Bringing Intention to Your Client Experience w/ Gisell Paula
The basis for a successful business (and experience with your business)—is intention.
You’ve heard it on the show before—the importance of intention. Wherever you place your focus, that will blossom. Putting your focus & intention on all the problems you expect to have? Cool—you just watered that patch of grass. Want to plan for the good? Yay!
You’re going to love this conversation with Gisell Paula James! She’s sharing how we can begin optimizing for the most amazing client experience using this concept of intentionality. Even better, she walks us through what those opportunities look like for social proof and storytelling and SEO.
(Word to the wise → this is a thought-provoking episode, so more than likely you’ll want to revisit this conversation!)
Topics covered in this podcast episode:
When the client experience actually begins & ends
How to use your client experience as a competitive advantage
What giving value looks like in for your business & clients
How to know what to optimize for your specific business
Questions to ask & answer to begin optimizing your client experience for greatness
Mistakes made & opportunities that exist for optimizing social proof, storytelling, & SEO within the client experience
Meet: Gisell Paula James
Gisell Paula James is the founder of Scrap Strategies, a boutique Strategic Business and Operations Consultant helping owner-operators amplify their unique business rhythm and accelerate growth through data-driven customer insights and competitor deep-dives. Gisell has a keen eye for connecting the dots to help ambitious leaders leverage their competitive advantages to cut through the market noise to discover their potent position. When she's not helping B2B firms 4x within a year, she's busy taking too many pictures of her cats and being obsessed with her niece and nephew.
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This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome to the Basic Bee Podcast. I'm thrilled to have you back and I'm thrilled to be joined by my friend Gisele Paula before I bring her on to talk all about client experience. And we're going to weave in SEO, storytelling and social proof. This whole thing is going to evolve as we talk. So just buckle up, my friends. Here is a brief intro to Giselle. Giselle Paula James is the founder of Scrap Strategies, a boutique strategic business and operations consultant, helping owner operators amplify their unique business rhythm and accelerate growth through data driven customer insights and competitor deep dives. Giselle has a keen eye for connecting the dots to help ambitious leaders leverage their competitive advantages to cut through the market noise to discover their potent position. When she's not helping B2B firms forex. Within a year, she's busy taking too many pictures of her cats and being obsessed with her niece and nephew. Hello, my friend.
Gisell Paula James: Hi. And those are facts. When I leave this earth, that's what I want in my tombstone. Too many pictures of her cats obsessed with her niece and nephew.
Brittany Herzberg: I love that. So introduce us to everyone. The cats and the niece and nephew, who are they?
Gisell Paula James: Yes. One day when I figure out how to have more time, my husband and I, we always talk about how we're going to start like a comic book of the two cats. If you're a cat person out there, first of all, yes. Second of all, you know, they have like vastly different personalities. And so, yeah, they're just very interesting. Molly is the eldest and that's how I refer to her, as the eldest, obviously. And I'm convinced she's plotting to take over the world. And Jess is the youngest and I'm convinced she has no idea what the world is.
Brittany Herzberg: They're so interesting.
Gisell Paula James: One day when I retire, I will create this comic book.
Brittany Herzberg: Please do.
Gisell Paula James: I can't draw or write, so we'll see.
Brittany Herzberg: You can just hire help. Know there are people who can make this happen for you.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg: I have one request. Can my cat moonlight make a special appearance?
Gisell Paula James: Oh, my gosh. Moonlight can be their bff.
Brittany Herzberg: She can just like have like one little page. She can be in the corner. It'll be wonderful.
Gisell Paula James: I love it. Moonlight. I need a picture so I can capture her essence. And we'll have to do like, video calls where none of the cats are paying attention. No, they won't. But we should get their essence.
Brittany Herzberg: She gave you the cat that's there in spirit because she actually passed away about 10 years ago. So she can just be like the ghostly cat she can be, like, the fairy godmother. Okay, let us bring this back to what we were going to talk about instead of a cat comic book. Although that's fun. All right, I prepped you that I always ask guests the same one question, and I never tell anyone what the question is, and you can't mess it up. So deep breath. Whatever you say is the correct answer. Which do you believe is the most important for sales? SEO, storytelling or social proof?
Gisell Paula James: SEO, storytelling or social proof? I'm not saying this because I'm on your podcast, but SEO helps to tell the stories of the social proof. So there you go. I'm, like, basically a politician. You're welcome.
Brittany Herzberg: No one has ever put them together that succinctly. They've put them together, and that's also my answer. But bravo. That was beautiful.
Gisell Paula James: Thank you. Thank you.
Brittany Herzberg: Do you have additional thoughts on that as to why?
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, a lot of times, and you know, you know this, Brittany better probably than most, but people try and, like, game the SEO by stuffing it with keywords and doing all this stuff. And that works one purpose, right? Where it's like, yes, people will be able to find you. Now, that is only part of the battle. The second is, do they care what you have to say? And that's where that storytelling and that social proof. Well, the storytelling first is do people care what you have to say? And the social proof, it's what's going to turn what people have to say into a sales engine for you. And that's where you begin to get your, like, ROI on your SEO.
Brittany Herzberg: I love it. That is so beautiful. Okay, let's switch gears. We're going to go into the client experience, which I know that's your wheelhouse. What in your mind encompasses the client experience? Because someone might hear that and just be like, okay, cool. I have this part of the process in my head, but they may not be thinking of everything.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah. So it's really easy. It is everything. The client experience is everything. And what I mean by everything, it's not that it's like, the most important, but client experience. And really, you know, when I talk about myself as a strategist or when I talk about doing strategy in your business, it's really about intentionality. Right. So ultimately, that intentionality will deliver that client experience. And what that means is mobilizing your entire organization against that intentionality. So are your finances prioritizing, making space for that customer experience that you want to deliver? Is your marketing doing that? Is your sales team and your product Team is everyone in your organization and your contractors, like, are all of those people supporting that experience? So that's where it is everything. Because we see this all the time where there's a misalignment. Right. You know, I always say, like, good marketing will bring everybody once and then what happens afterwards when they arrive? Like, that is the job of everyone else. So you can have like a client success or a customer success team, but ultimately, you know, you can choose to fight the uphill battle of constantly having your CS team field unhappy experiences or field issues because the operations folks, like, there was something wrong with the facilities. Like, you can choose your model. Your intentionality could be to tend to problems. However, if you want to use customer experience as a competitive advantage, you're likely better off preemptively preparing for good experiences and mobilizing your team to deliver on that.
Brittany Herzberg: That is a really beautiful way to think of that. You can have your intention be out there for good, or you can have it be out there for the negative. Just anticipating that people are going to be unhappy versus anticipating that people are going to be happy and they're going to be sending you referrals.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah. And I think something that's really interesting and also often gets lost in this discussion when we talk about value is the fact that value can actually mean different things for different businesses. Right. So you actually don't need to roll out the red carpet every time if that's not the intention of your business. What I want out of my doctor and what a good experience looks like there is completely different than what I want when I'm rushing late to work and am trying to pick up a coffee to go. Like, there are different things that I value more in those moments. And that's where that intentionality and thinking about, you know, we talk about story building. Who do you want to be to your customers? Like, that's where it matters. That way you know what it is that you're actually going to invest in and what it is that you're optimizing for. So you might have like a quarterly or biannual meeting to be like, okay, guys, like, let's review and find opportunities within our customer experience. But, like, where are you actually investing in and what are you optimizing for? Like, what are you trying to make better is completely dependent on who it is that you're trying to be for your customers. Again, that comes back to the intentionality. It could be speed, and in that case, like, you don't have to have the nicest team ever. No one Wants a bad experience. But what good looks like is going to be different depending on the context of, like, who you are to your customers, what they need, what they look for you for.
Brittany Herzberg: I love this. You mentioned speed. What are some other things that we might be optimizing for? And where could a business owner even begin to think about what that answer is for them and their business and their offers?
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, so I teach like a CX kind of framework and it really starts with the different types of values. And it might be like innovation, it might be like social, it might be cost, it might be speed. Like there are these different ways that we can define value. And I would say at the start, think about the business that you want to run. So when I am working one on one with clients, we always start with the company. And as a company, like, what are you trying to achieve? And this is why I work specifically with owner operators, because you're closer to it, you started it, but you're like in the weeds. You're not just a CEO on a tower somewhere. That's just like reading spreadsheets. I love the idea of like, you have opinions about what type of business you want to run. Think about it, Take those opinions out to light, find threads throughout them. I also, and this is totally not a plug, but I actually, I sped up for your audience the publishing of a growth quadrant quiz. So the idea is to help people think about strategy and really that intentionality. But ultimately what it comes down to is like, when you think about your growth quadrant and really like where your market opportunity lies, it helps to think about that. So if nothing else, you can take the quiz and it'll ask you prompting questions to help you think about beyond the quiz. Like more tangibly, what does that mean to you and what does that mean to your business? And what can you think about to figure out who it is that you want to be for your customer? You already have ideas, you know, especially as like if you're a founder, but it's like pulling those together. And I'm going to say this, do not get mad at me, y'all. But with intentionality comes trade offs.
Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.
Gisell Paula James: So figuring out, out of all the ideas that you have, which do you want to prioritize and by proxy, which will you not prioritize? So if you're trying to optimize for speed, that might mean that you don't get to prioritize if you want to do it well. Right. That I teach is there's a wheel with like ultimately five different values and you can deliver at 20% of each five. You know, that doesn't help you make a differentiation in your industry. Or you can lean into one of the five and kind of like think of a pie, right? You have like a limited amount. So all of that to say that involves trade offs. So there are things that if you want to lean into something, if you figure out this is who I am for my customers, that means maybe don't spend on this other course because like the Internet and the trends tell you that this is like what matters or what's hot or what you need to do. Table stakes, they are a thing. There are things that your customers expect when they're looking for a solution from you. But even we as customers, we make certain trade offs based off what actually matters to us. And that's we're focusing on like who are your customers, what actually matters to them and then how do I meet them with what actually matters to me and who I want to be for them?
Brittany Herzberg: As you're talking, the couple things that are going through my head are I love working with service providers. I love working with six figure entrepreneurs who they're somewhat in the doing of the stuff, but they also have team members that have different responsibilities. And so when it comes to having an SEO case study or having an SEO strategy that they're coming to me for, I like asking them how much they want to understand what's going on. And the answer varies, but I always make sure to ask that and I ask it at the beginning because if they don't care to understand, that's fine. That gets to be completely okay. So nobody panic. But also I know where I need to spend my time with them and what they're going to find valuable. So that's like one thing that just I thought of as a tangible for the client experience that I'm providing with my clients.
Gisell Paula James: Absolutely.
Brittany Herzberg: Let's bring this into these three pieces. So we've got SEO, we've got storytelling, we've got social proof. And questions that I field a lot are just, we could maybe just start with social proof, because that's a big one. Where do I go about gathering the social proof during the client experience? How do I do that? So just hearing social proof in the client experience, where does your brain go? Are there mistakes that you see? Are there things that we need to be aware of?
Gisell Paula James: I think the first mistake that I see all the time is what should you be measuring? Right. And so we have qualitative data which are like customer testimonials. And that's great, but especially when we talk about case studies and the story that we're trying to tell with the case study of, like, you're the hero, and ultimately whoever it is that you're servicing, they want to make sure that you're able to deliver, and they want to make sure that they're getting value out of your services. So one of the best tools that we have as humans is data and numbers. And so figuring out what metric of success matters to my customer and then how can I capture that? And I think that's going to help you understand a lot of, like, what you should ask for and when do you need to ask for it, when? So, like, if you're going to ask for a testimonial, that's something that you don't want to do in the beginning, right before they've even worked with you, where it's like, hey, thanks for signing on. I'd love for you to give me a testimonial how you're going to like our work together. They would be like, what are you talking about? So time and place. And similarly, if you're looking for, for example, for you, Brittany, since you do SEO work, a metric that I would imagine matters very much to you is traffic. How can you drive traffic knowing that this is an important benchmark? How do I go about it? And then that means that it is probably in your best interest to capture a benchmark in the beginning and then to also measure it at the end or at X amount of time. In the end, you know, you would know better than the rest of us of, like, how long does it actually take the SEO machine to, like, ramp up and give meaningful results? Because you probably don't want to do it a week after you've published?
Brittany Herzberg: No, at least three to four months.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, it takes time to cook. So that's where I would start thinking about, like, what matters to my audience, what is going to grab their attention. And then the following question is, like, when do I need to ask for that information? The third is, how is it through a conversation or is it through, you know, like an actual survey? There are different ways that you can go about getting these stories and helping to understand. I think there's definitely something for an intentional testimonial, but there's also just so much more that you can get if you just have a conversation, particularly if you have, like, a higher ticket product where it might make sense, where it's like, oh, we're going to meet up for like, a virtual coffee or an IRL Coffee and you're just like building rapport. And you can begin to understand, like, yes, there was the thing that you did, but you can begin to pull out that story of like, what did that actually mean to them? Like what emotional state were they in, where they are now? What possibilities through your work have you unlocked for them? And these are things where like, sure, you can get like a snippet in a testimonial request, but that story, that story that drives people that will get someone, once you know you've got the right keywords in there to actually stay, is that story. And then those metrics and being able to use data, which again our brain understands. Right. It's like two is greater than one. Our brain is constantly looking to conserve energy, so it's always looking for shortcuts. And that's where like the data, it shouldn't be like everything, but that's where data can be really helpful.
Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, that's a really good point. You don't want to slam them with data. You want to be really strategic with what you're sharing and again, where you're sharing it. That's a really good point. So my brain immediately goes to thinking of client testimonials, but also thinking of case studies. And a lot of times I've taken testimonials and built them up into case studies. So I have some clients where we'll think about this in like a three part thing. Why did they choose to hire you? What was their experience like? Even as it's going on, especially if they make some call out of like, oh, I really liked that video that you did. This was so helpful. It saved me a ton of time. I was able to put it in double speed and whatever. And then of course at the end and figuring out what that timeframe is of like to collect data, I wouldn't want that immediately after the project wraps. I would want that a few months later. But there are still things that I can ask immediately after. So you kind of touched on this already, but I'm wondering if you have other ideas hearing that kind of three part process of types of questions that we can ask and information that we can grab at those three different points.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah. Before we go into information, I think there's a point that I want to make sure that we touch on it. And I think you're alluding to this, if not like explicitly saying it, but when we think about our customer experience, it goes beyond before they start working with us and after they stop working with us. Right. And that part of the reason is of course, retention. We want them to come back. The second reason is they can become advocates and like now, you know, our biggest fans begin to like, do freak promo for us. And then third, and this is, you know, what you're talking about is when we talk about meaningful, this is something that I'm also going through too, because what I do, it's, it's not directly tied one to one. Like, yes, if I wanted to, we could survey like, oh, what are the number of customer complaints that you have? But that's like an operational change. And for me that's like, it's fun, but it's less impactful than like an organizational change, which in order to see that, it just takes time. Yeah, right. So there's a rapport building and there's an experience that you want to make sure that you create for people who are, you're not actively servicing, but you want to still be a value of and being able to get those long term metrics and have it not be weird when you come back, you know, a year after not speaking to them and being like, so, hey, how's business going?
Brittany Herzberg: I've definitely done that.
Gisell Paula James: It feels weird.
Brittany Herzberg: It does. It never stops feeling weird. It just gets to be more of a routine practice, which, you know, I.
Gisell Paula James: Think there's definitely, there's a ton of value in being like, okay, it's been a year, it's time to check in. But it will be more meaningful and you'll get a lot more information and feel less weird and more genuine if you have some sort of like dialogue, whatever that looks like post engagement.
Brittany Herzberg: The way I break it down in my brain is why did they choose to work with you? What was their experience like? Did anything stand out specifically is what I'm curious about. And then I just call it wins. Sometimes I think of them as internal or more emotional wins, and sometimes I think of them as external wins or more of that data, the metrics that you can actually track. So it's like, why did you choose me? What was your experience like? And what is business like now?
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, so I would say in the beginning, like, why did you choose me? That's, that's a great question. And I feel like if I had to point to a mistake, I think it's like making sure you get people in the right headspace. You know, I think a lot of times in the beginning it might be like really awkward and you might get a shallow answer as to why someone chose you, which is like, it's good to know Right. It would be the equivalent of like you sending out a survey. You could be like, here are these high level things. Why did you choose me? I actually feel like that question is probably better asked in the middle of an engagement and you don't want to wait too long because you don't want them to necessarily forget. But you know, chances are that they're not just following you even still, they're probably still looking at and engaging with content, you know, through like the social media posts of like companies that they followed or they're on other people's newsletter lists. And so they're still engaging with other people's content. So they're choosing you every single time. They could technically fire you at any point. So I think there's value in asking them a little bit further in. I personally, I don't like getting asked that during like an introductory meeting because it's like, I don't know, I guess like your site seemed cool, you know.
Brittany Herzberg: Right.
Gisell Paula James: But like, I feel like you could get that insight even in your like inquiry form where it's like, how did you find us? But for something more meaningful, something that you know, you could really lean into and begin to build your own story of who you are to your customers is probably if you ask it a little bit deeper into the engagement so they can, they can now have some comparison of actively working with you. They could say, oh yeah, oh, I knew Britney was going to be really good at this. Or like, oh, this is something that I see that, you know, you're not talking about. And also you could get like more candid feedback about your competitors and how your customers are perceiving them. Again, I think there's like value in that sweet spot. Obviously depends like how long your engagement is. But like if you have a couple weeks engagement, maybe at like the third mark, finding some way to kind of like bring that into the conversation and it might come out more organically, but you could just be like, I'm so curious. I'm doing some research and I'm trying to get a better understanding. I'm really curious what attracted you to kind of like work with me. And at this point you have more rapport and you'll just get a higher quality answer than, you know, just kind of like in the introductory meeting. So why'd you choose me?
Brittany Herzberg: That's a really good point.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah. Have you ever found the response to that when you ask it so early to be like meaningful and helpful?
Brittany Herzberg: I have and I can very much see your point. So I'm almost Thinking of asking twice would maybe be a good idea because I don't always have like a kickoff call. I try to remove a lot of those calls because I was thinking about the client experience and the intention behind it. I really want to remove a thing from their plate and have more of a wrap up call where it's like, all right, you've seen all the information, ask me your questions and we can go through everything piece by piece by piece so that they really feel confident moving forward. But that aside, yeah, I feel like I have gotten some good answers when I ask and I do really generally ask that more organically. Like maybe I'm dropping off a voxer message, maybe I've just done an SEO audit, or maybe I interviewed their client and I'm just touching base with them and me being me. Like, I usually phrase it as like a joke slash question where it's like, bet you didn't expect that when you hired me, but why was that actually? Or something like that. I really have never said that before.
Gisell Paula James: I love that. Because ultimately, like, that's what it is, right? Doesn't matter when you ask it ultimately what you're trying to find. And you know, saying like, oh, a third of the engagement is really trying to be formulaic. But particularly when you have a service based business that is working so closely with people, there is no one size fits all. Like, if you're like, okay, well we're X amount of weeks in, someone on your team like just pooped the bed and they're like really mad. You're probably not going to be like, so what do you think about working together?
Brittany Herzberg: Like, want to keep going? Yeah, that's not the best time, but.
Gisell Paula James: That'S where like just gauge. But I think that level of organicness, right. Instead of just like, okay, it's a checklist item where if it makes sense, ask a couple times enough to be meaningful, but make sure that it feels organic and that you're not catching them totally off guard. And I love the boxer approach because even if you are catching them off guard, where they're like dropping their kids off or like in the middle of like meetings and stuff like that, that gives some space to think about it and to give you a more meaningful answer than just like on a call, hey, how are you? Why'd you choose me? And it's like, I honestly, I'm in the middle of like assessing many competitors. I technically haven't chosen you yet, but here's why. I reached out, I guess.
Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. And I do have a question like that on my intake form, inquiry forum, whatever you want to call it. I come from the background of massage therapy, so sometimes I call it in form. But I do have a question on there that says something along the lines of why this project, why me, why now? And I do get some really good answers there of you were referred to me. I mean, I can't tell you the number of times. Referrals are always going to be like a top source for clients coming in the door, no matter what you have. Because we always like to hear about good experiences. To your point, and especially with this bit on social proof, we want to know that they've helped somebody else. We want to know that they're trusted, that they do deliver, that the results are worth it, that your money is going to go to a good service provider.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, referrals are definitely going to be your in general. And again, when you think of referrals, it doesn't have to be like a luxurious experience. It is. Referrals come from whatever is good to your customer. And that will always be not only the most effective way to get new customers because we're so much more inclined to believe someone and to trust someone that we already trust. And it's like you've gotten a seal of approval, but it's also the most economical and the most scalable. And I think the best one you'll find better fit customers in the long term because you have people who are in other people's spaces whom you like who are referring you Definitely.
Brittany Herzberg: This is really good for social proof. And I feel like we touched on a lot of storytelling just naturally by thinking through that part of the client experience and asking questions at different times and that kind of thing. So SEO, does that come up in your world at all?
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, a lot of what I do is I start off with research and not just like research of who it is that you want to be as a company, which should frame all of your research or like who you are as a company, which should frame actually everything beyond research. But it is important to ask the right research question when you're asking research. But a big chunk of like my kind of initial process when it comes to like figuring out your positioning and by proxy, like how it is that you're going to mobilize your team and what a good experience and like, how do you talk about it? It affects all of these different aspects, but it starts with digital research specifically because that's the most accessible. And so a lot of that is looking at keyword search, looking at what our audience is researching and where it is that they're landing. So a ton of it has to do with the digital landscape. And I would say that's probably the number one place that I start. I'll get a list of competitors from the clients, but then I'll also do my own research and see, like, where are other folks landing? So SEO, as far as, like, I don't get as granular to give an SEO strategy. That's what amazing people like you are. But we can hopefully, once you kind of figure out what it is that you want to do and who it is that you want to be and kind of, like, have all of these pieces together, ideally someone would be coming to you with so much more context of, like, here's what we know about our customers, here's what we know about. Not just, like, what they're searching for and where they're hanging out, but also, like, what else are they hearing? And I'm not talking about necessarily, like, psychographics, like radio stations they listen to or whatever. Like, yes, that matters. But also a lot of that cultural context I think, is often missing even when we talk about SEO, right? It's like, oh, yeah, we're just going to stuff keywords, but your audience is participating in a dialogue with the rest of the world, and it is important to understand what that dialogue is. So what is happening in, I call it like, the cultural climax. It's like, what is happening in their world? What are they caring about? You know, there's, I think of, like, I had a client who did affordable housing, and something that was coming up through the research, particularly looking at, you know, who's searching for these key terms, was, you know, this kind of, like, larger societal debate that was happening about affordable housing and renting and all of these things. And so part of the strategy for them, you know, it was a small part because your strategy is larger than just like a marketing tactic, but was to really lean into and to help define that conversation for a lot of folks who might be like, I'm hearing about, you know, in this particular instance, like, Dave Chappelle doesn't want this affordable housing unit built. This other, you know, celebrity TI is building affordable housing in Atlanta. And it's just like, you have people that are consuming this information, and you have an opportunity to help define that for them. And that's. That's kind of how I look at it. I think definitely my approach to SEO isn't necessarily having SEO drive the strategy, but having the strategy inform SEO and, you know, Figuring out what are people looking for and how can you respond to that? I would love to hear more about, like, what is your approach and to what extent do you take into account the, like, the cultural climate and like, the larger conversations that are maybe beyond just like, this is my service, this is how I help.
Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I haven't really had that instance, that example, like the affordable housing where a client can add to that conversation. But I really like the way that you frame that, because I'm talking about blog content, I'm talking about podcast episodes and YouTube videos. So understanding that is really key. And just being aware that awareness of what that conversation is in the bigger contexts around the world and in the community and in the country, it is really important and it is really key, especially for certain services or certain topics, certain trends, that kind of thing. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. But I do agree with you that all of that stuff informs the SEO strategy. So where I start with clients with SEO packet, at least, is we're starting with who do you help, how do you help them, and what do you want to be known for or as? So I think it's really beautiful that we started this conversation with that intentionality, because that really does come through with everything with asking for social proof, with the storytelling, with figuring out the SEO approach. And it is so vision and mission oriented of where do you want to take this? You're driving the bus. Where are we going? What is this adventure? Where, like, what are you punching in the gps? Because that really matters. So having all that information, having whatever client testimonials you have at that point, having your vision, your mission, the values, even taking all of that, your services, and then using that to inform, all right, these are all the directions that we're going to punch in, and this is how we're going to go. And these are the stops that we're going to take. I think that's really a cool way to bring it all together.
Gisell Paula James: Oh, for sure. And I love that analogy of like, we're. You're driving the bus and like, where are we going? And the whole reason why Scribe Strategy started was I worked at a marketing firm and what I saw was it didn't matter the size. And I'm talking about, like, nationwide organizations, like huge companies. It didn't matter their size. When you asked them, like, why are you throwing all of this money to a marketing campaign? And they would be like, I don't know. Because it's like, that's what we're supposed to do. And it's just like, that is such a terrible answer. It is. There is no wrong answer. That is just like the worst answer you could give. But it's really, especially for a lot of like service providers and owner operators. It is both terrifying but also liberating and empowering that like, you get to decide what business you want to run. And people like Brittany, people like myself, we're here to help you deliver that. We're not here to like tell you what your business is going to be. Even if that's what you want, then that's totally great. But you could end up growing a really big business that you hate if.
Brittany Herzberg: You listen to somebody else's advice and if it doesn't resonate with you, if it doesn't come from within you. I see this time and time again with my strategy calls where people are like, well, I went with this offer, I went with this target audience, I went with fill in the blank because someone said so. And it's like, okay, that's cool if it comes up as a suggestion and you get lit up by it. But if that comes through as a suggestion or even more of a I'm telling you what to do and you just go with it, that's going to seep through the offer, that's going to seep through your business. You're going to become resentful. That's just going to create a bad client experience for me to stay on topic. It's not going to have the same pizzazz to it that it will when it comes from you and when it feels really good.
Gisell Paula James: Absolutely. And I get super, super passionate about this. Not because, like, I think everyone has to have a mission driven company, which I wish everyone did, but ultimately it's like small businesses make up 99% of all enterprises within the United States. And the fact is that by 10 years, so at the five year mark, only half of them survive. By the 10 year mark, only like 30 or 35 of them survive. And part of the reason is running a business is hard. It's already hard. If you run a business that you don't love, it makes it impossible to withstand those hardships. The trade offs just ultimately don't seem worth it. And that's where it gets a little personal for me. All of these gurus that are telling you this is the way, the fact is that particularly this is what I love about strategy is that I hate the fact that it is so obscure. But what I love about it is that you can find hundreds of different strategy frameworks and what that means is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of ways for you to be successful in business. There is no one framework that works for everyone. It is about the framework that works best for you.
Brittany Herzberg: Period, the end. Like, there are no ifs, ands, or buts. Like, period, the end. I am so glad that you brought that up. And I feel the same way. I get really passionate about that. Because to your point, if you're not doing something that feels good, what is the point? Like, it's just. It's not going to feel sustainable or good for the long term.
Gisell Paula James: And the best part about it is when you love your business, you can tell so many more stories. The stories feel so much more real, which means that they resonate more with your audience, which means that you get more customers, which means that you've now built this flywheel of success and joy and not turning your business into another dredging re job.
Brittany Herzberg: Exactly. I love this, aside from the quiz, because I'm totally going to link that and I love that plug. That plug was totally welcome. What else do you want to tell us? Where else can people find you and get in your world?
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn and you can also find me on Instagram @getstrategy. Feel free to take the quiz. Feel free to ask strategy questions. I get. Like I said, I'm on a mission to help turn those metrics around. 35% feels, like, so sad, so abysmal. So if you have questions about just, like, where you are in your business and, like, feeling confused about what does it mean to be intentional about your business, feel free to send me a dm or you can email me. I'm here and I'm excited to hear, you know, just, like, all the ways that all you guys make more intentional business decisions and tell more stories.
Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. And you guys know that the way that I am with my DMs, if you write to me, I write back. Emails, I write back. And Giselle is the same way. I can totally vouch for that because you and I actually met through Selena Young last year, and we both presented and we were at this live roundtable, Q and A type thing, and immediately we just, like, connected. And we've been in each other's world since then. So I can definitely tell you that if you ask her a question, she will more than happily respond and take advantage of that because you're a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much for being here and sharing everything that you did today.
Gisell Paula James: Yeah, thanks for having me. Brittany, this was super fun.