Guitar Breaks: How a Business Leader Found Harmony in Work and Life | Julia Ewert | Ep 157

Jeni Clift  00:04

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of our podcast, better business better life with Jenny Clift. And today really pleased to welcome Julia Ewert. So Julia, I know through EO Entrepreneurs Organization in Perth, I’ve done a number of training sessions there through EO and met Julia a number of times, and really invited her on today because I’m fascinated with what she does, which is all around sales and negotiation. So welcome, Juliet. Great to have you here.

Julia Ewert  00:37

Thanks, Jenny. Great to be here with you today.

Jeni Clift  00:39

Great. So Julia, let, I’ll throw to you please do a better intro than my very brief one there. Tell us about you and how you got to be in your business?

Julia Ewert  00:53

Sure, Jenny. So let’s say my company is named the same as me. So that’s really easy to remember. So my company is called Giulia uit. And essentially, myself and my team, I am a sales strategist, and a professional negotiator. So we get hired by service based organizations to teach a repeatable, customizable sales process. We are pretty much one trick ponies and happy to be that way, we just do the same thing over and over again. And we customize the sales process to every organization we work with Jenny, and that becomes the revenue machine of the company.

Jeni Clift  01:25

Nice. I like it. I like the one trick pony, you know, do what you do well, and stick to that. I’ll stick to your knitting as I, as I often remind people, and try to be everything to everybody. So

Julia Ewert  01:39

I did everything to everyone. But yes, that doesn’t work out very well.

Jeni Clift  01:44

No, no, it doesn’t. Yeah, and as entrepreneurs, we often get very caught up in nice shiny objects and those sorts of things. But, but really is, you know, the key to I think successful business in particularly small team, as you have is around, you know, knowing what you do well and stick to that. So. So when we start our podcast, we always start with the same couple of questions. So share with us a personal and a professional win over the last up to a year. But up to you, over to you.

Julia Ewert  02:15

Yeah, I think the the professional win would have to be to cool things happen this year, I got a contract with LinkedIn, to produce some video content for their LinkedIn learning library. I’m the first and only Australian in the LinkedIn library of for sales and negotiations. That’s cool. And hot off the press journey. Just last week, I signed a book deal. So I had a major publisher approached me for a to write a book on my signature process. So that would definitely I can’t think I can, I don’t think I could top that. They’re probably the biggest things that come to my mind professionally. Congratulations. And then personally, I would suggest, we’ve had a great year, I have two young kids and I have a husband who’s semi retired, which has been engineered that way. We’ve had a great year where I’ve been able to work full time, and I love what I do. And he works very part time. And personally that has made a huge amount of difference for our family. It allows me to hang out with the kids, it allows me to also work because my work just brings me joy. And it allows my husband to be home most of the time. So personally, you know, our family is a bit different that way, but that works for us, and we love it.

Jeni Clift  03:40

And doesn’t that fit hole with the name of our of our podcast around better business better life, and I love that you’ve engineered that to suit your family. You know, my husband, I’ve worked together for 27 years, and we get so many comments, you know, couldn’t work with my partner. And my viewers always will I can’t imagine building a business with anybody else. And we’re doing it for our family. And for you, you know, do what works. And you know, the we’re a bit different. Fantastic. In one of our you know, often out one of our learning days is you know, be different, not be better. Now, tell me about this LinkedIn deal. How did that happen? I didn’t even know that the heddle learning library.

Julia Ewert  04:24

Oh, Jenny, you’re missing out on a whole world. So the LinkedIn, LinkedIn had just recently turned over actual number 1 billion users. So that is the actual number. And so they have a LinkedIn learning library. So they have experts that they have procured from around the globe. There’s out of their 1 billion users that their LinkedIn instructors, they have about 1100, of which I’m now one off, and these people all around the world and they they commissioned you to produce some very specific learning content for that content for their library. So it was a 14 month process from contract signing to, to, to release of the program. And it’s fascinating. So before the pandemic, they would have flown me to their studio in South Carolina to do all the filming, which would have been cool. But instead, they had sent me all the equipment remotely to, to, to record from home. And it was fascinating because in this kit that turned up, there was a truckload of equipment, there was a laptop, already configured to all the equipment, I had a production teams, I had a staging, lighting, a person who scattered location, a sound technician. And we worked together to record the course. So it’s I learned so much it was fascinating to be a part of, but it’s a it’s a it’s a great contract. It’s nice to be recognized for having content that’s valuable for other people. And you’re it’s cool to be in their, in their, I guess in their cohort of instructors.

Jeni Clift  06:02

Nice. And do they? Do they approach you? Is this something that you kind of found and went after? How did it work?

Julia Ewert  06:13

Yeah, interestingly, it’s really the irony of what I do. So part of the one trick that we do about sales process journey is we help our clients get in front of decision makers. And then we help them to pitch or explain what they do in a way that makes people sit up and pay attention. So and then it shifts you from being a nice to have to a need. So I know a guy who knows a guy who knows guy who introduced me into someone at LinkedIn, and then I just use my own process to get to the right person, and explain how I can help in a way that made them sit up and pay attention.

Jeni Clift  06:44

Nice. Practice what you preach. Yeah, yeah. And I hope you’re leveraging off that to say, you know, this is what can happen. I’m sure you are. Okay, so let’s talk. Let’s talk more about your family. Now, you’ve mentioned that you’re, you know, you’re a little bit different in the way that your, I guess, family dynamic is around the, you know, you’re the one working full time, your husband’s part time, how did that come about? Was that something that it’s sort of always been the plan, or was it just did it evolve?

Julia Ewert  07:28

So I love what I do, I’ve always loved what I’ve done. My husband is a geologist. And we’re he works. We’re in the mining sector, essentially. So he’s in the mining sector here in Western Australia, where, you know, most of the most of the state runs on mining oil and gas. And so he’s what they call a FIFO. Worker FIFO is fly in fly out. So he flies to work. And he’s been a geologist for that’s he’s been, that’s been his entire career. And in the summer months, where he’s working, it gets, it can get up to 56 degrees. And he’s out there kicking dirt, looking for iron ore, with the drilling teams. And you know what, it’s not safe. That’s the short version. And we’ve got a young family who really wants to work in 54 degree heat off it is integrated anyone. So So after a couple of summers of that I went, you know, that’s not all, it’s not great. And, and so he doesn’t love doing that, because as I said, who would love to work in that heat, and I love what I do. And my business was starting to get some good traction, Jenny, so he wanted to be home less, or he wanted to be home more, and I wanted to work more. And so when I was I need to get some traction and narrow down, you know, you touched on earlier being everything to everyone doesn’t work. The second I started to niche down and do one thing, it changed supercharged what I was doing. So we became specialists instead of generalists. It increased demand for our services, which changed a whole lot around our company allowed me to put a team on and, and to start to work smarter. So I put a plan in place with my husband and we both were on the same page. I wanted to work more, he wanted to work less we don’t have any family here and we have young kids. So we knew that one of us had to do all the lunch boxing and uniform hemming, and grocery runs and and you know, all those sorts of things and you know, be present at the school. And and so he wanted to do more of that. So I we put some plans in place financially and worked out how long would it physically take or actually take for me to get there. And I thought I could do it by the year 2025 I could semi retire him. So back then when we were planning it that was in the year 2020. I thought it would take me five years, but I didn’t I did it in 18 months. So so he has been home for the last few years and everyone got what they wanted. I got to work more, and you got to work less. And the kids love it.

Jeni Clift  10:03

Kids love it nice. And it’s I remember when, early on in our business, our youngest son, Sam was a kindergarten. So he was four. And once a term each of the parents was expected to go in and you know, help out of the kindergarten, you know, fruit, Judy, I think we used to call it. And Nick was driving Sam to kindergarten one day and said, Ah, you don’t have to make sure that I’ve put my name down this this. This term for, for fruit, Judy? And Sam’s comment was all Dad, it’s a bit embarrassing that you come to kindergarten, because no other dads do. You’re the only one. And next of all, why isn’t embarrassing isn’t because you don’t have a real job. So Sam’s impression at the age of four, because only mums came to kindergarten that, you know, Nick was able to come because he didn’t have a real job to go to everyday wear, I guess, you know, in a four year olds mind, you know, you you have a job you go to work every day. And it was interesting then to sort of try and have a conversation with a four year old about well, actually, it’s not about that I don’t have a real job. But it’s actually that we’ve created a life where we can go and do these things. And it’s, as you said, it’s unusual. But I love that you Well, firstly, that you did a date in 18 months, we thought it was five years. What the garden I’m really intrigued about is I know what you do is so specialized. You’ve got that that program, all of the training that you’ve had in sales and negotiating. What does your team look like? How do you replicate what you do? What does your team do? You know, if you’re bringing somebody into that team, What’s the timeframe for them to really sort of be able to even start to do what you do?

Julia Ewert  11:58

Yeah, so I have a small team, Jenny, I have, I’ve got to know, my team, our consultants, I don’t have any full time or permanent team members, I have an assistant and she is with me, probably about 15 hours a week. And she manages my calendar and all my emails in my inbox, which is great, because that’s out of control. So and that definitely saves me hour for hour. So prior to her, and that was scary. You know, as you would know, if you remember back in your when you got when you were early on your business, it’s scary the first time you have to pay your own money for other people. So I did say to her, when I started with her, I said I want you to make me have one regret, I want you to make you regret that I didn’t do this sooner. So that worked out pretty well. So I have an assistant who’s with me. And they’re the tasks that she managers are the head of marketing. He’s with me, I reckon up to probably two to three days a week. He’s been with me for a couple of years now. And he drives the brand strategy, our strategic partnerships. And he helps me focus on what I’m touching all the tasks, are they helping to move me towards or away from converting more of my ideal client. That has been crucial in terms of even mindset for me, and to make me become very precious with my time. So I the head of marketing and assistant, I have two facilitators who have going through the process of my journey to becoming upskilled in my signature program, and they’re probably about 60%. They are, which is great. So I’m not 100%. But that’s fine, because they still free my time up time up 60%. So that’s remarkable compared to what I was doing. And And just last week I have, I brought another person in house. And they’re going to be a CRM specialists because all our clients require CRM assistance to help them leverage their CRM to convert more opportunities. And I’ve been outsourcing that work to a range of service providers for years. And I finally find the one I found the one so I’ve been here in house. And she’ll do that for our clients as well.

Jeni Clift  14:06

So do you work with any? And I’ll ask you about your ideal client in a sec. But with CRM, as you mentioned it? Do you have a recommended one? Or are you happy to work with whoever whatever they they’re using? I

Julia Ewert  14:21

Get asked a lot Julia, what do you use? We should use the same it’s not as simple as that. So in my company, I changed CRMs four times. And there’s probably no point in me many men are mentioning which ones they were aware I am now because what I don’t what I never want people to take away. So what do you use? Doesn’t matter where I use? I just know that I use one and I’m masterful at it because this I look at my CRM more than to look at my bank balance. And as a business owner, it’s there’s a lot but a CRM is an essential part of your business so that you can accurately accurately forecast and predict the future without a CRM, you’re doing sales by accident. So Um, so yeah, absolutely. It’s an essential. Yeah.

Jeni Clift  15:02

Yes. Essential. It’s it’s a tool, but an essential tool, but it’s yet like I said, you know which one it is probably not that relevant about more about actually having one.

Julia Ewert  15:11

So we’re agnostic, essentially. And we want to remain that way. So CRM specialists around, most of them are getting kickbacks. You know, and that can be quite lucrative. And I’ve been offered that more times than I can count. And it’s really important to us that we’re agnostic. So we want to be able to put a hand on heart and recommend to somebody the best CRM for them, not based on what we’re getting kicked back, but based on what is best for that company. So yeah, so we don’t have loyalties. We have ones that we we like, better than others. But yeah, we are completely agnostic.

Jeni Clift  15:47

And I guess, you know, just thinking back through our business of, you know, that was sometimes a little bit off putting for us if we were looking at a particular thing, and they then dictated, you know, these are the tools that you have to use. We were not using them, that for me actually kind of went oh, you know, it just makes it that much harder to change if we have to change all of these other things as well. So we were, you know, we often sort of stayed in, we had an IT services business, as you know, and yeah, we were quite agnostic about, you know, the different products that we looked after that sort of thing. So it was more of an industry niche that rather than a than a tools and that sort of things. Yeah. So tell me about your, your program. So firstly, ideal client who comes to you, what are they looking for when they find track you down? And what’s what do you offer what you know? What’s that? That one thing that you want to do? Well, so

Julia Ewert  16:44

I’ll go back a step Jenny. And I’ll talk about essentially talking about how to, you know what clients come to me, if I go back, probably 18 months in my business, even two years, I would be 100% Outbound, which means everyone I converted, I had to find myself. And that would be through networking, that would be through my work on LinkedIn, I would have to look for opportunities. So I was always looking for needles in haystacks. And interestingly, I would, I used to have a coffee with anyone who had a pulse. And I think that in business, if you’re not talking to people, and you’re not meeting people, you’re not doing business. So it’s really important to ensure that you’re well networked. So that paid off in spades, because now it’s the complete opposite. I’m struggling for time, I get asked a lot for a coffee to pick to pick my brain. And I don’t have a lot of time, I have some other ways I still serve people that asked me for that. But I don’t have that luxury anymore. But I as I said, I want to be clear, I still have, I still pay that forward, because a lot of people helped me when I got started. But if I look now I’m probably around about 6040. So 60%, inbound, 40% Outbound, outbound is still really important, because inbound is risky. So I have companies that brag and boast to me all the time. Oh, we Julia, we are 100% inbound, and all our leads come to us through our website or through referrals. And I always ask them, I say great, can I ask you one of the next coming 10 coming in? And exactly how much will they be worth. So in that is unpredictable, it’s risky. So when you balance that with an outbound approach, which is what we teach, it allows you to be more predictable in your company. And as a result of being more predictable, it means that you have more sustainable revenue. So that’s probably just a side point. But but necessary to mention, because this is a topical conversation for businesses over time. So our ideal client journey, whether it’s someone who comes into us or someone that we’re approaching from an outbound perspective, we work with b2b service or solution based organizations who are by choice. We work with non traditional sales businesses. So we do not work with companies who have sales teams, or BDMS. We might have a client who has the odd VDM running around. But we work with the technicians and the professional services. So our clients are engineers, they’re at companies, they are architects, they are consultants, they are manufacturing, they are industrial mining services. Only 30% of our clients are probably based in Perth, the rest of everywhere else. And the characteristics that our clients have in common are, they are non traditional sales businesses. And it’s funny, I’m sure you’ll appreciate this. Lots of companies say to us, oh, Julia, you probably can’t help us because we don’t do sales. And I respond, I say, Oh, you don’t do revenue. And they go, Oh, well, of course we do revenue and I said the same thing. It’s the other word, you can change sales revenue, it’s the same. So our clients don’t even associate with doing sales. So this is a foreign concept for them, which is why we love working with them. And they’re doing big deals, Jenny So our clients are the bottom end of doing deals with 10s of 1000s. But really they’re doing deals with hundreds of 1000s if not millions of dollars, because then it means their buying cycle is long, and it has complexity in it. And so we with our repeatable process, shorten that and take the complexity out of it. Okay.

Jeni Clift  20:13

And when you were going through that sort of, you know, the list of those industries that you tend to usually work with, the thing that came into my mind was, these are the guys as in a generic term, male or female, who can also have that story of, I’m not good at selling. Yeah, and that would be I don’t want to do so.

Julia Ewert  20:37

Yeah, yeah, this would be common for most of our clients journey. So in the engineering example, we love working with engineers. They’re smart, they’re methodical. This information is all greenfields for them. And again, the reason why we don’t work with traditional sales teams is because sarcastically I gotta say this, because I’ve come from that industry, they’ve heard it already. And you can’t teach them anything. So. So it’s much more satisfying work and enjoyable. And you know, everyone wants to work with more enjoyable clients. So so our clients are in this example, they are doing the client delivery, but as well as they are tasked with converting new opportunities and optimizing existing accounts.

Jeni Clift  21:17

So we’ve always worked on the like, you know, we had clients for 20 years, and it was always about relationship building. So does that factor into what you’re doing as well around, you know, main building and maintaining those relationships during that sale are really

Julia Ewert  21:31

Important, and for our clients, because they’re all playing long game, which means no one meets within the first time and then converts, they all need to play the long game to some degree. And that could have been three months, three months, like any that could mean three years. Some of these partnerships that our clients are doing take long game, and they are absolutely based on relationship. And that’s because people buy from people they like, and people are more inclined to agree with people they’re like,

Jeni Clift  21:56

Okay, yeah, that’s so true, isn’t it? You know, typical Ozzie, have you know, the story about sales, and I find, you know, living here in Bali, that we were in a shop in the last couple of days, and the woman just followed us around the store, you know, do you want this? Do you want that you want something else do you want? And we walked out because I think as Australians, we just don’t like being pushed, and people being salesy. So. So let’s focus on that word, salesy. We were so different, I think in Australia to particularly the US, certainly here in Asia, it’s a very, very different culture around sales and a different, I guess, approach or mindset around sales. So how do you manage that around a somebody who says I don’t want to do sales, which is definitely what our team, you know, they run for the hills, if we said, you know, you have to sell stuff, we had determined that we’re not selling, we’re solving people’s problems, because they could do that. But how do you manage that if you’re working with a client, and you’re going to do that facilitation process? And you’ve got the deer in the headlights? Oh, my God, this person is going to tell me I have to sell and I don’t want to do that.

Julia Ewert  23:17

Yeah, the biggest shift. And you know, people ask me all the time, how much of what I do is mindset, my answer is 1% or less. But what I find is when people have the skills and techniques, they can actually run with it very successfully, a point of difference journey with this repeatable process that I will share more about shortly. But we teach the sales of, we teach the skills of sales and negotiation in a repeatable, customizable sales process. We teach these skills so that they can be done with humility. It’s a trust first approach, and it’s centered on human connection. Now, the irony there is true. Sales and humility aren’t generally words you here and besides the fact that we can do this does allow us to stand out, because what this means is when we do this, right, in terms of when we have these sales conversations the right way, they should feel humbled, they should feel that we’re serving someone else more than ourselves. And it’s a trust first approach where we make a conversation in sales less about us and more about helping someone else. And that changes everything. And again, that’s the reason why we work with non traditional sales businesses.

Jeni Clift  24:26

That it’s not the, you know, the fear and doom approach. So to share with us your process, take us through what Yeah,

Julia Ewert  24:32

Yeah, so our program is called Journey. It’s called the infinite sales system. And this is a system based on world’s best practice, because I’ve worked with some of the biggest companies in the world when I was working corporate and leading large sales teams. But the cool interesting part is it’s also based on advanced negotiation skills. I have learned and I continue to learn negotiation skills from hostage crisis and terrorist negotiators. And it is interesting Here’s what people think it would be. So the stories are fascinating. What’s really interesting, though, is that the same skills and techniques that the FBI negotiators are using when they’re talking to hostage takers and terrorists are the same skills and techniques we can use in business in corporate conversations, to convert more qualified opportunities, increase their margins, and win more negotiations. So this infinite sales system is based on those two things that world’s best practice and those advanced negotiation skills. There’s three points required based on sorry, Jr. Sorry,

Jeni Clift  25:33

No hostages required. No,

Julia Ewert  25:35

no violence, no hostages, I hear that a lot. But there’s three principles that underpin the infinite sales system. And they are qualify, convert and follow up qualify is to help our clients get in front of more of the right kinds of opportunities, not more opportunities, more of the right ones, converting is what to say and what to do, so that you can have competitive advantage, so that you can start to win the business from the first conversation. It’s how to have the margin or the price conversation, and win at full margin without discounting. And the third principle is based on his follow up, we notice a lot that especially in professional services, you may come across it yourself, Jenny, that when the research tells us that 90% of new business opportunities are converted at the point after you’ve sent someone, your proposal. And what tends to happen is when we’re talking with professionals, they tend to send a proposal and do some of this. This is a very risky strategy. Hope does not make us any money, it’s nice to have, it doesn’t make us any money. And so there is a whole methodology around follow up where you can do that in a really genuine way that’s valuating, that, again, really builds on that trust, and that you know, someone doesn’t become annoying. So those are the three principles that we teach. And it’s an end to end repeatable system customized to every client that we work with.

Jeni Clift  27:03

And it’s interesting that step three, and I think, certainly, I’ve been guilty of this in the past of failing to follow up. And I’ll I’m sure it’s a bit of, you know, fear of rejection, and those sorts of things that, you know, you do all of that work, and then you just never go back and actually ask for the deal. And, and, you know, whatever, for whatever reason, but like I said, certainly you’ve been guilty of that myself. Sure, I definitely don’t think I’m special in that regard. So tell me what, I was just running a couple notes as you were talking AI? And I know, we do. I see some of the posts that you put up on LinkedIn, and around, you know, how AI is changing, you know, some of the a lot in what we do every day. But where do you see specifically around LinkedIn? Where do you see AI taking us from a, you know, generating of leads getting, you know, to the right sort of people? How are we going to be using that? Do you think at this point in time with you know, changing every hour as it is? Yeah.

Julia Ewert  28:14

So my my hot tip on this question, which I get asked a lot, Jenny is proceed with caution. So AI is a fabulous productivity tool with lots of different plugins and platforms around it can help us I did a hilarious post just the other day about last year. In this year, my head of marketing said we had to do professional headshots and get that done. And I thought I don’t have time to spend half a day getting headshots done. And I couldn’t think of anything worse Jenny than standing there and posing while someone takes my photo. So I said to him, surely there’s a way I can shortcut this process surely. So I went and paid 26 bucks. I posted some results on LinkedIn. Needless to say, I then went and got a professional photographer. So yes, it can be a bit of fun. Yes, it can also, you know, I’m sure that you know that AI is changing all the time. So even from six months ago, when I did that, I’m sure it’s even better today. But there definitely are productivity gains, when you link it back to the sales experience. What it will never do, what I genuinely believe we’ll never do is replace the hearts and the handshakes, the hearts of the handshakes. In this kind of world, the heart is that emotional connection we have to somebody and people buy from people they like and then the handshakes is that trust. So if we’re not trusting with somebody, and especially to our clients who are doing big deals, I don’t know Do you want to do Do you want to hand over six or seven or eight figures to accompany you’ve never interacted with another human before? I certainly wouldn’t. I think that would be high risk. We all want to know who was the person behind the delivery or who was the person behind the company or who’s the team during delivery. So whilst AI does have some opportunity for productivity gains, and as you’ve shared you know, it can be great for leisure integration. It can even be great use for proposal building, but it will not replace the opportunity. It will not replace humans that are required to interact with a sales process to convert opportunities.

Jeni Clift  30:14

Yep, yeah, completely agree at some. We had a session actually here in Bali a few few months back with EO and one of the things that I loved is the comment around, you know, AI will, you know, have more and more of the answers, but we need to be asking great questions. So one of my pet hates, and I get this, I’m pretty sure every day is just these random people sending me a LinkedIn connection request. Never heard of them don’t know who they are, don’t know what they do. There might be some commonality of, you know, of connections, other other people, does it actually work? Because I just look at it and say, you can’t even bothered to message not that that actually has much more effect, usually, because I can tell it’s just a randomly generated thing. But does it actually work? Do people can accept those connection requests? Yeah,

Julia Ewert  31:13

So this is really interesting. I get asked about this a lot. And, you know, LinkedIn, as I said, is is a is a marketplace of a billion users. So you know, it’s the rules are slightly different, right? So you mentioned went to a networking event, Jenny, where you and I are in the room with 50 other people who we like, and, you know, maybe we come together through through a Yo, when there’s people in the room that we like and we already trust, the rules are different. I would not go up to you at a networking event, hand you my business card, not say a word and walk away. Who does it right. So in real life, it’s weird. So yes, but people the rules are different on LinkedIn with another right, but they’re different. And people are looking for needles in haystacks. So when when, you know, people approached me with the same sort of, you know, invitation, Jenny, whether there’s a message in there, mostly there’s not. Again, I’m you know, I’m a true salesperson. So I want to find out and I want to strike up a chat. So I just have an automatic message that I send back to everyone who invites me to connect, to copy and paste, it’s really quick and easy. And it’s along the lines of Hey, Jenny, thanks for your invitation to connect, happy to. Can I ask was this something in mind that you had for connecting with me? Hope you having a great day. So I’m also looking for leaders and haystacks. And that message has I can guarantee you I can sort of I can tell you, I can tell you that’s maybe hundreds of 1000s of doors. Because some people just connect some people forget to hit the Message button. And some people don’t know what to say. And I’m just inviting them to step in for for some chitchat. And that that alone has absolutely landed us and some great clients with some great clients.

Jeni Clift  32:50

Maybe I’ll change my approach to from No, to yes.

Julia Ewert  32:58

But it’s a numbers game too. Right. So and it depends, you know, I you know, I’m open for business. I do like the exchange I have I absolutely have met some what I would call lifelong friends through LinkedIn. So I’m certainly up to see where a connection could lead. Not cool. And I reckon, you know, if I was just to take a guess I’m gonna say probably 30% of people reply back to that message. And 70% don’t reply. So that’s fine. But 30% are happy to step in for some chit chat. Great,

Jeni Clift  33:31

Nice. And yeah, you can say, I guess, I can usually spot the ones that are the probably a sort of rolling out the, you know, anybody who with a pulse, you know, send them a connection. So, now, who are your clients? So what sort of you talked before about your the industries that you work for? Oh, sorry, work with? What type of business are they? Are they you know, you told me, you know, sort of big, you know, enterprise corporates do you work with smaller businesses,

Julia Ewert  34:07

we tend to work with, we steer away, we, I mean, we’ve got, we’ve always, there’s always got, we’ve got some bigger and some smaller, but we tend to steer away from top tier, so we were probably a second tier, third tier, fourth tier. In terms of turnover, our clients are probably at the bottom end turnover about 30 mil up to about probably 500 mil. And the reason why we play in that space is what I have found is that those businesses generally still run by the people who own them. So it feels different than working in big end corporate, which is where I’ve come from professionally. That was my big my, that was my, you know, two decades of corporate experience working big and corporate. So working second, third, fourth here, and I said I’ve got some top tier and I’ve got some low, smaller ones as well. The process is still the same. They all have the same troubles and challenges, but we tend to stay in that second third, fourth tier.

Jeni Clift  34:59

Okay, Hey, your book. Tell me about your book. You said you’ve, you’ve just signed a deal.

Julia Ewert  35:06

Yeah, so that’s cool, isn’t it? It’s there’s a funny story behind it. Because when the approach came in, to begin with, it sounded it breathed a bit of like Nigerian prince, promising me worlds of greatness and you know, treasures to behold. So I replied back to the contact and my words word. Rob, this was this sounds great. It does sound a bit I did say scammy. Scam scam? Who is my email address? Could you please find some way to show me this is legitimate. And I was 5050. I didn’t sleep for a couple of nights. And I was thinking, Oh, my God, they should if it’s true, wouldn’t this be great? But also I was thinking it did sound very scams very scammy. But no, it was legitimate. So I was a I’ve been in contact with the publisher for a couple of months. We had some forward and back on a few meetings on different things I signed the contract on Friday just go on to when they couple of days ago. And it’s funny, because I asked them in one of the meetings recently, Jenny, I said, I’m curious, there are loads of sales books around and this is this is a major publisher, this is the major publisher of business books. And and I said there are loads of sales books around like, why this one? And I was curious what it wasn’t really an imposter syndrome thing. I was curious, like, there are so many around already. And they said to me, there are so many around already. But they are not based on an end to end system that’s done with the principles of humility, trust, first approach and proach and people connection. So, and it was funny, because for years, I have been saying to my clients, our system is unique. But hearing that play back to me, I was like, Wow, maybe assistant really is unique. It was it was like an out of body experience. Oh, maybe I am on a good thing here. That was quite funny. Second funny thing that came out of it is when we were in conversations in the last month, they said look, if this proceeds to contract stage, your first your your final manuscript is due on January the eighth. And I started laughing and I said What’s so funny? I said, Oh, I thought you actually just said January the eighth? And she said, I did ask you but not this one, right? Not this one coming, like in a few weeks from now. Yeah, that one?

Jeni Clift  37:36

Holy cow. So you got to do it in a few weeks. Yeah,

Julia Ewert  37:39

I’m about 80% done, though. Maybe even 90%? Like I’m ripping through it. But you know, like, you know, give a basic up, give a busy person, a job type thing like that.

Jeni Clift  37:50

And if they gave you till the January 8 2025, you’d still be starting at this time next year. Yeah,

Julia Ewert  37:58

Probably. So that’s been an interesting experience. And so I did have a panic. In the beginning, I said to my assistant, anything gets in my calendar, but it’s not urgent now. Can you just move that to next year and replace it with replace that with writing time? So So that’s been helpful?

Jeni Clift  38:17

Okay, let’s wrap congratulations on that. That’s awesome. Looking forward to seeing that when it comes out. So what’s the lead time when you’ve you’ve managed the final draft in eighth of January, which is only a few weeks away? What’s the lead time from there? What’s the publishing time?

Julia Ewert  38:33

Yeah, it’s fascinating. I’m learning a lot. It’s January manuscripts do for a July release. Otherwise, it would have been a July manuscript for December release now on revenue, launching that in Australia in December would be the worst time of the year. So as a result, it’s now the best time of the year because it’s the new financial year, and a great time to talk about reviewing revenue and revenue strategies for the year ahead. So when we’re looking at is why I don’t want to miss that deadline.

Jeni Clift  39:02

Nice. Okay, let’s wrap up with three tips. So we always start with the professional and personal winner, we always end with the three tips. So what are the three things you’d like to share with anybody who’s listening?

Julia Ewert  39:19

Yeah, I think the first part is, especially when you’re running your own business journey, it’s really important to have people around you who see what you don’t see and who can hold the mirror up. So I have mentors around me, formally engaged and informal mentors. And I think that’s really important because they are prepared to challenge me on my thinking. When you work corporate and when you’re an employee, welcome or not, you get feedback. And when you work for yourself, you don’t get that as much and it’s hard to see and it’s hard to see how you’re going. So get get a get a bunch of people around you have more than one Go and have people who are prepared to tell you the truth that we want it. And other business tip would be get a sales process in your business, most businesses are doing sales by accident, don’t be doing sales by accident, that doesn’t help get a sales process. If it’s not buying, get someone else’s, but get a sales process. And the third probably tip I would give is, and this is, you know, this probably came to me two years ago, I’ve got a young family and getting a business going and getting that traction can be tricky. I didn’t have hobbies for a long time, especially when the kids were young. So I’ve now got hobbies again, and that is important. I love what I do. I love what I do so much, I would work for free. I like that I don’t work for free, but I would work for free. And I find I feel like my job is my hobby, but it’s also not healthy to do the same thing all the time. So it is important to have time to do a hobby that’s not connected to what you do.

Jeni Clift  40:59

Love it. Yeah. And I think that’s something as entrepreneurs we often struggle with. Somebody asked me a couple of years ago who, when we implemented EOS into our business, he that person then stepped into my role of General Manager, which I’ve been trying to get out or for years. And he said to me one day, you know, you need to find a hobby. So this is an employee telling the owner of the business and and I kind of laughed at him. I said, What should I do take up knitting? And he said, it actually doesn’t matter what it is. But you need to go and find a hobby, you need something outside of the business because I didn’t have anything. And I still don’t know that if you if you said to me, what’s your hobby actually probably still don’t have an answer for that. But

Julia Ewert  41:41

Like, it’s just something that you don’t. And you know, the ones that I do, and they’re random, can I share what they

Jeni Clift  41:47

Are? Absolutely.

Julia Ewert  41:50

So I do adult gymnastics on a Monday night. It’s a class four has been one of these, I was curious to see if I could still flip. I’m a bit of both I am a has been out and want to be at 45 years old. There is a copy on LinkedIn, I put it up so you can see me flipping. So so that’s my main activity. And I started drumming drum lessons a year ago, also fun and random. But while I’m doing those activities, not at the same time, I’m not thinking about work, and I love my family. But I’m not thinking about my family, then either I’m just, I’m just doing something that is for me. And that feels really good. But it also feels necessary. Nice.

Jeni Clift  42:31

If you one of my clients, their ops manager, she just worked. And she’s sort of she’s nearing retiring age, and she just worked all the time, way too much. And about a month ago, she took up or maybe less than that maybe a year ago, she took up the guitar. never played it before. And and we ran a session in Australia last month, November. And she said, My husband can now tell the song that I’m playing. Yeah. And she’s just so excited about it. And she she said she plays for half an hour before she starts work. She plays in her lunchtime. And then she actually finishes work to play a guitar before she makes dinner or has dinner. And she said it’s just completely transformed her from all she did was work, too. Now she just takes those breaks. And she said she’s far more productive, and far happier and a far better leader. Because she’s got this thing that she’s doing. And the bonus is her husband actually can now recognize songs. Yeah,

Julia Ewert  43:35

That is great. I love that story.

Jeni Clift  43:37

Okay, let’s wrap it up. Thank you so much for your time, Julie. I really appreciate it. We will share your details on the links with all of the podcast, really looking forward to seeing the book. So please stay in. We’ll stay in contact and we’ll share that as well when it comes out. But thanks for sharing your expertise and your story. I really enjoyed listening to you.

Julia Ewert  44:01

Thanks, Tony. I really appreciate being invited to come and chat with you. Thank you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  44:05

Thanks for listening to the podcast show better business better life. My name is Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m an EOS implementer family business adviser, business and leadership coach podcaster and speaker. However, I’m also a business owner with several current business interests. I’m fortunate to have live the high life with all the lifestyle, the toys, you name it, and then I’ve lost it all. Not only once but twice in two spectacular train wrecks. I know what it’s like to experience the highs and lows. I came across EOS when they launched into New Zealand using my entrepreneurs playground at an event center in Parnell Auckland. I love the simplicity of the tools and their philosophies fitted my personal brand statement perfectly. The brilliance is in the simplicity. I’ve always been passionate about seeing entrepreneurs live the life they love. And now I help them live that EOS life doing what they love with people they love making a huge difference in the world being compensated appropriately and with time to pursue other passions if you want more information or want to get in contact about using ELS and your business you can visit my website at Deb Debra dot coach that’s dub dub dub Debra D B ra dot coach thanks for listening.