024: Giving People What They Need Instead of What You Think They Want with Nancy Lucas Founder of An Action Plan

Theres some of us so hung up on our side of the story, you know this is the service we provide, these are the benefits that we offer, this is how we do it. When you haven’t actually touched on the need of your user or your customer.

#00:00:46-4# Neil:  Hello everybody, its Neil Ball here and thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneur’s journey, the vision, the mindset, the committment, the sacrifice, failures and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Nancy Lucas, but before I introduce you to her, I have a little bit of trivia for you, Bill James said, I try to take large general questions that are difficult to resolve and break them down into small very specific questions, that have clear answers. The entrepreneur way asks the questions so we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Nancy welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?

#00:01:38-0# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Absolutely Neil and thank you for having me today.

#00:01:40-6# Neil:  Its a pleasure. Nancy Lucas has been an entrepreneur since her dad made her save money to buy clay craft sets when she was 8 years old. With a BA in communication, a masters in education, and two decades as a business owner, she now serves as co-founder and author co-ordinator of anactionplan.com. Nancy, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life to allow us get to know more about what you do and who you are.

#00:02:14-1# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Yeh absolutely, I think its an interesting mix, especially being in an entrepreneurial circle. Every Wednesday, I go to a programme called ‘one million cups’ and that is actually where I met the founder and had the opportunity to co-found this project with him. So personally, I am a single mom with four kids, so you know when you have to do what you have to do, you go do it. And I think all entrepreneurs feel that way, I have felt that way my whole life. You know if there is a goal, I was going to attain it. So what we do at an action plan, is guide people through life events with action plans, and we look for other experts, that have that content, they can explain it in five-seven steps and really help somebody through their big life event.

#00:03:00-Neil:  Ok and how do you make money from what you do?  #00:0

#00:03:04-7# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Its a profit sharing revenue, right now because we are in the start-up phase, we are sharing 90% with the authors and we keep 10% and once we hit a goal of 100 authors, then we will move to a membership model. Also and we can prove the scalability, and traction and everything else.

#00:03:24-0# Neil:   Ok, so can you just tell me a little bit more about your website and action plan, so you basically take people and line them up with advisors, is that what you are saying?

#00:03:34-2# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   A little bit, its a little bit like life coaching and there are other sites that connect people who need a life coach. But let me tell you a little bit about our founder’s story, his name is George Everitt and he is brilliant. He has written huge pieces of software around semantics and wordsearches and connecting these key phrases, and he has given me permission to share this story. He and his wife were going through a bit of a season and he was not satisfied with an element of their marriage. So he did what we all do right, go to google, and what comes up but way too much information. So he is in his brilliance and able to take phrases and match them up and line them up, he was actually able to pull for himself an action plan to fix what he wanted to fix. He did fix it and to this day, I don’t think his wife knows what he did, but now he is happier in the marriage because of the action plan that he created and followed. So he realised, wow if I am so smart at this and it took me all of that effort, maybe this could be helpful to other people, in alot of areas of life. So we did our market research, he has done the testing of you know what other sites are out there. There are alot of brilliant people on the planet who help people and yet, when somebody is in a situation, I myself went through several big life events that you don’t know how to talk to somebody about. Or other people don’t want to hear your drama, you know that is the other side of it, they just don’t want to hear the drama.

#00:05:06-3# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   So we were able to pull it down into an action plan, that is really what somebody needs, when they are in, in either something they are planning, like pregnancy, marriage, house, buying a house, or something they are not planning. You know, your house is infested with black mould and you are sick, or a bankruptcy or divorce or the loss of a loved one. What is the next step? And there is not really a platform that we have found yet, other than our own, that tells you, here is your first step. This is where you start.

#00:05:37-1# Neil:   Ok, you actually recommend people that can help people then, is that how you do it?

#00:05:43-4# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   No, my imagination is that someday we are going to be as big as amazon, and we will be a self-help feature of that. Because when somebody is needing help, its not really the time they have to absorb an entire book, or learn something new. They really need the nitty and gritty, give me the steps, let me get through this situation and then they can look at the underline roots and do their self-healing. That kind of thing. So we just look for authors that have that kind of content, that can be the guide, somebody who is looking for help right now goes to google, someday they will go to anactionplan.com and say, ‘I need to lose 100lb – how can I find peace?’ something like that.

#00:06:27-4# Neil:   I understand, awesome, and what do you enjoy most about what you do?

#00:06:31-2# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh my gosh Neil, I think as an interviewer you might you know, feel the same way, I meet the most amazing people. Everyone that I have been able to work with and help them start or finish their action plan are just beautiful, beautiful inside, beautiful outside, such lovely hearts and just a mission to help other people. George and I laugh all the time, first of all, we just have fun what we are doing, you know, thats the great part about being an entrepreneur, if its not fun you would hire somebody else to do it. Right? ha ha so, when we went through our stuff, that was the thing, he and I, you know he can coach people through what he discovered, I can coach people through what I discovered, but if we can build a platform and help a 1,000 authors, help 10,000 people, then our purpose in life is speechless.

#00:07:29-3# Neil:   Its a noble cause. Mmmm and what is it that drives you Nancy? I think that you have given me some clues there already? from what you have said.

#00:07:37-7# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   A couple of clues, those 8 beautiful eyes, I get to look at and their freckley little noses. But I think also a compassion for I remember what it was like, I’ve been homeless, I have been disabled, I’ve walked through divorce, you know I have walked through friends that no longer want to be your friend, you know in relation to religion and church and that kind of thing. So you know, there is alot and until you have walked in somebody’s shoes, sometimes you don’t really understand what it feels like on that side. And if I were back in those shoes again, I would just hope they were somebody like me that would hold out a hand and say ‘let me walk this with you’.

#00:08:21-8# Neil:  Mmm, and how do you relax when you are not working in your business?

#00:08:26-9# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Ok, so I am really good at detachment, you know there is a time to work and there is a time to play, and there have been so many hard parts of my life, that nothing is really worth being that hard over. You know this is going to happen at the time and the pace it is meant to happen, and you know when my kids get off the bus for those four hours through the evening routine, I can enjoy that four hours with them, I have learned detachment, I have learned tapping, I use tapping to handle my big emotions and big feelings. So that I can be present where I am at doing what I am doing.

#00:09:04-2# Neil:  Ok, when you say tapping, what do you mean by that?

#00:09:08-2# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh its a really brilliant system, its called the tapping solution, or emotional freedom technique. Anyone can google it and research it, but essentially all you are doing is tapping on the left and right side of some of the acupressure points. And I go through three phases, I go through one round of like all the horrible, awful things that may or may not even be true, but they are the crazy things in my head. And then I go through a round of like, well ‘what if? what if it could be different? what if something else is possible? what if this is actually good for me?’ and then the last round is like, ‘oh girl you got this, come on you can do this, its not, you know, look at the truth, look at the people who love you, you are going to get through this.’ So its a way for me to honour my truth, you know my feelings and hardships and then a way to allow my brain to accept change or an altered view, and then a way to affirm. This is going to happen when it is meant to happen, those kind of things.

#00:10:03-6# Neil:   Mmm and you mention being present, can you just talk about that a little bit more. I have heard other people talk about this, but it is obviously, especially in today’s society, being present is something that most people are not isn’t it? because they are always distracted with mobile phones and things like that, so how do you stay present?

#00:10:21-9# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   I have some amazing girlfriends that do recovery work using their feldon crise method, cortical-fuelled re-education. Its re-training the brain, and I have done that for many years, they taught me how to literally like imagine your skeleton, and then painting it, so sometimes I use my little girls like pink sparkly crayon, and I paint my bones with that. Sometimes I will use the turquoise and purple water colours that my boys like to use. Sometimes I will use mud, and just imagine like caking my bones in mud. So that was one technique I used for a really long time because like you, I had heard these other people talk about presence, but I did not know what that was. And so I used that skill to bring myself into the present moment, because our mind is always chasing for the future so that we keep ourselves safe, and our emotions are always in the past you know that hurt feeling, that sad feeling, whatever. But our bones are actually the things that are present in this moment. So thats one thing and then the other thing I did, recently was go through a workshop with a gentleman named Jonathan Clark, and I hope you get the chance to interview him, and he describes it this way as like living on the court as if you are the tennis player versus living in the stands with all those people, telling you how you should be hitting the ball or not hitting the ball or paying attention.

#00:11:39-8# Neil:   yeh

#00:11:39-8# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   right, except there really is nobody else up in the stands, its our own internal dialogue, so just being aware, wait, am I actually on the court watching this person’s lips? and smelling the air and feeling the earth under my feet? Or am I in the stands imagining what those other people are thinking and saying about me actually being on the court? So I went through huge transformational seasons and workshops to get to a place where I can be present and take this moment for what it is.

#00:12:13-9# Neil:   You make me think of a saying from Jim Rohn where he said ‘wherever you are, be there’ which I think is very much what you are saying there. And do you have any entrepreneurial role models Nancy?

#00:12:25-9# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Well Jonathan Clark is one of them because he talks alot about integrity. And I thought I was a person of integrity, you know I don’t lie to people, I don’t cheat, I am generally an honest person, unless I have got to keep myself safe somehow. You know, to me I thought I had integrity, and the way he described it, as integrity being whole, and I realised you know my mini van looks like a mother-of-four mini van, its just disgusting. So its not whole because we trip over the skateboard, and the back pack and there are alot of areas like that in my life that are not complete. They are not whole, and I am working at cleaning those things up and he was a very gracious man to explain it and you know, hold us accountable to that. So he is one of them, and there were just so many, anybody in the Louise Haye Sector, you know, Katie Byron or Nancy Levin, you know those women who write from a voice of strength, who honour the hardships and yet some move forward because we realise the bigger picture, the bigger purpose.

#00:13:34-7# Neil:  Ok, Nancy can we talk about the time before you were an entrepreneur?

#00:13:40-8# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Ha ha ha ha ha, was there one?

#00:13:43-3# Neil:  I don’t know, that is what I am about to find out hopefully. What difficulties did you have to overcome when you started your business?

#00:13:54-6# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Thankfully for this one, I have kind of a scape goat on it, and I think that other entrepreneurs can feel this way, the finances are for me the biggest thing, because I have had to walk through a divorce and making it on my own, and having four kids, I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have a job, I mean I literally started over, in fact I actually walked away with debt, so I didn’t even start out at zero. You know, I didn’t hit the pavement at zero, I hit the pavement negative and walked myself through that so, at the start-up there is always the financial struggle. And I am only the co-founder and thankfully, George the CEO and founder, manages most of that on his own, so I don’t actually have to see the numbers. And even if I did, I would just take a deep breath and personally I have had to walk through that too, so I can just have great compassion. And say, right what can we do today to make this work? you know, almost one day at a time, so finances are usually things that will trip me up. Go get it, organisation, planning, those things I really like and I look at that as like a challenge and fun.

#00:15:04-6# Neil:  and did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?  #00:1

#00:15:11-0# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Alot of times and they still come up once in a while. Like I only have a masters. I only have a bachelors and communications, I don’t have an MBA, I did not serve on, I have served on boards, I have been the executive director of non-profit organisations, but I don’t have an ivy-league education. I don’t have, I lived in the keys, the Florida Keys for 25 years, you know I did not do business on wall street. So sometimes that little voice will creep in and say, ‘are you sure you are the person for this?’ the back side of that is I look at where I am, I know that because I have walked through some of those things, I have no fear to pick up the phone and call the next person to make it happen. And that is a skill not everybody has, so I am just going to trust that what I am going to bring to the table today is enough and I am the right person and the right moment to make this next step.

#00:16:06-5# Neil:  Mmmm, I don’t think you always need certification really to prove that you have it do you? so great answer, and what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

#00:16:20-6# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   I think maybe not asking for help, or not trusting, that the resource would come at the right time. I have a creative friend, who recently had a hard time paying her bills, and so she was going to give up her apartment and you know, live in the car, so something kind of drastic, and I said to her, ‘Ann you are working on three books’ one thing I know of that season, if you give up stability of a homestead, is you lose the opportunity to be creative because your focus has to be on survival and that is one of things where I said ‘I think that I have just been given some grace that I could choose to worry of the survival of the company, I choose not to, I choose to focus on what is the next step to make it possible.’ So I think, if I have made mistakes in the past, I think I got hung up on the survival piece or the faults or the wrongness or the not enoughness. Whereas I choose now to focus on the potential and accepting, ok if the system isn’t broken, then ok how do we fix the system? or create a system that does work? If you systemise anything, it just works, just add a system. Find a system, improve the system if you have to and keep working in it.

#00:17:37-1# Neil:   Great advice, and what are some of the things that you did before you started your business that would be helpful tips for some of the listeners who have not yet taken their first step of the entrepreneur way?

#00:17:45-7# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:  ha ha ha ha oh my goodness. Ok so this is really hilarious, I had not left my husband yet, but I realised I was about to be pushed out of that mothering zone. And not really forced, but in a sense forced into back into the professional world. So I had basically given up 12 years, not given up because it was beautiful, I loved being a stay-at-home mom and raising my children. And now the fact is, I am the breadwinner, and I am going to go and do this. So I thought, Oh man, sales is got to be it, you know I am not going to double down making a salary, I am going to double down this decade in sales, they make better money, let me go and do this. So being an entrepreneur, I found products I really loved, and was convinced I could sell. Well I learned alot about what does not work in sales, and that year you know I just jumped in with two feet, in fact I worked for a british gentleman, he has a home in the keys and has a website and a product to sell in the keys and so he was kind enough to give me the opportunity and I blasted it for the best I could for those months, until I had to leave the territory. I learned alot you know people don’t like people selling internet products, because there is a lower level of trust, you know that was a hard thing to overcome. I sold an organic product that keeps fleas out of a yard, and will keep mosquitos out of your yard for three weeks. Well its made of garlic and also happens to smell like garlic, you know? so doesn’t matter how great of a sales person I am, thats not going to cut it.

#00:19:20-9# Neil:  Mmmm

#00:19:20-9# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Helped a girlfriend sell her art, its copper and glass and really beautiful. So I learned some seasons, like I showed up in North Florida, at what would have been in South Florida the peak season for buying and she’s like, ‘oh honey we just, our season just ended, you should have been here six months ago.’ So I learned alot about the market and about the process of selling. So, I am not ashamed that I gave up that year and tried all these crazy products, I’m actually really proud because it taught me what I have today, and it also taught me not to have fear, and it taught me what I need to ask for, none of those people gave me a base pay, I paid out all the gas, all the mileage, I did all the educating for their product, they did not have any education process. You know, so those are things I would ask for and when we hire our own sales staff, I hope to have that level of integrity knowing what they need to be successful in the job.

#00:20:19-0# Neil:  Ok thank you for that.  Can we now just talk about your entrepreneurial journey a little bit, do you think that culture is important from the beginning in a business?

#00:20:31-4# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:  You know that is very interesting, the last company I worked for also owned by a lovely british gentleman, his name was Steve and so was the first one, and so when I called the first one to say ‘hey I am working for another lovely british fella named Steve’ he says, ‘every town has one.’

#00:20:45-3# Neil:  I am sure they do.

#00:20:46-8# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:  I says ‘great but I am going to learn to travel the world more’ you know? But one of the things Steve, my former boss did, is the culture of the company said ‘we will only work Monday through Friday 9-5’ and family is first. You know, as a really hard driven woman, I was like, ‘really thats enough?’ you know enough nurses one of those underlying issues for me. And sure enough, it was enough, I was able to stay within those boundaries, and I am so thankful he taught me that. And it allowed us as a team to not cross each others boundaries, you know, not to be a perturbance in some way. But to support each other and be there during appropriate hours, and I really am thankful that he modelled that for me. So yes I do think its important.

#00:21:33-4# Neil:  Ok and knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

#00:21:45-7# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Well I grew up an only child, and I also grew up being co-dependent, which alot of people mis-understand. Co-dependent people like to do things themselves, they like to be self-reliant, they often don’t know what they want, or what they need even and so they don’t know how to ask for help and quite often they are reluctant to anyway, so for me going back, I wish that I would have colaborated more or going forward what my intention is, is to colaborate more. And I was also giving alot of positions of authority at an early age, and I did not quite have down the ability to be kind at all times, I’m a business person, I see things black and white, and you know just deal with it. And I will going forward and I wish I could have and I have gone back to people I did not speak you know tenderly or kindly to. I really learned a level of grace and compassion, to just say things in a way that is helpful. Toastmasters helped me with that too you know, learning the sandwich method and those are two things, I think colaborating more and always being able to speak kindly to somebody.

#00:23:01-9# Neil:  Ok, you talk about colaborating more, how do you do that?

#00:23:07-3# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh so its really cool right now, because we are putting together advisory board and I respect the ceo so much, you know he is just so much smarter than I am, in so many ways. And yet, we had a simple experience one day, I lined up three appointments with him, with people that I knew in the technical industry, you know gamification and marketing and different strengths than what George has. And by the way, my boss drives a Tessler, so its really fun. And we were riding home after this day of appointments, in the Tessler, we were riding back to where my car was parked, and he looked at me and said, ‘thanks I couldn’t have done that.’ And I was like, what do you mean you couldn’t have done that? You know it was easy, we just had lunch and tea and talked to people. He was like, ‘yeh I wouldn’t have set up all those appointments, and reached out like that.’ So I think he and I are learning, while we both have strength, there are some areas that we are going to ask for help in.

#00:24:03-7# Neil:  And you say that you went to toastmasters, do you still do that?

#00:24:08-4# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   No, I spent two years doing that until I had baby number three I think, once baby number three came, I was like ‘oh’, the level of childcare and negotiation to get to the meeting, my meeting happened to be an hour away. So just for logistics, and now I am happy at my skill level, but I would encourage anybody to spend at least two years, I did make it to the advanced levels, and its always an opportunity to go back but I loved it.

#00:24:37-3# Neil:  So what benefit do you think that that gives people who are in business? Other entrepreneurs?

#00:24:46-3# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh its so funny, erms ahs, using words that are over used, great, awesome, nice, they are not descriptive, they are useless. And we are called to present publicly our products or services, to engage other people in our missions in life, and being able to communicate it clearly makes it painless for the other people and makes it fun and effective for us. Somebody I work with has a hard time saying things concisely, which as much as I talk is funny that I notice this in other people. But they give you this one task, its called ‘table topics’ um, you heard that um? they would have thrown a nail in a bucket if I were at a toastmasters meeting with that one. ha ha, gonk ok. So get that one out of your vocabulary. And they ask the question, they say whatever the question is, and then they will say, ‘Neil’ and from the time you hear your name, and you walk to the podium, you have to be able to respond to that question, in two minutes.

#00:25:46-2# Neil:    yeh, I do toastmasters so I actually do do it.

#00:25:51-1# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   You know?

#00:25:51-1# Neil:   Yeh I do. I was just interested to hear what you thought about it, so how much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

#00:26:05-0# Neil:  I’m learning that one, so my mind is so strong, I am so stubborn that for a long time, if it didn’t line up with how I saw the world, darn it, then I didn’t go that way, maybe because I have been humbled through my experiences, maybe because I have gone through that transformational workshop about being in the moment, that my gut is alot stronger now, and I will listen to my gut, and I will respect the person in authority, so even if my gut says one thing and it is not a matter of safety, you know or integrity, then I will just let the other person ride out what they need to ride out to learn their lesson.

#00:26:45-1# Neil:  Mmm hmm ok, life is made of constant change whether we like it or not and many say that the only constant is change, how do you keep up with change?

#00:26:57-3# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Ha ha ha ok so, I am just going to tell you that I am 46 years old, I have marketing experience, but when you take 12 years out, things changed, oh my gosh, I might have the concepts of marketing but wow the way we do it today is and it changes practically every day, with the technology and the services, and other companies or apps that pop up, I mean it is just phenomenal how rapid the change is. So this is what I do, you know, if you sign up for a webinar, they call you afterwards, ‘hey we just want to know, can we provide your services?’ and so this is what I tell the poor kid on the other line, and I use the term ‘kid’ loosely but you know, the other person on the line, I will say ‘you know I am probably not a candidate for your product, but could I ask you a favour? You know I took this dec out to raise my family and there are just some things I need to catch up on’, and so they have all been really gracious with me and it hasn’t taken more than ten or fifteen minutes, just for me to understand the products better or how it fits in the big picture, I also asked another gentleman in the technology industry, I said ‘hey could we just go meet for a cocktail, and could you draw me pictures, because I am a visual learner, and so they kept talking about see panel and hosting companies and just terminology I did not get and literally we went and had a beer and he drew me pictures in my notebook, so I could really understand the things that these other people were talking about, so taking that few months at the previous employer to do those few things, kept me in a place of not being afraid, to jump on in a technology business. I am not afraid, and I know that I can learn whatever it is, that comes down the pipe next.

#00:28:39-2# Neil:   And what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership or motivation? And can you tell us why you have chosen it?

#00:28:49-1# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Yes I had to think about that one, for a minute because they are not standard entrepreneurial books, one of them is the tapping solution. The tapping solution, because I think alot of us are held back by some illogical thinking in our mind, or we get triggered in a meeting because that person actually represents somebody from the past. And then we are not effective in the moment, so when I recognise that I hit these triggers, these exterior triggers and these false perceptions, the internal false truth but what I was holding is truth. Then I just tap it out so that next time I can keep my relationship clear with that person, and I can move forward with the project or that community, so the tapping solution was a big one for me. Theres the work by Katie Byron, I love her work too, basically ask yourself ‘is it the truth?’ you know we go into a meeting and we are like, ‘that person should have done this and they should not have done that, and my business should be at this point or doing this already. Oh is that the truth? And if I could give up that thinking, what would my life be like? In fact, if the opposite were true, what would that feel like? so they are more accountability and moving forward pieces for me.

#00:30:10-2# Neil:  And you apply what you have learnt from the work in your own life then do you?

#00:30:13-5# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Yes I do.

#00:30:15-8# Neil:  Mmm great, everyone when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time that you may be doing other things, such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing, to choose your free audio book, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com. As long as you haven’t already signed up then you will qualify. Nancy, what I would like to do now is, go and move into the future a little bit, sort of move your mind to the future. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew that you could not fail?

#00:30:52-0# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh, I would scale it now, I would put all these people in place that we need, I would just work for the funding to make it happen,

#00:31:03-4# Neil:  Ok and what skill if you were excellent at it, would help you the most to double your business?

#00:31:11-6# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Oh there are so many of those, right? because its in finance, its in sales, its in team management, its in creating a vision. Probably on-boarding and I can’t control what the authors want to do or not want to do, I can’t control that part. And I think I am as influential as I can be in presenting the benefits. So to me its in the sales, because without that then the rest .. I don’t know, its yin and yan. I don’t know you have to have the integrity and functionality of what you are providing, and the sales to have that cycle going.

#00:31:49-0# Neil:  Yeh absolutely,

#00:31:50-4# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   I will just stick with sales to make it easy.

#00:31:52-4# Neil:  Ok with sales, ok and in five years from now if a well known business publication was publishing an article on your business after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

#00:32:11-2# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   That we showed up in people’s lives when they needed it most, and that we helped them, that they found help that they were looking for that they couldn’t find anywhere else,

#00:32:19-7# Neil:  Marvellous, thank you and we are now at the part of the show where you share three golden nuggets with us. Have you got a favourite quote, and can you tell us how you have applied it?

#00:32:35-8# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   No there are so many quotes that run through, I would say my father’s voice is probably one of the strongest voices that I have, recurring and he would always say to me, ‘this too shall pass, this too shall pass’ so whatever the struggle is in the company, if its the finances are not right today, that is going to pass. If you don’t have the right person and the right place today, thats going to pass. If you do’t have the right system in place the system is broken, it will pass, all of these things are temporary. These too shall pass.

#00:33:12-2# Neil:  Mmm not heard that one before, thank you for that, and do you have a favourite online resource that you could share with us all?

#00:33:21-3# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   I do, I like digitalmarketer.com I pay for the monthly membership, its $40 dollars. They have weekly webinars that I can go and learn, remember I said I took that dec out of marketing, so there is so much I have to learn, but I really love their writing, they give you so many templates and easy things to follow, so sometimes and its that underlying story of am I enough? do I know enough? its that piece, if I feel like I don’t have the right message or the right methodology, I can go under the sounding board of this really brilliant team, and pull down their research or their techniques, and then I don’t have to stand on my own two feet and say ‘hey team will you trust me?’ I can say, ‘hey listen I am not the only one saying this, look these other guys have found their AB testing and this is what worked.’

#00:34:12-0# Neil:  Ok, and you have mentioned a couple of times about the change in marketing in the last ten or twelve years, I mean in ten or twelve years ago we still had the internet, so what was the most apparent about the change that had happened in that time for you?

#00:34:30-3#  Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Well I was living in a small town, and even though I was raising my children, I still worked the wee hours of the morning and late at night, doing some PR accounts both in tourism and non-profit and education. So I was still able, all of that decade I was able to employ the skills that I had learned originally. Because it was a small town and when you sent a message it was still valuable because it was a small town. And to get your voice heard, with such a volume is different strategy, you know building the user connection, the user experience, takes a different process than just sending a press release or having an event. Something like that, it has to be meaningful. It has to provide a solution, and create value for them in their life.

#00:35:25-3# Neil:   Someone said to me the other day that the basic human need has not changed though, its only the medium thats changed.

#00:35:34-6# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Valid

#00:35:34-6# Neil:  So as long as you tap into that need, the medium becomes a way to obviously communicate whatever you are trying to say to them.

#00:35:45-5# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Well I will agree with that to a point and then I will also say there are some of us so hung up on our side of the story, you know this is the service we provide, these are the benefits that we offer, this is how we do it, when you have not actually touched on the need of your user or your customer. So when I present it to you that in our case, authors need a revenue stream, great they got their book published, they are not making money on it. They do not like technology, they like their subject, you know they are an expert in whatever it is they are not an expert in marketing, sales, writing, putting up a website, that kind of thing. So if I come to you and say, ‘I am a platform to sell your book’, thats great. And if I come to you and say ‘listen I can create a revenue stream that is not going to be hard for you to do. Its going to be easy for you to do, and actually you keep 90% and we only keep 10%’ now I am speaking more to their need rather than what we offer.

#00:36:44-1# Neil:  Yeh I think alot of people in marketing tend to look from the inside out, when they should be looking from the outside/in. And I think that is a massive mistake isn’t it? Even big companies do, big companies do that. They talk about everything from their perspective, and they forget what the customer really wants, and they don’t know what the customer wants sometimes, go on

#00:37:07-8# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   When I lived in the Keys, I met the gentleman who invented The Marboro Man. Right do you remember? the big cowboy? what does every man want? to be invincible. To be big, to be strong, to be honoured, right? That was the brilliance behind that message, its not what they offered. Its what the audience wanted.

#00:37:30-1# Neil:  I think the tobacco industry, has always been quite good at marketing though, they have to be quite creative. #00:3

#00:37:34-1# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Ha ha ha yeh.

#00:37:38-0# Neil:  And they have had a few challenges over the years, certainly here they can’t advertise like they used to be able to. What is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

#00:37:48-6# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Keep your vision, handle your emotions, and one step at a time, whats your next best step? right? I think sometimes we get overwhelmed when we look at the big picture, and then that overwhelm kind of seizes us at the gut and we stop moving. And breathing, and whats the next best step?

#00:38:14-1# Neil:   Everyone if you did not manage to get a note of Nancy’s favourite resource or her favourite books, you can find the links on Nancy’s shownotes page, just go to theentrepreneurway.com and search for Nancy, or Nancy Lucas in the search box. Nancy, is there anything else you would like to add about your business?

# #00:38:34-1# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   No, just if there is an author who wants a way to get their message to an ideal client, and if there is somebody out there going through something they didn’t expect to find, you know themselves in, just that they would go to anactionplan.com if we don’t have your action plan there tell us you want it. And you know we are just in this world to help each other, that we are meant to come and love and serve.

#00:38:58-3# Neil:   Nancy its been an absolute pleasure and honour having you on the show, thank you very much for providing us with the insight into your entrepreneurial journey, so thank you.

# #00:39:08-4# Nancy Lucas, An Action Plan, Florida:   Thank you Neil.

#00:39:09-7# Neil:  Its a pleasure, you are welcome.