Navigating the messy middle of business with Jan Ditchfield | Ep. 13 Content Magic with Lindsay Smith

In this episode of Content Magic, I had SO much fun chatting with my friend Jan. She is an amazing business strategist with 20 years of experience in the non-profit world. 

She helps other women entrepreneurs who experts in their field achieve business success by implementing systems, sales strategies and some mindset shifts. She is a master at helping women make more money. 

Jan shares her story about burning out in her previous career and  we chat about the difference between a business coach and a business strategist. We also get into the kind of advice women are receiving and why it's not working as well as the power of community and how to take intentional action in your business. 

You won't want to miss this one! 

00:00 Business strategist helping women scale online success.

05:10 Successful business strategist decides to leave career.

06:37 Building a business with daughter, empowering women.

11:05 Bro marketing tactics target women with false success.

15:20 Bringing real-world values into online community. Support, not competition, in business.

18:09 Doubting corporate careers, valuing personal experiences.

21:13 Stop digging down, start climbing out intentionally.

CONNECT WITH JAN!
Instagram: @janditchfield.co
Website: janditchfield.co
Freebie: Podcast Guesting for Biz Growth masterclass

Lindsay [00:00:03]:
If you have an online business, you're creating content. And the way you create content is more important than ever. It's really noisy out there and learning to stand out is the only way. Hey, I'm Lindsay and I'm the host of the content Magic podcast, all about being an entrepreneur and creating kick ass content to market yourself and your business. Hi. Have a not so secret superpower for copywriting, marketing and content. And I've helped hundreds of folks just like you show up with a ton of confidence in the online space. I've been doing this content thing for 20 years, and I believe the real magic is a combo of intuition, creativity and strategy.

Lindsay [00:00:44]:
You can create content for your business without losing your mind, I promise. So tune in every week for tangible content tips, inspiring guests, and some real spicy opinions. Probably mine. Ready to dive in? Let's go.

Lindsay [00:00:58]:
Hi, gang. Welcome back to the podcast. And I'm super excited to welcome a new friend, and her name is Jan and she lives in Ottawa.

Jan [00:01:09]:
And welcome, Jan. Well, thank you so much, Lindsay. It's so nice to be here.

Lindsay [00:01:14]:
Can you tell the people who you are and what you do and who you help?

Jan [00:01:19]:
Sure. So my name is Jan Ditchfield and I'm a business strategist for women in the online space. I specifically help women who have had some level of success in their real world expertise learn how to be able to transfer that into the online space and then strategically scale to six figures and beyond. And so everybody always says, oh, you're a business coach? And I'm like, no, I'm not a coach. I'm a bit different with what I do. I'm very much the person who comes in and rides shotgun with you. So I'm like the coo to your CEO, and I like to really think of myself as the goose to your maverick. So I'm the woman who sits behind you as you fly your plane, and I just whisper in your ear when you want to pull up so you don't smash into a mountain and help you keep you on that track to make sure you're making money in your business.

Lindsay [00:02:01]:
Oh, my God, I love that. And so, on that note, tell me what a business strategist does versus a business coach.

Jan [00:02:12]:
Yeah, it's actually interesting because most people, I think, get the two confused a lot of the time. And when you automatically say you help women in business, you're like, oh, you're a coach. And it's like, no, I'm not. I really don't define myself by that at all. The big difference between strategists versus coaching is the level of skill in a lot of ways that the person has. And strategists tend to come in with a very deep, deep knowledge of business. So I come from over 20 years working professionally as a strategist. I was a gun for hire for businesses that were failing.

Jan [00:02:42]:
And I would go in, retool the business, help get it back on its legs, and then leave and go on to the next project. And so, with strategy, we're looking at business very holistically, like we're looking at the big picture. We're trying to understand where to start, where to end, what that plan is, and again, in a very deep, deep way. So strategists are best used in your business. When you are either starting a business or when your business is struggling, that is, when you want to bring a strategist in to say, listen, I've been doing all the things I'm trying. I can't get it to move. I'm stuck. What am I supposed to do? And we walk in and show you that direct path to take to get out of the mess.

Jan [00:03:19]:
Coaches, on the other hand, tend to come in, and most of their experience is either through real world expertise. So they've built a business, figured out how to do it, and now they're teaching other people the same way. Some people come in through coaching programs that are online and they get their certifications, but they tend to know business in a bit of a different way. So they're either really good at something specific or they're really good at things that are kind of more like the high level things. So a bit more of the superficial parts of business, like the front facing, I should say, rather than superficial. And they're the people you want to use to help you specifically. So they do a lot of mindset work, they do a lot of cheerleading work. They help you figure out how to implement something new into the business and then encourage you to keep going.

Jan [00:04:05]:
They're the ones you want to bring in when things are going well, and you just want someone to help you stay accountable, keep going. But it's more about the development as an entrepreneur and a business owner as a coach, whereas a strategist is really about the business. We are there to make sure that that business structure is going to be stable for you.

Lindsay [00:04:23]:
Oh, I love that. And I feel like, as a very creative person, I'm very good at winging it and then coming up with these random things. If you could see me now, I'm waving my arms, so I feel like a lot of creative people like me need somebody like you who can sort of bring us down to earth and be like, these are the tactics. I've downloaded some of your freebies, and it's like, right. And I love that about the way you work, because you're like, you have to look at all these things, right? And it's more like tactics. Anyways, can you tell us a little bit about how you became an entrepreneur? I know you worked full time for a really long time, so how did you work for yourself?

Jan [00:05:10]:
So, like many, I burnt out. I think it was like everybody, I had a very successful career in the real world. I was an award winning business strategist for over 20 years, and I've been responsible for over $20 million in revenue. And I had a baby, I had my daughter, and decided that I was going to not go back to my career after staying off for close to 15 months, staying home with her. And when I went back, I went right back to my career, and I walked back into yet another situation. It was a very stressful career, working with a lot of businesses again that were not doing well. And when you're not doing well in business, usually there are reasons for it, and it's hard to have someone else come in and try to tell you why you're not doing well when you are the owner of that business. So it was very hard.

Jan [00:05:57]:
It's a hard business. It's very confrontational. It was very not always the most pleasant of working environments to be in. And I walked into it, and I stood in a meeting one day where somebody said something to me that just made me stand and flip my head and say, why are you continuing to do this for everybody else when you could do this for yourself? And I literally picked up my stuff off my desk, packed it up, and I quit. And I left my career, walked out the door. No backup plan wasn't the most strategic way to do it. As a strategist, I'll say that it was very in the moment. And I went forward and started my business, and I started it right when the pandemic came smashing in.

Jan [00:06:37]:
So I built this business with my daughter under my desk, literally. She was two at the time and grew it from nothing to multiple six figures. And for me, it's really been about wanting to show what I can do to myself, like prove to myself that I can do this for me, but also helping women to be able to navigate this world of business and the online world without getting so dinged up in the process. It's a really hard system to work in, especially if you don't have business acumen and coming in and trying to understand. You talk all the time, right? Like, why is somebody doing that? Just because they're doing it means I have to do it. And I come in and say, you don't need to do things the way you see them. You need to do things the way that your business and you are meant to do them. And that's through learning acumen and understanding strategy.

Jan [00:07:25]:
That's what it is.

Lindsay [00:07:27]:
I love that. I love that you just packed up and you're like, yeah, I'm out of here.

Jan [00:07:31]:
Yeah, I did. Yeah, I'm gone.

Lindsay [00:07:35]:
I also did that once. I just was like, yeah, bye. I think I called the office and I was like, well, see, I'm leaving. And I just packed up my stuff and left. So, yes, I've also done the same thing. My entrepreneurial journey is very similar to yours. I worked in an industry that was like, not nine to five, it was like nine until the project is done. And of course, after having children, you're just kind of like, this isn't sustainable anymore.

Lindsay [00:08:05]:
My business was born very similarly, similarly to you. So what is, like, the, the clients you work with? What do you see as the most common issue sort of coming up?

Jan [00:08:26]:
The most common issue I see with the clients I work with is getting stuck in the messy middle of business. So I would say almost every single woman I work with is trapped in that really terrible stage of business, and they don't know what to do to get out of it. And that messy middle is really an inflection point in business between that chaos of startup and smooth sailing. And it's where most people get stuck. It feels hard. It feels heavy. We don't enjoy what we're doing anymore. We don't know why we're stuck here and what to do to get out of it.

Jan [00:08:57]:
And it's also the stage when most women walk away from their businesses because they think they're doing something wrong, instead of understanding that it's not so much them, it's that they're just missing pieces of acumen that have never been taught to them because they aren't taught to women that would actually get them out of that stage. And so that's really where I kind of specialize, is helping women pull you out of the mess so you can start enjoying the benefits of running your own business.

Lindsay [00:09:23]:
That's so interesting, because I was just talking with a girlfriend this morning about this idea of the messy middle. I was at a conference this weekend, and so I was sort of sharing with her what I learned from this conference, and we both agreed we're in this messy middle. We know what we're doing, we know what we're experts in. But it's true. I'm done with the startup thing. I've not reached six figures. I'm on my way. But we are like right in the middle.

Lindsay [00:09:56]:
And it's kind of like, what do you do now? So I agree. There's this weird stuckness that we sort of get, and I think we're sort of in this era where, and I don't know if you agree, but I feel like people are selling online business like it's the answer to everything. Like, oh, just switch online and sell your know, keychains and open a shopify store and this is the answer to all your problems and you can make a million dollars. Do you find that that's happening now? There's like this real push to everybody doing everything online?

Jan [00:10:38]:
Yes, completely. I agree with everything you just said. The fact is that only 12% of women actually make it to six figures in business. And that is shameful. Like, you hear that? I think about that number as if 88% of us fail at this, and yet more women start businesses and yet more women fail at business. And there's a bazillion reasons for it. It's harder for us. We carry more, we have to do more, we have to do more with less time.

Jan [00:11:05]:
But we're also marketed to very differently. And I feel that that's the reason why many of us get caught, especially in the online narrative, is because the bro marketing tactics that are used on us are often used by women. I call it bra marketing, which is giving this glamorized view of it's so easy to start a business, you can just start it, make six figures sitting on your boat in your bikini, or you can be the mom you always dreamt of doing and running your business and having all these great things happen while your playtime is going on. And reality is, most of us are actually the opposite of that. Right? We are telling our children 1 minute, 1 minute, 1 minute, as we're trying to hit deadlines. We're in lead generation, like, chaos all the time because we're like, am I going to hit my quotas this month? Do I have enough people coming in? It's heavy, is really what it's like. And we're not allowed to talk about the heaviness because we're told we're supposed to be glamorizing it. Find joy in your business.

Jan [00:12:04]:
It should be freedom, fulfilling all of these wonderful things. And so when we hear that message constantly being said to us, and it's not what we experience, it makes us, again, think we're doing something wrong. We must be failing at this instead of recognizing that we're being marketed to, to buy other people's stuff. Right? That's what this is. They're picking on pain points that we have so they'll make money. Instead of them coming in and saying, hey, I'm going to teach you how to make money, which is what I do. It's not about how much money I make, it's about how much money you make. That's my role.

Lindsay [00:12:36]:
Yes, and I agree. I never thought of bra marketing. That's brilliant. And I agree. Right? And I tell other women, and I talk about this all the time. I'm like, stop taking advice from some dude who's like 20 years old, who has no children and has, like, a team of people, like, running his social media and running his. Don't take advice from those people because they have no idea. Right? I have to close my laptop at, like, 03:00 because that's when the bus comes.

Lindsay [00:13:04]:
So I'm done, right? And tomorrow I told my youngest that I have a meeting at 230 and it goes till 330. So he said to my sister, to his sister, he said, we can play on our iPads as soon as we get home. I'm like, that's not what I said. Just because mom has a meeting that goes beyond the bus time does not mean you just immediately get to play in the iPad. But sometimes that's the reality, right? Sometimes they do have to put them on a device. And I don't use the word mompreneur because it's not a term that I really love, because there's no such thing as dadpreneur. So I don't subscribe to that. But I agree, there is this weird heaviness, especially if you're, like, the primary caregiver for your children.

Lindsay [00:13:49]:
And like you said, you built your business with your daughter when she was a toddler under the desk, right? So there is this weird pressure. And most of us only have this much time in the day, right? Where, I don't know. And I said this weekend at the conference, I was like, I feel like the dudes are going to be okay, right? I feel like they're all going to be fine. And the conference I was at was all women, and I was kind of like, yeah, this is the community that we need. Because even if you work for yourself, by yourself, you need some sort of community. You need some sort of people who are at your level. Right. And even if they're in another country, another time zone or whatever.

Lindsay [00:14:38]:
So I feel like that community piece is very important, and I feel like that's something you cultivate with the women that you work with.

Jan [00:14:52]:
Yeah. Community is not talked about enough, the importance of it. And I think one of the great things about the shift that I see happening in the online space is that so many of us who came from real world into the online space because we were forced to, right, the pandemic made us have to do this. We lost jobs. We had to figure out how to stay home and home school children, take care of kids. There was no daycare. So we became very creative. As women are, we figure it out is what we're going to do.

Jan [00:15:20]:
And the great thing about that is that we are now bringing a lot of those things that we valued from the real world into the online space. And one of those things is community, because we had it out there, and then we walked in here and we were like, it doesn't seem to exist here. It's very competitive, especially in the business space that I'm in. It's highly competitive. Isn't necessarily the most fun place to play. And everyone is kind of all, like, chasing the same dollar and trying to beat each other up for the same dollar. And I have this very different belief system in business that I think that we should come together and that support each other in what we're doing. Because when one of us shines, we all shine, right where those of us who go ahead should be turning around and putting a hand down to pull the rest up.

Jan [00:16:03]:
And that's kind of the way that I work in my business. Everything I do in my programs are community centric. So I think it also comes from the fact that I worked in nonprofit for almost my entire career. So it was very much about community. And so every time someone comes and works with me, it isn't just like a program you're coming into, you're coming into a community. It's a group of women, a cohort from around the world at this point, that are just all doing the exact same things. We talk about the same thing. Our journey might look different, our business might look different, but we're all trying to create the same legacy.

Jan [00:16:37]:
We're trying to create a business that we're proud of, one that's impacting lives in a positive way, one that's allowing us to be able to replace incomes and be able to retire spouses, put kids through university, remove debt from our lives, all of those things that are the good parts of entrepreneurship. And so when we come together and we see other women like us, it makes us work harder, it makes us run faster, and it makes us also not turn our light down so much because I think, like, you and I were always told, don't shine so bright, right? And so in my communities, I'm like, go away with that. Go away with that. I want to get you an e rating. But I'm like, turn that light on because all the other women are going to turn theirs up too. Right? Let's just shine.

Lindsay [00:17:20]:
Yeah. And I agree. And I think there's a fair amount of personal growth there where you kind of have to examine, like, why am I jealous of this person? You kind of have to examine that and sort of make the shift of being like, okay, there's enough success for everybody to go around, even someone that does the exact same thing as me, right. They're going to do it completely different than the way I do it. And I always say this, you can sell gadgets and gizmos of plenty and I could sell gadgets and gizmos and plenty and completely different. Like, someone's going to be attracted to me for some reason. And someone's going to be attracted to you for some reason. I don't know.

Lindsay [00:18:00]:
Sometimes I think being over 40, you just give a lot less shits. Like, you just don't care anymore.

Jan [00:18:05]:
It's very different.

Lindsay [00:18:09]:
You just don't care anymore what people think. And I think about colleagues who and most people I speak to, it's the same story. Like, they worked a corporate career and they're just like, what the fuck am I doing? This is nonsense. And they started their own thing. Although I do have colleagues and friends who right out of university started their own thing and they're like 25, right? Or 26 or like early thirty s. And I think, what is that like to just not have that corporate experience, right? And even though I never want to work for anybody ever again, for sure that 20 years of experience, I'm still grateful for that. That still counts for something, right? I don't want to knock my full time job that I had for 20 years just because it didn't end up working for me. So I don't know, I'm always curious.

Lindsay [00:19:02]:
I'm like, how did you decide right out of university that you were like, yeah, I'm going to do my own thing and I don't know, I find it very interesting and I don't know, maybe I should have her on the podcast and be like, how did you know you wanted to do this at like 22? Start your own digital agency. So what are you working on now, Jan?

Jan [00:19:26]:
Right now I am working on a new membership. So I have a new membership that is launching, as we're recording this, it actually launches this week. The doors open up this week for it, and it's called Intentional Action Academy. And it's a membership for women to come in to be able to work out the stuff that they need to work out so that they can take intentional action in their business to get their business where it needs to be. It's all about escaping the messy middle. It's a business membership. You're learning to become a business expert within it. It is all those boring things that I'm the master of and no one ever wants to learn because they are stinky boring, but they're the things that make you money.

Jan [00:20:02]:
And so this is my new focus right now and getting that going. And then I also have my program legacy, which is my mastermind for women, where you work with me personally, and I will personally take you to six figures and beyond within a year. And so I have that as well. Those are my two passions right now where I have women. I'm helping them get out of the mess and then I'm helping them fly on the other end of it.

Lindsay [00:20:22]:
Amazing. And I think, yes, even if it's like the boring stuff, it's all stuff that we all need to know. Right. Because you can wing it as much as you want, and that'll get you a certain amount of success. But eventually you're kind of like, okay, I need someone to tell me exactly what to do and where to spend my energy.

Jan [00:20:41]:
Sorry, go ahead.

Lindsay [00:20:42]:
No, I feel like you're kind of that person. You're that go to person.

Jan [00:20:46]:
Yeah. The thing about winging it is we all have to do it. I did it, too. I call it tactics more than anything else. Tactics are important to do, but they only work for so long in a business because businesses have natural life cycles to them. So as your business matures and grows, it needs different things from you. And so when we keep trying to do the same tactics at those different stages, it's actually what keeps us stuck. And then we're like chasing our own tails.

Jan [00:21:13]:
And I like to say it's like trying to dig your way out of a hole. If you keep trying to dig down, it's not going to work. What you need to do is stop, get intentional, and start digging into the hole so you can climb out of it instead. And that's what I teach is the stop. Let's pause. Let's look at this really analytically, and we're going to look again, holistically at the entire business. And now let's put the steps in place so that you can get out of the hole instead of keeping yourself stuck here.

Lindsay [00:21:39]:
Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. I love that. And where can people find you? What's the easiest way to find you?

Jan [00:21:44]:
I am everywhere at Janditschfield Co. So you can find me on Instagram at Janditchfield, Co. On the web. And then I have my podcast as well, no BS business school, where I am always talking about the stuff that you need to know and nobody is telling you.

Lindsay [00:21:57]:
Amazing. I love that. Thank you for coming. It was a pleasure to talk to you and to learn to just bask in your smartitude.

Jan [00:22:08]:
Thank you. You know I love you. I appreciate it.

Lindsay [00:22:11]:
All right, toodleoo, everybody.

Lindsay [00:22:14]:
Thank you so much for listening. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode on social media. And don't forget to tag me on Instagram at Lindsay Smith Creative. And if you do all three, I'll be your best friend forever and invite you to all my birthday party. That's it for today, and I'll see you next time. Bye.