6 Steps to Scaling Your Business An Additional 7 Figures Twice As Fast By Working 1/2 The Time with Speaker, Trainer, CEO & Female Entrepreneur Of The Year Carolin Soldo on Episode #0280

Carolin Soldo [0:00]
Hi, this is Carolyn Soldo of CarolynSoldo.com. And you’re listening to EA interviews.

Intro [0:05]
EA interviews, Episode 280, inspiration, transformation success stories and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview.

Mario Fachini [0:19]
I am super excited to have today’s VIP guest. I have tons and tons of impressive people. But how would you like to grow your business twice as fast in half the time past seven figures, not once, but twice. You know, that seems pretty awesome to me. And especially for being in Inc 5000. In bet 40 under 40 Carolin Soldo is going to be talking about all of this and more. And I can’t wait to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [0:51]
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Mario Fachini [1:06]
Here she is. Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Carolin Soldo. Carolin, how are you feeling today?

Carolin Soldo [1:11]
I’m good Mario, thanks for having me.

Mario Fachini [1:14]
I am excited to jump right in because you are so impressed with everything you’ve done, but not just what you’ve done, but who you’ve helped, in the fact that you want to help them. Because I think it’s safe to say and correct me if I’m wrong. But by all accounts, you pretty much don’t need to work if you don’t want to correct?

Carolin Soldo [1:35]
No, not necessarily, but I could never see myself not working. I want to work until I’m 100 years old, if possible.

Mario Fachini [1:43]
Because you have a good heart and everything. And when I was reading through what you’ve done, you really want to give back and help people. And that’s what you’re doing now, isn’t it?

Carolin Soldo [1:53]
Yeah, everything that I’ve done has come from a deep passion. And I think that’s why it’s been successful. So you know, I never started my businesses thinking what can I sell? How can I make any money, it’s always been from a place of, hey, you know, something, and I know, I can help some people, let me go figure out how to do that. And it’s been really, really impactful because of that

Mario Fachini [2:15]
When did this passion get started?

Carolin Soldo [2:19]
So it got started in my corporate career, when I experienced really quite the opposite of you know, working on a lot of projects that seem to be rather meaningless and impact less. And I wanted to work on things that were interesting, but also really make a difference for the company and the community. And of course, myself as well. And I had experience helping my husband grow his company. So we built a manufacturing business before I ever launched my own company. So I knew I could do it for myself, I just needed that spark and that inspiration. And when I found that it was undeniable, I knew, by the way, I had to, you know, go into business for myself.

Mario Fachini [3:01]
What was the spark? Was it something that happened in corporate or happened in personal?

Carolin Soldo [3:07]
Yeah, I would say that. So I launched my career in banking, in financial services. And the last big project I worked on was an app. So I was managing online banking for a local bank here. And this project had spanned over a year, year and a half with, you know, lots of money and time and contractors, and we were supposed to launch it. And then the time came to launch it. And we were told, you know what, we’re actually cutting the project. So the whole entire project was cut. And I was looking at the past year and a half of me really dedicating myself to this work. And now it’s like poof, all of a sudden it was just gone. So that made me mad, that made me mad, and also ask myself, why am I doing this? Why am I working so hard? Nobody seems to be really caring if they can cut this from one day to the next, you know, I’m really not in control. So that was more, you know, overtime that contributed to really sort of this corporate burnout. But that was the last kick that I got that gave me that motivation to jump from corporate into business.

Mario Fachini [4:15]
And when did you start your own business?

Carolin Soldo [4:18]
So I started coaching and I actually launched into health, which came from a personal health journey that I had gone through, but that was in 2012. And then in 2014, I went back to business, which has always been sort of, you know what I love doing, I have MBA in marketing. And so I went from big, brighter and light from health into business coaching and consulting. And then in 2014, things really started to scale up and I doubled down and things went really badly for me.

Mario Fachini [4:54]
So tell me a little bit about what it’s done for you personally and then we’ll get into the business specifics. So what were some of your dreams and goals like beforehand that now you’re able to do?

Carolin Soldo [5:10]
Well, I’m changing people’s lives in so many ways. The one story I like to tell it’s one of my clients, Jen Applegate. And if she ever hears this interview, she’ll be laughing. But Jenny came to me when she was literally homeless, and she didn’t have an apartment, she was sleeping on a friend’s couch. And she was teaching yoga. And she said, Carolin, I want to go into business, I’m dreaming of having my own yoga studio and making it beautiful and helping people in all these different ways. So I got her into her own yoga studio, we borrowed the money from a friend we worked together with. And he was always like that it’s not just about their business, it’s about these people’s entire lives. And then her family and her children, all of that. So that gets me out of bed every day. And that got me through, the hard times and the challenges and the struggles that come along with building a business. But it’s really kept me going. So seeing people feel fulfilled, happy, do what they want to do. That’s really what I get from working in my business.

Mario Fachini [6:18]
And that’s what I was picking up on, and why I was so excited to have you because there’s a lot of people who, you know, you can say they’re quote, unquote ,whatever, the quotation thing, they’re successful, they don’t need to do anything anymore. And I truly believe if you didn’t want to, I know you’re smart enough. And you’ve done enough, you probably don’t need to work the rest of your life, even though you want to, but that’s showing your heart and your passion. And that’s what was really most appealing, because you want to give back. And not everyone has that component of it. So tell me more about how to double your business in half the time. And you’ve done it multiple times past seven figures, what are some of the things that Expert Authority World should be considering? What’s the number one thing? Let’s start with that, then we’ll go to the other four. And beyond?

Carolin Soldo [7:16]
Yeah, I think the number ones, we have a six step scaling process that we sort of apply to our clients, businesses. But the number one thing that has given me the ability to scale and crush through the limits, it’s been automation. So I like to look at all my business and automate any process possible. And take the human factor out of as many things as possible. Because systems can work night and day and they don’t ever get tired. They also hardly make any mistakes, which is really nice. So automating my marketing, automating client onboarding, calendaring, emails follow ups as much as possible. So that’s been number one, closely followed by the people, because without people, we can’t grow a business. So people, you know, hiring them, putting them in the right places, and not really trying to duplicate myself, in many ways has also been really important.

Mario Fachini [8:13]
Now, what if you can’t get something automated? What’s your backup plan for it? Is that where you assign it to a team member?

Carolin Soldo [8:22]
Yeah, so you know, if you’re, let’s say, you came to me, Mario, you said, I’m overwhelmed. I’m doing all these things, and I want to grow. So how can I grow without already working? You know, to the max, I would say, well, let’s do a time study. And let’s see what you’re actually spending your time on. And then we’ll see if we can delegate it. But do we have to continue to do this, this process, this task? If so, can someone else do it? What happens if we stop it? A lot of times, it sounds silly, but it happens a lot. People do things that really don’t need to be done. And nothing would happen to your business at all. If you just stopped it, nothing. You think you need to do it? Maybe someone told you, but if you just stopped it, nothing would happen. And one of those examples to me is actually social media posting on social media. When I stopped posting, or having this urge, or this idea that I had to have a social media plan, and I cut it off, nothing happened. Or then is there a way to you know, use a system or put a process in place where tools and software can at least take part of you know, the time off your plate, and maybe even offer teams play too, because they only have so many hours in the day to say yeah, either we delegate it, you automate it, or we cut it and that’s usually how I started looking at your time and giving you some of the time back to so that you can either work less and or you know, work less and grow more.

Mario Fachini [9:49]
I love how you’re thinking about that because I’ve been telling people very similar things for years. One of my favorite tools is rescue time. And I’ve told my author clients it’s the first thing day one week one, install it and forget about it a week later, we come back, because sometimes they go, I’m not sure how I have time to write the book, promote the book, this that the other thing, and I’m like, hey, just install this, don’t worry about it. And then it’s like, let’s take a look at it. They’re like, oh, my gosh, I waste so much time. And these are the most productive, effective. Well, you know, these aren’t beginners. And it’s impressive, it’s impressive to go, just have that realization. And like social media, we’re in agreement on that, too. It’s like, if you can’t have a tool, do it, you shouldn’t be doing it 10, 12 hours a day or your team. I know, I joke about it, even in my own talks, then it’s like, well, I have a team of people that do that, I don’t do it anymore. It’s like, cool. So you’re wasting their life instead of your own.

Carolin Soldo [10:52]
Right. And it costs money to buy, I think a lot of times, we don’t know what actually makes a business work, we kind of have this business, and we do all these things. And somehow it grows. And it’s just a lot of business everywhere. But we don’t really understand the critical components, that money making pieces. So we just keep doing it all. Because we think if we stopped doing it, that something’s gonna break, we’re gonna lose it, things will go away. So if we just look at what is actually what was the backbone, what’s the skeleton of this business, and what can be eliminated. The business may not grow on revenue by pay, maybe you get 10% of your profitability back. And it’s more money in your pocket and more money you can do more great things with.

Mario Fachini [11:40]
Now, I want to dive deeper into the marketing side of it, because you said automate the marketing, if you’re not doing social, because I know a lot of people think that’s the only way to market and it’s not, what do you suggest are some of the best ways to market and grow the business on top of getting your time back and everything we’re talking about?

Carolin Soldo [12:00]
Yeah, so I think in terms of client journey, and I like to automate that. So social media is a great way to target. But if we’re not using paid ads on those social platforms, we have a really hard time getting in front of new people consistently. And I like to entertain people who are already following me. But I like it a lot more. I’m getting in front of new people and expanding that reach. And social media smart, they want us to pay for that. So the only realistic way to do that without spending hours and hours and hours is to pay for Facebook ads, Instagram and the same thing Google advertising, there’s LinkedIn, which we use to some degree, but the advertising is there. So a very simple customer journey for us would be running advertising paid ads on a social platform, into generally an education based piece. So that might be a workshop, it might be a video, some sort of training. And that’s how I really found my businesses really by leading with, what’s my message? What can I help you with? How can I train you, and then putting them into either a follow up sequence, again, we use emails, we use text, because that’s a video follow ups. And then bringing them on to potentially a call like this sort of your sales process is based on sales conversations and consults and that sort of thing, then that’s the logical next step. And then from there, they either become a client or they go back into a sequence that continues to nurture them, groom them, because people might be ready. You know, the next season, there’s the season of how people buy. But that’s so the education based model, and then automating that through video has been the number one way which has grown. My companies and our clients too. And I see it work in any type of service based business. So obviously, the coaches and consultants but we also have lawyers, attorneys, we have financial planners, we have wellness experts, we have authors. So it works just so well in a variety of ways. And all the tools out there can just make it happen for you. So if my talks are running and running and running and running, while I’m talking to you, someone might be watching my talks right now and if they like it, next thing you know, I say book a call with my sales team. And then they go from there.

Mario Fachini [14:30]
I love it. I absolutely love it and agree and I think more people need to hear this because I love waking up and seeing that, business was done, more money was made. I’m like I didn’t do jack yet. Even some of the guest interviews I did to your point of you’re speaking right now. There’s guest interviews I did years ago that people are still commenting and sending messages and exactly what you’re saying going into the funnel.That’s why I love publishing people’s business books because it’s an asset. And you can also have a checklist, when you’re saying your videos are a big thing to follow up with. It’s just like I love video. It’s what I wrote my first book on. It’s my background. So what would you say to someone who’s afraid to do the paid ads? Because what I’m hearing here is do the paid ads, put them into a nurture sequence on the customer journey? And then if it makes sense, bring them on to a sales team call. And that’s pretty simplistic. Not a lot of people do it. Even less people have it refined to the point you do. But what if some is on the fence of going? Well, I don’t know if it’s going to work? How much is it going to cost? How much do I have to lose? before I make a profit? How often do I have to tweak it? There’s 1,000,001 things that can be going through your head? What would you say to them?

Carolin Soldo [15:50]
Yeah, well, you need to logically look at what you can do right now. So you can either, you know, try to somehow manually do this yourself by posting all day long, by going into groups nowadays, you can’t really be in person with people anymore. So there’s that right, and what’s your capacity, and you and you’ll quickly see that you are very limited, and you’re just leaving a lot of money on the table. Now, one thing you shouldn’t be doing is jumping into this blindly. But you don’t have to. So I love numbers. More than many other people. I love metrics. And I love stats. So everything I do is measured and optimized. So let’s say you put this customer journey together, and you set goals for yourself every step of the way, including your ads, including how your videos are performing, how many people are booking what your close rate might be, and you put a benchmark in place, and then you launch it. And the nice thing is that you actually don’t have to spend a lot to see how your metrics are doing. And if they’re not doing well, you pull the plug in, yes, you may have spent a couple $100. But if your goal is to be generating a million a year, that’s what it’s going to take to get the machine going right. And so every step of the way, you track your numbers, you see if things are performing the way you want to and if not, you can also focus on this piece. So if I know that maybe my email open rates are declining, or they’re not being opened well, instead of wondering why the marketing isn’t working, and I know let’s test some subject lines, or if the ads are getting too expensive, like the webinars working great. I spent some time, testing, creative testing, copy and looking at new audiences. So to me growing the business is always just looking at optimizing more and refining to your point refining, refining, refining with the metrics to be never blind, you always know what to do.

Mario Fachini [17:50]
That’s great. That’s a great expert of authority insight, because it’s not guesswork. I know when we’re testing book covers, hey, which one do you think is going to work? And it’s usually you and I love a? And we’re like, oh, everyone’s gonna love it. It’s always in when you think it’s B. It’s always a so the numbers don’t lie.

Carolin Soldo [18:10]
Yeah, exactly. And no at all.

Mario Fachini [18:15]
So for anyone doing under seven figures right now, they could be in the beginning, sixes, middle sixes, high sixes, how long would you say it takes to go from where they’re at past that seven figure mark?

Carolin Soldo [18:29]
I would say a year. And that, to me, is often still ambitious. And I see a lot of people saying, Oh, my God, a year that’s too long, or they think it’s going to be much more doable, but there is a lot that goes into it. The funny thing is Mario, I feel like a lot of times, it’s just a mindset. it’s our mind that allows us to go there or not. Because making it happen. And putting the pieces in place is really not that difficult. It’s taking that jump and actually putting the marketing out there and putting yourself out there more and then delegating, letting go of that control and maybe learning new tech, maybe charging a little bit more, so there’s a lot and then the messaging. A lot of it has to do with the business owners resiliency, whether they have a passion, a real passion that keeps firing them up and driving them or not. And then just having the business know how behind it to put it in place. But down to a question a year I think is what I will tell you, it takes to get from six to a multiple six figures to seven figures.

Mario Fachini [19:40]
So you’re saying it’s possible in a year but I’m kind of hearing again, correct me if I’m wrong. 18 to 24 months, depending on the person.

Carolin Soldo [19:51]
Yes. Yep.

Mario Fachini [19:53]
Okay. Now I want to jump back to the steps because I know you said you have six of them and I think we covered one and two. What would the others be?

Carolin Soldo [20:04]
Yeah, so we covered the lead generation automating that, once you have leads coming in, and not just email, you know, subscribers, but actual interested prospects who want to talk to you. That is a lot. But we also start with number one, which is really figuring out who your best buyers and programs are. And that is the ideal client. And you’ve heard it before, but still, so many people aren’t really clear as to who they actually want to or need to be working with. So I look at your customer base, and I look at the services you offer, and I rank them based on how profitable they are, how easy it is for you to deliver them. So you know, time that you put into it, all the tools to staff and everything that goes into it, how easy it is for you to sell those services, and then how much fun they are. So the enjoyment that you get as a business owner, really important.

Mario Fachini [21:01]
So yeah, because you can be selling something pretty easily, but you might not enjoy it, or you can sell it and enjoy it. But it might be a pizza to deliver or fulfill to someone.

Carolin Soldo [21:13]
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it’s a very easy sort of ranking system that oftentimes, provides a lot of aha to people in a solo perspective. Or they might say, I have to stop offering the service, or I have to go after these types of people because they buy much more easily or just help us sort out how we can clean up sometimes the mess that we may have in our business. And then our next one is what we call bait, it’s messaging. And that really comes before the marketing automation, because when the message doesn’t work, no system or tool can fix that. So we need to really get clear on what it is that we need to say to deeply connect with the audience. And often we find it because the buyer behavior changes, the world changes, as we know now a lot by and what do we say? Yeah, really make it work.

Mario Fachini [22:13]
So that’s the first four, what would the fifth one be?

Carolin Soldo [22:17]
So there are really two more we’re talking about the team mind and what that means. I also like to grow a business by extending customer value. And so depending on the exact model that you’re in, you may or may not have customers around forever. A lot of service based businesses need to refill their pipeline often. So it’s more about getting new clients in the door than it is to nourish and continue on with the ones we have. But we still need to look at that. So I have been able to grow and create cash out of blue sky literally by just looking at how I can make more money by serving existing clients more? What other elevated needs do they have? What lower, you know, down sell needs? Do they have any? Can I create new strategic partnerships with anyone where I can maybe refer them over? You know, and again, serve them more and more and more, therefore generating more income for my business and growing, extending customer value in smart ways is key. And then optimizing your sales process and your pricing? One thing I always like to challenge clients with especially new ones is what would happen if we just charged $200 more for clients? What’s the 100? Anything changed? Would they buy less? Probably not. Right?

Mario Fachini [23:44]
So what’s the initial price point?

Carolin Soldo [23:47]
For my programs?

Mario Fachini [23:49]
Well, I mean, as when you’re saying, Well, what would happen if we charge two or 300? More? Is this like $1,000, 5000, 10,000?

Carolin Soldo [23:57]
This will probably be I would say maybe a $2,000 offer?

Mario Fachini [24:01]
Okay, so you’re talking about 10%, roughly 10, 12, 15%.

Carolin Soldo [24:05]
Got it. So my bet would be that if you just increase your prices by 10%, nothing would shift except your bank account would increase. And that’s not to say that we want to just, you know, take money from people, it’s sort of like, you know, making these incremental, small movements and sort of pushing the boundaries a little bit to create more, you know, revenues so that we can then you know, reinvest them ads, we invest in hiring someone else, doing the things you want to do. But then also the sales process, we have been able to shrink our sales process pretty tremendously. And I liked helping clients do that too. Where if your timeframe from when you first you know, make someone aware of you to when they buy, that’s weeks and weeks, it’s not necessary. So we look at how we can shrink it? How can we simplify it? What can you take out? Again, automated so that the sales process happens a lot faster and a lot more efficiently?

Mario Fachini [25:12]
Well, those are some great steps. And I want to ask you a deeper question on one of them when you’re saying maximize the customer lifetime value? What are some good ways to do that? If you’re talking about a service based industry, and you’ll take them to that $2500 price point. And what are some ways that they’re not thinking about right now that you can easily just integrate more follow up to increase the profit.

Carolin Soldo [25:44]
So I personally like upselling, a lot more than down selling, because to me, I always look for new needs my clients have, and how I can fulfill those then giving them other like, miscellaneous things that you might need as well. So if you’re in consulting, mastermind type groups are wonderful, especially now people are looking for communities, they’re looking for disruptive, creative, new ideas to keep running their business, they don’t want to be alone. So I have been able to grow my company by offering higher level masterminds events, and things of that nature to serve clients more and fulfill additional, more advancements, they may have developed over time. That’s one way. And if they don’t have advanced needs, simple extension programs are great, right? So some of my clients have been with me for years and years, and they’re really just in an extension program, where I’m a business advisor, they may or may not need me every single month, but I’m there. And I’m sort of like a safety net for them. And also keep them posted on what’s new in the industry trends and things that we’re seeing. So ask yourself, how can you offer extension type services? or How can you offer your clients the next level? That they’re slowly getting to that you’re not offering?

Mario Fachini [27:07]
Now? Are you working as a private mastermind? Like a private high level mastermind? Or are you positioning at more as a continuity subscription? You have access maybe once or twice a month to you?

Carolin Soldo [27:21]
Both.

Mario Fachini [27:22]
Oh okay.

Carolin Soldo [27:24]
Yeah, at one level, we have the subscription extension based model. But we also have a higher level mastermind, that screen, it’s sort of by invitation only, yeah. And at a higher price point. And because I think people are looking for both, and there’s different types of people with different needs. So having both of those available, I think is the best.

Mario Fachini [27:47]
I agree. I’ve done both myself. And it’s great to have that more intimate one on one access. But at the same time, you and I can’t provide that every week, all year long, all the time for everyone. That’s where some of the other stuff comes into play. It’s like, hey, we can be there and help. Maybe we do the other stuff two to three times a year. Yeah. Well, wow you’re just spitting all kinds of fire here. And I appreciate it. So I want to ask you, with all the people you’ve helped in, you mentioned Jennifer earlier, who else would be? Who is your biggest transformation and success story? I feel like you’ve probably got hundreds.

Carolin Soldo [28:31]
Yeah, I mean, there were so many of them. I have clients that I felt that business school was going through cancer, and that’s a really, you know, big personal transformation. For me, it’s really not the money, I’ve helped people earn seven figures, or more than they ever thought possible. And for some people, that’s really what they want. And maybe it’s a bucket list thing here, I made seven figures, and some people, you know, really want to go even even more, to me, it’s more about making someone’s dream come true. And helping them overcome the limitations they might see for themselves. And whether it’s getting them off the couch, to their own yoga studio, or, you know, having purpose while you’re fighting cancer, or making a whole lot of money so that you can bring your family on an amazing trip around the globe or the world. It doesn’t matter. Do I care about webinar marketing? Yes. Or in sales? Yes. But it’s about you know, the difference I can make. So I’m really glad that you’re picking up on this Mario, it’s great.

Mario Fachini [29:36]
Yeah, but the end result is what I’m hearing. I mean, the marketing, the webinars, all this stuff. I’m kind of 50-50 on it, too. It’s like, I enjoy it. I love it. I’ve taught people some of it. But at the same time, it’s not the end all be all when you can surprise your parents with a limo and they say hey, can you take us to the airport and you go yeah, I pick you up. The year I did it. Actually, one of the first years I did it. I never said I’ll drive you. I never said I’ll drive you because I don’t like lying. But I said, yeah, no problem. I’ll make sure I pick you up. And it was very fun. And they’re like, what, you know, what is this? And I love hearing the success, not just the success stories. I mean, I love hearing that. But the transformation you’re talking about. It’s like, oh, someone went from 1.8 million a year to 2.4. That’s all well and good. But when you’re saying this, Jennifer was on the couch homeless, basically. And now she has her own yoga studio. That’s a dream come true.

Carolin Soldo [30:41]
Exactly. Yeah. And it’s about happiness, I really feel that your business and what you do has to make you happy for it to be successful. That’s ultimately what we all want. You want that fulfillment, we want to feel, you know, content, and, like we’re doing good in the world like, like roadworthy, it’s that it’s part of it is chasing worthiness, right to some to some degree. But knowing that we’re leaving a legacy, we mean something. And what we do makes us happy. I think that’s when we all come to the end of our days, and we think back and we say, you know what, we did some pretty cool things, and we were feeling great doing it. Whether we made X dollars or y dollars, that doesn’t matter as much anymore. It’s about the moments, the experiences, the stories, all of that.

Mario Fachini [31:29]
So where do you see your business goal in the next five or 10 years? Because I know you’re young, you want to work the rest of your life? Because you have a passion for it and you love it? Where do you see your business go in the next 5, 10, 20 years? What would be your end goal with everything?

Carolin Soldo [31:45]
Yeah, I like to be surprised in life. So I don’t like to plan out too much I can usually see, five to 10 years, I like to look that far. Because I also know things I change, we change as we age and all of that. But right now I have a very unique mix of things I’m involved with. And obviously, that’s my core business in business consulting. But I’m also launching a software company with my husband’s business in the manufacturing space. And I have a personal little passion project. It’s called the beyond fulfilled community, that is a community, it’s a membership, it’s a transformation system, that I have sort of been building behind the scenes based on the book I’m writing. And that has nothing to do with business. So I’m in the process of launching that too. So I have two new startups, babies that are not really making any money yet. And one has huge financial potential, the other one is more from the heart. And then I have the core consulting. And those two things really want us mainstream beyond fulfillment, it could be, you could hear ads on XM Radio, all around the world, it’s a mainstream type of product. And who knows what that’s going to go I see, again, I see big impact, I don’t see dollar signs, I see a lot of people really benefiting from this greatly. And then the software, it’s more of a financial and lifestyle piece for us, because my husband’s business requires him to be on a lot. So he doesn’t have the scalability that I have as a consultant, because he’s machining parts and requires a lot of him in his time. So the software idea came out of a brainstorming exercise, where we tried to say, what do we do to get you out of the shop out of the machining floor, so that you can actually step away. And, you know, we looked at what do your customers want more off? So we came up with a software idea for other machining companies, and we’ve been developing this for almost a year and a half. And this year, it’s going to launch finally.

Mario Fachini [33:55]
Oh, that’s exciting. That’s very exciting. Well, congratulations. I have one more question for you before we thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. And it’s the Wheel of Whatever. What do you want, yellow or black?

Carolin Soldo [34:14]
Yellow.

Mario Fachini [34:15]
Okay. Let’s see if it actually stops there. Where do you think 5050 shot? Are you pretty confident? Okay. Oh, there it is yellow.

Carolin Soldo [34:29]
All right.

Mario Fachini [34:30]
My question for you is, what is something on your bucket list that you haven’t done yet that you really, really want to that you find exciting?

Carolin Soldo [34:43]
I want to see as much as I can of the world. So the one thing if you ask me, what’s my favorite thing to do? It will be travel. And we’ve traveled quite extensively. And I’ve seen some amazing places around the world but traveling has always made me feel free, opened my mind, I love showing my boys the world. So the events and the retreats and all that we always take our boys. So I want to eventually, maybe one day I get to this point where I’m not working at all or I have everything sort of taken care of and you get to just travel. So I want to see as much as possible, this planet that we live on.

Mario Fachini [35:20]
Is there a certain state or continent somewhere? You haven’t done that yet that you’d love to go?

Carolin Soldo [35:26]
Asia, all of Asia, Africa as well. I’ve done Europe. I’ve been all over Europe, of course. And…

Mario Fachini [35:35]
Weren’t you from Europe?

Carolin Soldo [35:37]
Yes. I’m German.

Mario Fachini [35:39]
What about Antarctica?

Carolin Soldo [35:43]
I could see that be very, very interesting, too. Yeah. So I haven’t. That’s probably not in my top 10. But I will.

Mario Fachini [35:51]
He’ll throw it on there. Just to say you went there.

Carolin Soldo [35:55]
Exactly.

Mario Fachini [35:56]
Okay, I’m going to add in one more, because I wanted to ask you this earlier when you were talking about the processes and all that. Do you have SOPs like booklets made that you could literally give to anyone?

Carolin Soldo [36:11]
100% I got burned by a phase in my business where I had a lot of turnover to people leaving my business and my team essentially. And the toughest part and in terms of hiring is how do you train those people to take over what they need to do quickly. So every little thing we do in my company is proceduralized. It’s all sitting file folders. In Google Drive, everything has a procedure, it’s like hiring someone tomorrow and say, go study, go through it. Here are the steps. And that’s been a lifesaver. Because if someone leaves, you don’t want them to take your applique business, you know with them. And the training is so much easier. So yes, everything is written down.

Mario Fachini [36:57]
I appreciate you for answering that I have a suspicion. And there’s something I’ve picked up on from doing hundreds of these. And I noticed a pattern myself, let’s say, and you just confirmed that. So thank you for that. We are going to thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [37:17]
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Mario Fachini [38:47]
And we are back with the imperfect Action Round. Carolin, are you ready to take Imperfect Action?

Carolin Soldo [38:53]
That sounds scary. I don’t know what that means.

Mario Fachini [38:55]
You’ve accomplished all this. And you think this sounds scary? You answered I was smirking at certain parts in the first half because you were literally using the terminology of what I named some of the things and you’ll see it right now. So 60 second or less answers. I got three rapid fire questions. The first one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Carolin Soldo [39:20]
Cutting expenses.

Mario Fachini [39:22]
Cutting expenses. Excellent. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making? And the fastest way for them to fix it?

Carolin Soldo [39:32]
Overthinking the fastest way to fix it would be to move things out when they’re 80% perfect.

Mario Fachini [39:39]
Oh, I like that. Number three, this is literally nearly verbatim. What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Carolin Soldo [39:52]
Offering extension programs.

Mario Fachini [39:54]
There you go. That wasn’t so scary, was it?

Carolin Soldo [39:57]
Oh good questions. Love it.

Mario Fachini [40:00]
What books would you recommend Expert Authority World?

Carolin Soldo [40:05]
I would say Ask and It Is Given by, well, you might know her by Abraham, or Esther Hicks.

Mario Fachini [40:15]
Okay.

Carolin Soldo [40:16]
Very spiritual book not a business book. If you don’t know anything about it, so worth reading.

Mario Fachini [40:24]
Okay, excellent. Any others?

Carolin Soldo [40:28]
Oh, I was thinking of one that I read last year. I can’t think of the name of it by now. It’s one of those books, Mario, that has you sort of analyze and decode your business. But I would have to look at my bookshelf right now to actually find it. So let’s just leave it at the first one.

Mario Fachini [40:53]
Okay, sounds good. Well, where would you like people to learn more about you?

Carolin Soldo [41:00]
So our website, of course, CarolinSoldo.com. I also would love and this is not business related. But if you are someone who is extremely successful, but maybe not as happy as you’d like to be, I’d love to invite you to check out my new passion project. And it’s available at beyondfulfilled.com, and providing a challenge that goes live in a couple of weeks from now. And it’s a really, really sort of heart based heart centered community that I’m looking to build. And, again, beyondfulfilled.com is the URL to check it out.

Mario Fachini [41:38]
Excellent. Well, thank you for that. And that sounds very interesting. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for your time and expertise. I really enjoyed this.

Carolin Soldo [41:47]
Thank you for having me.

Mario Fachini [41:50]
All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. And God bless.

Sponsor – Free Business Book Publishing Course [41:58]
You’re already the expert. But have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate unqualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 Seven? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With the expert authority effect publishing method it’s easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now, once again, that’s freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com.

www.EAInterviews.com [42:32]
Hey, thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out EAInterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience links to the resources we mentioned in more. Have a blessed day and I’ll see you tomorrow.