I’ve helped, I don’t know what the number is now.

[00:18:22] It’s probably close to 500, maybe just over 500 fractional CMOs. I’ve helped build a fractional CMO practice. If you want my help, if you even wanna see if I can help you, just book in a call with my team. Go to cmox.co/call and just book in a call. And they’ll ask you some questions to see if you’ve got what it takes to be a successful fractional CMO.

[00:18:41] And then maybe we’ll get to hang out, and I’ll get to help you build your practice and show you the ways that I’ve helped other folks and give you the shortcuts and help you think through these things that are getting you stuck so that you can finally get what you’re owed, which is to make money on the knowledge that you have.

[00:18:56] And I think now’s the time, more than ever. It’s get started now, because we will see a massive layoff. We’ll continue to see massive layoffs. That just means that there’s gonna be more, quote-unquote, “competition.” And I don’t think there’s anyone that can directly compete against you if you’ve positioned correctly.

[00:19:11] But still, there’s just gonna be more noise in the market as time goes on. So it’s better to start now than it is to wait too long. So just book in your call, cmox.co/call. Hopefully, I’ll see you then. All right, bye.