Christi Balfour Full Interview Transcript
Episode 67 - Thriving Through Podcast
Introduction and Path to Self-Employment
AJ: Welcome to the Thriving Through Podcast. Today, my guest is Christi Balfour. Christi, welcome to the podcast.
Christi: Thank you, so happy to be here.
AJ: I have one question that I ask all of my podcast guests right out of the gate. What was your path to becoming a self-employed consultant?
Christi: I was self-employed years ago. I owned a business in the financial industry, and in 2008—we know what happened in 2008—so I went back to work in the corporate world and started an entirely new career in the audio-visual space. I enjoyed that for many years, about 11 or 12 years. But I always had this thing in the back of my head where I wanted to start another business. I've had this entrepreneurial spirit for lack of a better word for all my life, and I knew that I wanted to get back into that space of teaching, consulting, and helping other people.
I decided to just start something on the side while I was still working my corporate job, and I became a virtual assistant. I started helping business owners with various tasks, and that segued into branding, websites, and social media. After COVID, when the time came to go back to the office, it was my sign that, "Okay, you're going to take this full-time, Christi." And that's what I did.
I initially kept doing services for clients, and then a couple of years ago, I segued into coaching and training other VAs on the things that I have learned on my path to help them be successful with their VA business.
AJ: Do you still do the VA work as well, or are you now fully training and coaching for other VAs?
Christi: That's a really great question. I do have a couple of clients that I do services for, and the reason why is because I like to stay current with everything that's going on in the VA world, whether it's tools, software, or platforms. That way, I think it gives me better trust in teaching VAs on how to find clients, what to do, and how to set up systems—all the things—because I still do it.
Biggest Challenges: Burnout and Work-Life Balance
AJ: Tell us a story or two about the biggest challenges you've faced building your practice and how you've overcome them.
Christi: Well, for one thing, I mentioned that I started it as a part-time thing, and I know a lot of consultants do that. But what I found for me is I wanted this so badly that I put in the work. How I would do that is I would work my 9 to 5, eat dinner, take a break, and then I would work on my business every single night. And then weekends, Saturday and Sunday, I did that too. And you can guess what happened—I experienced burnout.
I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't taking needed breaks. I was in the moment and really focused on what I was doing, but it's true—one day, I just hit a wall. I had to come up with a schedule and say, "Okay, you're going to take these days off in the evenings, and then you're only going to work a half day on Saturday," things like that, because I'm not sure that I would have been successful if I continued on that path.
The Feast-or-Famine Trap: Stopping Marketing When Busy
Christi: The second thing that was a big challenge for me was when I started getting clients, I would not market. I would not do any marketing for my business because I was so busy managing clients that I didn't take the time to keep it up. One day I had five clients, and then one day I had one, because they were all projects that finished and I wasn't marketing. I had no clients. So I had to put strategies in place to not ever let that happen again.
AJ: Sounds like marketing activities are an integral part of your week or your day now.
Christi: Yes, yes.
Building a Waitlist Strategy
AJ: Now, I want to ask about something I see with a lot of consultants and coaches—there's a gap between their marketing activities and actual client acquisition. The marketing activities are supposed to be for client acquisition, but they're just not working the way we'd like them to. What is the gap that you've identified, if there is one?
Christi: Well, I have a waitlist. If I am busy where I'm not taking on any more clients—and that's whether it's consulting clients (I don't accept any new VA clients; I only accept training, one-on-one coaching clients from VAs)—but if I have a waitlist and someone reaches out to me, I let them know I have a waitlist. Whether that creates some urgency or trust or something where they want to be on that list, I don't know. But I keep that list and I follow up with those people on that list.
Even when I'm busy, I'm still doing some marketing because I'm following up with the people on the list and letting them know when I do have openings. Then I get to choose who I want to work with. That's been a game changer for me because I'm not desperate. I'm not feeling desperate for clients or anything like that. I have this list of people that I can reach out to.
AJ: So you're consistently marketing. You don't really have that gap between marketing activities and then client acquisition.
Christi: Correct. I'm always, even if I'm busy, I have, for example, a podcast that I do weekly. I am going live on Instagram and doing various things to keep my name out there, but also to teach. I do a lot of teaching. I have a free Facebook group that I teach in. I'm always still marketing, even when I'm busy. It keeps me top of mind with people that maybe aren't ready to work with me yet, but they see me and they learn from me. I've been blessed that I've had a pretty good flow of leads.
Following Up with Leads
AJ: What does your follow-up look like? What do you do to follow up with people that have shown some interest but haven't purchased yet?
Christi: I keep the list organized in my CRM, and I might follow up with someone once a week for a couple of weeks. It depends on where they are. If they're just an inquiry, maybe I follow up a little bit more. If they're someone that's like, "Hey, in a couple of months I'm going to be ready to work with you," then maybe I reach out to them once a month or something like that. But I always follow up because people are busy, and I know that if I'm following up with them, I'm top of mind with them. When they are ready, they're going to reach out to me because I've been following up with them.
AJ: Is it a combination of email and DMs on social media, or what's your main vehicle for follow-up?
Christi: It's usually email, but I also will reach out to them on Instagram if that's where they first reached out to me. I'll send them a DM and just check in, see how they're doing, see if they have any questions. It's not always about, "Hey, are you ready to sign up yet?" It's more about building that relationship and letting them know that I'm here if they have any questions or need any help.
Working Smarter Not Harder: Transitioning to Coaching
AJ: You mentioned that you transitioned from doing VA services to coaching and training. What prompted that shift?
Christi: I realized that I was trading hours for dollars. As a VA, you can only work so many hours in a day. I wanted to create more leverage in my business and help more people at the same time. Coaching and training allows me to do that. I can help multiple VAs at once through group programs or one-on-one coaching, and I'm not limited by the number of hours in a day.
But I also mentioned that I keep a couple of clients for services because I want to stay current. I think it's important as a coach to still be in the trenches doing the work. It keeps me credible and helps me understand what my students are going through. I can say, "I know this works because I'm doing it right now," versus just teaching theory.
AJ: That's a really smart approach. You're working smarter, not harder, but you're also maintaining that credibility by staying in the game.
Christi: Exactly. It's about finding that balance between scaling your business and staying connected to the work that you're teaching.
The Email List Building Regret
AJ: If you could go back and do something differently when you first started your consulting business, what would it be?
Christi: I would have built my email list from day one. I spent so much time building my following on social media platforms, and while that's been great, I don't own those platforms. Algorithms change, platforms change their rules, and you could lose all of that overnight. But your email list is something you own.
I wish someone had told me from the very beginning to start collecting email addresses and building that list. It doesn't matter if you only have 10 people on it in the beginning. Start building it from day one because those are people you can reach directly without depending on whether Instagram or Facebook decides to show your post to them.
AJ: That's such important advice. The number of followers, the number of connections on LinkedIn—that's not your ground. You want to own your email list. You have complete control over it.
Christi: Yes, and I will say, speaking of LinkedIn, I had tons of people, connections, from my old life, my old corporate life. And initially, I thought, "Well, do I just get rid of all these people? Do I keep them?" I kept them, and thank God I did, because I've had a few clients come from sales reps and from that former world. So never burn bridges.
AJ: Good advice, yeah.
Leveraging LinkedIn Connections
AJ: So you would recommend keeping those corporate connections even as you transition to a new business?
Christi: Absolutely. You never know where opportunities are going to come from. Some of my best clients have come from people I worked with years ago in a completely different industry. They see what I'm doing now, they're impressed by the transformation, and they either want to work with me or they refer me to someone who does.
Don't assume that just because someone knew you in a different professional context that they won't be interested in what you're doing now. People's careers evolve, their businesses evolve, and you never know when someone might need exactly what you're offering.
Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome
AJ: Now, as we get toward the end of the podcast, I have some rapid-fire wrap-up questions. What's one book, podcast, or resource that's been invaluable to your consulting practice?
Christi: The podcast is "How Can This Be Easy?" by Krista Smith.
AJ: What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you started consulting?
Christi: That you don't need all the shiny objects. You don't need all the software platforms, you don't need every fancy tool that everyone has out there. You can start out with a Google Sheet and Excel sheet and docs and go at it. I fell into that pit very early on. And there are—don't get me wrong, I use a lot of software tools now—but in the beginning, it's just unnecessary.
AJ: Yeah, I mean, you don't really even need a website to begin with. You go out and you start to build a following, you start to build clients, and then you build out that stuff. People use that as procrasti-working.
Christi: They think they have to. I love that word. I'm going to have to use that, because I've suffered from that. The mise en place that we talked about earlier—that's not subscribing to 10 different websites to do your thing. You can get all your things in place with very little tools.
AJ: Right, and mise en place means all your tools in place. It doesn't mean you have to have a lot, but if you're making pancakes, you have flour, salt, and milk. You don't need 25 different ingredients to make pancakes, and it's the same with your business.
Christi: Right, right, and five different sets of measuring cups. You use one and rinse it out and use it again.
How to Connect with Christi
AJ: And now this is the last and most important question. How can listeners connect with you if they want to learn more about your work?
Christi: The best way to connect with me is on Instagram at VirtualPro Society. That's where you'll find me most of the time.
AJ: And we see that at the bottom of your screen here on the video, and we'll put it in the show notes as well. Christi, thank you so much. It was wonderful to talk to you today, and for all of the listeners out there, until next time, keep thriving through.
Christi: Thank you.
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