Grow Your 1 Person Business: For Self-Employed Professionals w./ Larry Easto

Are you a self-employed professional looking to grow your one-person business with proven strategies? In this episode, we dive into the mindset and marketing essentials you need to thrive, featuring insights from seasoned expert Larry Easto.

What's Covered:

• The surprising link between experiential learning and business growth.
• Why mindset is the game-changer for self-employed success.
• A fresh perspective on marketing for professional services.
• Insights from Larry Easto's 40+ years of experience and his groundbreaking book.

Discover how to elevate your business, starting with this powerful conversation!

Larry Easto has over 40 years of experience in providing professional services … as a lawyer, consultant, writer, trainer and coach.

The heart of his work lies in experiential learning, the principles he applies to help clients develop and apply their own solutions to their issues and opportunities.

Larry endeavours to equip them with the right tools to make informed decisions, preferring to empower clients to meet and overcome their challenges over telling them what they should do.

He has authored over 30 books, eBooks, and video courses since 1993, sharing practical professional and business growth strategies.

📚How To Succeed In Your Professional Services Business: From Mindset To Marketing -- Attitudes & Actions https://amzn.to/4fKaxcB

Learn more about Larry's work at www.larryeasto.com

🤝 Connect with Larry Easto https://www.linkedin.com/in/larryeasto/

Simple & strategic marketing solutions for the busy coach and consultant. Visit www.reinventingperspectives.com

Transcript

Larry Easto: [00:00:00] Instead of overworking it's a lot easier to think, okay, so if we move to a new community and we want to make friends, how would we make friends?

We're not going to put Ads upp saying, I want friends, I need friends. We go out and meet people. and start to build personal relationships with them. And personal relations have trust and respect and communication and all those kinds of things. And it's exactly the same kinds of things that factor into a good relationship between a professional and his or her clients.

It's time to reinvent.

Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the lessons of entrepreneurship, the journey of reinvention. I have an amazing guest for you today. Larry Isto. Who helps self employed professionals grow their businesses. Larry, I'm so excited and honored to have you here. Please let them know what's your mission. 

Larry Easto: It's a joy to be here. It's always fun to be on these [00:01:00] podcasts. I've done a number of different kinds of things in my life. I don't want to go into the details, but I trained as a lawyer and worked as a lawyer, practiced law for a number of years. And then I moved into consulting and then I wrote a book.

And the book led to coaching and education and all sorts of other kinds of things. So it's been Kind of a fun trip. Where I'm at now it's rewarding. , I call my current work my legacy project. And what I mean by that is what I'm trying to do is make sense out of the crazy journey I've had.

Primarily so that , the lessons that I learned in terms of Running a business and serving clients and getting along with people that I can n share it with others so they can benefit from it without the time, hassle, money grief that I've gone through. That's where I'm at now.

I've Got a book it's out now, How to Succeed in Your Professional Service Business, which is available online and through booksellers around the world. And I'm working on another course. I actually wrote two books but I realized producing two books was too much work. I've converted one book into a video course, [00:02:00] basically a personal transformation course, how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Because for those of us who run professional service businesses, you can't really draw the line between what the professional service is and what the personal service is because it's all about relationships. So the better we are as people. The better we serve our clients. So they go hand in hand , business development, personal development are totally related.

So that's why I broke one off into a separate course 

Priscilla Shumba: you said something I'd never thought about. that how you think about professional services and how you market other services is very different. And I wondered what you meant by that. 

Larry Easto: My understanding of marketing there's many stories, but one was it was designed to market cheese in Wisconsin. Farmers in Wisconsin were producing cheese and they didn't know how to get it into the hands of the people who really wanted it.

People a lot smarter than I am, came up with a concept of marketing. Basically business school marketing which is fine. And it's excellent because [00:03:00] it's very standardization. So you got a standard product, it just fit into the process and it works along.

I realized it wasn't good for professional services when I took a marketing course. And I thought this is really fascinating. But It's not going to help me market , my coaching service or my consulting service. And it was then when I started to think about it, okay, so what's different?

And what's different is that when I am working with a client or a professional is working with a client, It's about the personal relationship we have with them. We understand our clients, and we listen to what they're saying, so we customize the kind of services we deliver for them. So if somebody is wanting motivation, I can't pull a package off the shelf and say, go and do this.

This Will work for you. I have to find out what their values are, what their passions are, what they're really good at, what they struggle with, what their needs are, who they want to be with, all those kinds of things. And that's a very one on one kind of situation. So that's what makes it different is that there's no one size fits all solution.

The kinds of things I do to attract and work with clients [00:04:00] may not work for you. It doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong. It just means that have to figure out our own way of getting along with clients. And Instead of overworking it's a lot easier to think, okay, so if we move to a new community and we want to make friends, how would we make friends?

We're not going to put Ads upp saying, I want friends, I need friends. We go out and meet people. and start to build personal relationships with them. And personal relations have trust and respect and communication and all those kinds of things. And it's exactly the same kinds of things that factor into a good relationship between a professional and his or her clients.

There's the personal respect, the personal connection as well as the professional competence and the professional expertise. It was really funny when practicing law. I didn't really want a lawyer's office. I obviously needed an office, but I didn't want the traditional office.

, I set my law office up more like a home. It was in a home. So I set it up like it was a residence. And instead of me having a big desk with all sorts of certificates on the walls and everything, I set it up like a dining room. [00:05:00] So that when people came to talk to me and I was talking to clients, we'd be talking around the dining room table.

And it worked so well for me because I was really comfortable in that kind of environment. And people would quite often say, Gee Larry, you don't really act like a lawyer. Oh gosh, what am I doing wrong? Okay, I'm drawing on my legal skills to help you, but I'm also drawing on my personal skills to build a relationship with you.

, it was then that I realized a couple of things. First of all, I didn't fit the stereotype of lawyers because I really didn't like lawyers, but I liked the kind of work I was doing. And then I realized people are coming to me because they like me and we met on the golf course.

We played on the baseball team together or we go to the same church. So they like me as a person. So they like me as a person. They're going to believe me and have trust in me as a professional. So it's the personal thing. that's what makes it so hard to market, because we can't market, , Hey, come to me, I'm honest.

Because, , what's the first thing you think? This guy's a crook. People who are honest don't advertise that. They just are. So it's a different kind [00:06:00] of a thing. Certainly there's some common principles, but it's really heavy on the personal relationship supported by the professional competence.

Priscilla Shumba: It's interesting that you say that because sometimes we think of it the other way around. We put to the forefront the professional competence and neglect the building of relationships. And so we market, in a traditional sense of pushing , that you are a professional and forgetting that you need to build relationships.

What have you seen common mistakes that people make especially on LinkedIn trying to get clientele

Larry Easto: I'm probably qualified for this because I've made most of the mistakes that are there. I think we tend to, first of all, we want an easy way of doing it. It takes a lot of work on LinkedIn to make connections, build relationships 

and get business. It takes a lot of work. So we want short and easy ways of doing it. So we look to what other people are doing. And we think that, okay, if they're doing it, if I do the same thing, it will work for me. It [00:07:00] doesn't. It really doesn't. For a while I had somebody doing my LinkedIn posts and man, we were getting all sorts of interaction and all sorts of likes and all sorts of comments and people saying, Oh, I really like what you're doing there.

And I was busy doing other things. So he didn't really pay a lot of attention to what he was writing. And I got around to reading what he was writing. And I'm thinking, that's not me at all. I've got people responding to me that I'm not even sure I want that person as a LinkedIn contact, let alone a friend or a client.

So , I'd followed, what I thought was the best advice of having somebody, who, had the skills to do it. So I think that it's a case of we really have to find our own way of communicating. , I tend to be an introvert, so I don't like big group gatherings.

And although in the past I have done the network meetings and all that kind of thing, it stresses me out like crazy. I can remember so many networking meetings I'd go to and at the end of it, I was absolutely stressed beyond belief. And [00:08:00] over time I realised , okay, I'm a good writer. I like writing.

I can really get the point across in writing, so I've adopted content marketing as my favourite approach and I do that whenever I can. It takes longer, it's not as dramatic, but it gives me more of a chance to demonstrate my personal best stuff as well as my professional best stuff. So I think, to go back to your question, too often We find ourselves relying on the advice of so called experts, rather than really knowing who we are and what we do for clients and what distinguishes us from clients.

When we think about our personal brand it's all about, who I am as a person, what distinguishes, when I was practicing law, what distinguished me as a lawyer from the other lawyers, , and how this distinguishing feature helps clients. And in my case, it was a very personal approach.

So people were very comfortable talking to me. Now that doesn't work for everybody, because there are some clients who want to say, , my lawyer told me this, my lawyer told me that, I've got to do this, I've got to do the other thing. I resent having [00:09:00] anybody tell me what to do. So I'm not going to tell anybody else what to do.

So I adopted a style that was very conversational, very facilitative, very empowering. I tried to educate my clients so that they made the decisions. I would say things like, okay, so here's the situation. These are the facts. This is the problem. You've got these three alternatives. So pick out the one that works best for you.

And quite often people would say if you were in my situation, what would you do? And I'd have to say, I'm not in your situation. You're not hiring me to tell you what to do. You're hiring me to help you solve the problem. And the best solution is a solution that works for you. . If I give you a solution that doesn't work for you, you're not gonna follow it anyway.

And guess what? It's gonna be my fault , that your problem didn't go away. So what I try to do is not only empower clients to make the decisions themselves, but support them as they try to implement them so that they're not on their own, that it's not , my lawyer told me to do this, so I have to do it.

It's, I'm doing this because my lawyer. Helped me understand what the situation is and I think [00:10:00] this is the best solution. It's better to do the education thing and the empowerment rather than the straight dictatorial. And I know, lots of people wanna be told and that's fine.

I have no problem with that. It's just I'm not their lawyer, I'm not their consultant, I'm not their coach. If somebody wants to be told what to do, you better find somebody else 'cause I ain't gonna do it.

Priscilla Shumba: It's understanding your own approach and sticking to your own approach and understanding how your approach gets results. Cause I think sometimes , like you said, we follow what everybody else is doing because we assume that it must be working. And so if I do it, it will work for me too.

I'm interested in knowing, Larry, you said that on LinkedIn, cause a lot of people do hire people on their personal brands too. Create content on their behalf. And of course it gives the impression that it's you, but of course it's a team or whatever it is that's behind. The work you said needs to be done to. Be successful on LinkedIn because a lot of times people are just trying to get clients and they think [00:11:00] that if they can get rid of all those things and only deal with clients, that's the best way to go. If they can hire someone to do this and that, and then they can only work with clients. And I see your laugh.

I see your smirk. So let me know. 

Larry Easto: No, keep going, because it just, it makes so much sense what you're saying.

Priscilla Shumba: Now, people do think, Oh, it's going to be so much work for me to try and talk to people and be on LinkedIn all day, but I just want to work with clients, I just want to serve clients, get the money in the bank, and if I can hire someone, even if they're, generating content on their personal brand 

I would rather do that. So , I want people who may have that view understand how you can make that work manageable if you decide to do it yourself. 

Larry Easto: You have just identified the central issue, the biggest challenge that self employed professionals have. Most of us want to serve clients. If I wanted to run a business, I would have gone to business school. I wound up going to law school because I was fascinated with the legal system and fascinated with the legal process.

I'm no [00:12:00] longer practicing law, but I learned the discipline. I learned the thinking, I learned the process that I can apply all sorts of other places. And that's what I want to do with clients. I don't want to run a business. And don't even want to market.

, I want to sit in my office and have people come to me. And who doesn't? Anyone that runs a professional service business, that's what we want. The reality is, we've got to market. We've Got to attract clients. We've Got to do all of those horrible kinds of things. There are some things that people can do for us.

I was probably my mistake in not vetting the person enough, not clarifying that he really understood what he was to be doing. I thought I gave him access to all sorts of archives and I thought, use this. And I thought that he would just take my ideas and chunk them down and put them out there.

But , he was interacting with roofing contractors. Now, there's nothing wrong with roofing contactors, but I wouldn't know how to help one of those guys market. I'm afraid of roofs. I'm afraid of heights. , so I couldn't even go there.

And so it was coming back to me. It was probably my responsibility in not [00:13:00] clarifying what I expected him to do. And I had another guy. He was sending out emails to health spas. a health spa is different than a coach or consultant.

Yeah, you got all that equipment and all that staff and all those legal things. So it's just a case of, not vetting it clearly enough. And we also have to realize that as much as I love content marketing, it's a slow process. It's a really slow process.

So in terms of LinkedIn I guess I've been on LinkedIn like forever. And sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. , sure, a lot of it can be delegated, but , you still have to be supervising. We cannot totally delegate responsibility for running the business.

Sure. Bookkeeping and record keeping and all of those kinds of things I can delegate to a bookkeeper. Getting my message out. If somebody knows me really well, yeah, fine. Now the issue there was that, , and, this just hit me when I'm talking As a Canadian, I think I have a different way of doing things than our eighbors to the south, or people in England [00:14:00] or South Africa, or Australia.

The guy that was helping me , I think he was in Mumbai. He had a different cultural background than I did. So maybe if I had somebody from Ontario writing for me, it might have made a difference. But again, that was probably my fault because , I was so anxious to get rid of a task, I didn't do the proper preparation.

And I think that's what happens is we're so eager to dump something, not dump, transfer or delegate something, that we don't really think through the implications and take the necessary precautions. Starting couple of new projects in the new year. And I've learned now that, okay, Before we get too far into it, this person has to know what my thinking is, what my ideas are, what I'm all about.

, if somebody doesn't recognize what I'm all about, we can't work together. , he or she just can't write for me. So it's a case of really getting to know them. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, building the relationship. if we think the same and we get along well, we [00:15:00] respect each other, we understand each other, he understands what my work is about, it's going to work out well.

, it's the expression, know thyself and to thine own self be true. It's a case of really knowing who we are and what we're trying to do instead of trying to fast track things. By following somebody else's solution.

I wish it wasn't that way, but gosh, that's the way it is. , many times I've , delegated tasks to people and just being so angry with what they did. Okay. Yeah. You didn't train them enough. You didn't brief them enough because you wanted to get on with something else.

I'm running a business. I got all these responsibilities. I've got to take full responsibility for them. And I think that's what happens is that we just get so tired of the business y kinds of things that we rush through them and don't give it as much consideration as we really want.

Priscilla Shumba: . I think someone who's listening, who's going through this process is going to understand this now. It's so nuanced. Like you said, people from certain cultures are a bit more aggressive in , how they talk about their business or how they market or how [00:16:00] they try to make a sale.

Other places are more laid back and it's offensive to be, too aggressive. , 

Larry Easto: Oh, absolutely. And in my situation, I'm sure this is not unique I practiced law in a small town for a long time and then I moved from the small town to the biggest city in Canada. I can't do the same things here that I did in a small town. it's a totally different environment and it would be hard for somebody from Mumbai to understand what I do in Toronto, let alone what I did in a small town.

So we really have to qualify and match and align all those key elements. But it's just so tempting , to pass it on, to let somebody else do it. And invariably comes back to kick us and it's just Anyway yeah it's the due diligence all the way.

Priscilla Shumba: there's this trend of people seeking places where they can get labor cheaper and having international contractors and international employees , especially for, solo [00:17:00] entrepreneurs, professional services, people who are just starting out in business 

and that's definitely an area where I think people would need to, explore more of how to make those relationships work. Thank you for that, Larry. Now, I wanted to ask you this. Because like you said, the professional services, you just want to work. You don't want to run a business, but you have to know that you are running a business.

Maybe tell us when you made that shift for yourself because you've done a lot of things and with the people you work with how to get into that business mindset.

Larry Easto: THat's a good question. At this stage, and when I look back at some of the things I've done I realized that I didn't spend enough time thinking through what I wanted to do. An example of that was when I was finishing high school.

I got called to the guidance office and the question was, Larry, you haven't told us what you're doing next year. What are you going to do next year? And I said, I don't know. And my guidance counselor says have you ever thought about accounting? And I thought, I don't even know what accounting is.

Long story short was he got a call from a local [00:18:00] accounting office that needed a student in accounts. He saw somebody who didn't have plans for the next year, saw that I had done fairly well in math. So bingo, I'm going to go into accounting. So yeah, bird in the hands worth two in the bush. So I said, sure, I can do this.

It lasted about two months. It was awful. It was absolutely frigging awful. But I had to do that. Flip side is when I wrote my first book, probably 30 years ago, I settled into it. And. I thought, wow, this is way cool. I like this. And so the entire process, and I self published it with the help of family and friends, I self published it.

And when it was finished, I thought, wow. That's amazing. I love that. That's just, I'm there. I'm there. This is exactly what I want to do. jokingly say that, when I grow up, I'm going to be a writer. And my friends would say why bother? And I'd think, why bother growing up?

Or why bother being a writer? But it was then that I learned that's what my calling was. That's what my passion was. That's what my purpose was. And , from there on, Things just Not really fell into place, but [00:19:00] I at least had a benchmark now. I didn't have to search. I thought, okay, now I'm going to be a writer and , not just any writer.

I want to write educational content to help people learn. And along the way, I took a course in experiential learning. So I factored that in too. It's taken me most, I would think probably half my life to really get a crystal clear idea of what I wanted to do. And once that was there, everything else became so much easier.

, the Law of Attraction kicked in big time. when I first heard of Law of Attraction, I thought it was a bunch of, motivational pooey, but it was really helpful going through the exercise of what I really wanted. Asking myself questions like this do you want this?

If someone were to offer this to you, would you take it? Would you be happy doing this? So it's really a case that comes back , to really getting a good handle on ourselves. On who we are, what we're all about, what our values are. And the [00:20:00] problem there is, that in today's information age, online there's so many experts.

. Many of whom are well intentioned, but giving the wrong advice to the wrong people. , you and I both know people who really want to help others, but they don't know how to go about helping them. They want to help them with their own solutions. If you do this, you too will be successful.

In my case, if somebody says to me, you got to network like crazy, you got to be out four nights a week networking. I'm thinking, that's going to drive me insane. We really want to do something and people really want to help us. But it's our responsibility to know who we are and what we're good at, what our gifts are, and how we can use our gifts to achieve our purposes.

And if it's important to make a difference in the world, that's what you've got to do. If it's important to, , achieve best seller status as a book, that's what you've got to focus on. And that becomes the checklist , that becomes the litmus test. If it doesn't contribute to this, we don't go there.

And so it's so easy. As someone who has been fortunate, I have a number of gifts, for many years, [00:21:00] if something didn't work out for me, I always had enough gifts, enough skills, I could do something else. Rather than face the real issue, I could do something else, or I could do something else, or I could do something else.

And it's only when I really, Did some deep diving and deep digging and saying no, this is who you are. This is what you're about. And as long as you continue to do that, you're going to be okay. But when you stray into somebody else's lane, get ready for problems because you're going to have it.

It's a maturing process do I wish I had this when I was twenty ? Oh, yeah, but it's taken me all this time to get it. I'm in the happy stage right now that, And , this just occurred to me today. I had another podcast call earlier today and it was just so amazing like they are.

And I'm feeling like my mind is just as excited as it was when I started university. But I've got a lifetime of experience to play with it. So if I had this experience when I was at university, it wouldn't have worked. needed life experience for it to make sense to me.

So we have to keep coming back to , who are we all about? What are we doing here? What's the purpose here? Is it [00:22:00] my why or somebody else's why?, As long as we stick to those kind of woo questions, but they're not, they're fundamental.

They've been around like forever, but , we have so many options. Now there's always something that seems easier and sometimes the easy way is not the best way.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for sharing that, Larry. I saw myself and I saw the people that I work with in what you just said, and, part of that is I don't know if I'd say we're being marketed to or the way in which we're being shown solutions that it's like, they did this thing and because they did this thing, they built an eight figure business and so they're teaching people how to get to eight figures and oh if I want to get eight figures then I must do what this person is saying because they must know how to get there and it sounds easier than what I'm doing right now where I'm struggling and , not sitting down to face.

Why am I struggling? Let me just do something else. 

Larry Easto: As we talk about it, I realize that , it's easy for me to [00:23:00] sit at my desk and talk about this. But man, when you're struggling for business or you've got other emotional issues going on or there's family issues are going on, it's hard to slow down.

It's hard to stop and figure out what am I doing? What am I doing? And it's also hard to find people who have the patience and the skills to guide through the system, to guide through the process, because most people want to sell their own solutions. And, quite frankly, I'd buy a solution if I knew it's going to work, but I've, Spent too much time, energy and money on solutions that didn't work.

I've had to create solutions for myself and that's what I tried to do now in my legacy project is try , to short circuit the search basically saying, okay, yeah, let's figure out what you are all about and what will make you happy and what will make you fulfilled.

And if it's teaching other people, fine. If it's, mending broken arms, fine. But don't just because somebody on television tells you, you can hit an eight figure business doing that. Maybe you don't want an eight figure business. [00:24:00]Maybe you just want clients to say, thank you.

I feel really good after your help. So it's what our personal values are. And it's not easy. It really isn't easy, but we got to do it.

Priscilla Shumba: Larry, it wouldn't be right for me to speak to you and not ask these questions 'cause I know people are gonna say they've looked at your profile, they know you've been such a success on LinkedIn and you're one of the mentors in coaching. And for the coaches who will be listening, thinking like you said, Larry, I need business, I need repeat business.

Give me something to do with the business. And then I'll work on myself,

Larry Easto: I don't have a fast answer for that. I wish I . I really wish I One of the questions I used to get was can I run my business part time until I make enough money , to run it full time?

, The realities come in, the reality is crashing and we have to factor those in. I think that, again, looking back at some of my own experiences, good relationships are probably know this sounds altruistic, but I think good relationships with clients and referral sources [00:25:00] and network contacts are far more important than money grabbing and generating a cash flow.

If the relationships are there, the cash flow will follow. When I was training as a lawyer, the senior partner firm was, he was probably, 55, 60 years older than I was quite elderly. And he was semi retired. And it was great because he didn't have a lot to do, so we spent a lot of time together.

So I had a private tutor. And he kept saying, look after your clients and they will always look after you. Look after your clients and they will always look after you. I, followed that. And periodically When I was practicing it and other situations, I'm thinking I haven't talked to so and so. I wonder how he's doing. So I'd reach out and connect with somebody I knew and invariably I got new business out of it. I wasn't looking for business, but I was just going out to see how they were doing. So somebody that wants to do business, my advice would be get out and talk to people.

Talk to as many people as you can. Don't sell services, but go out and find out what they're doing give some freebies [00:26:00] away. But just go out and help people, go out and serve people. And , yeah, it'll come back to you. It'll come back.

Priscilla Shumba: Oh, thank you, Larry. That was worth it all. 

Larry Easto: Oh, Thank you.

Priscilla Shumba: If you listen to that advice, I think you'll get very far. Thank you so much Larry it's been a great conversation and really insightful to our audience If you'd like to know more about Larry if you can go to ww.

larryeasto. com I'll put the link in the description. He's on linkedin as well. Is that the best place to follow you 

Larry Easto: Yeah, LinkedIn is probably best I'm not on any other social media and I quite like LinkedIn and I'm Running a series to help people grow their businesses or plan for 2025. also have a website and you gave the URL for the website.

There's a thank you some helpful information. I hope it's not an information dump. It's a process to help people come up with one thing solutions. There's also a free gift there. There's a book called 26 ways for service professionals to get new business.

So just go to the website and somewhere on there, there's a free thank you gift and just download [00:27:00] that. 

Priscilla Shumba: . Larry, , you mentioned your course, I know your book, which I'll link there. You mentioned that you have a course that you converted from a book. Is that on your website as well?

Larry Easto: It's on my computer. It's halfway done. The plan is, that's an interesting story because I wrote a book about motivation and then I thought this will fit with some marketing stuff I got. So I combined the two of them. And I thought there's two books here.

And then I decided to go with the professional services book. What am I going to do with this other content? So I turned into a video course, which I'm currently working on. It'll be ready. . So maybe in February, January, we can have another conversation about the course. 

Priscilla Shumba: That sounds great. I liked when you talked about it, I liked the idea of sort of personal development and business development going hand in hand, which I think sometimes people think about business development and it never works because you haven't developed the person as well. .

Larry Easto: that's it. Especially for one person business. If the one person business if your head's not working, the business isn't working. It's not like a store that you can have somebody come in and [00:28:00] sell the product for you. And if we don't take care of our health, we can't take care of our business and our health is physical, mental, and spiritual.

So it all fits in together.

Priscilla Shumba: We look forward to that. I think when you mentioned it that way, I said you hit the nail on the head there. Thank you so much,

Larry Easto: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Priscilla Shumba: been a pleasure.

Larry Easto: This has been fun.