Self-Employed Maternity Leave Strategy: How to Take 4 Months Off Without Losing Your Consulting Business
"I started thinking about having a kid as it related to my career long before I even started my business. And actually it was really the impetus to start my business." Sara Royf
What do you do when you're self-employed and need to take four months off for maternity leave? If you're Sara Royf, you get ridiculously strategic about it.
Most of us panic at the thought of stepping away from our consulting businesses for any extended period. What happens to our clients? Our income? Will anyone remember we exist when we come back? Sara faced all these fears when she got pregnant, and instead of spiraling, she created a plan that actually worked.
Well, mostly worked. Because this is Confessions, and we're gonna talk about the stuff that didn't go as expected, too.
Sara breaks down exactly how she pre-scheduled four months of content (yes, four months), managed client expectations, and kept her audience warm while she was away. She also gets real about the maternity leave waitlist that converted exactly zero clients and why she'd completely flip her communication strategy if she did it again.
But here's what makes this conversation especially valuable—Sara's not just sharing theory. As a LinkedIn coach who teaches consultants how to get clients through authentic relationship-building, she literally practices what she preaches. Her approach to LinkedIn DMs is the opposite of gross sales tactics, and it works so well that clients book discovery calls with her while simultaneously telling her they hate DMs.
Plus, she drops a confession that'll surprise anyone who follows her work: she's actually not that fond of LinkedIn. Plot twist, right?
Highlights:
Stop trying to optimize for everything when planning extended leave. Sara chose creative outlet and audience warmth over maximum revenue, and that clarity shaped every other decision she made.
The 30-person waitlist that converted zero people immediately taught her that timing in business is everything. Sometimes your best-laid plans flop, and that's totally okay if you've layered your strategies.
Make more noise about coming back than going away. Sara wishes she'd spent less energy announcing her departure and more energy announcing her return—your audience cares about when you're available, not why you're not.
LinkedIn DMs work when you treat them like in-person conversations. The "would you say this at a conference?" test transforms how people respond to your outreach and makes it feel authentic instead of sales-y.
Even the experts doubt themselves. Sara had to constantly remind herself she'd achieved exactly what she optimized for, proving that mindset challenges hit all of us—and why having good business friends matters.
Don’t miss the end of the episode to find out how you can connect with Sara and get expert feedback on your LinkedIn profile—completely free.
Timestamp summary:
00:00:00 - Cold Open: Sara on Pre-Scheduling 4+ Months of Content
00:01:52 - Episode Introduction with Cindy & Jess
00:03:05 - Meet Sara Royf & Baby Liam
00:04:34 - Why Sara Started Her Business with Family Planning in Mind
00:06:10 - Planning Resources: Podcasts and Self-Reflection Process
00:08:00 - Key Decision Framework: What Are You Optimizing For?
00:10:21 - Content Strategy: Pre-Scheduling 4+ Months of Content
00:13:01 - Offer Refinement: From 90-Minute to 60-Minute Calls
00:16:18 - Return Timeline: Setting Open-Ended vs. Fixed Dates
00:19:33 - The Maternity Leave Waitlist Strategy (And Why It Didn't Convert)
00:22:44 - LinkedIn DM Strategy: Leading with Relationship Intent
00:27:50 - Overcoming DM Resistance: The "In-Person Test"
00:30:15 - Return Results vs. Expectations: Managing Type-A Mindset
00:32:35 - Mental Health Strategy: The Power of Business Friends
00:33:43 - What Sara Would Do Differently: Focus on Return, Not Departure
00:36:24 - Don't Forget Client Experience During Leave
00:37:39 - CONFESSION: "I'm Not All That Fond of LinkedIn"
00:39:02 - LinkedIn Premium: Do You Really Need to Pay?
00:41:07 - How to Connect with Sara + Free LinkedIn Profile Feedback
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Sara:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-royf/
Find Us Online: https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com
Connect with Cindy:
Cindy Wagman Coaching: cindywagman.com
Fractional Fundraising Network: fractionalfundraising.co/
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/cindywagman
Connect with Jess:
Out In the Boons: outintheboons.me
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Sara: I decided to schedule. All of my emails for four plus months and all of my LinkedIn posts, It was such a relief to have that scheduled because I knew that if I did nothing else, if I never opened the app, I would still be. Engaging folks and teaching them things and helping them, welcoming them to my world and keeping them in my world.
[00:00:21] INTRO: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman. And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.
[00:00:32] INTRO: After years of building up our separate six figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and lived to see what sticks.
[00:00:41] INTRO: We're on a mission to help other nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six figure mark by pulling back the curtain.
[00:00:51] INTRO: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own, or you've been running your consulting business for years. [00:01:00] You understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know the people who truly get it. No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid, and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses. Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers. And the good, the bad, and the ugly. When it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business, we're gonna empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.
[00:01:49] INTRO: You ready? Let's go.
[00:01:52] Cindy: Hey, Jess. Hi. Back again. Another batch day. So we're. As a listener, you're gonna hear us [00:02:00] say some awkward, uh,
[00:02:02] Jess: introductions. It feels awkward for us, not for you because you're not hearing these. You
[00:02:05] Cindy: don't know. Now we're back to back, which is so fun. This episode, I feel like it's been a long time in the making.
[00:02:14] Cindy: We have, I guess it's very familiar to both of us. Sara Royf, who is a LinkedIn coach for consultants, but I feel like she does LinkedIn a little differently than what other people are doing. Teaching, for sure. Yeah. Which we'll let, I don't wanna give any spoilers, but a lot of you listening will probably already know, Sara.
[00:02:35] Cindy: This is gonna be like a, a multifaceted episode 'cause we're talking about what she does because we can all learn about her LinkedIn strategy, but also about her experience. Being a business owner, which I actually has come up with two or three people in my community over the past year, but like I know there's more.
[00:02:56] Cindy: So definitely an important conversation and [00:03:00] I feel like one that we don't have a lot of role models around, so I'm excited.
[00:03:05] Jess: Let's get to it. Well, first of all, congratulations, Sara, to you and your growing family. Can you tell us. The name of your little one.
[00:03:16] Sara: Thank you so much. It's so fun to be here. I always think that I am probably the first listener of Confessions every time it comes out because I am eight hours ahead of you guys.
[00:03:27] Sara: So when it comes out, I'm listening before most of your listeners are even awake, but I have a little boy who's now six, almost seven months old, named Liam, and he's been such a fun addition to our family. Yeah, I just feel so lucky to be his mom.
[00:03:46] Jess: He's so cute, by the way. Oh my gosh. Every time she posts publicly, I have to comment because he is edible.
[00:03:53] Jess: Should we just like hop into it? So for those who don't know, Sara actually started [00:04:00] as a nonprofit founder. She transitioned to the board chair. She's very. Familiar with the nonprofit space, and now she is a consultant to consultants, specifically surrounding LinkedIn. And so you had to think about mat leave differently than you would have if you were perhaps in-house where maybe that was more provided to you.
[00:04:27] Jess: And so, yeah, I guess I'm just curious, like when did you even start thinking about this process?
[00:04:34] Sara: I started thinking about having a kid as it related to my career long before I even started my business. And actually it was really the impetus to start my business because when I was in-house, I was working in healthcare in Tel Aviv where I live, and I saw how difficult it was for my colleagues to balance.
[00:04:55] Sara: Work with families, and actually where I live, we would take a lot of calls at night [00:05:00] because Night in Israel is daytime in the US and we worked primarily with US clients. So I saw how hard it was for my colleagues to take calls from seven to 10:00 PM every single night, and I knew I didn't want that for myself.
[00:05:13] Sara: And that's when I originally said to myself, what is it that I'm really good at and how could I turn that into a business? I actually started listening to Confessions way back then. I went to business school, but another version of business school for me listening to you guys, and it really helped inspire me to listen to this podcast as I opened my own business.
[00:05:35] Jess: Okay, and so this just makes me think there really are just two different types of people on the planet, right? Because the fact that you were thinking about this before you leave started your business, it is just like such a far cry from something that I would ever do. So pretending that we are in the world of organized and planned and thoughtfulness, like Sara, okay, so you start thinking about this, you get [00:06:00] pregnant.
[00:06:00] Jess: Yay. What were some of the steps or tools or resources you even looked into to design the mat leave you wanted?
[00:06:10] Sara: I went to my podcast app and I started typing again, like maternity leave for business owners. I listened to a few episodes that I found, and that was my introduction to at least, how do I think about maternity leave as somebody who's self-employed.
[00:06:24] Sara: And that was helpful because it at least gave me the language on which to speak about maternity leave, but I didn't have many people to talk about it with. She actually is a contractor in my business, but she's also a close friend. So I would talk to her quite a bit about my plans and what I was thinking, but for the most part it was really me.
[00:06:44] Sara: Spending time when I was on a walk with my dog, for example, or waiting at a doctor's appointment, which you do a lot when you're pregnant, but really me thinking, what do I want from maternity leave? What are my priorities? And then figuring out how to work back to that goal. [00:07:00] So is it that I wanna make the maximum amount of revenue, or do I want to have a true break?
[00:07:04] Sara: Do I want to have a creative outlet when I'm stuck at home for many weeks without wanting to leave because I'm scared of my baby getting sick? Because it's the middle of winter, right? I had to think what is it that I want to optimize for and then make decisions according to that.
[00:07:21] Cindy: Okay. So what would you say are some of the big things that you had to solve for or figure out or change?
[00:07:30] Cindy: Or like the decisions, like if you had to, if someone else is going through this. 'cause obviously everyone's gonna make different decisions based on their priorities. Like, how long am I gonna take, what's gonna happen to my business while I'm off? So what were some of those really big things that you feel like everyone should think through as they're planning to take time, whether it's mat leave or you know, sometimes there's lots of other reasons why people might need a break from their work.
[00:07:54] Sara: Yeah, and I'm happy you brought that up because I feel like what we're gonna talk about today really applies not just for mat leave, but [00:08:00] also for other types of leave. There were a few things. So really the first thing, and I think that you have to start here, is what are you optimizing for? And so for me, I was optimizing simultaneously for two things.
[00:08:12] Sara: One is I wanted to have a creative outlet when I was at home with my baby because I know that my brain doesn't turn off very easily. I knew that if I were to just shut my business off and put my computer in a locked box, I would go crazy. And so I knew I needed projects that I could work on when I was on leave.
[00:08:32] Sara: And I also knew that I wasn't trying to optimize for revenue. I had saved the amount that I needed to get through maternity leave, and I was in that fortunate position. So it wasn't about optimizing revenue, but it was also. A really big question for me of how do I make sure that I've kept my audience warm, which I know Jessie talk about all the time, so that I can have a very successful return to work.
[00:08:54] Sara: So I've probably listed a few categories in my answer, but really thinking through how [00:09:00] are you keeping your audience warm? Do you wanna make money while you're away? Is that something that's really important to you? Also? Do you wanna change your offers for when you're back? I mean, are there any changes or investments you wanna make into your business that can be this creative outlet for when you are away and you don't fully wanna step back?
[00:09:19] Cindy: I love that because I am also the kind of person who doesn't wanna just shut off. And so thinking about that ahead of time. It's funny, literally I have an email scheduled to go out, I think tomorrow that talks about how well I was on mat leave at my job. My boss came to the house 'cause I was still really engaged, even though I look back at it now and I'm like, that was really boundary.
[00:09:41] Cindy: That should not have been crossed. But anyways, but you get to decide and you decided that you don't wanna just not be doing work. You just wanna be in control of the work that you do and give yourself some projects that feel really fun. I want to mention keeping your audience [00:10:00] engaged and I know, 'cause I'm on your email list, like you had pre-scheduled a bunch of emails to go out on a regular schedule.
[00:10:09] Cindy: Aside from that, like were you monitoring your inbox? Were you like, how did you deal with the non-marketing side of engagement with people?
[00:10:21] Sara: I am a little bit crazy and I decided to schedule. All of my emails for four plus months and all of my LinkedIn posts, and at the time I was following a cadence of once a week emails, so every Sunday morning and twice a week LinkedIn posts, so every Monday and Wednesday at 9:00 AM and I scheduled all of that in November, leading up to my December leave.
[00:10:47] Sara: It was such a relief to have that scheduled because I knew that if I did nothing else, if I never opened the app, I would still be. Engaging folks and teaching them things and helping them, welcoming them to my world and keeping them in my world. [00:11:00] So that was the email and LinkedIn content that you were referencing?
[00:11:04] Sara: I did check my email like once a week and I would tell folks that they could sign up for my maternity leave wait list, which is something I did set up prior to going on maternity leave. Or I would ask them if they needed a referral, something that was. Surprising to me, and I think it was reassuring as well, is how hard it was for me to find good folks to refer people to.
[00:11:28] Sara: I do something very specific with how I teach LinkedIn, and I teach both LinkedIn posting as well as LinkedIn direct messaging, and I do that with a very specific focus on getting clients, and I also do it for very small business owners, folks that have one employee up to just a few. I don't typically work with folks that have more than three or four employees, and so.
[00:11:50] Sara: Many of the folks that I could refer folks to actually primarily work with startups or they primarily work with other types of audiences. So it was really hard for me to find referral partners, and that [00:12:00] was just a bummer. But it also kind of reaffirmed to me that I have good positioning in the market and that I am doing something where there's demand.
[00:12:07] Sara: And in the same time that it was frustrating. I was also relieved to know that.
[00:12:12] Jess: Okay. It's like impossible to tell us all that and not hear about some of the results. And I don't know if I'm like jumping the gun, but I also wonder if hearing some of the results will then lead to some further questions.
[00:12:24] Jess: Although you did say at the beginning of the podcast that you've adjusted your offers. Maybe tell us about that first, and then I'll ask my second question around what were the results specifically related to engagement, but also the new offers. You mentioned a wait list. Okay. We'll go in that order.
[00:12:41] Jess: Sorry. Sure. What was the adjustment of your offers? Maybe tell us specifically what it was called and what it was before you went on mat leave, and then talk to us about what it is now and how did you communicate that both in the warmup and during your leave? And then I wanna know, [00:13:00] obviously all the results.
[00:13:01] Sara: So the offer that I had before I went on maternity leave were relatively similar to what I had after, but I wanted to change. How intense the delivery was and really clean up my backend. So what I offered before is a LinkedIn profile and then followed by a coaching offer. And the biggest challenge that I had with the coaching offer is that it requires three 90 minute call.
[00:13:28] Sara: And thanks to my good friend Danny, who told me that I will not wanna be sitting in 90 minute calls as soon as then back from maternity leave. I thought to myself, how can I improve my program so much that those calls become unneeded? And that was really the goal that I had as I was improving my offer.
[00:13:45] Sara: It's to make up for those calls by having much stronger curriculum. And the curriculum that I have focuses on these two skills of. LinkedIn posting and LinkedIn direct messaging. So I really did a [00:14:00] reboot to my curriculum and I implemented milestones in the curriculum so that my clients could more easily take action towards the goals that they had, which all of my offers are to help you get clients on LinkedIn.
[00:14:13] Sara: And so I spelled out the very specific actions that they can take. So one of the actions is to send 30 messages. Another one is to schedule a month of posts. Another one is to create a lead list and so forth. And so I created this milestone structure in my program supported by Airtable, which I know you guys are fans of goals that are gonna get them the results that they want in their businesses.
[00:14:38] Sara: And I loved making these improvements because it was making my. Program's so much more valuable for my clients and helping them get into action when we, we all know when you buy a program, it doesn't necessarily mean you get the results. And so it's on me as the service provider to really create this streamlined path from point A to point B so that my clients can [00:15:00] succeed.
[00:15:00] Sara: And so I was able to move from three 90 minute calls to two 60 minute calls, and those two 60 minute calls get unlocked based on the action that you've taken. And even as I've been in sales calls recently, my clients are so excited by this feature. 'cause now they know that they have that accountability to take the steps that they really wanna take.
[00:15:19] Cindy: I love that. And I know you and I have talked about your offers before and how they fit. I'm sure we can get more into the offers, but maybe we'll come back to that. 'cause I would love to talk about the coming back. So you tweak your offers, so you're coming in with fresh. Maybe energy, but also I don't wanna say something new.
[00:15:39] Cindy: You have people who've been on a wait list and now you're saying like, oh, maybe you thought you were signing up for this, but now you're signing up for something different, even though I know it's not totally different. But tell us about your return to work and how you started. First of all, I'd love to know when, okay, I'm gonna take this step by step.
[00:15:59] Cindy: [00:16:00] When did you know you were ready? Is it that you had set a. Amount of time that you'd be off. How did that feel? Or did you sort of play it by ear? So let's start with that. As you're coming back, when did you decide to be like, cool, we're back in business?
[00:16:18] Sara: I had purposely set an open return to office date, which I had heard on one of these podcasts that I told you guys about earlier.
[00:16:26] Sara: And. I think there's pros and cons to doing this. I'm not sure if it was a good idea. I liked the idea that like if I suddenly wanna take six months, I can do that. But I do think it's harder as the recipient, as the potential client to not know when I'm coming back. 'cause they're like, I had people asking me, when are you gonna come back?
[00:16:46] Sara: And I'd be like, I don't have a date. And that didn't help me land clients when I got back. So. I'm not sure I recommend that. I do think from a psychological point of view, it's really nice as the person on maternity leave to not be [00:17:00] promising to come back at a certain time. But from a lead gen point of view, I think it would've really helped me to have a time.
[00:17:05] Sara: So take from that what you will. And I knew I wanted to come back because my family planned a trip in April when I had originally planned to come back. So I just thought, okay, when I get back from that trip, I'll make sure my childcare is all set and come back to work at the very beginning of May. That felt really aligned to me.
[00:17:24] Sara: It felt like the perfect time. We had the sleep schedule and I was getting really antsy just being with my baby. So I knew I wanted to have that part-time return to office, if you will. And, and I was really excited to come back and I'm happy that I did when I, when I did. Awesome.
[00:17:42] Cindy: I hear what you're saying about like maybe for your clients that like flexibility isn't the best, but for you, and I think at the end of the day, this is why we do our work.
[00:17:52] Cindy: It's also for ourselves. So keeping up well and you just don't. I
[00:17:56] Jess: remember when I had Liv, or was [00:18:00] pregnant with Liv talking to a coworker who was like, I didn't even need my maternity leave. I was ready to go back. She was like. I wanted to be at back with adults. Yeah. And I remember thinking, I'm gonna be like that.
[00:18:13] Jess: I don't know why. I thought, I was like, I'm gonna be like that. And then she came and I took a long, I mean, for the United States, I took a long four month break and I remember my first day back to work literally feeling like my arm was being torn off of me. Like it was the worst. And so you just don't know.
[00:18:33] Jess: And so that's what's difficult about having. A hard and fast deadline and I feel like you're so communicative with your audience and if you would've done that and you had to pivot or change the plan, like it would've been fine. But it is, it's so difficult to know when you're making this huge life change, like huge.
[00:18:58] Jess: So yeah, I think you [00:19:00] handled it the best you could do, and there's literally no right way to do it.
[00:19:04] Cindy: Totally agree. Thanks Justin. So you mentioned coming back kind of part-time. You have a warm audience, right? You've been eng engaged, you've had pre-scheduled things, you are ready to come back. How did that transition work in terms of, did you kind of start warming people, like more outreach before you were officially back?
[00:19:26] Cindy: Did you wait till you were back and what did the outreach look like? How did you find clients coming back?
[00:19:33] Sara: I wanna start with what didn't work as well as I expected, which is my maternity leave wait list. And I wouldn't do it differently, but it just wasn't immediately very fruitful and I think I know why.
[00:19:47] Sara: I think the reason I had about 30 people join my maternity leave wait list while I was gone and zero people converted directly to clients when I came back. And I believe the reason is because when you inquire. You [00:20:00] expect to get a response back within a day, and when you get a response, an email every month, and then a message on LinkedIn when I come back, it's just not the right timing.
[00:20:12] Sara: And so even though I did do outreach to everybody that was on that list, both through either email or direct message, as well as through like the email. Sequences or an email, a few emails that I sent to all those people on the list, it didn't directly translate to clients booked right when I got back.
[00:20:30] Sara: And that's why even when I'm teaching my clients, I always tell them, you need to layer marketing strategies because that 30 person wait list very well could have turned into a few clients. In my case, didn. I actually had a discovery call earlier today with somebody from that list, so maybe it will turn into a client, but that's okay.
[00:20:49] Sara: I layered marketing strategies so that I wasn't just relying on the maternity leave wait list to find clients. So come April, of course, I started to do that [00:21:00] email and direct outreach to the folks on the. Maternity leave wait list. But I also went back to my lean list and I have a really comprehensive list of folks that I've talked to in the past, and I started just going one by one and messaging folks to ask how they're doing and just pick up the conversation that we had from a few months back.
[00:21:18] Sara: I also started doing a few pieces of outreach, like for getting on podcasts, for doing collaborations with other business owners. Because I don't like to just think about lead generation in terms of direct potential clients. I like to also think about lead generation in terms of referral partners. And so that's actually when I reached out to you guys to be on this podcast, which feels a little bit meta to be sharing.
[00:21:42] Cindy: I love that. And out of anyone in our sector. Your business model is something that you practice with your business, so you te you literally practice what you preach out of anyone. I think that [00:22:00] we have worked with or know in the sector, you are literally a practitioner of your work that you also teach.
[00:22:07] Cindy: And I think that's very rare, right? We don't see fundraisers fundraising for their own business. Jess, yes. Like she runs emails for herself and for her clients. But I feel like even more so what you do is stuff that you are, you do in your business and you do for clients. So tell us a little bit about that outreach and what I've seen your Airtable, so I can totally picture you like going through your lead list.
[00:22:33] Cindy: But tell us a little bit about that process, that outreach process that you all like you do and you teach that allowed you to get back into things.
[00:22:44] Sara: The most important thing, and I hope everybody will take this away from our conversation, is that when you want to fill on LinkedIn, you need to lead with the intent to form relationships.
[00:22:53] Sara: And so the. Mindset that you bring when you open your laptop and start sending [00:23:00] messages. This is what I was doing back in April when I wanted to return in May. The attitude, the mindset has to be, I am here to form relationships, and that's exactly what I did. I just said, I haven't talked to these folks for a few months.
[00:23:12] Sara: I've been posting on LinkedIn twice a week. I've been sending my emails, which the person I'm messaging may or may not be on my email list, but I just am here to see how they're doing, right? And so. I approached my direct messages that way, and it's often so effective that when I am on calls with potential clients, my potential clients will tell me that direct messaging is really yucky, even though I got the discovery call by asking them for the discovery call in the direct messages, and they literally don't put two and two together that I was selling to them in the direct messages because they realized they felt that I was being genuine throughout the entire interaction.
[00:23:51] Sara: Because I was being genuine. I literally was there to build a relationship with them. But knowing that if I build enough relationships and I have a skillset that [00:24:00] I can share with folks, that it might lead to business down the road. And so I'll, in those discovery calls, then remind a person that I actually got this discovery call with them through the direct messages.
[00:24:11] Sara: And then usually they'll laugh and, and realize that it does work. But that's how I approach the direct messages and across the board. The most effective way to get clients on LinkedIn is by sending messages. It's much more effective than content, for the very most part, for most people. Actually, Jess, I think you're a very unique example where your content is so effective that you likely don't even need direct messages to results in getting clients on LinkedIn.
[00:24:43] Sara: But for 99% of consultants, direct messages are an absolute must to get clients. Is
[00:24:50] Jess: nice and I probably should, I probably should do more direct, but uh, I'm also a unique consultant in the sense that like, I actually don't want a lot of [00:25:00] clients calls or calls. So yeah, that does make me in that letter. But that was very good to say.
[00:25:04] Jess: Sorry, Cindy, I cut you off.
[00:25:05] Cindy: No, I agree. Jess is always, she knows this, I've talked about this form of podcast, like I always channel Jess when I'm writing. I'm like, how do I be like Jess? I'm not there yet, but maybe one day you and Claude, you guys are like peanut butter and jelly. Yeah. You gotta come up with a better name.
[00:25:24] Jess: Yeah. Mackenzie calls, she's like dabbling. You know how we're like a little late to the AI party, but she'll refer to it as chatty. Like
[00:25:32] Cindy: me and chatty me and chatty. I like that. I've heard someone say like me and my French boyfriend, Claude, which I don't love, but I'm like, good for you. And that is funny.
[00:25:41] Cindy: Yeah. But yes, I, with channeling Jess and Claude, I've become a much better writer. But also I think this is the like. Catch 22 and why Sara? Your work is so unique, which is [00:26:00] literally everyone hates LinkedIn dms because there are so many people who do it badly. It's like selling, right? Selling generally.
[00:26:10] Cindy: You think of a used car sales person, and that's what we think of as selling, and it's gross. And I think most people, if they've not heard about you or followed your content, that is their gut reaction. Like LinkedIn, dms, vomit, like that sounds awful, but. Similar to like any type of selling, as you said, you have to go in focus on a relationship, not on selling, and you're not gonna sell to everyone that you dm.
[00:26:40] Cindy: And so it's this like challenge that I think we often talk about or like I always hear people talk about the sort of stages of awareness with your business, right? So there's like problem aware, oh my God, I'm gonna get them wrong. Problem aware. Solution aware and there's, [00:27:00] there's four of them Do, do either of, you know, off the top, you know what I'm talking about.
[00:27:03] Cindy: I know what you're talking about, but I dunno
[00:27:04] Jess: what they are. Which
[00:27:06] Cindy: I don't know what that says about me and my marketing and selling, but yeah, it's okay. I should know too. But basically Sara, you are connecting with people. Where they kind of know that there's a problem, but they're not aware that this is the solution.
[00:27:20] Cindy: In fact, they think it's the anti solution. So to your point, like it really is the most effective and meaningful way to get clients through LinkedIn, and people don't know that. They have no idea and they have the opposite, like really negative feelings towards it. How do you change that for people like I, this is from a marketing perspective, just generally in your business.
[00:27:44] Cindy: How do you think about reeducating people on something so they're ready to work with you?
[00:27:50] Sara: I totally understand why everyone thinks this, because 98% of the messages you receive are salesy, and I wanna just [00:28:00] emphasize this or magnify it because we have such a distaste for DMing because. You usually get bad dms, and it's important to start there because I want you to do DMing differently.
[00:28:11] Sara: You being the listener today, and when you go into DMing with this mindset that I've talked about of not trying to sell it releases so much of this pressure so you can actually just have this free flowing conversation. Obviously, I can do trainings on direct messages all day long, but really fundamentally what I want you to think about is.
[00:28:33] Sara: Being at a conference and just talking to folks, right? How would you behave if you were in person? And this is how I do that reeducation, Cindy is reminding folks how they would interact with folks if they were in person. And then once you have the aha moment of, oh, I would never say that if I were in person.
[00:28:50] Sara: And we just take that and we bring it online. We add some hard and fast rules of how many questions you need to ask, and phrases that work particularly well. [00:29:00] Some sort of secrets that I've learned over the years. So we add those in. But really at the end of the day, you can sell effectively in the DMS by forming relationships and thinking, what would I do if I were in person and translating that to the online space,
[00:29:15] Cindy: it just makes such a difference.
[00:29:17] Cindy: And yeah, like Jess is you guys.
[00:29:21] Jess: I know you all know, but it's gotten so bad out there and not just there. I am someone who has my email address in my LinkedIn contact information, and so I know that the bad pitches I'm also getting in my email are because of LinkedIn. Maybe I don't know. Your advice is to switch them, but it also just goes to show that when you don't do one like that, you stand out so far apart from that, yucky, so.
[00:29:50] Jess: I dunno. This is just reinforcing what Sara teaches and that she's the best at teaching it, and if you need help, she's your go-to person. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering like a little bit [00:30:00] about, okay, coming back, you're back. What have some of the results been? How does that compare to your expectations around what you wanted to return to versus the reality of what has happened?
[00:30:13] Jess: Give us some of that side of thing.
[00:30:15] Sara: Definitely. So I'm like pretty type A and it's easy for me to forget what I'm optimizing for. And I think this is where I really had to take myself back to what did I want coming back from maternity leave. And what I wanted was a small handful of clients that are the right fit so that I have a awesome part-time job to return to.
[00:30:39] Sara: And that's exactly what I had when I came back. I have. Three amazing coaching clients right now in my coaching programs. I've sold, I wanna say, seven or eight profiles since being back. That was exactly what I was optimizing for. Nonetheless, when I came back, I was going in loops in my head about how I should have more clients [00:31:00] or why am I not busier?
[00:31:01] Sara: I had this 30 person wait list, right? I can go on and on, but I had to remind myself so many times. This is exactly what I was optimizing for, and this is exactly what I achieved. So there's always this mental drama that I think we have with ourselves, but I came back to exactly what I wanted, and I also wasn't doing outreach to get more clients.
[00:31:23] Sara: So once I had done that initial batch of outreach, I had started enough conversations that I kind of knew how many clients I'd be able to close from that. So I wasn't starting new conversations because I wanted a part-time job. I didn't want a full-time job, and so I literally wasn't taking the actions to have a full-time client roster.
[00:31:44] Sara: I was taking the actions to have a part-time client roster, but then still I had these loops. So I think it's an important, hopefully a reminder that even for me, somebody that like is an expert in lead generation, like we still have this mental drama. [00:32:00] What's most important in my opinion is that you take the actions to get to the final solution or the final reality that you want.
[00:32:09] Sara: And that's where I got to, but it was like a process along the way. Isn't
[00:32:14] Jess: that interesting? Yeah. Even for the folks who do the thing day in and day out, we teach this stuff how? Like it's still. Happens inside our brain. And so I'm curious, like what do you do to mentally talk yourself off the ledge? Do you have the meditation practice?
[00:32:30] Jess: Do you just get to work? What is your walk off the ledge conversation?
[00:32:35] Sara: Having good work friends is a really good strategy for this. I have a few good friends. One of them owns a business relatively similar to mine in Israel. Her name is Helena, and I'll just send her voice memos with all of the. Mind drama that I am having.
[00:32:53] Sara: And she would message me like those first few weeks when I came back from maternity leave, being like, Sara, you know [00:33:00] exactly what's gonna happen days from now. You're gonna have leads. And then literally days from then I was like three discovery calls booked. 'cause I was following my process, which I know works.
[00:33:09] Sara: But having good friends who really believed in you, who you can message and tell them all the stuff you're telling yourself really helps. I would like you to have a few of them good friends to keep in touch with.
[00:33:20] Cindy: Power of community is everything. I'd love to know if there's anything that you would do differently that either like preparing for mat leave, being on mat leave or coming back, finding clients, et cetera.
[00:33:35] Cindy: Like what are any learnings or reflections where you're like, if this happens again, this might be different for me.
[00:33:43] Sara: I made it stink about going on maternity leave. Like I did a lot of meetup content about going on maternity leave, and I would've done, if I were to redo it, I would do a lot less, maybe even no content about going on maternity leave, and I would've made a huge stink about coming [00:34:00] back because if you think about it from them.
[00:34:04] Sara: Reader of the content, okay? They reach out. God forbid they reach out when you're on maternity leave, if now you add them to your maternity leave wait list and you tell them you can't help them at the moment, then you refer them to someone who can, it's not such a big deal. But as the business owner, you wanna optimize for your return, right?
[00:34:20] Sara: So that you have this really strong return. So I actually did such a good job of communicating that I was going on maternity leave. Not as many people were reaching out when I was on maternity leave. They just knew I wasn't available, which meant my communication was effective, but it just wasn't, I think the best use of my time.
[00:34:38] Sara: What I really should have done is like a 10 series of posts and a lot of emails when I was coming back and to say I had a baby and maybe share a cute picture, maybe share a story for maternity leave, maybe tell them what I had done, those creative projects when I was gone. But make the attention come to, I'm now back and available to do [00:35:00] work.
[00:35:00] Sara: So definitely would've reallocated that energy.
[00:35:04] Jess: I think that's such a good point. And just to like broaden it to people who maybe their situation isn't related to maternity leave, but if you think about it, you're coming back. Communication is what is applicable or what matters to the client and the customer, not your maternity leave.
[00:35:23] Jess: That's more about like you right versus, and as we're marketing, it's sometimes like really tricky to remember what does the reader care about? What does the customer need to know? I think about. Constantly. It's such like a fine line in this specific situation because on the one hand, you could argue that your maternity leave is preparing people that they won't be able to work with you, which is applicable to them, but what's even more applicable is that they know when you're coming back.
[00:35:54] Jess: I think that's a really important call out. I am so impressed with you. I think that you're [00:36:00] amazing and yeah, I guess. Just like anything else you would wanna tell someone who maybe isn't even going on mat leave, but maybe is going on a sabbatical or an extended leave or just taking a break or just like any other good pieces of advice that you'll either do the next time you take a break, whether it's for mat leave or something else, or not.
[00:36:24] Sara: One piece of advice, and this is something I did for my current clients, is. Remember, not to just think about marketing. I'm a marketer, so it's easy for me to talk about marketing, but you also need to really focus on the client experience. Throughout all of this, I took many steps to make sure my clients knew what to expect and what resources they would have access to and so forth.
[00:36:47] Sara: I also kept them in a loop about all the curriculum changes I was making, which they were really excited about because. They got more for their money, right? So they were excited to see all the new resources and trainings and everything, but [00:37:00] really having a communication plan for your existing clients is extremely important and something that's easily overlooked.
[00:37:07] Sara: And so don't forget to be in close communication with them. Ask them what they need because then you can also design your offers when you come back for them. Thank you so much.
[00:37:20] Cindy: Are you gonna close this out? I was gonna ask, yeah, I think we're time for confession. So, Sara, as the first listener of each podcast, you are very familiar with our confession.
[00:37:34] Cindy: So go ahead. What is your confession?
[00:37:39] Sara: My confession is that I'm not all that fond of LinkedIn and I love it. But I'm a LinkedIn coach, right? I am self-employed. I use the platform of LinkedIn to help my clients get clients, and LinkedIn is the best tool that we have. For the job, right? I don't think [00:38:00] Instagram or X or TikTok can help nonprofit consultants in the way that LinkedIn can, but there's a lot of downsides to LinkedIn and it has its pros and cons.
[00:38:10] Sara: Just like any platform, and if a different platform came out that could better serve the needs of nonprofit consultants, I'd be very happy to explore it. LinkedIn isn't perfect. There's a lot of things that are really irritating about it. That's very normal. That's very okay. It happens to be the best tool that I've found for the job, but I don't care too much for LinkedIn.
[00:38:32] Cindy: Oof. I love it. That's so juicy and I think that's so true of so many things there means to an end. But yeah, I am so, okay. This is a off. Not off topic, but just one of the things I ha really have a hard time with LinkedIn is how expensive it is for the paid version. Like it's a lot of money, but it's, it's, is it required, do you [00:39:00] basically need to pay for the work that you're doing?
[00:39:02] Cindy: No. No. And better, I just wait, listen for anyone listening, because I feel like that is one of the things that I feel like I've heard is just you need the premium version to really. Generate leads. So if you're like, I don't wanna pay for that shit, and rather spend that money for someone who can help actually get you leads, then that's awesome.
[00:39:27] Sara: Yeah. It's something I also wasn't sure about. Actually. I got a free license two years ago because I was doing work with my nonprofit still, so I. Didn't pay for the first year of premium. And so even as I was coaching my clients, I was telling them that they didn't need premium, but I had a premium account and so the year of free subscription ran out and then I didn't repay because of course I have to practice what I preached.
[00:39:57] Sara: And so I currently don't pay for [00:40:00] LinkedIn premium, and I don't encourage my clients to pay either. The only scenario is where I think. You really need to pay is if you're doing a high quantity of direct outreach, and I'm talking like high quantity. If you run a course business, a low ticket course business that's being primarily fueled through direct outreach, then maybe my opinion will be different.
[00:40:21] Sara: But I literally have yet to have a client who can't succeed with the basic LinkedIn subscription. There's also. You can get such better responses from doing warm outreach than cold outreach. Mm-hmm. And that's what I teach is you always start with warm outreach and most folks don't exhaust the warm outreach to get them to having to do cold outreach.
[00:40:42] Sara: So. I can go on about this, but I don't think you need a premium subscriptions.
[00:40:47] Cindy: Love it. Okay. This is such a great conversation, Sara. I'm always gonna ask where can people find you? I'm assuming it's on LinkedIn, but I'm gonna ask you like a variation of this [00:41:00] question is what's the best way for them to DM you?
[00:41:03] Cindy: What should they say if someone wants to reach out?
[00:41:07] Sara: So I'm happy to offer anybody who's listening to this podcast free feedback on your profile. So direct message me and say, Sara, I found you on the Confessions Podcast. Can you provide me a piece of feedback on your profile? And I will send you some actual tips to make your profile better.
[00:41:23] Sara: You
[00:41:23] Cindy: offer that to me? A while ago and I took it out and I learned so much. We'll say again. Some listeners will hear first. So we're rebranding this fall and I booked for Sara to help me update my LinkedIn profile because there's a lot of changes and I don't wanna figure it out on my own. So there you go.
[00:41:45] Cindy: Sara, thank you so, so much for joining us. Thank you. And
[00:41:48] Jess: congratulations on Baby Liam again. So
[00:41:52] Sara: much fun to be on the podcast with you both.
[00:41:56] Cindy: Thank you again for listening to The Confessions podcast for nonprofit [00:42:00] coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can join your support in one of three ways.
[00:42:07] Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile. And text Cindy and I so we can repost you. Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant. And number three, leave a positive review on Apple Podcasts that we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.
[00:42:26] Jess: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest
[00:42:30] Jess: interviews as they drop. Every Thursday and to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions. See you next time.