Nicole Laino
Hello, and welcome to the limitless entrepreneur podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Laino. And I am here with Jessica Jones today, which I just have to say that I love your name, that you have like the coolest name and you have a superhero name. And I’m kind of jealous because I have a name that nobody can pronounce. So I’m always jealous of people that have easy to pronounce names. But I’m also you have one that was also a superhero, which is just extra bonus points. So I digress there. But Hello, good morning. It’s so I’m so excited to have you here. And I’m so excited to have you share your story on the show. And we were just talking a little bit about intros. And I kind of wanted to start the show with this. Because you are a woman who is we were saying like you’re you’re a business strategist, you you help businesses grow your company is called pivot to growth. But how would you describe yourself? And I know like, then we’ll get into kind of what we were thinking about that. But I’m curious how you introduce yourself to the audience, please.

Jessica Jones
Oh, sure. Hi. And thank you so much for having me. And yes, Jessica Jones does make it for a really interesting conversation starter across the board, including right down to when I’m handing a credit card to somebody. It’s funny how how that gets a response. But, you know, as we were talking about I have, I’m very fortunate to have had a very interesting, successful experience as an entrepreneur in many owning and scaling and selling many different businesses and in working with businesses, finding people gravitate to me, but like everybody else out there, it’s it’s difficult to pin down to one thing because I’m a strategist, I’m a problem solver. I help business owners get through ruts, you know, because when we say business has a life, just like every other thing, it’s a living thing that changes. And oftentimes what business owners start doing, they continue to do things that work for them, and they get into this rut where they’re struggling to grow, I often help problem solve. And recently, because I’ve been helping a lot of doctors who are burned out, start their own cash medical practices, I’ve found a lot of doctors gravitating to me as a business coach, because they’ve got the medical expertise, and they’re brilliant. But they’ve been grabbed tating toward me to help them get that medical expertise in that brilliance into something that they can be passionate about.

Nicole Laino
And you also had an ad agency. So you come at it from the advertising side, the lead generation side. So this is this is why I kind of wanted to talk about this because I think that I think this is something a common problem that I hear from entrepreneurs all the time is the one line moneymaker. How do I boil myself down to about 15 words that are supposed to sum up everything that I am and everything I can do to help you and, and for some of us, it feels incredibly limiting myself included. I hate writing the one line moneymaker because I’m like, I do so much more than just what’s in this one line. How can I possibly encapsulate that. And so So I think you feel the same way, because you do so much and you help in so many important significant ways. Yes.

Jessica Jones
And lead generation is always part of my work with any anybody because if you have a business and nobody knows about it, you’re your business, not a business. And number two, especially now my lead generation focuses mass media, it’s using, you know, radio, television, cable, print the appropriate medium to test a message and get it out there in a in a bigger way. And I find that so many people who are calling me are struggling because Facebook shutting them down and and including including digital strategists are calling me and saying, Okay, I think some of my clients might need need some support. And I’m working with some digital agencies in that regard, too. So But you’re right, it’s impossible to pin down. And and what coach, if a coach is only doing what I can’t can’t imagine that there’s a coach who’s putting themselves into one thing that isn’t really doing so much more for their clients, right? Because it’s, it’s its support and support is so many things and different for every human being that that is seeking help.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and and I guess I kind of want an absolutely, I mean, I think everybody’s doing more than fits into that one line, I would certainly hope with what a lot of people are charging, I’m like, or is it really this much for this one thing. And then and in my own experience being coached by people and being in programs you know, there’s always more or you know, you hope there’s more but your growth is never linear. It’s never I need this one thing and then I will get to what I want now there’s so much else to it. And I think that that’s what trips so many people up is like how do I How do I boil myself down and everything someone needs and everything, something something, everyone, I everything I offer into that one line. So but as a, I want to talk just because we did bring up lead generation there, you’re doing it through the through mass media. And now when you are helping Is that something that you help your clients with as well is that the kind of the approach that you take, rather than what people think traditionally of lead generation of like, you know, hopping on Facebook, and Instagram and all of that stuff and generating leads organically?

Jessica Jones
It is. So I do definitely help people and I consult them. And sometimes I do with them or do for them, how to use mass media to grow their, their, their numbers. And of course, that’s not for every business. It’s It’s not every business that way. But I find that a lot of people are intimidated by it. But it’s, it’s actually more affordable than people can realize. And you really can use it very well to test a message, and then scale it once you have the message down. And the other thing is when you’re looking at mass media, it can be very localized, or it can be national, or it can be international. And when you look at time spent listening, and now, so I didn’t expect to go here, but I love pivoting to wherever a conversation goes. So forgive me if I bore bore you and cut me off. But when you look at time spent with different media, from 2012, till 2020, all of the research is showing that digital has gone up tremendously. But it’s so fragmented, right? Because digital is everything from Netflix and Hulu, to Facebook to Google, all of those are in one category. Radio time spent listening has actually increased ever so slightly, you could say it stayed the same. But people haven’t abandoned the things that they were participating in, in 2012. Instead, they’re really just adding time to their day and being in digital assets. While they’re still also listening to radio, broadcast TV has gone down a little bit. But so the perception is, oh, I’ve got to be on the next best thing. But in reality, those tried and true things are still out there for you to use as an asset to bring people into your business.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and I only wanted to go there for a second because we brought it up. And I did want to just put this in the awareness of the listener, put this in. So if you’re listening to this, I want you to get out of that mindset of of closing doors that you think are just not available to you. And broadening your perspective and the way that you think about things just to say that everything is available to me, it’s whether I choose to go down that path or not. And so just putting that in their awareness that that is a potential path for growth, that it’s not the one just because everybody’s talking about one thing on Instagram, if they’re selling an Instagram thing, of course, that’s why they’re telling you that that’s the one way because that’s what they sell. And, you know, you do have to pick your battles and what you want to put your energy and your time and your resources into, but recognizing that that that, you know, media is another way to go, that can be a different growth path for you. So just really just wanted to plant that little seed for everybody. But since we were talking about choosing doors, I was saying you know, whether you choose these things, you have an interesting concept that I kind of wanted to dive into you have you brought up this concept of the 100 problems a day. We are all about choosing our own adventure on this podcast. And being aware of everything that’s happening. So can you enlighten the limit listeners about what 100 problems a day what your theory is and your perspective on it?

Jessica Jones
Absolutely. So I said I mentioned she one of my favorite quotes by Henry Ford is whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. And this is kind of a manifestation of that to a different level. And it’s about the idea that everybody has 100 problems a day. And it’s what you choose to consider a problem that is really going to define you. So are you going to I mean, let’s face it, the world is designed to suck us into minutia, right? Every ding notification that we get every dog bark asking to go outside we’re getting pulled in these directions. So it’s do you decide hitting a red light on your way somewhere? It’s going to it’s going to be a problem for you or do you just say I’m gonna roll with that I have children, dogs, a husband clients, a number of different things clamoring for my attention. Every day, as does everybody, everybody has 100 things, pulling them around. So I kind of manifested this 100 problems a day idea that when somebody approaches me with, I need this or I need that I take a step back and I say, I’m either going to just do this and roll with it. I’m going to view it as something that I need to do tomorrow and schedule it. But regardless, I say, Is this going to be a problem that I focus on today? Or is this going to be not something that’s a problem at all? And I’m just going to do it and keep on moving?

Nicole Laino
The word for me that keeps coming up as triage. Like, you’re like, you’re sitting there and being like, does this person need to be seen right away? Or can they go to the waiting room for 30 or 40 minutes while we get to some more important or more critical patients that need to be seen first? What can we do for this person right now, that gets us to by another couple of hours or a couple of days with them? So that that’s the word that kept coming up for me, and it’s so important to be able to do that to choose the things that we’re going to spend our energy on? Yes.

Jessica Jones
And it’s so funny, you say that, because I always say, Everybody thinks I’m a heart surgeon, right? Like everybody thinks they’re having a heart attack, and I’m the surgeon that’s gonna save their life in so many ways. And we all have that as if you’re a business owner. If you’re, you know, a mom, whatever your role is, to somebody, they have an urgent need, and you are the one that’s going to solve it for them. And so it’s really important that you’re able to step back and say, Okay, what can I impact? What can I change? What can I do right now? Is this a problem? Is this something I can do really quickly, and just keep on moving on to focus on what’s really an issue that needs my attention? And it really is in your power to categorize and choose how you’re going to look at everything that comes up in your day?

Nicole Laino
And is this something this is something that you teach your clients? Or is this just something kind of that you’ve embodied yourself and have?

Jessica Jones
It’s something I’ve embodied myself, but I do I do definitely coach people on this, because certainly, when a client’s working with me on something, and they can definitely be stuck in something that I kind of say, Okay, let’s take a step back. Is this really a problem? Or is, you know, for example, and we all are used to this saying, is this something you can change or not? A lot of times people are focused on something they can’t even change and looking at as as as a problem. We can’t change COVID-19, we have a pandemic. So instead of focusing on it as the problem, let’s focus on how we evolve and pivot to make sure that it’s not a problem, and that we’ve modified the way we’re moving through the world, so that it doesn’t impact us as negatively as it could, right.

Nicole Laino
Most definitely. And I think the other thing that can be said there is paying attention to where your your attention naturally goes. So if you do focus on problems, and if you do focus on the problems, that you can’t change the things that you can change, like COVID and, and the things that are going on in the world politics and all the things that we you know, are you focusing on something, you know, what is that triggering in you? What’s, where is that coming from? Because that will probably, first of all, that’s like the long term solution to them to not focusing on it anymore. Rather than putting it aside, it’s clearing out that emotion clearing out whatever is holding you to that and making you feel unsafe in this world. And it’s so out of lateral. Yeah, it’s

Jessica Jones
a lot of wasted angst, anxiety, mind rolling at night, sleeplessness, if you can kind of start manifesting this idea, right, you can, you know, stop regretting, and stop rolling through things and say, Okay, I’m just gonna keep on moving. And here’s how I’m going to do this. And even looking at things as a problem, you can say, okay, instead of this being a problem, here’s something I did today, that I’m regretting right now. So instead of sitting here, and just keeping on going through it, how am I going to do differently tomorrow, so that I’m not sitting here again, saying, oh, I should have done that differently. And then that also takes things that could manifest as a problem and turn into just, again, that helping you move through the world differently by reevaluating how your mind is looking at different things that are coming at you every day.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, absolutely. And just training yourself to be aware of those things as they come in, and recognizing where you’re allowing your energy to leak out because it’s a choice. It’s not, don’t give your power away to all of the things things that are happening in the world and that are happening around you. The second, you take responsibility, and you take control, suddenly, things start to change around you.

Jessica Jones
And, you know, I know we’re talking about this, I’ve been doing this now for, probably, I know more than 20 years, maybe even 25 years. So there is a natural tendency that I have to be patient. But also, I’ve been working on this a long time, but everybody can do this. It literally is when you find yourself boiling, or you find your mind racing on, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this, one more thing that’s happened, it really is just taking a breath, taking a step back and saying, wait a minute, this isn’t a problem. And then moving on, it’s that it is that easy. But when I say that I don’t want to make make people feel bad if it’s not that easy, because it is something that you have to work on. But if you work on it, you can master it, and it will change your life, it will change your life, it’ll change the way you handle your days.

Nicole Laino
Again, if you you could look at this, like advice on this technique and this way of thinking of things as you know, someone telling you that you that you’re doing something wrong, that would be a choice that you would be making, or you can hear it in the way of saying like, maybe this is something I can try and start to inch my way toward having this more infinite patience and widening the cup. And, and because I am a big meditator, and I’ve always said that Meditation allows me to, if you have a cup, and you start your day with it half full, then you only have half left capacity to take in everything else that the world is, is throwing at you. If you empty the cup, then you have the full cup. And that’s how you end up creating more patients. And it’s the same thing with how we deal with these things. Are you emptying that cup where you’re creating more capacity to deal with them throughout your day. So I love that. And I love that I love that perspective. And I love it just love how you think about things from it’s a very practical way of thinking about things, but still very goal oriented, still very growth oriented, not just like being calm and being patient no with the with the goal of being able to produce more and get out of your own way, which I think is is the biggest thing universally plaguing entrepreneurs, because we are the engine, we are the visionary in a lot of ways we are that, that that person that’s responsible for so much. And there’s nobody telling us we have to do anything. It’s all self propelled. So if we can’t get out of our own way, then the whole thing stops,

Jessica Jones
right. And as an entrepreneur, another way to consider this is this gets very, this starts to get bigger and bigger as you master it because this becomes that is a problem. But it’s not something I’m going to look at as a problem. And that’s how you’re learning what can be delegated. And that’s how you’re learning, you know, other skills. And it’s how you’re learning, you know, how much employees are taking up your time? And are they producing? Or are they just taking up 80% of your time, because they’re not growing themselves and getting where they need to be. So it’s, it does start to become much bigger as an entrepreneur, and we get there. I don’t know that we have time for that today. But you can see where it can go, right? Because certainly just because you’re not viewing it as a problem doesn’t mean it’s not something that needs to be dealt with. But is it something that you need to look at as a problem today? Can it be delegated? Can it be put off till tomorrow, all of those things?

Nicole Laino
Well, and I think that it’s important to kind of note as well that, you know, let’s talk about what a problem is. We’re using the word problem. And I think people are thinking, you know, when when you use like the red light analogy or the example, they’re like, oh, it’s the really annoying things that happen throughout the day. But that’s that’s not true. I mean, yes, it’s true that this thing

Jessica Jones
was Newsha. Yeah, that’s the main,

Nicole Laino
the problems that are coming up is I’m so busy, I don’t have time for this. I’m like all of that stuff. And the truth is, is that you’re busy as a choice. overworked is a choice, overwhelmed is a choice. And when you start making that choice to see it as a choice, then you start to see all the ways that you can eliminate it and not choose overwhelm and not be available for it. So things like because you brought up delegating, and you brought up team management and because sometimes we can get into a space where we are so head down and we get frazzled and busy, not necessarily productive than not to confuse the two, but so busy that sometimes I think we put our energy there so we don’t have to pay attention to the other things. And that’s, I think the benefit of having somebody you’d like you around where you can kind of point that out and be drawing attention to the fact that like these other areas are available. There’s ways that we can change your state. And by improving these other areas of your business, because I know you. And I think that this is interesting as well, like when we talk about growth, there is never that one quick solution. It isn’t just the lead generation, it isn’t just the it’s not just the employee management. So can you just talk about like, I know you’ve you’ve been your bio and everything when I was reading you, you really come in and look at every aspect of a business when you’re going into, and can you talk to us just a little bit about like, what can people do right now, if they’re looking in? They’re saying, I’m not growing? I feel like I’ve stagnated. What would be your advice to somebody? So if I told you in my business that I feel like I’m just, I’m stuck. And I’m not stuck? Like, I’m a mess. And I don’t know what I’m doing? I have a pretty decent business, but I can’t really seem to create more of what I want. And without knowing all the specifics of what I do, what would be some of the high level questions that you’d ask or, or things that you’d tell me to look into?

Jessica Jones
Yeah, so and it also depends on the type of business that you have. So I would certainly want to look at okay, so it could be that the first thing I would have you do is say, Okay, let, let’s look at when you started, what got you to where you are today. And when you’re waking up in the morning, what is still working for you today? What is it that you wake up, and it’s working, and you enjoy it? And then I would ask you, what have you been doing that got you to where you are today, but now you’re looking at it and saying it’s not working? Or I don’t enjoy it or the combination of the two? Because it could be that you’re not It’s not working? Because you no longer enjoy it? In which case, maybe that’s something you continue to look at as a strategy, but see if it can be done differently by someone else, right? Or it could be that it genuinely doesn’t work. But the first key is finding out what’s not working? And do you enjoy it or not? You know, so that’s one way that I would start looking at the business, but I would also look at so there’s a lot of times I’m talking to a business that’s saying like, I just don’t have enough business coming in. And oftentimes, it’s not that they don’t have the business coming in. It’s that they’re not managing the referrals and the phone calls and the emails coming in properly. And more often than not, that is one of the issues that I uncover. So it’s kind of, okay, what are what’s going out into the world, when someone calls your business or knocks on the door or emails or raises their hand and says, I’m interested, what is going back out to them. Because you really do only have a brief, you know, you’ve got that one hand up. And what you send back either is an opportunity to keep communicating or not. And oftentimes, I find that businesses are not kind of welcoming those new new leads in. And so then it’s kind of becomes the question of why is it because you haven’t delegated enough and you need to add staff, is it because your staff isn’t really engaged in your business, that they’re just there to get a paycheck, and they’re not putting out the messaging and the passion that you want for your business? So you can see it can go down a lot of different ways. But that’s another thing that I frequently find as an issue. There’s so many more Yeah, that’s a huge one. I mean, more often than not, I find that to be a big part of the problem. But it’s usually five things or six things that are part of the problem. It’s a whole chain of events that happens that starts from the what what’s working, what’s not working, and then goes into our How Are we welcoming people in no matter how they’re brought in referral, paid lead generation phone call email? Any any means of them coming in? How are you responding to that? Because you only have I look at it as you really do only generally have one shot when someone raises their hand because there’s a lot of other people doing what you’re doing.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, so like, just because they walked in the store doesn’t mean they’re gonna buy. So you have to, you’ve gotta like, go greet them. And I And that happens, like I talk about Facebook groups that way, because I hear all people all the time. So like, my Facebook group is dead. There’s no engagement in there. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why. And I’m like, Well, what are you doing to create engagement? Like it’s a community why how are you creating community in there and they kind of look at me like, What do you mean, what community well, I show up and I post, do you say hello To them, do you greet them when they come in, like I was thinking about it like a party, like you invited them to your party, they came, and then you left them in the front door and didn’t invite them in and ask them if they want, you know, like, show them what the bathroom is been like, Hey, let me introduce you to a few people, you didn’t do anything that you would do in normal real life, you just digitally we just let leave people hanging all the time. So and a lot of times it is that you get overwhelmed. There’s that that is the life blood of your business is your not lead generation, but lead retention and conversion.

Jessica Jones
Or you can even look at it as communication, you know, how are you communicate? How is your company communicating? Yeah, and I would say one other thing. Since since we’re talking about Facebook, obviously, so many people, including myself are using Facebook groups. But I find that people are trying to be in 10 places like they have to be on Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Instagram and Twitter and clubhouse picked, okay? Pick three, master those three. And if you can really do that, in a meaningful way, you can see if you can add a fourth. But don’t, don’t try to be everything and be everywhere. Be where you can be and you know what, you don’t have to start out by picking three, you can, you can go down to you can go backwards and just say you know what this is working for me, I’m gonna stay here and focus on this one thing, and then add one step gets back on track. And it’s okay to take a step back, taking a step back, is so many times the way to step forward, right?

Nicole Laino
Do one thing well get good at something, feel confident in it otherwise, like, and I’m all about the mindset of things. If you feel defeated in your head, you are not going to be productive and effective out in the world. So if you feel like social media, again, it’s choice. If you feel like social media, and all of the management of it is just too much. It’s too much energy. It’s it’s draining you then guess what, that’s probably if that’s the energy you’re bringing to it, it’s probably not going to pay you back. And so, and I used to say and I still do say that, like go where your people are like you want to, you don’t want to be on the wrong clap. Like I don’t belong on Snapchat. That’s not where my people are. I’m like, I’m definitely in the 40s crowd of people that I held late 30s early, you know, to through the 40s not doing Tik Tok videos. Some of them our Tic Tac is more so than trust me, there is a whole lot of binge watching of of random stuff on Tik Tok. So I would not I don’t do tick tock, I am not a tick talker. But not because I’m like nobody. But Snapchat, and people are not on Snapchat, like adults, you look at grownups and you say Snapchat, and they’re like Sega. So that’s not where my people are. So you want to pay attention to that. But more importantly, where do you want to be? What’s enjoyable and easy for you? Like, I really enjoy the whole clubhouse thing. So and I feel like it’s a great medium for me, I like I like to talk. So it’s a great place to make connection and just a really natural place to network. So I like being there. So I’m just choosing to be there. Yeah, because I like to

Jessica Jones
have house too. But I have also spoken with many, many people, clients, and just people in my network, who view it as a drain, and I’m like, then then don’t go into the room. Don’t go into the room when you’re paint. Because it’s not like you’re forced to be there. And it’s, it’s also, you know, it’s all okay, you don’t need to feel the pressure. You’re not it’s that FOMO you’re not missing out, you’re not missing out.

Nicole Laino
Again, choices, are you choosing to look at it as something that you have to do or are you choosing to look at it, like, you’re gonna miss out on things like then then yeah, it’s probably not a healthy thing for you to be attached to. But if it’s something that you feel like is serving, you know, and I always tell my clients that, you know, ask yourself, Is this really serving me? Is this serving me is this serving my greater goal. And, like, we’re gonna run out of time in just a second here, but we could go on this whole thing for a long time. But just to sort of close this out on on the idea that that everything is choices, and everything is about aligning everything that you do and everything that you think with your greater purpose and your greater goal. Right. And I think that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about here that these choices that you make, however small, they may seem, have a huge knock on effect and they’re they’re compounding all the time to create the world that you’re living in.

Jessica Jones
Yes. And you No, it’s exactly right. I love how you said compounding. Because, you know, we started with this little idea of choosing what’s going to be a problem of the things presented to you. And then talked about how that grows into, really so much more for you for your life at home and for your business. And it is all choice. And it’s back to that whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right from Henry Ford, I find that to be such an unbelievable perceptive view of how much power we have in our mind to make or break us.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, I am. I think somebody that Henry Ford was actually like, whatever you think of him personally had some views I don’t agree with. He was a visionary in a lot of ways. Sometimes his powers were used for good, and sometimes they were used for pure evil. But

Jessica Jones
there’s a lot going on there. Yes.

Nicole Laino
And we won’t get into that. But so I’m not condoning anything about that stuff. But it but he was a visionary, because I think they said that he that, that then when I think of that, quote, I think about this, that he originally was told by the engineers, that the car of the Model T I think would only go like five miles, like they couldn’t get it to go as fast as they want, basically, which kind of standstill, they wasn’t gonna go faster than a horse. And he was like, well keep trying until you figure that out, like just not accepting the limitation. And not accepting the conventional wisdom not accepting the we can’t do it. And so I always think of that as the practical application of the whether you think you can or you think you can, you are right. And he was just like, don’t tell me can’t.

Jessica Jones
Yeah. Well, I’m the other thing is, I mean, we’re born, you know, a basic need is to feel successful. And right. So we also part of that is not just about success, it’s about unfortunately, it’s about us proving ourselves Correct. Yep. So, you know, there’s so much we can get into about mindset. And but the reality is, we our we are our biggest limitation, right? What we what we believe is, is the thing that limits us. So we have to change that if we’re stuck in order to get past and grow. Right?

Nicole Laino
I can’t think of a better way to end this episode than with what you just said right there. Because I think you just summed it all up. And then the way that I close every episode is going to just flow so beautifully. But before we do that, before we officially close it out. Tell the listeners how they can stay in touch with you how can people get more of you and learn more about what you do and whether you can help them?

Jessica Jones
I love that. Well, I do you know, we have the Facebook group fate. It’s facebook.com backslash groups, backslash and perfection rocks. Because we have to take imperfect action. And my website is pivot to growth and on clubhouse at pivot to growth, I would love to connect with all of your listeners. And I also have a special download. I don’t know if you want me to yes, please state that now just for your audience. If you go to www dot pivot to growth.com

Nicole Laino
forward slash limitless,

Jessica Jones
yes, forward slash limitless entrepreneur. There’s a download there, you click on it. And it’s all about how to get past perfection to help yourself grow.

Nicole Laino
So definitely go and download that and we will link all of those up in the show notes. We will we will take all of that down the clubhouse ID and all of all of those things in that that beautiful download that she gave to us so generously. Thank you so much for being here. This was such a great conversation and I’m just grateful to get the the opportunity to talk to you I love this is my favorite part about the show is that I get to talk to interesting, awesome people all the time, like what a gift. So thank you for being here.

Jessica Jones
I’m so honored to be here. Thank you so much. I loved getting to know you and getting to spend time together.

Nicole Laino
All thank you that it was such a pleasure. And thank you listener if you are still sitting here with us right now. Thank you for staying till the end. And as I close out every episode just kind of piggybacking on what Jessica shared just a minute ago, you are only limited by the limitations that you accept. So when you stop accepting those limitations, that is when you become limitless. So thank you all we will see you on the next episode.