What’s up everybody. I’m Shontavia Johnson and this is another episode of The Shontavia Show, where I want to inspire you to build a brand, business and life that you love. It is Thursday and you know what Thursday means. I’ve got thoughts about a bunch of stuff. It is thoughts Thursday. Is thoughts Thursday a thing? I don’t know. I have a lot of stuff to talk about and so on Thursdays if you have questions about things, if I have thoughts I just want to share with you about whatever’s been happening. I’m going to share those on Thursday.

If you have questions you can reach out to me at askshontavia@gmail.com. That’s askshontavia@gmail.com.

So let’s jump into this week’s question, which I’m really actually pretty excited about because it is about how to get out of the friend zone in business. And This is a question I got in my private community.

I mentor people privately outside of the public eye of have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and all of that. If you want to join a head over to shontavia.com, there’s a link there where you can join, but I’ve got a question from a member of that private community named Romiya and I’m going to read it here.

And Romiya says, Hey Shontavia, I’ve spent years giving feedback and more for free because I’m never sure how to steer that conversation from the friend zone. People who know me often reach out and ask to pick my brain or say they have a quick question about something. Usually I end up spending more time on their question than they do asking me. What are some ways I can steer these conversations from free “pick your brain sessions” to paid consulting? Romiya.

All right, so I said, I’m excited about this question because this happens to me a lot, and it is hard.

It is so hard, especially when you’re in a service field like law, like consulting. Because people can just ask you questions, you know, kind of any time. But let’s talk about this. Let’s talk business. So you work hard, you maybe go to school, you maybe get a certification. If nothing else, you’ve been out here grinding, hustling and building your knowledge and expertise. And a lot of this stuff is very expensive, not just in terms of money but in terms of time. And then folks, especially, frankly some of your family and friends, want you to give away everything you’ve learned for free.

And this is tough, right? Because you have to eat, you have to keep your lights on. I don’t know about anybody else, but you know my bills actually have to be paid or I will be homeless. And, I got bills to pay and many people have bills to pay.

So I have some thoughts about, Romiya, how you can get out of the friend zone that I’m going to share right now. Three thoughts really that will help you get out of the friend zone, but keep your friends. All right.

(1) So number one, first thing you have to do, Romiya, and I know a little bit about Romiya’s business because she is in my private community. And I know that she wants to offer services to people in her area of expertise. So the first thing you have to do is create a website, maybe using your name.com or whatever kind of catchy phrase you want to use to create your website. And when you get questions like this, turn those questions into blog posts, turn those questions into live streams, turn those questions into something that you can post on your website and answer, you know, in 750 words, or five minutes, or whatever, and post it on your website.

Then you have a place where you can send people where you are providing some free content. Because you know anybody can visit your website and read that stuff. Because I’m of the opinion, and some people disagree with me, I want to give away some knowledge, right? Like some of this stuff I have inside of me, I think people should just have.

Now obviously I have to eat, and I have to live, so I have to charge money for some things. But building content for free on your website not only will allow you to share with the world broadly, it helps you build trust with people who might ultimately become your clients or customers. If they have questions for you and it’s around the scope of your business, then at some point they may need to hire a professional. And if you’re building trust by providing really good, high quality, free content to folks, then you can start to market and build that trust relationship with potential clients.

So I think that’s one of the first things you can do. It helps you build your personal brand, your personal reputation, cause you’re putting stuff out there. It allows you to not answer the same question a hundred times. I can’t tell y’all how many times I’ve gotten questions about how to get a trademark or copyright or whatever. I just threw short articles or quick videos up on my website answering those questions, so that I can just respond to a person like with the link, “Hey go check out my website. I’ve answered that question for folks.” So that’s the first thing.

(2) And the second component to my question really kind of builds on the first. So creating that website where you can put content and number two actually regularly creating content you can use questions that people ask of you is kind of the foundation.

Stuff people, you know they want to know, but you can also think proactivel. What are the kinds of things I know my potential clients and customers are dealing with, how can I help them start to answer some of those things? What high level advice can I give publicly on my site that builds a brand and provides useful information to people. And I think that’s one of the best things you can do.

You have a branded site, so you have your, your personal brand kind of living there. You’re creating, you know, that high level content on your website, then hopefully sharing it across social media platforms. So even if people aren’t visiting your website, you have stuff out there on social media. So maybe you get less inquiries cause you regularly, or less of the free kind of inquiries, because you’re answering those questions online.

And then people can see, “Oh well she actually has a business around some of this.” And you know, without fail now when you get those kinds of questions, if you send somebody a quick link, they will appreciate it, number one. And you can funnel them into, you know, the rest of your business that sits on your website too.

And you can do this even if you haven’t already written the blog post, or you know, shot the video or done the podcast or whatever yet. So oftentimes like people now reach out to me pretty regularly and many of them have very, very similar questions. So instead of me responding to somebody right away, which you know, I rarely do now just because of the sheer number of emails. But if I don’t already have something up on the site, I will just draft a quick blog post.

It may take a couple of days or whatever, but I’ll create something really quickly, send the person that thing, so they can see, okay, well here’s the high level answer to my question. But, Shontavia obviously charges for, you know, the depth of knowledge that I’m asking for. So I can communicate that without actually saying, Oh, don’t ask me questions unless you’re gonna pay me first. So that’s the second suggestion. Create content, dynamic, good, useful content.

(3) And then number three, send the person to your website. Send the person that link. Say, you know, “here’s a high level general answer” and you can also say, “but if you’d like something more specific, here’s an opportunity for you to work with me to get some more personalized answers to your questions.”

So what I say oftentimes is something like, you know, “here’s a high level of answer to your question. It can put you on the right track. If you want more, visit this link. And you know when you visit this link, you can sign up for a time to speak to me.” And when they visit that link, I use something called Calendly and I’ll post a link in the show notes to Calendly if you’re interested in that. But when you go to sign up for a time with me at Calendly, you cannot do it unless you pay my hourly rate. And so that also illustrates, and I usually say that in the email, Hey, you can sign up via Calendly. Here’s my billable rate for more.

And so that allows me to provide the service, the act of giving knowledge to somebody, because I really think that’s important. And you know, if you want to work with me professionally, here’s the way you can do that.

If it’s something I don’t know though, and now this is where I see a lot of people kind of get tripped up. If it’s something I don’t know and it’s not really that relevant to my business, I don’t waste a lot of time. If it is not part of my vision, if it is not part of my business, I just say to a person, Oh, you know, that’s a great question. That is not really what I do. But thank you for reaching out. I appreciate it. If you, you know, have questions about the things that I do do, here’s where you can find more information.” I do not spend more time Googling and trying to figure out the answer to somebody’s question that is not part of my business. Because they could do that. They could get on Google and look things up. And so I don’t think that’s a good use of my time to do that.

So anyway, if people are asking relevant questions and you don’t have content already on your site around that, use that as an opportunity. If you do already have content, send it to them and say, “Hey, here’s some free content. If you want more, here’s how you can work with me.”

Romiya, I hope that answers your question.

Thank you so much for reaching out with that question. Many of you now the show is pretty new at this point. So before I started recording I actually went out and solicited questions from people and got a ton of really good questions. So Romiya, thank you so much for sending that one in. I hope it helps you.

Everybody else, I hope it helps you too if you’re struggling with getting out of the friend zone.

So those are my Thursday Thoughts. I hope something I said was helpful. If you have questions about this or you want to ask other questions, reach out to me at askshontavia@gmail.com and you may hear your question on a future episode. Thanks.