Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in career development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Rita Joyan, Content Creator & Coach at Mzzz Strictly Speaking, located in Canberra, ACT, Australia.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
We are the leading training business that helps people in the advice space (coaches, consultants, experts) how to turn their information, education session, or keynote into a talk that transforms audiences and generates leads, clients, and sales in one talk.
Tell us about yourself
I started my business training in personal leadership and emotional intelligence, but I couldn't get any clients. I spent money on a website, business cards, flyers, and everything else that showed "I'm in business," but no clients. So I did the one thing that scared me, and I was avoiding, and that was taking my trademark content and turning it into a talk that would have the audience accept my invitation to work with me. And when I delivered what I coined my trademark talk, two people purchased my offer to work with me. Then the 2nd time, 11 people took up my offer, and that's how it grew.
I became Canberra's Young Business Woman Of the Year within 15 months of using this one strategy of changing my normal talk into one that helps an audience so much that when I make an offer, they know and trust me to help them make the change. I now train how to find your own trademark content in your own body of work (so you have no competition) and how to craft it so that when you get to the offer part, those who need what you have in your audience are ready to say yes, to working with you.
What motivates me is to teach speaking to transform audiences and make sales. Speaking is the one thing we do all our lives. Before we can write, we speak and learn HOW to do so with impact changes lives and changes businesses. Training is a life skill because once you learn how to speak to transform and make sales, it builds confidence and dismantles doubts about yourself. It's powerful, and it's what motivates me.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Being awarded Canberra Young Business Woman of the year 15 months after starting my business. It came from honing my trademark talk so that I could communicate in a way that lifted people, transformed audiences, and had people come up to me and want to work with me by the time I finished my 30 min or 45 min talk. And now, leading others, and teaching them, how a skill they use on autopilot every day, their speaking and their content, can be tweaked and crafted in a way that positions them as the authority, transforms audiences, and generates leads and sales, all in one talk. It's powerful.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Copying what everyone was doing to be in business. Everyone has a website, so I had a website, etc. I was just watching others and doing what they were doing and not getting results. Getting real and learning from someone who is doing what you want to be doing and not being directed by shiny object syndrome is key to your focus, your finances, and your success.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Easy. Your health is non-negotiable. There will be MANY times you don't want to, but learning to look after exercise and food now, helps with energy and mental clarity and only accelerates your movement in business.
- Get skilled up. You're going to need to talk to people or audiences, either face to face or online, about your service and get skilled so that at each opportunity, you know how to speak in a way that's not salesy. Get skilled up in the skills you do every day, which is speaking, speak so that people want to learn from you and, better still, pay you.
- Meet people, build connections, and be mindful because some want to sell you their "thing" in a coffee catch-up, or it's all about them. Stay away from those people, but seek people to hang out with and collaborate with. Business is lonely, and quality connections and friends in the business will help the journey. And learning to speak effectively, whether it's an audience of one of 100, is the key to quality collaborations and, ultimately, clients.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://strictlyspeaking.beehiiv.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unboxyourgift
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/speak_to_make_sales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RitaJoyan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritajoyan
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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