And something changed once I really started building my confidence. Well,

actually, confidence is a choice, but when you started just choosing to

be more confident, choosing to be more intentional, choosing to really have that leadership

vibe, the people that reached out to me and I'm not going to

put people in a hierarchy or anything like that, but it was highly committed.

People like people like I wanted to work with because my

energy and my personality and who what I stood for

was infused into that.

Um, I give enough

without a fight and

I'm not sleep until I wake you down too

quick,

too quick,

too welcome

to Too Legitimate to Quit Instantly actionable small business

strategies with a pop culture spin. I am

your host, Annie P. Ruggles, and my guest today is

the dynamic and fabulous Joy Buffalini.

Meet Joy Boofolini, creator of the Simplify to Multiply Method,

helping women scale their businesses by simplifying their focus.

In her eleven years as an entrepreneur, she's been featured

in both O and Entrepreneur Magazine.

As a leader in the business coaching industry, she's known

for her warm but no fluff approach to helping women do their

sole work in this world. Even while raising her daughter

with multiple disabilities, joy has built a robust seven

figure business by keeping a simple and scalable focus.

Joy Buffalini, my sister in selling

for nontraditional sales folk. Big glorious red

hair, and so many other things. I'm so excited to have you on

the podcast today so I could ask you the tltq question, which is

what do small business owners need to focus on this week? Love it.

Thanks for having me, Annie. All right, let's go right to it.

Redheaded sister. Redheaded sister.

Well, what they need to focus on is something that introverts

initially won't like to hear.

Communication.

Communication. So one of the reasons that a

lot of people who have a business, online service based

business, don't have the number of clients that they want,

if they're not communicating enough,

they're not communicating to enough people. They're not in front of enough people.

They would rather be a back end face of the

business. And at some point you can do that. Get past multiple

six figures and you could freak it just be like a background

face in your business.

Oprah level shit. Like when you are Oprah, you could take

a backseat in your business. But for right now, you need to be talking to

a ton of people all the time. Yes. Because they're hiring you,

even if it's something that's not a one to one type of thing. So communication,

I think we can forget. We can get so busy with all the

busy work of the business, like the tech stuff, endlessly updating

your website that nobody's actually on.

Hey, no offense, but really I'm laughing. Because that was

me. I'm laughing because there was very much and

this is one of the things I've talked about, about being a business owner with

OCD, like, when I fixate.

And there was a time where I never looked at the analytics from

my website because I knew no one was there. But every day I would wake

up and be like, got to make my website better. Got to wake my website

better. And it wasn't until, like, a year of that conscious stress that I was

like, wait, am I actually driving any traffic

to this website? Right? So I laugh because,

A, that was me. But also, so many

of us have that tendency to want to pour energy and

effort into the biggest, shiniest thing that feels

like work instead of prioritizing the uncomfortable,

which for introverts like me, is connection and me.

Absolutely. And it almost gives you a sense of safety

and security. Like, yeah, I'm working on my business,

right? And that was me from 2011 to 2016.

I'm working on my business. But guess what? I never made more than $20,000

in a year. Like, wait a second.

Something's wrong here. Now, during that time frame,

obviously still, I have three kids at the time.

We're younger teenagers. And my daughter,

Amber, she's my sweetheart. She has significant disabilities from brain

damage at birth, like, 18 month old level in a now

22 year old body. So I have a lot on my plate, and I'm an

introvert. I'm not like, the person that wants to be raw, raw, raw,

and peopleing all the time. So how do I make this work? Because I'd

be working hard, but I wasn't getting traction, right?

And I think we can almost be unconscious of

how little people are actually seeing our content. Even if

you're sending out one email a week, and let's say

you have a really good open rate and 35% of the people open it,

that's a lot of people that do not see you in the course of a

month. Correct. Or if you get social media overwhelmed or

you're like, on LinkedIn one week, and on Instagram one week, and on Facebook another

week, but not any one place consistently, there's very few

people who are actually going to know about your awesomeness. Right?

Exactly. Which is why I had to get over the

I don't know. I want to say stigma, even though I know that that's not

the right word, but I was so resistant as a former marketer

to repurpose content. I was so resistant.

I had just a freaking mountain range. Not even a mountain,

but a mountain range of resistance to repurposing.

Because I had that fear that you're talking about it's like, I don't want to

oversaturate. I don't want to talk too much. I don't want to annoy people.

They've heard this from me before. And finally,

I caught up to the fact that, A, your best stuff not only deserves repeating

or bears repeating, it demands repeating number

one. And number two, people aren't paying close

enough attention to you at any given moment

in their lives that they're going to go, excuse me, Joy.

Three and a half months ago at 02:12 p.m., I already saw

this post on LinkedIn, so I'm going to unfollow you. That's what we fear,

but nobody actually thinks like that. And I've had one person

in my last year and a half of repurposing

content, religiously, like, as my religion, I've had

one person acknowledge that they had already seen

something. And you know what they said? They said, oh, my gosh, Annie, this is

one of my very favorite posts of yours. And I'm like thank you.

Okay, so the people I was worried about annoying are like, oh,

yeah, my favorite. Why do we think that we can watch

hours and hours of reruns of television, but people only want to see our memes

one time? I don't know. Right. And email is similar

in that we have new people coming on the list all the time. And 35%

is a wonderful open rate. It's a wonderful freaking open

rate. But that still means that 65% of your people have no idea what

you're talking about. Exactly. And the

thing is that every time you hit post on a post,

every time you hit send on an email, you see that. I mean,

assuming you're doing it yourself, eventually you get team to help you out with that.

But you're seeing every piece of content that goes out there. Correct. But when people

are scrolling through their feed, unless your content is really compelling,

they are not going to stop the scroll. No, they're going to keep on going.

Right. Or unless they've been following you religiously, they're not going

to get a notification that you just posted something. Right.

Unless they're connected and engaging with your content. I mean,

I get my own push notifications of me. It'll be like new on LinkedIn

from Annie P ruggles. And most of the time, I don't even open those and

I'm me. Right? We know you're communicating.

Exactly. Here's the thing. A couple of things for

me, in 2016, I had this line in the sand moment of

like, all right, I got to figure this shit out or I've

got to go get a job because my kids are getting older, medical expenses

have been piling up. Like, I've got to make this work. Right? And honestly,

I was not doing the one thing that in every other area of my

life I was really good at. I'm a former math teacher.

Focus and simplicity. I was

trying to do trigonometry without first having mastered

algebra one. Right. I was going to say, we got to go back to freaking

triangles and geometry.

Right? I knew I was smart, I could figure things out and managing

my daughter's care over the years, and I'm a freaking amazing case manager.

Why am I not a good CEO of my own business? Well, I was

doing all the things and not the things that actually mattered.

So when I started changing this and I had to do it in a

way that worked for me as a mom with a lot on her plate and

also as an introvert,

I knew you had to be communicating with people. How do you do this in

a way where you're not on? Like, I've heard of

people that follow a business model where it's like, 30 cold

calls breakthrough. And breakthrough calls, like, with cold Leads, a month,

like, hour long, totally burnt themselves out. I knew I

would never do okay, the idea of 30 hours of

bullshit on my calendar.

Listener, let's key in to the fact that Joy and I,

both of whom teach sales, don't want to

be on sales calls. I love sales calls. They're my favorite thing

in the universe. My discovery calls are amazing. I have a blast,

and I make good money. That being said, the idea

of 30 hours of my precious baby

bird time being eaten by

the shark of Cold Leads, it's crazy. Makes me

break out in hives. Totally. And I have clients that come

to me out of that model and like, God, I'm so glad

that the path I'm going to be on now is. So much

I'm like itching myself now. I'm like, I totally

get it. I wasn't one of these people that would say, I'll do

whatever it takes.

I had experienced significant burnout ten

years before, actually, when my daughter was little and all the hospital stays and

overextending myself. And I mean, her life was literally on the line back

then. So I learned that lesson. I intuitively knew, like,

I am not going to kill my health or my relationships over

this business. But when I had this line in the sand

moment, I was having a conversation with my husband,

and I really was like, at this point, like, my back up against the wall.

Like I said, I've got to figure this out. And I had

healthy anger, I'm going to call it. Right? And when I

get mad, I'm not a person that gets mad easily. I got

mad, threw a pillow across the room, said a few

expletives, right? Okay. I'm like,

I'm freaking going to do this. I'm going to figure this out. And literally,

I went in my office and I wrote down three things, and the next year,

I made $104,000 and worked less.

Sam wait a minute. Something here.

Because you wrote down three things. Not ten things, not 300

things, not 30 things. I was doing too many

things, and none of them were taking me in the right direction.

So one of the three things actually was consistent

content. Consistent, focused content.

So one of the things we try to do and content is

part of the selling process, and I'll talk about how that leads to that.

Consistent content. That's not for everyone. Sometimes we

can seek to be people. Pleasers. We want people to like us, especially.

Introverts, if we come out of our shells, we're like, I'm out,

I'm already unsafe. They may as well like me. So let me just not

stir anything up. Like, let me just peek my little head out of my turtle

shell, make sure everybody's happy, delight everyone and go back

inside for three months. People, pleasing and introversion

is not a Venn diagram. It's like a circle. Yes. And so you

can tend to want to be everything to everyone. Right. And everybody

who follows you is not the right fit client. So I really had to

dial in, like, who is what I now call your yes client?

Like, that person who would be a perfect fit for what you have to

offer. Who is that yes client? And so then the next level of

focus was just talk to them in my contact, just talk

to them. Two other decisions I made were

to not sell anything under three K.

That was, like, a really bold decision, but I knew that

my time needs to really count and I'm going to really give to these clients.

But I changed my pricing structure too. And you know what I

like about that a lot? Three K

is mid ticket. Yeah. A lot of the time when I

see people lose their brains in similar Scarlett O'Hara moments

that wind up going really well for them,

they're aiming from undercharging to mid ticket.

Not that I'm against high ticket. I've talked a lot on the show about different

models and different strokes for different folks. Right. But I

love that in your striving, you were like, I need to get my rates

to mid ticket. You didn't immediately go,

what's the most expensive thing I could sell? No, because I see a lot of

that when we're in that shake your carrot in the air, I'll never go hungry

again space. We want to go for the shiniest, low hanging

fruit, which for many of us in our industry is the highest ticket we

could imagine. Whereas you were like, I want three K. It's going to give me

what I need. And I could own that. And I felt like I could deliver

on that. It's an investment for the clients, but one that they can

make that they don't have to take out a separate credit card

to do, or they could do over a payment plan. We're getting them to the

point of spending three K. We're not rushing to the 30K. So I know that

I'm taking us on a tangent there, but just for me, when you said three

K, I was like, I love how grounded that

choice is in that it's a perfect number if you're trying to

grow your business without overgrowing your business.

Yeah, cool. Exactly. And really, that's three

clients a month. And in 2017,

the year that I'm referring to, I didn't get three clients in January and

February, but by the end of the year I was getting four, five,

six, right. So it all came out in the wash.

It took some time for this compound effect of this consistent content.

One of the things that helped me as an introvert as well is writing my

content offline. Now, I did live videos once a week. You just get yourself

in the mind space. It's important to do that too. And I don't mind being

live on video. I need to have recharge time if I've been on video a

lot. Again, introvert. But I write my content

off of social media. So like, I'm writing in a Google Doc or a Word

doc or sometimes in the note on my phone app just to run

some ideas. I can get the basics of a post down and

really things that are top of mind for

my yes client. Because the more of your clients you

serve, the easier it is to write content. Because not

that you're talking about your clients by name or anything like that, but the

people that are reaching out to you, what are the challenges? The patterns

become so crystal clear that you're like,

I had five different client calls this week of different people

in different industries and they all have the same problem. Okay, I should probably turn

that into content. It's a lot easier to keep

your finger on the pulse when you have your finger on more pulses. That just

makes sense. Exactly. So you have to get these conversations going.

So the third thing on my list was talk about my

offer, which at the time was a one to one coaching program, and talk about

it by name. That sounds kind of bold to me. Kind of ballsy.

But I know how the brain works and it needs to make what I'm doing

concrete. Yes. Otherwise you become what I call

like, a likable expert online. Like, oh, that was nice. Oh, that was food

for thought. But it's like your brain doesn't wrap around the fact that,

oh, I can reach out to her. We don't pay for food for

thought. You know what I mean? Like, food for thought is a Costco

appetizer. We show up when we want it, we walk around the aisles and we

get what we want and we go, oh, wow, I'm sated for now.

But that is how we wind up with influencers.

With 30,000 people on Instagram making no money.

It's a thing, unfortunately. Right? And quality beats

quantity all the time. Having quality audience.

I've had clients hit six figures with an email list of 300

and a Facebook group of 300. Right. But again, to your

previous point, it's got to be consistent. Yes. You can't

get there with sporadic good content. You can get

there with rare,

reduced, amazing content. As long as it's consistent.

Totally. So this is how the selling process changed once I

started getting consistent dialing in my content, paying attention

to what was working like, okay, I'm dialing in my content. I'm getting more

people reaching out, booking calls with me. And I was at the

time, I think I was doing hour or 45

minutes calls at the time, I can't remember. And I was like, you know what?

We can dial this into 30 minutes. This is a 30 minutes call.

And then I started my sales process, and I don't do

twist arms or overcome objections or anything, just tap into desires.

You wouldn't be on the show if you twisted an arm. Yeah, I know,

right? Anyway, and then those conversations,

what I started doing was taking what was happening in those conversations

and moving that into content as well. And I

started creating a new system for selling that. I finally, in 2020,

kind of just went for it,

and that was selling completely in DMs. And I thought, okay,

I had 20 sales calls. 30 minutes.

20 sales calls booked in a month. We were

moving, and the pandemic had just started. Still have

multiple children. Your kids didn't voluntarily

be like, it's okay, mom. We've got this. We don't need a parent for right

now. And I had been thinking, like, I've seen

people do this. I wouldn't do that. I would do this, I wouldn't do that,

I wouldn't do this. And so what I did was,

I took what I was doing in the sales call,

the questions I was asking, and the details I was giving about the program,

and I put it in a PDF. So basically, my new sales process

became consistent content that gets people leaning in, leaning in, leaning in.

They reach out, fill out a short application, thumbs up,

yes, they're a good fit, and I send them the PDF. And I had been

running this program for several years at that point, so I really knew what the

energy of it was, what the client journey was, what the

value is to the client. So instead of spending time on the phone,

we could do it right? And here's the thing. A lot of women in

my world tend to be maybe a bit more introverted or sensitive

or like to take time to process things. And when

you're making an investment in your business, you don't want to be on a phone

call. Like, I have to say yes or no right now.

So what I like about this new sales process, too, is they

get a chance in their own time to take in,

what is this program? And I actually

ask them, is this aligned for you? And what questions

do you have? Because that's exactly that

is, like, I feel like, a very respectful sales process.

It respects my time and energy. It respects their time

and energy. And also, as a human being, they can make their own

choices. They know what they need better than I know what they

need. So if it's not, that's okay,

too. That's one of the main tenets of the non CC sales academy is

people are going to make decisions on their own time and in their own speed.

So if you stand against the current of that, you look like

an asshole. Right? And so a lot

of traditional sales training is willingness to look like an asshole.

Our people, your people and my people, the listeners of this show,

again, we're introverts, we're people, pleasers, we don't

want to look like an asshole. And so I'm like, look, here's what you do.

You have to honor people's decision making process and

make sure that your processes and your systems are

rising to the occasion of facilitating that right.

And not trying to salmon against up

the current of how people make decisions. Because you're totally right.

Nothing can lose someone faster than when it feels

like you're trying to make that decision under duress. Like oh right.

And so that's why it's like stuff like fast action bonuses, they work really well

when they work well for your right audience. But if you put a fast action

bonus in front of someone who is in tough times or

a fast action bonus in front of someone who is stressed out of their gourd,

or a fast action bonus on somebody that already has

a 70 hours work week is going to stress them out more than convert

them. Exactly. And that's not what we want for people.

And so I think that whenever you

really come at it when your content I'll use this analogy

if you think of like a golf course, there's a golf course actually over here,

right back here behind my house. And when

somebody comes into your world, like, let's say here's the flag hole in one,

they're way over here. When they first come into your world, they're just kind of

like half reading your stuff. They see your name here or there or whatever.

But the more that they see your name, your face associate

the energy of who you are and your personality and your style and your way

of communicating, what they're going to do is they're going to kind of move towards

that hole in one themselves. They take themselves there

rather than us pulling them there. In a sales call, your content,

without being salesy, your content can actually pull them in like, wow,

I'm really feeling aligned with what she's saying. Yeah, that really resonates.

That sounds like me. Yeah, I really get that voice.

She's really on point with the pulse of what's been going

on for me. So that's not going to be for everybody,

but for the people that you're meant to serve, they're going to really resonate.

So by the time you have the sales conversation, whatever type of conversation

it is, they're going to be 90% of the way there. Ideally, if your client

is doing the. Work for you well, and I think it's our mutual friend

and fellow dame, Cat Stancik that says experts don't chase.

Right? And that's part of it, too, is like,

if I watch a Netflix show, if I start a Netflix series

and I watch one episode, when I go back into Netflix,

it says, Continue watching. So the prompt is there, but Netflix

doesn't call me on the phone 57,000 times saying,

how likely are you to watch the second episode of The Witcher?

How likely are you to do these things? Why don't you go watch it right

now? You should put it in your calendar. When can we connect? Would you like

us to watch The Witcher together? Netflix don't cur,

okay? That's not what they do. They just put

the suggestion in your thing you've previously watched, or if

they complete it, you go, Cool. You absorbed that and you liked it. What about

this? It guides you toward the next step. It doesn't hound you

about your choices. Yeah, absolutely.

That's such a good illustration that it's like, oh,

I love because if it was a show, it said, continue watching, and you saw

that and you liked it. Nobody has to convince you

like, oh, yeah, I want to watch more of that. Right? Because they've already created

value there that matches you or matches me.

You start watching something, you're like, no, that's not my thing. They're not

going to continue watching. And that's the way it works. That's the

way that it works. And again, to your previous point, we're only

talking to your yes client. Your yes client

will Binge on their own with support from you.

Yes, exactly. Your non yes client is

not going to become your yes client through binging your content.

Right? Sometimes we think that we create this metamorphosis and a

lesser client type will suddenly become the

ugly duckling, will become a perfect client swan. And that doesn't

happen. There are people with resistance in your yes

client roster that need extra support and care, but they're

not shifting what they need or how they show up. They're just

shifting their willingness to invest in themselves and to invest in you.

Right? Like, we're not saying, okay, cool. Now you're this perfect,

functional thing. Come give me money. Which I think a lot of us

kind of fall into when we're trying to create transformation,

right? And especially transformational content. So I love that all of this keeps

going back to content is like, what is the cause

behind the post? Like, why are you posting this purpose?

Right? What's my purpose, and what are your expectations? Right?

Because I also know people that are like, this is the

single greatest LinkedIn post that I will ever post, and if

this doesn't make me $20,000, I'm going to jump off a cliff and

they get crickets on that post. And then they're like, Well,

I'm done it's. Like, no, what are your expectations

for this post? Is this expectation for your post

to make $20,000? That's probably not realistic with your current list size.

Yeah, right? Absolutely. I love that.

It's the compound effect of people seeing your

name and associating with your style of writing and what you're talking

about. It's also about like when you give someone a shift in your content,

like a perspective shift or an insight that they had never

thought of before, that shifts something in them internally and they associate

your name with that shift. Right. And I'm sure

there's tons of people, thousands of people who I have helped through

my content who have never become a client and that's like totally

fine because I'm here to help people in the world no matter what.

That's great and I get paid. Well, it's all good. But you

can create some positive things in the world just by being you and speaking

your truth and sharing the things that you know that

are the deeper things rather than the tools and the tips and that kind of

stuff. That does not get people's attention

anymore. There's way too much noise out there now. There's not

enough differentiation. If you sound like everybody else in your

industry, everybody's just going to scroll past. They're just going to scroll

past your email or your post. So with

all that being said, we've had this elephant in the room of this conversation this

whole time, which is introversion. Yeah.

And when I met you, the first time I met you, we talked

a bit about being introverts. And what I love about you is

that you, like me, are the only other person I know

that every single time you self identify as an introvert,

everyone around you goes, what?

With your big eyes and your big red hair and your beautiful outfits

and your loud voice and you're this you're an introvert. What?

And your big internet presence and the DA DA DA. And I'm like, oh,

joy gets it like joy gets living this loud.

It's not shy. It's that you need

time away from people to recharge yourself.

Right? So, for instance, in a couple of weeks, I'm flying my team here

into Florida. We're having a retreat at my condo, but guess what

I'm going to do for two days before and two days after? Nothing.

I just got back from Podfest and I had to extrovert so

much that I may as well have been in a coma.

In that. When we got home,

the downstairs guest room, watching TV, and Ryan came in and

he was like, I know what this is.

This is you recharging. I just need to see

can I get you anything? But he identified before I did. I was like,

what's wrong with me? Am I depressed? Am I sick? What's going on?

Ryan's like, no, you just went to a

five day conference and talked to people the whole time. You can't

handle this anymore. You need to watch your dateline and eat some Dominoes and sleep.

And I'm like to do

those things. Right, but you're totally right. Introversion is

about recharging. Exactly. You can show up in a

big way and be present with you. We're both Italian as well.

Here I am talking with my hand, right? You can't see us, but we're

flailing and our hair is gleaming in the sun. Like,

this is a poster child for introverts you wouldn't expect, but yeah,

you can have personality. You can show up and be present.

You just need to know how to take care of yourself. Yes. It took me

a while to learn that. Like, when I

moved into a girl's dorm room in college, I was like,

oh, what's this? I got to share a room with people with

college.

I like to do stuff and I like to have fun and all of

that, but there was no quiet time to recharge. So,

like, getting to know yourself and what you need. And most people

can shorten their sales calls if they just do better in

their content. Just in your content.

Yes. And let your content do some of that

extroverting for you. Exactly. Right? Like,

again, repurpose your video. If you have great videos, play them

more than once. For heaven's sake, Annie, pass an easy ruggles.

Like, come on, get to it.

But I think for me, running a business as an introvert

is energy management and marketing. A business

as an introvert is extremely energy management.

And selling as an introvert is the highest level of energy

management, which is why, with my clients and also with myself,

I try to give a tax, like an

energetic tax, to those tasks so that I don't

schedule 57 calls in a row. I can't do that.

I can write 57 emails in a row,

right? I can run 57 client reports in a row.

But if you put, again, 30 hours of cold calls into my

week, I'm going to die, right?

And so sometimes when my clients make these big

leaps in their marketing, especially if they identify as ambiverts or introverts,

and they come to me and they go, what's next? What's next? What's next?

My answer is, slow down. You just took

this big scary leap. You just did this big brave fold thing. We cannot

forsake consistency, but what we can do is reduce

the pot from boils to simmer for a little bit while you

recharge, right? Because you've already mentioned this,

the risk of burnout for people like us

who have on off switches is really high if we're not willing

to hit the off switch. And so with my clients, sometimes they feel like they

can't, and I have to be the one to be like, Your homework is go

take a nap. Like, they're paying me to help them

sell. They're paying me to help them make money. And I'm like, Cool, go take

a nap, legit. And they're like,

how many people did you talk to yesterday? Twelve. How do you feel today?

Crappy. Cool. Right? Don't talk to anybody

in terms of your three pillars.

Right. Like consistent, focused content, a price point

that works and isn't people pleasing and making your

offer a household name for the households of your yes

client, not a household name internationally. Right.

Is there anything there that you

know is particularly difficult for introverts, that you kind of want to guide

us through? That's a good question.

I think introverts can be really good, actually, at the

content when they get tuned in, tapped in,

have a ritual routine or listen intuitively.

Everybody like finding what is your writing process?

And then I think it's when they have people

reaching out, when you start growing and you have people

reaching out that you don't know them, you've never met them before,

I don't know what they're like energetically. And that's going to start happening.

I remember when that started happening for me, it was kind of like, oh,

but like, okay, who's this? Is this a creep? Is this somebody you know,

a person I would jive with? Pardon me?

Are you a creep? I know, right?

But here's what I found started happening, is that as

I fine tuned my content and it

was like the people who were I would call them,

like they just wanted to piggyback off of my

energy. They just wanted to be

friends and they really pick my brain or something that

really went away. Once my content had this leadership energy in it,

there was just a leadership energy to it that if somebody reached out,

it wasn't something like they weren't dumping. This is what

I was always afraid of, especially if I opened up my DMs, they would just,

like, dump in my DMs, right? Like over

sharing too much information. And something changed once I

really started building my confidence. Well, actually, confidence is a choice,

but when you started just choosing to be more confident, choosing to

be more intentional, choosing to really have that leadership vibe,

the people that reached out to me, and I'm not going to put people in

a hierarchy or anything like that, but it was highly committed people

like people like I wanted to work with because my energy

and my personality and what I stood for was infused

into that. Somehow, accidentally, I figured it out. And over

time, you can too. It just takes some practice and some fine tuning showing

up. So my clients are amazing and delightful

and so like me because they got

to know me very well. It wasn't a cold call. It wasn't

like some referral like, who's this Joy girl?

Whatever. No, they actually were like,

yeah, I want to work with Joy. I want to

be in a container with Joy because they were aligned. So I got higher quality,

if you get what I'm saying. Completely committed, higher commitment.

Right. We don't want to put people in tears,

but I will put people in tears all day. By commitment. Yeah,

right. By readiness and willingness to put

in the work. Right. Because so

many of us again, it's not that you can't nurture someone,

you can absolutely nurture someone to readiness.

But at the same point, if you're spending all that time

incubating interest, you're missing creating

change with your people, which is more of that

leadership energy, which I got to tell you, Joy, in a million years,

I never would have thought of that energy as leadership.

But once you said it, I'm like, that's exactly what it is.

So before we transition to our phenomenal pop culture topic that I'm

so excited about, I want to sit in that spot for just one more minute

about tapping into that leader energy. Now, I completely

agree with you that confidence is a choice and I

am not a fake it till you make it person. I'm much more like my

friend Ben, the failure guy says fail it till you nail it, which I

adore. But let's say that I want to show

up in that leadership role. Number one, how do I

know if I'm doing it? Or number two, how do I lean further into

it? For me, how do I know until

I'm in it fully and can identify it? How do I

know or how do I grow in that leadership energy?

Sure. One way to do that would be through story.

Okay? So sharing your story a

bit in a very natural, authentic way, that's a bit of a hero's

journey to inspire your people, something that you have

gone through, something that you have learned.

The things that in retrospect, like,

oh, if I would have known this big thing,

you kind of be a leader by leading the way,

by sharing what you know, not in a braggy kind

of way. This is not brew marketing or any of that stuff. It's just

about really speaking, like not being afraid to say

one of the mistakes I see women entrepreneurs making over

and over again and why they're overwhelmed on

social media all the time is right. And how do I

know that? Because I've gone through that experience myself.

And what I hear and what you're saying right there is transparency,

vulnerability, self awareness, and the

ability to find takeaways for other people through your own exampleing.

Right. I love that though,

again, leadership, you wouldn't think about transparency,

but hell yes. If you're walking the path and

other people are watching you, you're leading whether you expect to or not. So you

may as well lead into the fact that people are watching you. Now, again,

back to the very beginning, they're not watching you so meticulously that you're like,

oh, I already said this. Oh, God. Let's freak out. But they are watching you.

They are consuming you, and they are behind you on the

learning curve that you are on. So we may as well

be instructive. Exactly. So it's not

tools and tips for the sake of tools and tips, those are useless without context.

When you're in a story and you're sharing examples,

then they can connect the dots. Did you all hear what

she just said? I'm dancing. Tools and tips.

Yes, tools and tips are useless without context.

Quote joy Buffalini that is just now.

It's also a perfect transition segue

to our oh, my God, so excited pop

culture topic. The king of detail.

The king of red herrings.

And then stuff that actually matters, right? The king of

putting it out there and seeing what people resonate with and seeing what people pick

up on and tweaking that and definitely leading a tone.

And energy management. I mean, it's everything we've talked about. What the

heck does any of the stuff that we've talked about

today have to do with Notorious?

Asshole? But filmmaking complete genius.

And one of my personal favorite creators and one of the biggest inspirations of

my book, alfred Hitchcock. Talk to me.

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny that I grew up

watching old movies with my parents. They were just, like, loved all

things black and white. We watched

some of the popular things, too. But on a Saturday night, we watched an

old movie. I just thought that was normal. I mean,

I grew up watching Turner classic movies like other kids watch Nickelodeon,

like, totally. And I

really appreciate I appreciated the realness of acting

back then. And like you said, the attention to detail.

And people had to be real actors. They weren't just

getting, like, short clips. And it all got crossed together for

them. They had to really act. They had to really show up.

And so much about what

I love about Alfred Hitchcock. Yes.

Not as a person, but as a talent. He made his cameo

appearances, right? One flip at his movie, like the introvert just

floating in and floating out. And so many people have done that since.

Stan Lee has done that. Peter Jackson has done that. But I'm like, okay,

cool. That's your little Hitchcock cameo. It's literally called the Hitchcock cameo

because Hitchcock was like, by the way, I'm going to do

some grocery shopping in this scene. Here I am, blah, blah, blah.

But it's him reminding people that it's his.

Exactly. And he had such a unique style

that if you had never seen a movie, you didn't know the name of

it. It wasn't on your screen. If you knew enough about

his style, you would like, is this a Hitchcock movie?

A lot of movies have been confused for his because of some similar characteristics

in it. And so just like you as a brand,

you have a style, you have a vibe, you have a unique

flavor that your people are

going to want to consume, like you said on the Netflix. Continue watching.

Let's keep watching. Let's watch all 30 of these Hitchcock

movies. Let's watch all 30 of Annie's videos or whatever the case may

be. Right? That whenever you

bring something unique, and you keep interest and

attention. Right. And you get to be honestly, as a content

creator, you get to be the director. Right. And not get lost

in the content. Right. Like one of the things we talked

about in Prechat and the thing that directly inspired the chunks

of the coach who would not sell is on Hitchcock Presents,

where before they would go to commercial breaks, which is always really fun

how he segues to commercial breaks. But before that or after

that, he interjects himself in the story

to make sure you got the moral to recapture your

attention. Yes. To cut to a sponsor, but also to bring you

back into the story. And what we talked about before, about everyone's

social feeds being so loud, that continued

curation, that welcoming back to the story

that last time on right. Is so critical

on multiple fronts. Number one, it keeps engagement up. But number two,

it reminds people when your face isn't front and center,

whose content this is. Yeah. Right. So that they

see the style and then they see the style and then they

see you. And the very next thing alfred Hitchcock's logo is a very unflattering

picture of his face. It's a caricature of

his face, right. His bald head and his multiple chins.

But then when he steps into it, he literally steps into his logo

and becomes his brand. That is the clearest thing of

personal branding I could possibly think of.

For someone who did not always like to be the center

of attention. He wanted to see what he could create,

not how he could position himself. And I think that's so brilliant.

He made it work. Absolutely. And freaking brilliant.

Right. But you're right also about, like, acting back then was

not super over produced. Sometimes. It was big.

Hollywood. Right. We were still getting people used to the talkies.

So every now and then, somebody had to be reined in. But when you

shoot that over the top response

in a Hitchcocky in style right. I'm pretty sure

he told Janet Lee to make a bigger, scary face. Right.

And I'm pretty sure he threw more birds at poor Tippy.

Right. But at the same point, you add the shadow,

the sound, the long.

Stanley Kubrick did this years later, where there'd be long gaps in the movie with

no sound. Right. All those things.

What else can we learn about branding and putting ourselves out there

as a Hitchcockian devotee?

Yeah. I feel like it's

about like I think, again, it's the story.

So as we were talking about story immerses,

you and somebody's facing something

kind of scary. Right. If you're sharing something sort of

vulnerable and you're capturing attention.

And Hitchcock sometimes had those boo moments,

or the lights and the shadows

were a certain way that it communicated. It brought up

emotion. And as a brand, when you

can tap into somebody's emotion and they do it, that,

you know, you're not forcing anything on a sales call. We're not talking about that

at all. But they can see, for instance, sometimes when I share my

story about my daughter, amber and I share the dark

side and things that we've been through and what it looks

like, that's a. Huge part of your life. She is a huge part of

your life, and she's a huge part of your day to day.

Yeah. And I think people appreciate story where there

is an arc that happens,

somebody goes through, you get to the climax,

and there's the moment or whatever the thing may be.

And what people like about a movie, too, is there's resolution to

it. Right. Having that

story arc, which I think Alfred Hitchcock did so

well, of just capturing

attention and the nuanced things

that. Made a big difference and bringing tension into the mundane.

Yeah. Right. Like Rear Window is such a great thing of that.

It's a dude looking out his window the whole movie. Right?

It's not like a Seinfeld principle where most of the time it's not Agatha

Christie. It's not people out on an island having this weird experience because

they've been brought there by an eccentric millionaire. It's like, my husband

and I went on a honeymoon, we met this weird dude, and now this weird

dude is ruining our lives. I live in an apartment. I have a broken leg.

I have binoculars. I see what I think is a murder. It's in

that every day. And so I feel like, in content as well.

There is magic in our mundanity.

There is magic in the day to day for us. There is power in

the story of you and your daughter, who you see every single day of your

life, right, without it having to be too dramatic.

There's rich content in the everyday. It's real

lives, like you said in that movie. In particular, you're seeing real through other

people's windows. Seeing real lives behind

the curtain, basically. Right? And then also shit like gardening.

There's a whole big thing about people, like, doing the community garden in the middle

of the thing, and you're like, Cool. Got it. Right.

But I think that that's so profound. So I love I did not

in any way expect when we started this conversation today that we would spend so

much of it on content. But I'm so grateful we did, because only

through consistent outreach are we

going to meet and find our people. So, that being said, I have two more

questions for you before I release you back to your gorgeous day. One of

them is about this mundanity. Okay? So entrepreneurship

can be a horror story in and of itself.

Hardcore. It could be really weird. It can be really

hard. It can be really scary. And in combination of all three, right?

Vulnerable, horrifying, you name it. If you were going

to approach Alfred Hitchcock, who is dead,

but let's say he's not and you pitched him a movie about

a blip of entrepreneurship that he could turn easily into a Hitchcocky

in horror. What aspect of marketing or

selling or running a small business would you pitch Hitchcock?

Oh, that's a fun question. Which part would I pick to be the

horror movie? I would say when

they sit down to probably write

a piece of content, like all

the funny things, like they go in to skip their computer.

My cat needs to be fed. Let me go feed my cat. And the laptops

here. Let's just say it's right in the middle of the kitchen. Sometimes I just

sit right there.

Those dishes need done. Let me go do those dishes over

here. Just a neglected laptop sitting

on a table in, like, a single stream of shadowed light.

Just the laptop longing for you,

closing for the day. Yeah, the laptop

just quits and starts to close itself. Okay, that's brilliant ghost

of Alfred Hitchcock hit us up. We got some ideas for you.

But in the meantime, if you are not the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock, and you

are, in fact, an introvert out here trying your damnedest to make a mark,

but knowing that you could make a bigger, bolder mark within

energetic management, they need you. What's the best

way for them to start a conversation with you? Well, reach out to me.

Facebook is my main social platform, so you can reach out to me. I have

good boundaries. It's all good,

friendly. I have an opt in on my called

the Daily Needle Movers cheat sheet. That would be great.

Hitchcock movie like, here's the only four things you need to focus on each

day. They're just simple actions. So you'll find that right

on my personal page. I have a simplified and multiply Facebook group.

I know everybody's in a Facebook group, but I do really quality content

in there. That's where you'll see most of my videos.

My brand is simplified and multiply, so you

can find my group that way. And yeah, I'd love to connect with

you. If you're not selling your offers with ease, if you're

burnt out with trying to figure out content strategy,

if the way that you're selling or you're not getting people

booking calls with you, or you've got people booking calls with you that are not

buying, you actually have to backtrack the process a bit more. And when

you go back in the process and think of it like a triangle, like,

here's your yes client, here's your offer, here's your message. Your sales

process is up here. And it becomes late and easy when the bottom piece

is really strong. So that's what I focused on,

helping women to strengthen that. So business just gets lighter

and easier. Lighter and easier. Isn't that what we all

want when we're living through the Hitchcocky and nightmare of scaling a

personality driven business? Joy Buffalini it has been an absolute

joy interviewing you today. Thank you for all of the wisdom

and transparency and leadership to use your word, which is very clear

that you brought to this episode today. Thank you so much. Such a great

conversation. You're brilliant at it. Thank you.

I'm going to bask in that compliment for a second, guys, and I'll be right

back with my final thought. And your homework for this week no

live birds. Don't worry, J.

Well, hey there. One of the things that makes a Hitchcock movie completely

unmistakable, other than the shadows and the

lingering music, is the choice of what

details to include and what details not to

include. A zillion years ago, when I took a playwriting

class back in my musical theater performance days, they told

us, don't put a gun over the mantle in Act One

unless you plan to use it in Act Three. And Hitchcock

is a master of this. Everything is purposeful.

Either it ties in eventually or it's meant to

throw you off track. This reminds me of this week's homework.

One of my very favorite tools dialogue and detail.

So often people come to me to revamp or rewrite their copy

and they say, annie, how do you make it sound so much like me?

How do you make it sound so much like the people I'm talking to?

The answers are dialogue and detail.

This week, I want you to pay close attention to the chatter

going on in your head and write it down verbatim

and listen to your clients. In the same way, if they tell

you that they are exhausted to death, don't come back and say,

I understand you're tired. Come back and say, I'm exhausted

to death. Put that in a bank of copy that

you can pull from in the future. It's not about using people's

personal details. We're not going to start telling tales out of

school and spreading gossip all over the Internet. Their details

are their own. But what are the patterns in

the language? Or what are phrases that are not someone's intellectual

property, but is so unique to your work you

just have to use it? I can't wait

to see what you come up with. And if you'd like to see an example

of how I use dialogue in detail, both my own and

my clients, check out that book I mentioned@sellcoachcell.com.

That's right, my little Hitchcocky. And Noir. The Coach Who Would

Not Sell is available@sellcoachell.com and

Amazon, but it's free for you on the first one if you use the

code legitimate.

Hey, thanks for listening. If this episode kept you laughing and learning,

I have two requests for you. First, make sure you hit

that subscribe or follow button, depending on your platform, so you

never miss an episode. And also,

more importantly, if you are looking for support,

inspiration, networking collaborations, or just a

chance to hang out with me, annie P. Ruggles, and our fantastic

guests, make sure that you are a member of

our LinkedIn community, the legitimate. It is a weird

and wonderful place. I can't even believe it's on LinkedIn.

And we want you there. You'll find the link in

the show notes. Big shout out, as always, to the fabulous

dudes who helped me make this show. My producer and editor,

Andrew Sims of Hypobol Impact, my theme

composer, Riley Horpacio and my show art

creator, Francois Vino. See you next time.