SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast
Trainings for Online Coaches & Lifestyle Entrepreneurs
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Download: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Online Business Model That’s Right for You
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This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
This is a great show for coaches and consultants who are ready to grow and increase sales.
When it comes to the business of coaching or consulting, 1-1 services dominate the market, However, coaching people 1-1 takes a great deal of time and you’ll hit a financial and physical ceiling. This mistake often causes coaches to stay stuck in busy work and lifestyle cages and then many burn out completely. Instead, we’re diving into the business model of group coaching and how to shift your business from 1-1 to 1-group.
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 65: Doing Things That Don’t Scale – with John Lee Dumas
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This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Grab the FREE Ultimate Guide to Online Business Models and Virtual Services
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Sand Timers on Etsy Brain.fm Flora – Green Focus App
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You’re listening to the SweetLife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach Hey there. And welcome to this week’s episode. This is number 246 and I’m April beach. It’s so good to talk to you again. Forgive my cracky voice. I just got back from funnel hacking live in Florida and just had a million amazing conversations and my voices hurting just a little bit here.
So I hope it’s not too scratchy as we go through today’s episode, because this is really important. I’m so excited to talk to you about simple ways to plan. And when your week, this is going to be a shorter episode with a lot of information and is jam packed for you. And this is important because of a couple of reasons. First of all,
I know you have so many ideas and so many things going on and you want to win every single week, right? You want to go into that week. You want to feel like you just nailed it, right? When is the last time you actually had a week that it was a Friday night or even a Sunday night? And you’re like, man,
I did awesome that week. It usually actually doesn’t happen as often as we’d like or worst case. If it does happen, you’re always one of those overachievers like me, where we never actually stopped to realize we won the week. We’re just looking to the next week. And so I’m talking to those of you who really truly want to win every single week.
And you want to feel good about that and you want to stay focused. So all of the show notes and everything we’re talking about can be found at episode 246 on our website. And our website is Sweetlife po.com. And if you’re new here, it’s so good to meet you. I’m April beach, I’m a business coach and strategist, an online business architect and an offer engineer.
And I work with experts and coaches and consultants. And I have done this for over 25 years. I help you turn your ideas and your thoughts and your assets into high profit, deep impact business reality. And everything we talk about on this show are tidbits of amazing strategies that our clients get when they work with us. And this show is known for giving business coaching that other two coaches charge thousands for.
So I’m so glad to connect with you. Again, everything can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. So let’s lay the groundwork of exactly what you can expect at the end of the show. You can expect that I’m actually going to break down our hyper focused weekly worksheet with you here on the show. I’m going to take you through the steps and really break down how that worksheet is laid out.
This is a worksheet that we save for our clients. Only. We actually go through this process, our clients getting them ready and nailing every single week. And you’re talking clients that make multiple, multiple six figures up to seven figures all the way down to starting entrepreneurs that haven’t even launched. Our first product. These strategies are really important for everybody, regardless of where you are in your business.
And we’re going to go through that process and I’m going to share it with you on today’s show. You’re also going to know how to plan for failure and how to overcome that. And it’s a really simple way as soon as I explain it to you, you’re going to be like, oh yeah, totally. I got it. I’m going to break that down for you.
And then at the end of this show, a very special bonus. I’m even giving you all of the tools that I use. Now. These are physical tools. You guys like tools that you can get off Amazon to help you stay focused. And so that you can keep moving forward and sharing with you. Some of my very favorite apps as well,
so that you can totally win every single week. So again, all the show notes are found@twohundredandfortysixonsweetlifecode.com. And if you’re ready, let’s go ahead and dive into this week show. Okay. You guys were talking about simple ways to plan and win every single week. Now, let me give you a little bit of a backstory. I am highly confident that I have undiagnosed ADHD and I probably have my whole life.
I actually love the way my brain works and I love the way that God made me, but I will say it is a bit challenging to stay focused. If you follow me on Instagram, sometimes you’ll see me. We’re all right, posts that sometimes I will literally just find myself that my brain is so full or the work I’m doing is so hard.
I will just wander around in my home. I have a home office and just start looking out different windows. And so winning the week is really, really hard for me. And so I’ve had to come up with a strategy that could kind of bring me back to earth when I start to float away in my mind during the day. And I own for those of you guys that don’t know me,
I actually own five companies. Two of them are my own and three of them are my husband’s. And so we constantly have a million things going on. The only way we can do this and be very profitable and successful in what we do is to win every single week. And so I’m sharing with you that this is a huge struggle for me. And to be really honest,
let’s keep it really real. I don’t win every single week, but this is a proven strategy that I’ve used in that we coach our clients on to come pretty damn close. And so I want to download you on this this week. I totally get the fact that you have so much work that you need to do and complete as an entrepreneur. And here is what is even harder about being an entrepreneur is that most of you are in that first five years of business.
So in order to complete much of the work you have to do, you’re probably also learning how to do that. So you’re not just having to nail the task at hand. You’re having to figure out how to nail the task at hand and why to nail the task at hand. So when we’re talking about accomplishing one thing, there usually are 20 steps to learn how to accomplish that one thing,
which by the way, this is a perfect reason why you should be in our business coaching programs, because we just give you all the steps and the SOP and the template. So you don’t have to go through that. But most people do go through those processes to do all the learning upfront before the executing. And I understand that it might be a slower process for you.
This is why people tend to start out with in the beginning of the week, all these things that you might want to do, and then you get to the end of the week and you don’t feel as accomplished as frankly, you should, because the reality is is you probably did a ton of stuff. So I’m going to show you and break down our framework that I really needed to create for myself.
And now that we use with our clients so that you can win your week too. So let’s first start with my hyper-focused weekly worksheet. Okay? So this is literally one piece of paper that our clients get every single week. And then they get to meet with Kyle Taylor in our other business dream team, expert coaches that are super killer, awesome people at keeping them focused.
And I’m going to unpack this for you here, but literally as you’re listening to this show, I just want you to imagine one piece of paper. And on this piece of paper, there are just three very simple columns. That’s it? It’s not fancy because if we make this paper fancy, then all of a sudden this paper is going to become a task to complete instead of a tool to help you complete the tasks at hand.
So the very first thing that we do in our hyper focus to week weekly worksheet in our meetups is choosing the number one most important task. Now it’s not rocket science, but the reality is, is what task you choose will affect the whole rest of your week. And so let me give you some tips on how to choose that task. And we like to talk about taking a task that by choosing that task,
it makes everything else easier or obsolete. And that really comes from the strategies, taught in a book called the one thing, which we love and recommend for our clients to read. And so it’s really figuring out what is that one thing that I need to do to make EV that makes everything else easier or obsolete. But now let’s go ahead and take it a step a little bit deeper for you.
Okay. Usually now hear me out, raise your hand. I don’t care where you are. If this is you, usually clients have some really immediate fires to put out and then they have some longer-term business blueprints that they’re building out. So we kind of have these two different categories, like the fire and the blueprint, or for most of our clients,
it’s like money. They need to bring in immediately right now, like their kid’s college payment is due or they have to pay their team or, you know, whatever else they just want to make more money. You know, like in this quarter they haven’t had their quarterly budget yet that they wanted to hit. So there’s immediate tasks and there are farther out tasks.
I don’t care which one you choose in your week, as long as it aligns with the cycle of work that you’re currently doing in your business. Okay. But you need to pick one and only one. All right. So number one, if you’re listening to this right now, just say to yourself out loud, what is the number one most important thing that I need to do or nail or complete or build or whatever the verbiage is this week in my business.
And write that down. Number two, you are going to take a second and you’re going to list out the first three to five action steps to complete that task. So the first three to five things you have to do in order to start the process of completing your number one task, and it could be making a decision on software. It could be signing in and checking my email and cleaning out my email inbox.
It doesn’t matter how small it is. As a matter of fact, the smaller, the better when we’re really getting down to the nitty-gritty of how to complete a task. But I want you to list out the top three to five action steps that complete that task. And there could certainly be more than that, but just list out the first three to five.
And then here’s really where it gets important. Step number three is determining what can get in your way or stop you from completing this task. So ask yourself what is one thing that can totally derail me? What is some reason why I might not be able to complete it? Maybe it’s you don’t know how to use the software that you have to make a decision on.
Maybe it’s that you don’t have somebody to help you learn how to run a Facebook ad. Maybe it’s that you’re afraid and you are your problem. You are your block because you’re having to put yourself out there in a way you never have before, but I want you to really figure out what is that brick wall that is going to come up this week and stand in the way of you being successful at nailing this number one task.
And after you’ve identified your brick wall, I want you to list out a plan that you are going to enact when that happens to overcome it. So you need to determine what can get in your way, and you need to make a plan before it even happens to crush that, and that is step number three. And step number four is blocking out the times or one day on your calendar to focus on this one task.
You can take all of the steps in the world, but if you don’t then plug it into your calendar and designate a time that you are going to plug this in, in actually get it done. There’s a really good chance you’ll procrastinate it. And it won’t get done because in most cases, we still even underestimate the amount of time. It takes us to complete something.
One of my very favorite special business mentors, Carrie Wilkerson says, don’t wait until Friday or Thursday, even to start working on your number one task of the week, do it on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, because inevitably something’s going to happen. Some kid is going to get sick, or the dog has to go to the vet or you have to catch a flight somewhere you weren’t expecting,
or a client needs you for extra help, whatever it may be that is going to happen until we want you to start it earlier in the week and the first three days of the week so that you can win your week. And so let me recap those steps for you really quickly. This is how we complete the hyper-focus weekly worksheet with our clients. Number one is choosing your most important task.
Number two is listing the first three to five action steps to complete that task. Number three is determine what can get in the way and make a plan to get over that. And number four is to block out the time in your calendar in which you will work to complete this task. Very, very simple. And after you’ve done this for your most important task,
then you have permission to go on and follow these same four steps for task number two, and for task number three in each week, but make sure you do the work for each one, starting with number one and make sure that you complete number one before you start moving on to tasks. Number two and three. All right. So now I promised you,
I would share with you some of the tools that we use behind the scenes and some of the things I’ve learned to use over the years just to keep me focused. So these are literally physical tools and some of them are apps and you’re probably going to laugh at me, but they helped me. And so I thought maybe if they helped me that they might help you as well.
The first one is actually a technique and it’s called a Pomodoro technique and Pomodoros were created by Francisco Cirillo. And I’m sure I’m butchering his name because he’s Italian and I don’t speak very great Italian in the Pomodoro technique as a time management method. And it was developed by Francisco in the 18, excuse me, in the 1980s. So it isn’t that old in the word.
Pomodoro actually comes from the word tomato named after like a tomato kitchen timer. I know sounds really silly, but this is how it goes. These are the in order to complete a Pomodoro, basically it’s a way to stay focused. And I will tell you, I have taught this to my teenage boys when they have so much homework and they have trouble staying focused.
If you do Pomodoros, and if you teach your kids Pomodoros, their homework will become so much easier. It’s a very, very simple thing. So the original way to complete a Pomodoro is in six different steps. So, number one, you decide on what you want to do, the task that you want to complete. We’ve already done that with your hyper-focused weekly worksheet,
right? So you have your task at hand. Number two, you set a timer and it could be a tomato timer in the kitchen or an egg timer I use. And this is one of the tools I was going to share with you. I use a sand timer. I have this old sand hour glass with this beautiful blue colored sand in it.
And you can buy sand timers anywhere. You can buy them from local artists in your area. I love supporting local, like glassblowers and local artists in your town, or you can buy them off Amazon, you know, and you can buy them in different time increments. So Pomodoros usually start out in 25 minute increments. If you’re teaching this to your kids,
or if you’re doing this for your first time, yourself started out at a smaller increment of time, like 25 minutes. When I first started doing Pomodoros, I only could do them for 25 minutes. Now my Pomodoros run 45 minutes, but typically set it for around 25 minutes to start. And during that 25 minutes of time, you’re going to work on that task.
Okay. And you are a hundred, a hundred percent focused on that task. Don’t pick up your phone, you know, try not to even get up to go potty. I mean like that is your time you’re in there a hundred percent. And then when that timer goes off, when that timer ends, even when your work is not done, you have to get up and take a short break.
Typical breaks on the normal Pomodoro routine are five to 10 minutes. So you’re technically taking a five to 10 minute break every 25 minutes. Okay. So you can run these. If you’re only taking a five minute break, then you can run two Tom Pomodoro cycles in a one hour period of time. If you have less than three Pomodoros, you know,
in an hour, if you’re getting things done faster than you can group together, work to complete within a Pomodoro and try to run this cycle of Pomodoros at least three times in a row. So try to do Pomodoro cycle maybe in the morning before lunchtime, or maybe another one in the afternoon, after three cycles of Pomodoros, you need to get up and you need to take a bowl 20 to 30 minute break.
So that’s how we run Pomodoros. It’s literally a time chunking and time blocking way to stay focused. But the only way it works is if you make yourself get up, when that timer goes off, regardless of whether or not your work is completed, otherwise subconsciously in your mind, if you just blow through that timer, you’re never going to be able to train your mind to stay focused because subconsciously your mind is thinking,
yeah, she’s not really sticking with the timer and I’m going to be stuck here working on this a lot longer. So that’s why we use Pomodoros. And like I said, it’s a great technique for your teenagers as well. All right. And then the other tool I want to share with you is that Sam timer, or just a regular kitchen timer,
believe me, it is so helpful to you. You can also set a timer on your phone, you know, but it’s just not quite as fun to me. I like looking at my sand timer and actually kind of makes me work faster. When I see this and stripping in there. Number three is the flora green focus app. First of all,
there are tons of focus apps. There’s tons of apps you can download on your phone in order to stay focused and complete the task at hand. One of my problems is that I automatically pick up my phone and literally like my teenage boys. Okay. I’ll just automatically find myself just picking it up out of habit. It has become a habit that I’ll pick up my phone.
So I either have to leave my phone in another room of the house, or I literally it’ll love these little apps where you can grow trees on your phone. So the flora green focus timer, I’ll put a link in the show notes. It’s a free app on apple and iOS device. And there’s other ones similar for Android. And it literally grows a garden.
And the more that you don’t touch your phone, the more your garden grows. And there are also opportunities with this app to actually plant physical trees and to do a lot of give back, which I really love companies that do that. So grab something like that. If you need that, if you’re like me and you constantly are picking up your phone,
don’t use your phone as your Pomodoro focus, timer, use something else like that and use a regular clock or set a timer on your kitchen stove. Or like we talked about use the sand timer or, or an electric timer of some kind. And then the last tool I wanted to share with you is a tool called brain FM. I have shared this tool before on the podcast.
I absolutely love brain FM brain FM is an app that you can play on your phone, or you can play on your desktop computer. And it literally plays, focus, music, relaxing music, sleep music, and the rhythms and the beats within the music are scientifically proven to give the outcome based on what you chose. So when you’re doing creative flow work,
you can literally play music that makes your brain creatively flow more based on tapping into brain FM. You can say, oh, this is a creative flow work time. Or this is a focused work time, or this is a steady time. And they have different types of sounds and rhythms and nature sounds and drums. And it’s absolutely fantastic. Everything from piano to guitar.
It’s my favorite app in the whole entire world. You guys, I will tell you, and I use it all the time. I always have brain FM on. And so those are my tools I wanted to share with you just keeping it real here, sharing with you that I do as well, struggle with staying focused. And I think honestly, every one of us does.
And so I wanted to share with you the hyper weekly worksheet, even though you can’t see it, it’s a part of the process that we roll up our sleeves with our clients every single week, and then share with you the process in order to complete that identify your most important task of the week and how to make sure that you have a plan to always overcome that.
Then nothing’s ever going to catch you by surprise. And then I want to share with you those really practical tools that we use that our team uses. And some of them are silly and funny, but you know what? They totally work. And if something works, we’re going to dive into it and we’re going to share it with you because every single one of us needs to be able to have the leg up that you deserve in your business.
It was really, really funny. I’ll I’ll end with this. I had the privilege of being able to spend about six hours last Saturday with Tony Robbins. And he was speaking live at funnel hacking live, and he was only supposed to speak for a shorter period of time, but he ended up staying with those of us in this room. And it was a really small space,
especially for a Tony Robbins event. He ended up staying with us for almost double the time he was supposed to be there and really went off course of things. He usually teaches to the masses. It was a very special opportunity. And one of the things he said, I found very, very striking. He said, entrepreneurship is the most dangerous sport around because of the fact that if you don’t make it out,
you die. And it was really like, wow, you are right. This is like do or die. Can you try it again? Can you get another life like a video game of your first, second, third, fourth business. Doesn’t make it. Yes, but it’s true. You either sink or swim and you can kind of doggy paddle through this in anything like a silly sand timer or an app on your phone that grows trees.
It has little hot pink and Flores and green birdies. If that’s going to help you, you go with it because you deserve all the support in the world because you are doing something that almost nobody does. You’re building your dreams and you’re helping other people do the same and keeping you focused and keeping you moving forward is how we get that done. So thank you so much for tuning into the show.
I love connecting with you again, apologies for my scratchy voice. Hopefully it will be back before we record the next episode you guys be awesome. And seriously, thank you for sharing the show with friends and connecting with us for so many years. Again, all the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And this is episode number 246. All right.
Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
You’re listening to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. Hi, you guys. Welcome back to the show. This is week and episode number 245 here on the Sweetlife entrepreneurial business podcast. And I’m April beach host of this show. And I’m so glad to talk to you.
We are coming up on our fifth year podcast anniversary just in a couple of months, and we just really appreciate all of you guys. Who’ve listened to the show for so many years. And those of you who share it with your friends, we do not intentionally accept any advertising on this show. I literally get pitched all the time, every single week from companies that want to advertise in the show. And I just think that screws up with the flow of the show and our connection and how we really hang out together here. And it’s like, you and I are sitting across the table from each other or having a cup of coffee. And we intentionally work hard to give you business trainings and coaching that other coaches charge thousands for totally free here on the show. So thank you so much for continuing to tune in. As you know, if you’ve been here before all of the show notes and everything we’re going to talk about today can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And this is episode number 245. So let’s get into what you can expect from hanging out with me here for a few minutes on today’s show today, we’re talking about why disqualifying clients actually helps your business grow. And this is for those of you guys who are in particularly in phase three of business. So this is the scale up phase of your business. But I will say that I understand that I want you to apply this in the launch phase. There is just a little bit more of a psychological barrier to disqualifying clients. When frankly, you may not have ever served any before this show really aligns with those of you who have served clients, you know, how great your offer your program your solution is. And you’re really looking to scale up your business. And one of the best ways we do that is by actually disqualifying or firing clients. So this is what you can expect. This is a great show for those of you guys who believe in your offer, your program and your service. And you know that you know that you know, that it gives people transformational, predictable results. So if that’s you, if you know what you do is amazing, and there is no question whatsoever and how great you are at delivering people, those results then continue listening to this show if you aren’t really sure, then that means that you should probably check out my, your leading offer masterclass. And that’s a totally separate thing to talk about. We have literally numerous podcast episodes about how to create a predictable leading program. But right now, if you are not really sure about the confidence of your program, your course, your membership community, your mastermind go to theofferengineer.com and there’s a lot of information there to get you started. So for those of you who do know that, like you’re the bomb, right? Like, you know that what you deliver is amazing, then let’s continue on to what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about the fact that disqualifying clients is an important part of business growth. And I get that this concept seems counterproductive to sales and marketing, and here is why it isn’t when you concentrate your sales and marketing on only the most qualified in the best fit leads for your business, then your sales become more productive and the success from your program increases. And that’s a really important part of what we’re talking about today. And we’re talking about how to go about the process of disqualifying clients and finding the perfect clients that are really the right fit for what it is that you do. So this is not let me preface this. This is not an ideal client avatar or a niche business coaching podcast training at all. We’re not talking about ICA development or client profiling. Instead, we’re talking about the questions that nobody tells you, that you really should be asking yourself about who you really want to work with, who you really want your clients to be. And they have to be asked and they have to be asked for number one, your own happiness, number two, your client’s happiness, because when you have a great working relationship with your clients, then it’s going to be much more successful for both of you and therefore for the financial success of both your clients and your company. At the end of this episode, you’re going to know what topics or different areas you should be looking at to qualify and disqualify clients on. You’re going to have a list of questions to workshop for yourself. These are tough questions that I’m going to give you in today’s show and just run through them in your mind, ask them in the air or when you’re on the treadmill or wherever you are, ask yourself these questions and come up with the answers to these and get some solid clarity. Okay, you’re going to be able to gain confidence in developing your disqualification mindset in your business. And you’re going to leave this episode, looking at your current clients and you are going to have an immediate understanding of who’s really a perfect client for you and who might’ve been. Somebody that might not have been the right fit for your program. Okay. So if you’re ready for that, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s shop Okay. Why does qualifying clients helps your business grow? So I totally get this may sound counterintuitive, but disqualifying clients is an important part of business growth. I know it sounds scary for those of you guys who are still working to become profitable. This concept comes from the idea that concentrating your sales and your marketing, and only the most qualified and best fit leads is actually more suitable to help your business grow. And so the deal is, first of all, like in most things, it starts with your mindset. So let’s first start there. If you want to serve everybody, you’re going to serve nobody. And here is why you’ve probably heard that statement a million times over again from tons of business coaching it’s because in order to deliver a top-notch result, you need to curate and customize your programs. So let me say that again, in order to deliver a top notch result for your clients, you need to properly curate and customize your program or your solution and customized solutions don’t serve everybody, right. Or they wouldn’t be customized. So the first thing that we need to realize that is in order to be really great at what you do, you have to customize it for a certain group of people, not for everybody, because it’s not going to give them amazing results. And then from a marketing standpoint, if you don’t speak to a certain specific audience, your message is just going to be so broad. It’s going to be lost in all the noise of, of online marketing and nobody’s going to resonate with it. So let’s get those things out of the way. First, those like negative thoughts out of the way first, if, if you might’ve been having those, and let’s actually dive into the deeper conversation that I want to have today, which is the point of this show. So we’re talking about disqualifying clients. When you disqualify clients, you make more money because the qualified clients, you do accept. Number one, have better results with your program. And number two, they have a deeper commitment to their own success. And maybe I should have flipped those around the other way. It really should be. They have a deeper commitment to their own success and therefore they have better results in your program. So it all starts with a process of determining who wins with your coaching and who actually doesn’t. Now don’t forget the prerequisite to applying this strategy is having a proven leading program that delivers a transformation. So everything we’re talking about today is with the understanding that you’ve already met, the prerequisite of understanding that your solution you deliver is full-blown top notch, like the best guaranteed transformation for your people. Okay? So it all starts with determining who wins and who doesn’t with that program you’ve already created. All right. So if you’re thinking this ideal client avatar, that’s totally not what I’m talking about. What I’m asking you is this, do you know where the line in the sand is between the people who are all in for your coaching and service and those who have one foot in and one foot out and taking it a step further understanding and accepting that only the best clients that are going to get the best results are the ones who are all in on your program is what we need to talk about getting to the root of today. And here’s why knowing where your clients are psychologically in the belief of themselves and of your services will affect the results they get with you. Okay? So how your clients are mentally entering your service business, your coaching business is totally going to affect how great of results they get, regardless of how great your program is. So even if you have this amazing program, in course, and service and in coaching, and you have gone through all the steps that we’re talking about to lay out an industry leading program or offer, when it comes down to it, you still have to be able to identify who psychologically is a great fit and who is not a great fit. So here’s an example. Let me give you an example of this. You’ve gone through all the work. You have this amazing leading offer, this amazing program or course or whatever it is that you lead that your business model within your, in your company, right? So if time or financial commitment is a barrier or a hesitation in somebody who’s having a conversation about working with you, then you have already started out by putting herself in a bad position that you’re going to have to hand hold them. So if time or finances or even questioning their own ability to be successful is something they’re already bringing up in the beginning. And these are big red flags. Then you’re already starting out by having a struggle to get them results. So these are some of the things that may happen to you. If you’re in a relationship with a client like that, you may feel like you need to show up every single day, proving yourself again and again, as to why, you know what the heck you’re doing, you could feel like you’re walking on eggshells. You could have to hold their hand every single day and reassure them how great they are on top of the strategy coaching that you deliver instead of being the expert and coach that they really need a hundred percent, if you are having to show up and in reconvince, and it’s almost like reselling them on what you do every single day within the process, after they’ve already bought that is a red flag, that they are not going to get great results in your program. And frankly, it has nothing to do with you. It’s the mindset that they had coming into it. So here are six questions to ask yourself, to determine who really wins with your coaching question. Number one is how committed do they need to be? How committed to themselves, according to your area of expertise and what you teach on, do they need to be, to be successful? Some of you guys might have a program where you’re building up their self-confidence and if that’s the case, then probably not very committed because that’s your area of expertise. If that’s your area of expertise, then it’s going to be a different degree of commitment than somebody who may need their clients to show up fully in and vetted already. Okay? So this totally is dependent on you and what you deliver and the solution you provide within your offers and programs. So question number two is how committed do they need to be? Excuse me, question number one is how committed do they need to be? Question number two is what time allotment do they need to have? If they’re already struggling to find the time to be successful in your program right now might not be the time for them to join your program. And you should be really honest with them and say, Hey, look at, this is exactly how many hours you need to put into this each, each week. And when you put in this many hours, these are the results you can expect. Those are things you should be able to answer about your leading offer. Okay? And so then you can ask yourself what time allotment does somebody need to have in order to be super duper successful within the programs that I provide, number three, what ads to do do they need to show up with? So according again to you and your expertise and what you do, what is the ideal attitude slash mindset of the person who is going to get the very best results with your coaching? Number four, what might they need to leave behind? This is a really big deal. So a lot of people, specially people who have bought a ton of courses, they’ve spent literally thousands of dollars on coaches in the past. I hear this all the time. You guys, people come to us and they’re like, oh my gosh, you don’t have any idea. I’ve spent $50,000 on coaches. I still don’t have a result. Right? Well, that really sucks for them. And that’s really devastating. And it shows why you really need to question who you’re receiving coaching from. Again, that’s a totally another podcast. We should do an episode on that, right? But if they’re coming to you with that background, you need to make sure that you’re having a conversation with them about why you’re different, why your solutions are proven, why your transformation and working with you is vetted again and again and again. So what might they need to leave behind in past experiences or bad experiences or good experiences, what preconceived notions or things that don’t serve them might they need to leave behind when they come to work with you, number five, what should they be ready for? Some of you guys deliver insane results within your program. Some results are so good that people are like, oh my gosh, shit. I can’t believe this is, this is so amazing, right? If that’s you and you know, you deliver an insane result, what do your clients really need to be ready for in working with you in what other things do they need to have in place to be ready for that, that is a really big deal. That is definitely something that we vet clients before they come in. Our OFFER ENGINEER™ MASTERCLASS, are they ready for this? And you ask yourself, like, are people actually really ready for what I’m about to give them for this awesome sauce that I’m bringing to the table that I’ve worked so hard to curate for them? Are they actually ready for it? What do they need to do to get ready for this? And then number six, what personality best fits with your program? This is particularly important for those of you guys that have a community within your program. If somebody is like a total BITC H and you have this amazing community of these sweet people that are in there, I’m telling you what, like that one bad apple can spoil the bunch, right? And so your onboarding process, your onboarding pre-sale pre client acceptance process should include somebody talking and vetting and disqualifying people whose vibe and flow just might not align with the rest of your community. And that’s totally okay, but just be honest with yourself about what personality best fits within your program. So those are six questions, hard questions that you should know the answers to in order to disqualify. And then let’s flip that around. Pre-qualify the perfect people for your program, your service, your solution, and your superpower. And so here’s some of the exercises that we can go through to look a little bit deeper to actually make this job of asking yourself these questions a little bit easier for you. Number one, what was the mindset we’re talking about past clients now? What was the mindset of past clients and what was their personality of those that got the best results? So in looking at those people, who’ve already been clients in the past, what was their mindset and what was their personality like of the fricking winners, the, a gamer. So once it did everything and they came and they saw it and they kicked ass, and then they took names and then they went and they were just absolutely incredible. Shouting from the mountain tops about how amazing your program is, right? What was their mindset and their personality. Also looking at your past clients, who did you love working with? Who was like the best person that when you got on those zoom calls, or when you saw this person on your calendar, you’re like, yay. I get to talk to so-and-so today. And what was it about them that you loved working with them? Number three, who contributed to others in your course or your community? Again, for those of you guys that have a community base, who was the one that was always cheering, other people on who was the one that was always lifting other people up, who was like that conversation starter, who is that cheerleader in? What was it about them that made it so amazing when they contributed to that space? Number four, who did the work without question like who, no matter what happened. And we all know stuff happens all the time in our life, that’s going to get in the way of some of the things that we’re working on. Right. But who did the work? Even when all the things got in the way who pushed through, who was super tenacious, who were the fighters who refused to quit, number five, who always needed coddling, who always showed up. And they’re like, oh, well, I don’t know. I don’t know how I am today. What do you think? Like who needed that? Is that something that you want to help with that would not fly so well in some of the programs that I have, let’s just be honest. Right? You can probably tell you, he listen to my podcasts. Like if somebody showed up every day and they were like having major excuses to why they couldn’t do it, I’d be like, you’re right. You can’t, because that’s how you’re showing up here. You know? I mean, are you the same way as I am? Or is your program a safe place for people to show up who do need your support, who everything you do is to just to pour into them. And you’re the reminder of how amazing they are because they forgot it. Or they never were told it in the first place, whatever it is, whatever the degree is, this with your past clients who showed up needing that level of support, number six, who complained about the work, the time or the money. All right. So who complained if at all, I hope this has never happened to you. I’ve never had this happen to me, but I’m sure this has happened before. Like who was like, oh my gosh, you know, this takes so much time to do that probably means that you didn’t do a good job explaining the commitment in the beginning, if that is the case. So certainly look at the structure of your program and in how you are selling your program. But after you did that, let’s just say like, you totally nailed that. Who still came complaining about the work, the time and the, or the money, number seven, who questioned your processes. Okay. If you are in a space where you deliver a system, a method or a framework, like most of our clients do, do you have people who’ve showed up, who’ve always kind of questioned what you do. If that is the case, then take a look at their personality. And I’m guessing that that is not the perfect person for your program. Right? Right. And again, this is saying that you’ve gone through the process to develop your leading program in method and framework. That being aside, we’ve established that prerequisite, if people still showed up and they’re like, really, are you sure? Do you really think that’s the way to do it? And they just constantly have a back and forth. I’m guessing that they are not the perfect fit for you. And then number eight, who left in told all of their friends about how amazing you are, who is like, let me give you testimonies. I can’t wait to tell the whole entire world, man, alive 95. This was the best money I ever spent. Those people. Those are the people we want to go after. Those are the people that are perfect fit for your program. So if they are not like those past clients that were doing all this stuff like that in like making a banner, because they love you so much, then they probably need to be considered for disqualification. So after this episode, I’m about to give you some action steps here and how to apply all this. But after this, then as you move forward and know that you deserve to be praised for the hard work and the time that you have put in strategically developing a solution for people’s problems. And let’s make sure that you are disqualifying the people that aren’t the perfect recipient of your solution. Because when you do this, you’re going to be able to focus all of your attention, all of your relationship, building all of your actions on those perfect personality mindset, people that are the right fit for your program. And when they are successful, you are successful. Your client’s success. My client success is a direct reflection, a direct correlation to my success, to your success. So we want to pick the people there, the, a gamers, right? We want to pick the ones that we know are coming to the table mentally and physically prepared for what it is that you are going to give them solutions in for your solution. And these are just some of the questions that when we talk about like ideal client avatar and client profiling and customer targeting, nobody’s saying to ask these questions. And so I really felt like it was important to talk about this. We actually, I actually had this conversation a few weeks ago with a couple of women in our business, client, family, and this has really come up and I think it’s an important conversation to have. And so here is your action plan, moving forward. Number one, look at your sales copy and see if it clearly disqualifies the wrong people. All right. So after you’ve gone through the questions above now, let’s like, put it into action, right? We’re going to say, and how do we do this? We’re going to take it from high level, the high level. Number one, look at your sales copy, copy. Look at your marketing copy and make sure that you’re clearly disqualifying the people that are not the perfect right fit for you or your service or your program. Number two, add questions to your sales call process, to filter those who are not the perfect fit. So if you use sales calls to qualify or disqualify clients, make sure you’re adding questions in there that correlate with the answers you’re looking for to either qualify or disqualify clients, make sure you add those into your sales process. Don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions where in this sales call, they might be like, oh wow. Yeah. You know what? That’s not me. And that is a great for you to say, you know what? I am so glad we have this conversation, because guess what, what I have is not the right fit for you. And I don’t want you spending another XYZ amount of money on a program. That’s not going to be the right fit for you. But I have a great friend I can refer you to. That might be a better fit, right? These are important things to do in your sales call. You don’t want this person as a client. If they do not fit into what you need to deliver the great solutions within your program. And so don’t be afraid to disqualify them right there in the triage, call in the sales call and send them somewhere else. Just bless them to go somewhere else. But you have to make sure you’re adding questions into your sales call process that can give you the answers to that. And number three, talk to your team. This is for those of you guys, would teams that manage your marketing. Some of you, you know, have people that help you do your sales call, help you do your coaching. Talk to them about the importance of positioning, your solution and your service as the prize. It’s very, very important that once you have done the work to create a leading program or course or offer it is the prize. It is the painkiller. As one of my clients calls it. It’s like the perfect language. Oh yes. It’s a painkiller. Okay. Make sure that you hold it close to your own confidence level that you worked your booty off to make sure it was a perfect painkiller for them. And that is the prize. And this quote is like one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard from Angela Lauria. She said the prize never chases. Let me say that again. The prize never chases. And so here are some final thoughts I want to leave you with. I totally get that. The thought of disqualifying, somebody that comes your way, that isn’t the right fit. Sounds really scary, especially when you haven’t hit consistent 10 K months or 20 K months, 30 K months, especially when you’re first starting out. And that’s why at the beginning of this episode, I said, if you’re in the launch phase and you haven’t served a ton of clients yet, I get and understand that it’s important for us to go through the process, to test your solution on different clients, making sure that you are going through the testing and the traction to find the right fit after of course doing market research. So I understand that if you’re listening to this and you’re in the launch phase, definitely take this with a grain of salt. I’m keeping it real, but never, ever, ever sell your program to somebody that you don’t believe a hundred percent, that you can give them Results. That is for sure, I don’t care what business phase you’re in. That is aligned. We don’t ever cross. If somebody is not a good fit, do not sell to them. Right? But for the rest of you, don’t be afraid to say no to the money. Because when you say to something, you’re opening up your capacity to say yes to more things, and you don’t want to be stuck with clients that take a ton of extra time in order to get them results, because they didn’t show up with the mindset and the prerequisites in place to get the best results with the service you provide. So the truth is you should be disqualifying clients to work with you. If they don’t come wanting the results you deliver in full force, if their personality won’t jive with others in your community, if they consistently need affirmation that you know what the heck you’re doing, although please make sure that you know what the heck you’re doing. And if they’re only partially committed to their own transformation in one last thing, I’m going to leave you with today. Stop wondering if you’re good enough and taking clients that don’t fit the whole bill of what you deliver. When you go through the process to diligently develop your leading offer, stop taking clients that don’t fit the bill for the solution you provide, because we know that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. And I really, really, really want to remind you to only work with clients that are super duper thirsty. Okay? Okay. This was episode number 245 here at the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. You can find the show notes and all of the other amazing info that our guests drop in here for free by visiting Sweetlifeco.com. And if you are struggling, if you do not know how to turn your ideas into a leading industry, leading course offer program mastermind coaching event or retreat, then go to theofferengineer.com. Our OFFER ENGINEER™ MASTERCLASS is reopening in October. We only opened this masterclass twice a year. That’s it only twice a year you can get into this masterclass? And it is opening in October, 2021. So depending on when you listen to this, that’s an important date to note for your calendar in the event that you’re not listening to this live. You can also go to theofferengineer.com at any time and be notified when this masterclass opens up again. All right, you guys go grab all the show notes. Thank you so much for staying tuned to this show. I hope you’re having an amazing day and I truly appreciate your listenership. And just being a supporter of this show, have a great way.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. Hi guys. And welcome back to the show. This is episode number 243, and I am April beach host here and founder of the Sweetlife company, where we help coaches, consultants and niche experts,
launch and scale your company online through proven strategies with decades of business success. And here on this podcast, it’s our extension where you can get business trainings that you can bank on. So welcome to the show today. We’re talking about how to make the most of your time on clubhouse. Now, this is a really important topic because if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know that I am a big clubhouse fan. We dove in headfirst into clubhouse last December, and it’s been a really great special platform to build relationships. And for us to grow our list as a business, we’ve had multiple clubhouse episodes that we’ve recorded. You are welcome to search those on how to get started on clubhouse and how to grow your club. But today we’re talking about kind of the elephant in the room here in that is how to make the most of your time on clubhouse, because we like many people dove in to clubhouse, but we have also taken the last three months off of the app for the summertime for us to travel in. So have the majority of leaders that we moderate rooms with, they have taken time off the app as well, but as seasons change, everybody’s diving back into clubhouse. Now, as we go into September and October and the end of 2021. And so the real question is how do you make the most of your time? What are the activities that you can be doing in order to make money in a limited amount of time and be really strategic about what you’re doing on clubhouse in a way that really aligns with your business. And so this particular episode is great for those of you guys who do have a limited time, and you’re looking to grow your warm audience and increase sales using clubhouse. This is also great for you guys in any phase of my lifestyle, entrepreneur business roadmap, if you are not sure what phase of business you’re in, you can go take a little quiz and I’ll tell you exactly where you are and what stage of business and give you a checklist of what you should be focusing on to grow your business to the next profit stage. You can grab that anytime by going to sweet life co.com forward slash quiz. So now let’s go ahead and talk about what you can expect from hanging out with us here today. This is the deal, you know, clubhouse is an amazing platform to grow your audience, but most of you guys have really limited time and you want to be strategic about how you spend it. So in today’s episode, we’re going to dive in with Annabel by hand. Now she is a friend I met on clubhouse. She’s one of the many amazing business friends that I have met on the app. And she’s a clubhouse marketing expert in today’s show. We’re going to talk about three different strategic objectives that can save you time and make you money while using the app. We’re also talking about three other secondary activities that are also great to do on the app, based on your goals, that you are setting your strategic objectives for the time that you spend there. And then at the end of this show, I actually pull back the curtain and you can totally hack our funnel. I lay out our entire clubhouse list, growth to sales funnel into our, OFFER ENGINEER™ MASTERCLASS, how we did it at the beginning of this year and how we’re actually about to start it again right now. So I just give you everything and I lay it out there for you, so you can see how we’re doing it because it works really well. And when things are working really well, we want you to be able to apply those strategies in your business too. So at the end of this episode, you’re going to know the three moneymaking activities to do on clubhouse. You’re going to know the three secondary strategies. You can also do that lead to money, just not immediate money in your pocket, but there are also good activities to do on the app. And you are going to understand and know our complete clubhouse sales funnel and that’s ours at the Sweetlife Company. So I frankly just give you all of that. I try to give you so much here on the show and just lay it all out there for you. So let’s talk about our expert and our guests. So first of all, I met Anabel on clubhouse. And when you spend any time on clubhouse, you can just tell the people you want to hang out with and the people that you want to get to know more. And she’s really one of those people where I had my eye on her in the beginning, and she kind of shares her story about how she has risen as a clubhouse marketing expert, which that in itself is a really amazing lesson about just diving in, even when people around you think that maybe that’s not such a great idea. And so you’ll get to hear her story. And she is the founder of clubhouse for bosses in the business and digital marketing strategists for coaches and consultants who want to increase their influence income and impact using clubhouse prior to becoming a business and marketing coach Annabel worked with digital marketing for over a decade. And you can learn more about Anabel by visiting Annabel bay han.com. And of course, we will go ahead and link to that in this show. She also gives you her whole entire clubhouse productivity strategy workbook. And so you’re really getting a ton out of this episode. So I hope you stick with us if you want to grow your business on clubhouse and you have very limited time. Like I do, like Annabelle does, like most of our clients do. Then this is a really important episode for you to listen to in order to get all of the loaded and free things that Annabel has for you and all the notes for this show, you can visit Sweetlifeco.com simply click on the podcast button. And this is episode number 243, and Annabel will be live with us because we are just kicking off our wave makers, mastermind rooms again on Tuesday night after our three months off. We’re so excited. We had a room this evening in there and it was just so great to see so many faces and people we haven’t spoken to in a long time. So we hope that you join us Annabel. We’ll be live in clubhouse with us in the wave makers club, talking about the same things we’re talking about here on the podcast and taking your questions. So make sure you’re following Annabel. You’re following me at April beach on clubhouse so that we can connect with you and help you grow your business further through clubhouse and other proven online business strategies. Okay, let’s go ahead and dive by then. All right. Hi, you guys. We are so excited to be talking again today about clubhouse. Yes. My new favorite. I have my friend Annabel here with us today and I asked her to come because of the fact that she has really become the clubhouse guru when it comes to building your business on clubhouse. And whereas I totally went Mia and took three months off of clubhouse this summer. You have people like Anabel who have been consistently on this app, understanding the ins and the outs and the strategies of business, and really being faithful to watching this app grow and helping you grow in your business. So I’m so excited to invite Annabel today, to come and talk to us about the realities of how to use clubhouse as a strategy, but also for people like me and probably most of our listeners, how to actually fit this into your life and your time and your business. So welcome to this Wheatland entrepreneur podcast and about, we are so glad that you are here. Thank you for having me. I love your whole entire kind of transition into being the marketing guru, the business guru of clubhouse. Can you just briefly tell everybody a little bit about your business and how you help entrepreneurs? Yeah, So I am the founder of clubhouse for buses it’s to my knowledge, one of the very first business coaching programs using clubhouse. Before that I’ve worked behind the scenes with a lot of small businesses growing their businesses. Many of them being, you know, people who work on Instagram and they teach people how to use Instagram to grow their business. And so I was very familiar with the model and actually very interested in doing it for myself. And so when I noticed that clubhouse was something that’s up and coming there was nobody working like this in this space yet. I thought, okay, this is my chance to be a very early adopter of this app and teach people what I know about growing businesses from, you know, Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. It’s all very similar model with a different basically funnel head, I guess you could say, or a marketing positioning. And so I decided to just dive right in, like right when I had 300 followers, which was really intimidating and I would go into rooms and tell people that like I was a clubhouse for a business coach and they would laugh at me, but now seven months later that has worked really well because I positioned myself very well to be somebody that people turn to for this information. But like I said, I took like about 10 years of experience growing companies, whether corporate or small business, all in my overbroad company called scalability, marketing and coaching, where I’m now taking those principles and those concepts, but I’m making them applicable to clubhouse specifically. Well, I love that you dive right in. Okay. So let’s just take a pause for any of our listeners. Like this is the story of growth and success. You guys, it goes with diving in, even when other people might be like, oh, what is she doing? Or who does she think she is to do that? So like, this is a perfect example of how you only need to focus on your vision, what, you know, you’re supposed to be doing and just like race, horse blinders on and dive fully in. So take Annabel’s experience, apply it to wherever you are, if you are afraid to die fully into something, but you know, you should be and you want to be, go for it. So that’s a whole entire separate podcast episode. I love that you share that. So let’s go ahead and roll into what we’re going to talk about today. So here are the problems that we know entrepreneurs experience on the app definitely burn out for sure, from being on clubhouse in the middle of December, I think is when I joined clubhouse and fashion, I don’t even know how many of there, a couple of thousand, maybe at the most. And it was so exciting to be on there in the beginning. And I remember like we don’t fully in, and I loved having these amazing, authentic conversations. And I know that other entrepreneurs felt the same way because basically we had been so disconnected in the world with what has happened until we’re craving these amazing conversations. And then I discovered something that I know you’re going to talk about today, which is the goal of professional and personal development. And I was able to literally sit at the feet of people like Myron golden and go through total masterclasses on live virtual events with people like Barry and blue. I mean, and really be in these spaces with these leaders that I otherwise never could have had an opportunity to become connected with and now become, you know, business professional friends with. And so it was really amazing in the beginning. But then as a mom of three kids, I owned five companies. All of a sudden I really started feeling that fatigue as well, especially as we got into our summer travel season. And I know that so many other businesses feel that way. And so it’s so important what you teach and your expertise because I love clubhouse, you know, we’re back on it. Jose, I think I was telling you that behind the scenes, before we started recording we’re back on it tonight, launching our regular weekly wave makers mastermind room, which is so much fun. And I’ve really missed everybody, but man alive, we have to have a strategy behind this in order. It’s like not a sprint, it’s a marathon for sure. Can you talk about some of the things that you have noticed are problems with businesses in having a long-term strategy for this and maybe some of the stuff that you’ve even experienced yourself and being consistent on clubhouse. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m going to tell you three places. You could spend your time on clubhouse that won’t pay your bills. So let’s start with that. And one big mistake that I think people make right from the beginning is not being clear about why they’re on clubhouse, what they’re there to do and who they want to be known as on clubhouse. And this is the same for every single social media network, right? If you go on social media and your purpose, there is either. So here’s the first one, your own personal development, although it’s great. It won’t pay your bills unless you turn it into something else and give yourself that time to implement it, your own entertainment, right? You can go on Instagram all day and take talk and watch them all day long, but they won’t pay your bills. And the last one really is something that’s more of a long-term strategy, which is networking, right? It’s great to network with people, but if you aren’t getting yourself positioned and your brand position to actually convert people when you’re just meeting people, it’s all fluffy. It’s all nice. You might be developing. You might feel really good. But you know, when we think about burnout and we think about business owners is that it feels really good until it really doesn’t. And so you start asking yourself, like, I’ve actually invested a bunch of time on this app and all of a sudden, now I’m asking myself, why did I just do that? Like, it felt really good. I was lonely. I made some friends, but now, okay, I’m six months in and I spent 20 hours a week on an app. What does this actually mean for me and my future? And this is the point that I think a lot of clubhouse users are coming to. And a point that I want to maybe help people avoid if they’re just getting on the app or just building a strategy around how to use it, because it’s real, right? Because here’s the thing. Unlike Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn, really, where you could pay someone else to actually engage for you, get in front of your audiences, you can pay ads. You can’t do that on clubhouse. It’s you in a room talking to people. Now the power of it is that when you’re in a room, talking to people, you build relationships, you build networks, you get yourself in front of prospective clients, but if you’re not in the right place and you’re not talking and you’re not in the right positioning, and you’re not clear about what you want to do, all of that is literally just wasting time. And you have to decide, like, there are moments of my day where I want to scroll tech talk because it’s stress relief for me, it’s fun. But if I do that every day, I’m not going to reach my goals. So I think what it comes down to is like to avoid burnout in the first place. What do you really want in your life? What is that driving force? What is that life that, that you want to design? And then as we kind of like get behind that, we can then say, okay, how can we use clubhouse to create that? And that’s what I’m really passionate about. I think that, you know, something that a lot of people don’t know is that like underneath every single thing that I do it’s to empower women, to have more decision making power, because they’re able to create and monetize the lives that they love. Like every single thing that I do clubhouse is just the tool that I use to do that. And so for me, that’s why I drive that message so clear. And that’s the best way to avoid burnout is know what you want, if you know what you want. It’s so easy to say, like, is the action that I’m taking right now getting me what I want. And then when you say, no, it’s very easy to not do that thing. So yeah, that’s what I wanted to say, Writing down your quotes and like writing them down here and I’m going to go make these quotes and put them out on it. You are so, right, right. So like, understanding why are we doing this? How does this play a role in the bigger part of this? And that’s why I’m so excited to have you here on this show. Because as you know, like that’s everything we talk about, it’s reverse engineering, the lifestyle, and then we build the business to get you there. So love everything you’re saying, of course, which is why I love you. So let’s talk about the ways that do make you money on clubhouse. And let’s kind of hone in on those business trainings. There are three primary ways that you teach entrepreneurs and small businesses to interact into function on the clubhouse app. And so can you dive into, let’s start with number one, what is the first money-making way for somebody to spend their time on this app? So it’s awareness, right? It’s building visibility around who you are. If nobody knows you on the app, nobody’s coming to your room is going to be very hard to then take them down the rest of the journey. This is something that I actually see a lot of people getting in the awareness trap, right? It’s very addicting. Especially for entrepreneurs. We get a little bit mixed up with like, oh, I can grow here. And so we come to this point where we have to decide how much exposure do I actually want before I try to then take people along a journey to actually sell something to them. And that’s also a very personal question. How much time do you have, right? How much time does your business have before you need to drive leads before you need to turn this traffic into leads and what would best serve the people that you’re generating awareness around. Right? If you kind of like go on a clubhouse stage and you’re talking about something that people could really use more information on that they could use more of a transformational journey, and you’re not providing that, just be rest assured that your competition will, right, but you might be the person to like create the awareness around it. You might be the person to let those people know that they have their problem, right? Those are like kind of two things to really think about, like how much time do you want to spend as simply building your account, building up your social media profiles. That’s more of like an influencer strategy, but also every single brand, every single business needs people to know that they exist. And so the ways that you really do that on clubhouse is by either being on other people’s stages within other people’s clubs, opening up rooms within other people’s clubs. And of course, opening up your own rooms with other mud squads and you know, that type of thing. And the whole goal of this awareness strategy is really to get in front of as many new people as possible and have them remember you for what you do, right? So you want to make sure that your bio set up, you want to make sure that you have a clear introduction. You want to make sure that the rooms that you’re going to are going to make sense with, you know, the topics that you open up when you open up a room, you know, you don’t want to be like in a music room talking about how you like create business strategy, right? It probably would not make as much sense, but people literally do this. Like you want to be in a place where you can get in front of an audience that needs what you do. So the first question you want to yourself is, you know, from my ideal client, from the person that I want to be on clubhouse, whether or not you’re becoming it, you’re it, whatever it may be, where are the people that you could serve the most sitting on clubhouse right now and showing up in those places in the biggest way possible. That is what the awareness phase looks like is getting people to really know who you are, Where are the people that you can serve the most on clubhouse right now. And so for those people that are new and they haven’t actually dove into clubhouse, let’s give them a hack. How would they find those people? What are some of the ways they can use the app to actually find their people that they want to be in front of? Yeah. So something really cool is happening right now on clubhouse, where they’re using interests, that’s to tie in people and clubs together. So the first thing you can do is really make sure that your interests match the interests of the ideal client that you’re trying to actually attract. So for business owners, when they’re setting up their clubhouse profile, I recommend that you try to show up in the places where your ideal customer is going to be. And then you can add in a couple of your own interests, but for now I think that’s very smart to make sure that that’s niche down to your category. So that clubhouse begins to recommend you in the places that matter most. So clubhouse did not use to recommend people based off their interests, but they’re about to, so I want everybody to set up their interests. The next is to make sure that you show up in keyword search for your industry. So whatever that ideal client might be searching for, make sure that you show up in your bio and your entire clubhouse bio is searchable. So just make sure that those keywords and you can use a lot of them are all there, but also reverse engineer that right? If we know that people are putting keywords in their profiles, we can also go out and find the community leaders, the thought leaders, the people that might want in our network, the people we might want to be on stages with the people who have already collected the community. We can go through and follow some of those people so that we start to see their rooms in our hallway. And then the last way is really using that keyword search in a similar way, but for clubs and I think clubs, they work very much like Facebook groups. There’s something that we’re all, you know, intuitively aware of, but maybe not everybody is as strategic about it. When they first joined, they probably think, what clubs do I want to be in. But then we’re always asking the question, which club does my ICA most likely spend time in. Right? And so those are the things that you want to ask yourself, because what this is going to do is basically open up the content and the communities that are already being created with your ideal client already in it. It’s going to accelerate your growth because when you show up in those places, when you’re like, okay, I want to become aware of there’s a room of like 100 to 200 people that are all within my ICA set. I’m going to get up. I’m going to talk, I’m going to build awareness. It becomes very easy, but all we have to do is make sure that we’re showing up in the right places. And the best way to do that is really through keyword search to start from there though, what’s really cool about clubhouse. And I don’t know if this level of visibility is going to always be available, but if you find somebody that’s a thought leader in your space, you find somebody that maybe is serving your ICA. Maybe they’re complimentary to you. You can go through their entire network. You can go through every club that they’re in, you can everything. So if you want to take this to the next level, the next thing to do is once you have your clubs set up, is that you go in and you see if there’s anything that you maybe didn’t think about that somebody else did. And so that’s what I would do. I think that’s the most strategic approach to really set yourself up for maximum awareness. Oh my gosh. That is so great. Thank you so much for all of that wisdom. Quick question. Before we go into money-making strategy, number two, because I have been off clubhouse for the last two, three months traveling, and I know this is always something we were trying to figure out before, but I’m wondering if it’s become clearer. Are there now proven better times here for those of us in the USA, when certain audiences are on the app, are we starting to see that like the business people are usually primarily using the app during the daytime? Are we starting to really have been on this app now for now a year, almost a year, it’s starting to see those flows in those trends and when are people active on that? Is that becoming clearer? Yeah. Yeah, it is. So most people are on in the morning. And the reason why is because you have, you know, India in the evening, you have Europe, you have us up. And so maximum times are really at the top and bottom of our time zone. So I’m in Pacific standard time zone. And so was clubhouse HQ. So it tends to be like anything like 8:00 AM and before, and like 5:00 PM. And after there seems to be a lot of people on the app. But if you think about your ideal audience, right? When are they on the app, if it’s an entrepreneur or maybe it’s during work day of your hours, the trend that I’m seeing is that, or the trend that clubhouse has talked about is that all the rooms are going to start getting bigger because fewer people are creating more people are listening. So I would say like the number one thing to worry about would be when is the best time for you and your business, right? So that you could do this sustainably over time in the future. And this was a big question I had for myself. Okay. What is the absolute best time that I can do this for a long time? So I had to ask myself that question, but on top of that, what you can do is you can go in the app and you can see how many members are on the app and in certain clubs at every single hour. And you can start to think, okay, you know, I have two different time slots I could do on a Tuesday. Let me see which one of those might have the maximum potential. Let me also see who is doing regular rooms during that time slot. So I can see what if I have a competitive advantage or a competitive, you know, situation here where there might be other rooms that are pulling people in the same direction for the same topic. So I think that that is a little bit individualistic, but I will say that there’s more people on the app in a global sense in the mornings and at night, but that might not matter for everybody. For instance, I coach people mostly in the U S right. So I’m okay with hitting people in the U S but just know that as people go back to work, you want to set yourself up for success for thinking, you know, when our people that my ideal client, if it’s somebody that’s working, when will they most likely be on a social media app? So those are the questions we want to ask them. Great advice. Great advice. Yeah. And that’s exactly what you were saying. So we picked Tuesday night for our wave makers mastermind room, because I know I’m usually not on an airplane. I know that sounds silly, but like, when I’m traveling to see my kids, I’m on an airplane, like Friday to Monday, right. I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to be there every single Tuesday night. So as we roll back into the fall, I never have to wonder about a Tuesday night because I’m always there. And so I love that you said that, and then I have so many questions for you clearly. Hopefully all of our listeners are getting value out of the questions. I’m asking you as well for our Australia participants. Are we starting to see more of a growth in Australian participation on clubhouse than we were in the beginning? Yeah. Yeah, we are. And I think it had to do with like more lockdowns, more like of the pandemic actually grew the user base. So we do think that there’s more people from Australia. I’m meeting them. They’re a little bit of an opposite time zone for me. So I don’t meet as many of them, but there’s growth in that side of the world has accelerated a lot, like all the way from India to Asia, to Australia. Europe has also grown a lot too. I think that us kind of had a strong user base before you left, but that side of the world, I mean, they’re, they’re creating communities and the app just continues to grow. Like it really only has like a few million people on, like the growth potential is still in the billions for the app. So it’s something to really think about. It’s still a baby. Yeah. You guys are all a drop in the bucket. So this is why we love clubhouse so much. You know what Annabel was saying? Like, she’s an early adopter, even you who would be on this app now would be an early adopter. So you are not late on the upswing on that at all. Thank you so much. And those were kind of very specific questions, but these are questions. I knew that our clients and our audience is asking, we have a huge client base in Australia and yes, it’s like three to five o’clock, you know, in the afternoon here in mountain time. When, when, when it is there tomorrow morning. And so there are some, some different times in there. Okay. So way to build your business and be productive with your time is number one awareness and everything we just talked about can fit kind of into that awareness category. What is the second way to make money off of clubhouse and be strategic about your time? Yeah. And these next two, I think, are things that I told you, a lot of people are getting in the awareness trap. They’re just building awareness, building awareness, building awareness. Okay. Let’s think about the human beings, right? That we’re meeting, we’re building relationships with and the fact that we’re going to see them again, because here’s the thing on clubhouse. We’re all clustered together. Everybody that’s interested in business development. We are in a cluster. As people follow more people in your social graph, you are going to be more visible to them, especially now. So going back to what you said, where this is a great time for people to be an early adopter. Yeah. Because discoverability just started right before the rest of us were kind of like, I hope you see me over here. You can’t really find me by my keywords unless you’re being super strategic, like that doesn’t exist anymore. So here’s the thing is that if you are setting yourself up to get to know people really well, you’re treating them well. You’re giving them a ton of value in that awareness phase. They’re going to like and want to maybe see you again. But as we know with the business buying cycle, people don’t necessarily buy from you the first day they meet from you. So I think what a lot of people need to do is nurture their audience, right? You are literally building a community on the app. There’s something called clubs on the app, which we talked about a little bit, but you could have your own, right? Most people when you’ve been active for like maybe a week, you could start your own club if it’s aligned with your brand even better, but that’s basically your hub, right? You can take people also, I just want to put this out there into a community of your own. Like maybe you have a Facebook group, something like that. You can take people, but the level of readiness for them to take that journey with you is going to depend on how you treat them and how you bring them into your world. So, one thing that I think is really important to do is through that awareness phase, bring people onto your email list so that they can see even more value from you. See if you can get them to take the journey over to Instagram and follow you there so that you have more touch points. These touch points are so important in like developing that trust. When you see somebody on video and you also heard their voice, you’re going to trust them a lot more. And also what this also informs is that I know that there’s people who are aware of me, but they don’t know me that well. And my content, I need to nurture them on clubhouse, right? I need to create rooms that maybe are not the big, bold, like huge rooms where everybody sees me that are nurturing people in specific needs. So if somebody comes up in a clubhouse room and they ask a specific question, I may create a room about that specific question to best serve them. If I think it’s going to, you know, serve the community that I have, because I want to nurture that community and help them with their needs and give them a chance to get to know me in a smaller setting. And so that’s really nurture is like kind of moving people along, getting them to like you more, giving them more resources, maybe engaging with them on social media. So you can hit them in more ways. It just depends on how robust you want to be. But at the very minimum form, it’s, you know, you might meet me in a room with other people on a stage. You might like me, you might follow me. Now, I’m going to take you into a container where you can really learn from me specifically, have an incredibly clear idea about who I am and know my style, know what I have to offer. And so that’s, the second part is nurture. I love that level of that. Okay. And then number three, the third way to make money, grow your business and be very productive and strategic of your time on clubhouse. Yeah. This is the one that almost nobody is doing and it’s conversion. It’s converting straight from the stage. So what I’ve noticed is that people can sell anything from an SLO or a very low ticket offer all the way up to something that’s a few thousand dollars. Sometimes even more from the stage, like you don’t even have to like get them into a fancy funnel, but if you have one, it does help support you, but it’s having those rooms and being in that position where you are literally by yourself, hosting a room. And the whole intent is to get your super fans into the room. The people who are the hottest that know you the most and basically drive them down a sales sequence. So that content might look like why you need an email list to build your business. Then you would sell to them like some sort of email list building service at the end of the day. But having something that’s like very coherent with the room to what you are selling and selling it directly from the stage. And in order to do that in the way that has the highest integrity, in my opinion is to really be the only moderator to not have any conflict between offers and to have that be a very small niche down room that, you know, like, okay, somebody came into a clubhouse room and awareness phase. They asked the question, I did a nurture room on that. And then, you know, maybe, you know, as I’ve, I’ve warmed them up, I’ve gotten to know them on socials. I’m now going to sell them something that answers that. But it’s me as part of the solution. And so bringing people down those journeys on clubhouse, it’s really, really working well, but people have to do it. They have to be okay with being in a room with one or two people that said, heck yes to them. And sometimes it’s more than that. Right. I noticed that as you grow, it’s more than that. But this conversion content is really, I think what makes or breaks businesses as being okay, sitting there and saying like, by myself, do you like me? Do you like what I have to offer? Are you interested in taking a further journey and then offering that to them in a way that’s like, of course of service. And so those are the three types of content to grow your business on club. Yes. Okay. So I want to give an example of that. I always try to pull the curtain back on what we do in our business. So this is a strategy that we’ve used on clubhouse since the beginning of January. So let me reverse engineer for you guys, because some of you guys have actually been in this strategy who are listening and we’re about to do it again. Okay. So I’m going to tell you here on the podcast, and then you will be able to go and watch us do this. Okay. So we have a masterclass. So we only hold a couple of times a year called your leading offer. Right? So where we teach everybody how to build out their industry, leading leading online course and program mastermind coaching program. So that is starting here in October. We were talking about that behind the scenes, right? So before that we have a challenge like creating your industry, leading offer challenge, right? What we do is we host clubhouse rooms for three weeks leading up to that on the primary questions that are answered in the beginning parts of our masterclass and in our challenge. So the rooms are going to be like how to create your leading framework or method, you know, how to choose a leading offer. That’s right. For you, you know, is launching a course, right? For you, like all of those questions that people are asking. So that’s, I’m just telling you guys exactly how we do it, and you’re going to see us doing it on clubhouse here over the next couple of weeks towards the end of September and October, because that’s leading that up. And that’s exactly like Annabel was showing you that when you do this, that conversions are incredible because you’ve been able to have conversations with people. They know that, you know, what the heck you’re talking about. They know that you actually can, that you are proven to give them the results they’re looking for. They know that you understand their frustrations and their pain points, and you are like the golden arrow to the problem they’ve been probably trying to solve for a very long time. It’s full of integrity. It’s very straightforward. There’s nothing hidden or tricky about it. It just goes from a conversation to a smaller solution to our masterclass and those people that want it, they totally want it, right. They’re like, yes, please let me do this. I need this industry leading program. And so that’s just sharing with you guys and just laying it all out there on the table. Exactly how we do this strategy. And, you know, it’s interesting that you said something in there, you know, as long as you’re okay, being on being on stage and being like the one. Totally. And I think that makes people scared. Right? I think the reason why some people get scared of that is because they aren’t so sure about their solution about their leading program and offer. If you aren’t sure about your solution, then, then that’s a problem we need to solve for you. Right. But I think that they are not so sure about themselves. And so that’s how they, you know, don’t want to do that. Some people that are just shy, what we have seen people do in the past is bringing in. So instead of it just being them on the stage, bringing in affiliates and friends or clients who have actually experienced their services, and I will have some people ask a question, I’m like, Hey, you know what, that’s a better question for, you know, Nicole or somebody else to answer it because Nicole has actually been in our class and we’re always very upfront. We sell the solution to this. We’re never, you know, like cryptic about it. We’re like we actually sell the solution to this. And so I just wanted to share that with you guys, as we’re talking about it. So as Annabel’s teaching you the structure of it, that you will also have like set example of it in action as well. And it does work really well. And I’m really surprised that you say that more people aren’t necessarily doing that. Why do you think that they aren’t doing that so much? Yeah. You know, I think it’s because they don’t have a business. Like they don’t have an offer exactly what you’re saying. They got on the app. Now they have all the awareness. They know people like them. They know they like their ideas. They probably know the problems they could solve, but at the end of the day, they don’t really have either that confidence or that flow. So there’s some people that like, maybe they start with, okay, you can get on a discovery call with me and I’ll try to sell you coaching. Right? Like that’s probably the level that they’re at with their funnel, but they don’t really realize that you could do a masterclass or you could have like freebies to build your email list or you could have some sort of launch sequence. And so I think that all of that’s really important, but at the end of the day, you have to know what it is that you’re offering people so that you can then back that up and say, okay, what’s the bridge between you knowing who I am in a clubhouse room, me actually make an offer to you and you actually buying the thing. Right. So people kind of need to know that bridge. And so I think that it’s a little bit like a happy surprise for many people that they grew group, they got all this awareness. They have all these people that like the thing is about a clubhouse is if people are interested in you, they’re going to come to your inbox and say, can I work with you? And then if you don’t have an offer, you’re like, Hmm, yes, you can. Let me just like, create something for you right now. Like, let me just, if you want that, yes, I’ll do it. But we want to get people into a model that’s really scalable, right. Something that they could do over and over again, just like you are like, you know, that it works, you’ve measured. It, you practice it. You know, that like if people go from clubhouse room to masterclass to challenge, they’re going to buy the product. Right. And so that’s kind of the thing that we want to build for everyone is just knowing that that conversion content will always work for you on a consistent basis because your offer matters. It’s something that people want. It’s something that they will take that journey on with you. And so that’s why I think it is, is that a lot of people are disliked kind of like in that development phase. And it’s totally okay. I think that’s awesome. Yeah. And we have actually had multiple clients come to us for that exact reason. Like, I don’t have an offer. I don’t know what I’m selling any of my leading offer. I help them out. So totally. Yeah. A hundred percent. All right. So today we talked about how to be really wise on your time, but we actually didn’t talk about the numbers of time in itself, but I know everybody’s different. So before there’s my children calling in my emergency breakthrough listeners, there’s another child podcast listeners calling for more lunch money, probably for our listeners that are really kind of wondering how much time do I actually need to spend on this in order for it to actually be worth my while. Is there at least a minimum time or is it a cadence or a consistency that you recommend? Yeah. Okay. So I would say that like, you’re probably not going to move the needle a lot if you’re not willing to spend at least four hours a week on an app and at least one of those hours being you having your own room. So I think that that’s something that’s really important. It’s a time intensive app, but here’s the other side is that the sky’s the limit with influence awareness and all of that. So to me, the real question is what do you actually want? Do you want to build something that’s more evergreen? When we talk about the offer, when we talk about the funnel, do you want to build something where it’s like, you can be on the, in the conversations? Do you enjoy them? Does clubhouse let you up? There’s a lot of people that are like, I love it. I just love it here. I just want to spend all day every day. Okay, great. Let’s build the model that lets you do that and be profitable. So that’s kind of like the question that goes to my mind. But at the same time, there’s people like Janet who does Pinterest marketing and she’s made a ton of money on the app. And she does her two regular rooms every single week. And in her free time outside of her business, she goes into other rooms and she creates awareness around who she is. And her funnel is really strong, but it’s a service based funnel, right? She has coaching. She has her courses. She has a little bit of a mix. She’s made a lot of money on the app to spending around four hours a week. So the sky’s the limit for you. If you’re somebody that has the desire to build your personal brand and build your social media, and maybe you are starting at zero and you have a lot of time use the time to grow that, build that. I think it will serve you for years to come. If you’re somebody that’s super busy, you have a great funnel already in place. Maybe you have a Facebook funnel or something that’s already existing. Maybe you want to add a little bit more. You want to actually use clubhouse to nurture your community or get in front of some new eyeballs or be an expert guests. That’s great position yourself for that. I really think that anytime, but I would say the minimum is around four a week. And I think most people could probably figure out four hours a week. Right. And it’s worth it. We love being on the app. I love the app so much and I get to meet amazing people like you. So thank you so much for being on the show. So you actually have a guide that you’re going to give to our listeners, a clubhouse productivity guide, just share what is in that. And then we’re going to make sure it’s in the show notes of this episode so everybody can grab it for free. Yeah. Yeah. So this guide really came out of the question of so many people say like is clubhouse worth my time. And so it’s literally your answer to that. So we go over the six different places where you can show up on clubhouse effectively. But then we also asked the very hard question is like, what is your ideal life and week actually like, right. Take the time to actually do the worksheet in order. I tell you my winning formula, how to use awareness, how to use, you know, nurture how to use, you know, conversion. You can do all of that, but none of that matters to me unless it fits into your ideal day and week. And that is going to help you to decide, okay, what are the hours that I might spend on clubhouse? Why is it worth it to me? Because I want you to define what you want. Right? What makes it worth your time to show up in a clubhouse room, do the scary thing, add some value, get in front of people, build your brand, do the work around clarity. Like what is it that gets you to actually do that? And then once you do that, then it’s like, okay, so what time am I going to do it like that? That’s where I want to get you. And that’s how I designed the guy Love. That sounds so awesome. I know our listeners really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you sharing that with everybody. This is episode number 243, and all of our listeners can find you and how to connect with you@theshownotesatsweetlifeco.com, just click on the podcast button. It’s episode number 243. But before we go, what is your clubhouse handled? So everybody can follow you. Yeah. At Annabel, by Han. And then if you went to follow my club, it’s now the club under clubhouse mastermind. And so you could follow me in both places and that will get you right into the content that you want to see. It has mastermind. I love that. Okay. Well we’ll for sure be jumping in your rooms from your club too. I appreciate your expertise and your time so much. Thank you so much. And Thank you for having me.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach I, you guys, and welcome back to the show. We have a little bit of housekeeping to do before, before we dive into tonight’s episode. And so let’s go ahead and talk about that first,
For those of you who are faithful, sweet life podcast listeners, thank you so much. You may have noticed that the previous episode, 241, which dropped on August the 23rd, 2021 was removed. And I want to talk about that. I’m always honest with you guys. And I want to just cut right to the chase. Our guest, who is an amazing human was asked by a former business partner to remove the episode out of respect for our guests.
We removed it, but in almost five years of podcasting, we have never removed an episode or we have never not produced an episode. So first and foremost, I want to apologize to you. This was an amazing episode. It was so good. I want to tell you this, that if you would like to have a recording of this episode, you can get a recording of it by emailing podcast@sweetlifeco.com.
It was an incredible episode, and I will release a recording to you. As long as you send the request to podcast@sweetlifeco.com. So there was a previous episode that was titled how to build a million dollar business with live virtual events. It is incredible. And if you still want a copy of that, I will release it to you. However, we did pull it off of iTunes,
out of respect for our guests and frankly, a very, just messy situation that I’m not going to take our time to talk about what I will say, learning moment here. This is exactly why I don’t like partnerships. You guys is because shit like this happens. So that’s all I’m going to say about it, but I want to thank you for being a listener to this show.
Again, happy to give you a copy of that episode. If you missed it, as long as you email it, the request for episode number 2, 4, 1. Now what’s happened because we had to remove the episode is that our numbers got a little messed up. So last week’s episode, you’ll hear me referring to the show notes as going to episode number 242,
but our numbers kind of squished back one. So this episode that we’re going to talk about here, and yes, I’m talking about live virtual events. It’s a really hot topic we’ve been talking about for almost a year. This episode is officially numbered, 242, but there’s a little bit of some confusion in there because last week’s episode was supposed to be 2 42.
I hope that makes sense to you. You can find all of the show notes for all of the episodes by going to sweet life co.com. Even the show notes for the previously removed episode. And there you have it. So let’s go ahead and dive into what we are going to talk about today. So we’re going to talk about today is answering the question should live virtual events,
be part of your offer. And we’re going to be talking a lot more about live virtual events here on the podcast. We’re going to continue to talk about it and clubhouse with live event, amazing leaders like Barry and blue with Sage and all these great entrepreneurial leaders who are hosting live virtual events. And so we’re going to continue to talk about this here on the show.
So this is definitely not the end of the story. This is the beginning of a, I don’t want to say a launch, an awareness of an amazing way to warm up your audience and pre-qualified buyers, and to increase your sales. So on today’s show, this is for all of you who are ready to scale your business online, and you’re considering maybe webinars in the past.
We’re going to talk about the status of webinars in this show. And we’re going to talk a little bit about how live virtual events compare to webinars as well. So it’s a great show for those of you guys who are coaches and consultants, who are all of our listeners, are your service-based expert who want to grow your leads and increase your sales with pre qualified buyers.
In this show, we unpack the online business model of live virtual events and help you determine if they should be part of your strategy moving forward. So here’s the deal live. Virtual events are not new. In fact, we’ve been doing them for years. They’re an upgrade from the previous old-school sales webinars, and they can be a good option for your business,
but like all business models, they’re totally going to affect your lifestyle and your time. And you know that I geek out on those things for you. There’s nothing worth building. If it’s not going to give you the lifestyle and the time and the profit freedom that you want. And so we’re going to dive into those discussions on two day ship. At the end of this episode,
you will understand the structure of live virtual events. You will compare live virtual events to sales webinars, and know really which one, if either could be a good fit for you. You’re going to know the most common way to fill your live virtual event. So how do we get people in there? And you’re going to have complete clarity as to whether or not this business,
this business model is for you. So again, all this show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com and just click on over there. And this will be the most, most current podcast available if you’re listening to this real time. So let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show So the first question we have to talk about when we’re talking about live virtual events is to answer the question are webinars dead.
If you are in business and you are selling to other entrepreneurs, webinars have been not converting well for about two years. Let me give you some history on this. We first started selling our courses and programs through webinars back in 2008. I mean, that’s like ancient times. That’s like the dark ages of online business. Okay. So webinars and sales conversion,
Weber’s about it had been around for a really long time. So if you are selling to other entrepreneurs who are used to being in webinars all the time, you’re going to have a hard time filling your webinars and converting from your webinars. And so inter live virtual events. Now, if you have a business that doesn’t sell to establish entrepreneurs that are new to webinars,
webinars can work great for you. So we don’t want to totally throw the webinar baby out with the bath water, but I just want to address kind of the elephant in the room and like, Hey, what’s really happening to sales webinars. And so those are just some of the trends that we have seen. So let’s just take a moment of silence of gratitude for the sales webinars of old that have made many of us thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.
Okay. Moment of silence over at times are changing. And here’s the deal. When is the last time that you like raise your hand to be in somebody’s webinar funnel, right? And you’re saying, Hey, you know, please let me sign up for your webinars. So I know you’re going to sell to me. And the last 10 minutes, none of us want that over the last couple years,
we have bond back, which I know when you’re thinking automation and, you know, press and go businesses where you do not want to be present webinars on demand. Evergreen webinars are great, but we’ve been moving back from so much on demand because people, especially in the last year and a half want curated experiences, they want personal attention. They want to know that you know their name or that,
you know, what they look like or that, you know, their story or, you know, people frankly just really like to talk and they like to share what’s going on with them. And so they can’t do that in a webinar setting. But when we curate an atmosphere where people can share where they can talk, where they can share a little bit about why they’re there and what their story is,
all of a sudden we have created an environment where they feel like they belong and that environment can be done in your live virtual event. And it’s magical. So let’s kind of talk about live virtual event structures. The first thing you need to about a leverage event is pretty much just like a webinar format, but instead of using a system like zoom webinar,
where it’s just you up there on the big jumbo screen talking, some of the best live virtual events are where, you know, we can see all your others, attendees faces. So we can use zoom meeting and different software for that as well. Live virtual events are most commonly held in 1, 2, 3 or five day settings. Now these are live events, okay?
These are not prerecorded. These are live events where you get to show up and you bring all your energy and you interact with people and they offer powerful strategies in a workshop setting. It’s like a duet with you setting. That’s what you do when you offer live virtual event. And what’s so cool about them is you can bring in your expert content that perfectly tees up your high end offer,
which you sell at the end, kind of to the middle, to the end of your live virtual event. And because you’re weaving in these emotional journeys and these emotional connections for your attendees throughout your live virtual event, by virtual events, commonly have breakout rooms. People commonly get personal attention, and there’s a lot of implementation that happens within that, the event itself.
So whether or not people actually choose to join your high ticket offer, I fill up virtual events, really give them an amazing transformation. And if you’ve been listening to me in any of my shows for the last four years, you know that I am an engineer of transformational offers. And so anything we do, I believe we need to deliver a transformation and live virtual events are one of the best ways to do this.
Now let me peel back the curtain a little bit more for you. Like I said, we’ve been doing leverage events for years, but the king and queen of live virtual events and how to use live virtual events are Berry and blue with Sage. Let me tell you a little bit about them and I’m going to make sure that you have their information to connect with them further here in our show notes.
So at first connected with barium blue and clubhouse, and they delivered some amazing masterclasses, totally free to hundreds of people throughout late 2020 at the beginning of 2021, when we first all got on clubhouse. And since then I’ve co moderated multiple rooms with blue. And so a lot of the strategies that we use, we have learned from them. This is very important to know like who is the king and queen and the live virtual event space.
Currently. I know there are a lot of other people that are doing it really well. And my friend Eileen Wilder does live virtual events well. And so I just want to make sure that you’re getting all the resources and that you get to tap into and learn from the same amazing leaders that we have been. So we hosting live virtual events for years before this,
in this same setting, but my IQ and how we do our live events is, has really changed. And we’ve been able to curate even better experiences because of these leaders. So I always want to give credit where credit’s due. And so I’ll make sure that you have their resources to some of these amazing leaders in our show notes. So let’s go ahead and we’re going to dive into three different areas of live virtual events.
Now that we’ve talked about the structure of what it is as a business model, before we move on, if you have not yet grab my ultimate guide to online business models and offers, I just updated it to include the details of live virtual events. It’s totally free. It’s 18 pages of the ins and outs of all the different offers and business models that you can deliver in your business.
And I tell you exactly how they will affect your time in your life and your profit. You can pause this podcast episode in just text the word guide to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0. Or you can very simply go to the show notes@sweetlifeco.com and I’ll make sure that that is in there for you as well. Okay. We’re going to talk about live virtual event pros.
We’re going to talk about live virtual event, mid considerations, and we’re going to talk about live virtual events, lifestyle considerations, because at the end of this episode, I want you to be able to answer the question, which is the title of the episode should live virtual events, be part of your offer. And this is how I’m going to help you do that.
So let’s, first of all, talk about the pros of live virtual events, live virtual events, deliver an amazing customer experience. They build deep relationships with your leads and they build trust faster. Now, one of the things you need to know is live virtual events are not offered free. You sell tickets to your library to event or a library to event ticket.
Currently at the recording of this, we commonly host a live virtual event is $77. So it’s not a ton of money. It’s just a little bit of change. But the thing is, is it helps people know that, Hey, you know what, I’m going to show up because I paid for this and I’m expecting to get value. So at the recording of this,
the most common price for live virtual events that are used as conversion tools into higher ticket offers are anywhere from $47 to $97. We picked 77 right in the middle, just so you know. So they’re super fun and high energy. I mean, it feels so good to interact with people and get them results in people really feel like they belong. Live virtual events are answering the need of isolation for a lot of people over the last year and a half.
And they’re different from Sydney to the zoom. They’re just not sitting there in a zoom, you know, having a chat, having a boring chat engineered, just like in person events, live virtual events are engineered and laid out just like we’re there in a room together having this amazing interaction at time live local event, but we’re engineering them to be hosted virtual.
And they’re very, very special and very powerful when you do them, right? And they establish you as an expert and the solution holder for what people need. And they do that in a really fast way. And so therefore live virtual events pre-qualify and they disqualify your perfect buyers. So those are some of the pros of live virtual events. And I want to make sure we just head out the gate with those,
you know, live virtual events for us, again, pulling back the curtain for you in order to host our library to events, we lay out our 12 month calendar of when we’re going to host our live virtual events multiple times a year, and they lead into our signature offer and program. And so it’s really powerful and people love it. And we even have huge faithful fans that chose not to purchase our signature higher ticket program because they got amazing results in our live virtual events.
And they are lifetime fans. They love us because our engineer or the way we engineered our event was so powerful for them. So that’s great. Again, there are some of the pros of live virtual events. Now let’s talk about some of the mid consideration. So these are kind of like lukewarm, not hot, not cold. I just want to make sure you’re aware of these.
If you’re thinking about doing live virtual events, they are alive. They are not pre recorded, live means live. So you have to show up in. So does that align with your personality? Does it align with your schedule? Is that something that you feel like doing? Are you like somebody with high energy energy that loves to interact with people or does that not really align with,
with your personality as a leader? So those are some of the things yeah. You really need to consider when you’re considering this type of business model. Are you good live, are you good on the fly? Can you stand up in front of anybody in teachers zone of genius and how easy is it for you to flow in that? Even though obviously your content is planned,
you’re still alive. It’s like you’re speaking for an extended period of time. And so you need to be comfortable with that. And the other mid consideration before you just go and start launching a live virtual event, is that the architecture of the rest of your funnel. So your marketing in your ads, your lead magnet, and then after your live virtual event,
your call to action into your higher ticket offer has to be nailed. You don’t want to host a live virtual event all by itself until all of the, of the rooms in that house are built. Okay. So it’s, it’s something important I want to mention, because I don’t want you to leave in this show and being like, oh yeah, I’m going to get a live virtual event on the calendar.
We want to reverse engineer your success. If you’re one of my clients and you’re listening to this, you hear me say this all the time. First, we have to know what you’re selling, right? What is that signature program and an offer. And then we can go a little bit closer in, so, okay, what’s a conversion tool in this case,
we’re talking about live virtual events, and then we can go a little bit closer. We can say, okay, what’s that lead back that that’s going to lead into that leverage hold events, lead magnets can be challenges that can be quick little videos. They can be downloads. They could be quizzes or assessments. There’s a variety of lead magnets that people use to feed into leverage events.
The most common lead magnet that everybody is using is a challenge. Just so you know, everybody is using that right now. And it’s working really well. We use that ourselves. Okay. And then you reverse engineer that little bit closer, and what’s your marketing strategy. What’s your ad spend and how are you, how are you filling your live event?
So those are some mid-level considerations that I want you to think about. You know, first we talked about the pros, like the high highs, and now we’re like, okay, let’s come down to earth a little bit here. What actually has to happen in order for you to pull this off and nail it. Okay. Want to make sure that I’m uncovering all of that for you,
and you need to have a consistent flow of new leads to run this model more frequently. So if you want to run a live virtual event every single month, you need to make sure that you have an adequate ad spend or another source to generate leads, new leads into your business to continue to continue to fill your live virtual event every single month. Okay.
Now let’s talk about how this is going to affect your life. And again, this is my favorite thing to talk about because, well, you know, I just came back from taking like all summer off, going around and adventuring and traveling with my kids and, and moving my oldest son back to college and all the things that we do or all of the things we want to do.
Right? And so every time we consider a business model, we first want to consider what is this going to do to your life and your time? And so when we’re talking about live virtual events, it is definitely going to affect your lifestyle and your travel and your family time. And there are some ways around that. As an example, I host zero live virtual events in the summertime because I’m Mia,
right? And you can do that too, but just know that if this is going to be part of your flow, it is going to affect your family time positively or negatively. This could work great for you. Number two, plan your live virtual event, calendar 12 months in advance. You can always then plan your travel, your adventure, your other business operations,
your passion projects, your philanthropy, whatever it is you do, right? So you want to take a 12 month calendar and you want to plot when you are selling or opening your signature program. And then prior to that is when you want to host your live virtual events. So how often are you selling or opening your signature program? Is it available all the time?
Those are some of the things that you want to consider. Number three, many live virtual events that do well are held on the weekends Friday, Saturday, Sundays. How does that work for you? I work on weekends quite often during the months of the year that I work and I love it. My brain works really great. And then some weekends,
I don’t feel like working at all and I totally check out, you know, what does that look like for you? Are you okay with having a business model where the people that are going to attend really need to be there on a Friday, maybe even a Friday night and Saturday and a Sunday. How does that work with you and for your life?
Number four live virtual events that are currently performing well are done in one, two and three day segments. We have shorter live virtual events that do well. So our current live virtual event is a half of a day. It’s awesome. We’re in and out. You’ll love it. Other friends of ours host live virtual events that are for five days. It really depends on what your signature program is and what you’re selling and what content or what transformation needs to happen in that live virtual event.
If you’re talking to Barry in blue with Sage, they love three-day live virtual bats, but just know for you. Are you cool with doing leverage events that could be three days straight or five days straight? What does that look like to you? Number five, really think about scheduling these on repeat for your lifestyle considerations. These do need to be on repeat.
So some of our clients, and we have a lot of clients right now that we’re coaching and working with them to design and build their live virtual event. Some of our clients are doing them every six weeks hosting their live virtual event. Every six weeks, some of them are doing them quarterly. So what does that look like for you? Do you want to host a live virtual event every month or every quarter or every trimester,
whatever that works, whatever that looks like for you, just make sure that you are looking at that 12 month calendar. Like we talked about before and scheduling them on repeat, do you have to do this? No. I’m just teaching you and sharing with you, how we scale businesses for higher profit, right? You can host one live virtual event and it can be just one little Allah cart event and it’s great and you’re done,
but that becomes more like a signature offer program that changes your live virtual event from being a conversion tool into your signature offer or program. If that makes sense. And then the last thing, just being really honest, what does that really look like? As far as your energy and your personality, are you like the super high energy person and you love engaging with others or you,
somebody that is like, wow, you know what? I just don’t know if I can be at that higher energy for that period of time. Now let’s dive into that being very real. First of all, your live virtual event is going to be yours. It does not mean you have to have dance parties. Can I just say for the record?
I hope I don’t hurt anybody’s feelings. I can’t stand the dance parties. If you get me on your live virtual event and have me dance, I am not liking you very much. It’s just not who I am. So what I’m seeing is you do you in our live virtual events, I will never make you dance, but I do like have you get up and have you get a drink and have you get a snack.
And we do put on music. We do a lot of music, but I’m not going to make you dance on zoom. And I’m a dance mom. Okay. So you do you, your leverage events don’t have to be like super high energy.<inaudible> I’m not like that. You don’t have to be like that. And you can still have an amazing event.
You can have a three-day meditation prayer event. I don’t care what it is, but just make sure that whatever event you are curating, that it aligns with your energy and that you want to do it. Because if you’re building something that you don’t really want to do, number one, you’re going to suck at it. And number two, your sales are going to suffer.
And that is a fact, okay. Keeping it real here on the show. Okay. So let’s recap today. We talked about should live live virtual events, be part of your offer. We talked about what they are, the structure of live virtual events, the pros and cons of library, virtual event, and some mid tier business model considerations. We talked about the current format of the funnels that are being built into live virtual events.
We talked about, who’s doing them. We talked about how we do them. And we uncovered, you know, and pulled back the curtains about our live virtual events. And we also covered whether or not you should be selling with webinars. We actually covered a lot of ground in this episode, and I’m meant for this to be more of a foundational episode about live virtual events,
but we’re going to be talking about them a lot more. We teach our clients in our wave makers program about live virtual events and we help people engineer live virtual events. If you want to work with us to learn how to engineer and layout your live virtual events, you can find us@sweetlifecoat.com and apply to work with us at any time. We would love to meet you.
And if you just want to take this information and run with it, awesome, please do it. Take a screenshot of this episode. Let me know if you’re thinking about doing live virtual events, I would love to follow you on Instagram and cheer you on. You can find me at April beach life. All right, you guys. And again, all of the show notes for this can be found@sweetlifeco.com
to recap. This is technically going to be number two for two, but last week’s episode was also talked about being number 2 42. And that was only because we had to take down the episode the week before that lots of drama. I hate drama. Okay. So we’re cleaning this up for you and moving forward next week, moving into fall. So excited for fall here to be here on the Northern hemisphere.
And then for those of our friends, and we have so many of you guys that listen that are down and under, first of all, praying for you guys that you’re all well and thinking about you guys, and hopefully as the seasons change for you down there, that circumstances will change for you as well. Okay. You guys have an awesome week and I appreciate your listenership and I appreciate your subscribing and I appreciate Your sharing this episode,
and I will talk to you. Bye for now.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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You’re listening to the life entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach, Come back to the show. I’m April beach. And today we are talking about how to make it money while still having fun. Now, I know that sounds like a Super cheesy title, and you might think that we’re not going to talk about anything very serious here,
but that is definitely not the case in this show. I am breaking down the strategies to actually make this happen. So let me go ahead and set the stage for what we’re going to talk about today. First of all, this is episode number 242. So if you’re a new listener, all the things that we talk about, all the links that I share, oftentimes we give away these huge free resources with episodes can be found by going to sweet life co.com clicking on podcast. And you can just search by episode number 2 42. So if you’re on the go, don’t worry about missing any of this because we will have it waiting there for you in the show notes at our website. This episode is great for those of you in any stage of business. So our company, the Sweetlife company, we consult entrepreneurs who are launching, scaling and amplifying a coaching consulting or service focused business. And usually I’d like to break up the episodes because we give you step-by-step business strategies that other coaches charge thousands for here on the show, totally free, but not every business strategy is great for every business, right? So where you are in your business tells us what strategies you need to be using to get to the next level. And so oftentimes I break up these episodes saying, okay, if you’re in this phase of business, listened to this show, or if you’re in this second phase and listen, honestly, this show is great for everybody. So regardless of where you are in our business growth system phase, this show is going to be really good for you because there are a lot of people that are making a lot of money that are not happy at all. And we talk about that on the show today. So your bonus resource, which is really powerful, which you can just pause and grab right now is the ultimate guide to online business models. Okay? So this means online offers. We have a massive ultimate guide that you can grab just by going to Sweetlife co.com forward slash ultimate business guide. Okay? So that’s available for you now, again, anybody in any phase of business, this show’s going to be a great one for you as a lifestyle entrepreneurial lifelong entrepreneur. I seriously cannot imagine a life where somebody else has directed my time and my energy and my location, my schedule. So this episode, like all others were talking about how to make money while being happy, but it’s just for entrepreneurs. You’re not going to catch a drift for me here on the show about how to do this by working for corporate America. So the summary of what we’re talking about is the fact that money doesn’t buy happiness definitely takes the edge off. I hear you for sure, but when it comes to being truly happy and fulfilled, most people will consider time. Family health love giving, helping others, adventuring and traveling as the real prize of life. And so in this show, I’m breaking down a two punch formula for a profitable business that makes you really, really happy. And here’s a really quick behind the scenes. Okay? This show is dedicated to my son, Tim, and he’s actually been a guest here on the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. Before years ago, I interviewed my son, Tim beach on episode number 84. You can go back and listen to it about what it’s like growing up in a lifestyle, entrepreneur and family. But this morning we’re literally packing his car right now to take him back to college. I’m about to, I’m literally recording this episode. So funny share with you guys like ultimate beside the seeds. I’m recording this show because I didn’t get a chance to batch because we’ve been out having so much fun this week, I’m recording the show, sending it to my amazing producer. And I’m getting in the car with him and driving him all the way from Colorado to Delaware to go back to college. And so we’re sitting here and I’m thinking to myself today, man, I really need to record this great show. And I have this other show totally lined up that I was going to record for you guys today. And he asked me the question, which is the title of this show. And so this show is dedicated to him. He said, how do I make money while still being happy, mom? And I was like, yeah, it’s such a great question. And I will teach you. I’ll teach you how to do it. Just like I’m going to teach you guys here on this episode. So anyway, this show is dedicated to Tim. And by the time you listened to this, I will be somewhere in a car halfway across the country or on my way home from dropping him off. So let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show today. We’re going to talk about what is a lifestyle entrepreneur, how to engineer your offer so that people always buy them and how to know if an opening close cart is right for your lifestyle and your business. Ooh, that was a long intro. Thanks for hanging. All right, let’s go ahead and do it. So, first of all, how to make money while having fun. All right. So to answer that question, it’s also asking the question, how to become a lifestyle entrepreneur. All right. So how to make money while having fun, AKA, how to be a lifestyle entrepreneur. So, first of all, we need to dive into the definition of a lifestyle entrepreneur. If you go right now on Instagram and you search the hashtag lifestyle entrepreneur, you are going to see like Ferrari’s and like half naked girls on the beach, all the things. I’m not sure where we went wrong, but expensive cars and huge mansions do not me, lifestyle entrepreneurship. So somebody hacked that hashtag, but I’m telling you, I grew up in a true lifestyle, entrepreneur family. I have a true lifestyle, entrepreneur family, and it’s not driven primarily by money. So what is a lifestyle entrepreneur, a lifestyle entrepreneur designs, their business in such a way that it enables the lifestyle they want to live true. Lifestyle entrepreneurs are not driven by profit. They’re driven by the ability to have the freedom lifestyle that they want. Oftentimes this freedom lifestyle is centered around action, adventure, sports traveling, and a flexible schedule. And while some lifestyle entrepreneurs have a primary business location, other lifestyle entrepreneurs want to be location independent. So it has to do with what you’re doing with your time. There are ways to make money working for other people, working for corporate America, but a true lifestyle. Entrepreneur is one where no one else is directing your energy, your location, your schedule. And so this lifestyle entrepreneurship is how we engineer your business to actually give you the lifestyle that you love. And so to answer this question, I am breaking this episode into two parts within this one show here where it’s just two punch right here. Okay. So first of all, we’re going to take on the question, how to make money, and then we’re going to dive into the question about having fun. Okay. So first of all, let’s talk about how to make money. So how you make money as an entrepreneur is by designing and delivering a highly valuable offer. Okay. So I’m an offer architect. I know that sounds so geeky, but it really all starts with your offer. You guys, right? All the marketing in the world cannot save you if you have a shitty offer and you’re not good at giving people amazing results. All right. So number one is designing this highly valuable offer and here are some steps to do that. First of all, you need to solve a big problem. So my, one of my amazing clients, I love her so much. Her name is Lauren lavender. She says it is a painkiller, Lauren lavender calls the solution to somebody’s problem, the painkiller like the medicine. And so I love that analogy and it just helps a lot of people see it clearer. And so I love to share that that’s what Lauren calls it. So solving a big problem. And this goes with identifying your ideal client’s struggles as it relates to your area of expertise. So really pinpointing this. And if you were new in business and you’re listening to this episode, this is also what we call your M P your minimum buyable product, okay. Or program, because we’re not, you know, making physical products here. In most cases, most of our listeners don’t do that. So this is the first solution that you need people to understand that you deliver and that they’re willing to pay for. So how to design a highly valuable offer, you have to solve a highly important problem, or you can fulfill a highly desirable solution. Okay. Number two, design, a winning customer experience. This is huge you guys. And especially as we’re seeing the evolution and the change in online business offers the growth in the coaching and the consulting industry over the last couple of decades, it’s really important that your offer is able to be personalized, that you have the ability to enable some sort of customization. That’s how we design highly valuable offers. It is not by doing it with cookie cutter solutions, unless your business model is to serve the masses. Some of the ways I know you’re probably thinking April, you know, highly customized offers. It’s really hard to scale. It’s actually not. When you break down your method and your framework, then you put it into a winning customer experience where that your customers, it’s kind of like those choose your own adventure books that, that many of us used to read as kids, your customers can pick their path and enabling things like artificial intelligence and bringing in like CX focused team members. For those of you guys that are scaling your business and allowing them to customize their journey through your leading program is how we design a winning customer experience. Even if you have 500 people in your program at once, we can still customize it. And I just challenge you right now, just if you have an existing offer to take a look at that and make sure that you are delivering that personalized, custom winning experience for your clients as much as possible within your content. The next step to designing a highly valuable offer is to determine your position on scarcity versus availability, right? So let me say that again, determine your personal viewpoint, your decision on scarcity versus availability. This is answering the question. Should I offer my product all the time, or should I offer my product on a limited time basis? This applies to those of you guys who are considering doing what we call an evergreen course or an evergreen program, or creating a program where somebody can join all the time, or is this something that they can only join once, twice or three times a year? And here’s why this is important when we’re talking about how to make money. If you are new in business, this is a warning to you. If you are new in business, open and close programs are tough for businesses that have not reached consistent 10 K months in businesses that have not hit list growth. Like you don’t have an audience yet. If you were brand new, open and closed programs are tough because it puts all your eggs in one basket and you can’t open your program and then close it. And then two weeks later say, oh yeah, I’m going to open it again because only two people joined scarcity versus availability. There is no right or wrong way, but I do want to make sure that you’re thinking about how that affects your life. And you have to determine, are you okay with only making money a couple times a year? Or does it bring you personally more peace to have a consistent revenue generation every single month or quarterly or whatever that flow looks like to you? So psychologically as a business owner, you need to think about how it affects you. But also if you’re a new in business, I just going to send a warning about being very careful about open and closed programs, because we need to make you known. We need to have you gain traction before you close the door and not letting any new clients in, just because some marketing person told you, you should do it for scarcity sales, the next thing nail your minimum viable product. Okay? So this is what you’re known for. You want to determine what it is that you really want to be known for. You can be known for all the things, but it’s going to take you a long time to get there, like a lifetime. We want to pick one. We want to pick one thing at first and I promise you, I promise you. You’re not going to get stuck at it, but you want to pick one thing at first that you want to be known for and you sell the heck out of that painkiller, you sell the heck out of that solution and you own that space. And then you can grow into other solutions and then you can grow into other ways. Here is an example of that. I bet you had no idea that my first consulting firm, oh my gosh. How long ago is this? Now about 17 years ago that I am the creator of the parent coaching and baby planning industry. The whole industry, I wrote the scope of practice for it. This company is still run. See, and you leave. You don’t even know that probably I have entire separate business consulting firm that coaches businesses, that market to new and expecting families. And we have clients in 17 countries. It’s crazy, right? I wasn’t stuck there. And so I’m just telling you this. I promise you when you nail one thing, right? It gives you a springboard to do all the other things. So make sure that you’re nailing this one thing that you want to be known for. And then you can grow into other things and really sit down the last step to designing a highly valuable oper is crunching your numbers. And we call this your profit matrix. You need to understand how many people you need to sell to at your determined program price. And then you need to decide, and these are kind of scary numbers that nobody really tells you. So I want to make sure, you know, you need to decide how many people that you need to reach in order to convert into sales at your goal number of people to sell each month, right? So if you want a 15 or 20% sales conversion, and you want to have 10 new people join your program each month, then that means you need to reach that total number with your marketing, taking into consideration, converting it 15, 20, 30%, whatever you believe based on your conversion strategy that you can convert at. And so you have to crunch the numbers. You have to know your numbers, and once you know how many people you need to reach, then that leads us into your marketing strategy. Do you do paid ads? Do you do affiliate partnerships or are you doing everything in sweat equity, content creation and posting, and it’s really going to give you some clarity on how you’re going to hit that highly valuable, highly profitable marker. You have to look at your numbers. And so that’s answering the first part of what we’re talking about today on how to make money. Again, we’re talking about how to make money while still having fun. So the money part is basically you need to have an industry leading rock star leading program. That truly leads the way. And as a complete side plug, don’t forget, we have our, your leading offer masterclass that is available for you to take at any time cruise over to sweetlifeco.com. And you can learn more about how to be involved in the, your leading offer masterclass. And we go through the whole process with you in developing industry, leading programs and offers. Okay, now let’s talk about the second part of this. How to have fun. Now I know it’s silly question, right? Like I’m not an expert in you. You’re an expert in you, but I’m an expert in the business modeling standpoint. So let me just give you some tips on how to understand how to really have fun doing what you’re doing and it all starts with your business model. Do you remember in the beginning of this episode, when I’m like go grab the ultimate guide to business models and online offers that is going to give you all of the answers that you have been looking for on what’s going to make me happy, what I should launch. So your business model is how you work with clients and deliver your services. So examples are one-on-one coaching group coaching hybrid coaching live courses on demand courses, hybrid courses, memberships, or re occurring revenue programs, live virtual events, local events, retreats, masterminds, accelerator programs, incubator programs, licensing programs, certification programs, train the trainer programs, just straight business consulting. This also helps you how you want to deliver your services. Are you delivering services that are done with you done for you or consult you? And what I mean by that is how are you taking the content that you’re giving to your amazing clients? And are you giving it to them in such a way that you’re actually doing the work for them? Are they hiring you just to do it all and say, here you go, fix it for me. Is it a hybrid way between you helping them figure it out and doing a little bit of the work with them? Or is it strictly where you were showing up and telling them how to do it? And they have to go out and do it all on their own. And so the very first thing to determine how to have fun is that it all starts with your business model. And let me pull back the curtain some more and share why I know this. So I have run successful programs and profitable programs in every single one of these business models. And I’ll be honest. It affects my life as a mom. They affect my life. As you know, just leading my family and wanting to travel. Each business model is going to affect your life. So your choice on whichever one of these, you want to release as your leading profit making program. Again, you know, courses, coaching memberships, masterminds in your ability to create your blueprint. So your suite of offers and bringing it together is totally going to affect your life. So we want you to start at the end and inside that ultimate guide, I break down each one of these primary leading online coaching and consulting business models for you. But then what you’re going to read in there, as I tell you how it’s going to affect your life, how it affects your time, how it affects your cadence, how it affects your family, how it affects your travel and how it affects your bottom line and your profit. So you’re not only going to get a list of those offers that you can choose from. I tell you literally how it will affect your life and you can bank on that because I have done it. And I want to make sure that what you’re building you’re really going to love. So I want to save you years of building something that you hate, because somebody told you to, or because it looks sexy on an Instagram ad. So first go grab that guide. Secondly, determine your weekly cadence. Okay? So this is how you flow through your perfect week. What do you want to be doing? And I know this kind of sounds a little pie in the sky, but this is very serious work. You need to determine what do you want to be doing in your perfect weekly cadence when your business is where you really want it to be? Do you work out in the morning? Do you work out in the afternoon? Do you go for walks? Do you go ride your horse, you know, to go surfing, whatever it is, what is your family time look like? What is your time in personal development? Look like? Do you want to be reading a book or reading a book? Do you want to be helping other people? Do you want to be really active in philanthropy and giving back to your community? What does that perfect weekly cadence look like to you? And then also ask yourself, how do I want to be working with clients? How do I want to be connecting with my team? How do I want to be connecting with my colleagues and other business partners? The answer to this is going to give you super power, vision and clarity on what business model is going to equal that for you. How many days a week will you work? How many months, a year do you work? There are some business models that are so powerful. This is content licensing that literally, I only work one month, a year in my other consulting business because of the fact that we license out our courses and our content to others, the companies and companies line up literally the way for me to work one month, a year to approve releases of content. You can do that. You can grade that business model. If you only want to work one month. Great, let’s build that for you. And so I want you to know that that is available to you. And you know, really another question I think is really important that isn’t discussed so much is we talked about it again a few minutes ago, but are you comfortable only making money a couple of times a year? That can be pretty scary, you know, needing to have a six figure launch because that’s, what’s going to sustain you for the rest of the year. How does that really work for you? Does that really work for you? Is that the way that works best for your clients? If it does awesome. We have so many clients that love their live launch business models. I’m telling you personally, I hate them personally for me, but it doesn’t mean that my clients aren’t great at them and they love them for them. That’s what’s the power of business design is deciding what works best for you and reverse engineering it to make sure it’s making you money and really diving into those questions and getting really real with yourself about how you feel about those. And then the next question I want you to ask yourself is what actually makes you happy? Like, what do you love to do in your work? Do you love working with people? One-on-one do you love hosting zoom meetings where your whole community is coming together? Do you love delegating and empowering all this stuff to your team? And what do you love to do outside your work? What are your sports for hobbies? What hobbies did you used to have when you’re a kid that maybe you and you haven’t done? And you’re like, man, I really wish I could take up this thing again, because I was really great at it. We want to that into your business future so that you will actually be able to do that. So to be happy in your work, you need to design your work to make you happy to make money in your work. We need to design your offers to make you money. And that’s how we go about it. So it’s offer plus business model equals how to make money while having fun. And it’s a simple formula and it’s super surprising how many people don’t do it. And so I want to make sure that you have the power and the insight and the knowledge so that you can do it. You know, most people think, gosh, if I make money, I’m just going to be happy and that’s not oftentimes the case. So we want you to make a ton of money and do it in such a way that you’re going to be super-duper over the top happy. And it’s going to be no big deal for you to jump in the car and drive halfway across the country. After recording a podcast episode, after taking three weeks off work, just to go play with your kids or whatever it is that you want to do, I’m here to support you and give you the proven strategies to do that. The truth is honestly, when you’re happy in your life and your work, that’s when you make the most amount of money. And so to recap, we talked about how to make money and be happy. We broke it into two parts. We broke out, offer architecture as the primary part of this, your offer is going to be the driver. And then your business model is the part that makes you happy. The offer strategy, the value of your offer. That’s how we get you to the profit benchmarks that you want to be at. Your business model is how we design it within your life in a way that you’re super going to love everything that you’re doing and the ultimate guide to online offers and business models. Just go grab it. It’s totally free is going to save you years and years and years of time by seeing behind the scenes of how each one of these business models has affected our family. And I just lay it all out there for you, for you to consider how that could affect yours as well. You can grab that by going to Sweetlife co.com forward slash online business guide, or you can also get it by texting the word guide. So just one word guide to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0. Again, text the word guide to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0. And of course we’ll have all this in the show notes for you as well. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I have a very eager college student waiting outside in the driveway with his car, packed, waiting for mom to pile in and take another road trip adventure. So with that, I will talk to you guys next week. Be awesome. And I can’t wait to hear how you guys are using your business model and what you’ve chosen to be best for you. If we aren’t connected on Instagram yet hit me up. I’m April beach life on Instagram, and I would love to know your ultimate business model in the one you are building For high profit. All right. You guys be awesome. Talk to you soon.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. You guys welcome back to two of the systems that scale show here on the Sweetlife entrepreneurial business podcast, we have a very special guest Rachel Cook. And if you missed episode number 238, please just pause it here.
You can come back to this right after you listened to episode number 238, because I want to make sure you don’t miss any foundational parts of what we’re talking about today. I want to make sure you leave with a whole entire clear business picture on the systems that you need to scale your business. Today’s guest is our returning expert. Racheal Cook. She’s an award-winning business strategist who believes entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be so complicated.
And over the last decade, she’s helped thousands of women entrepreneurs designed predictably profitable businesses without the hustle and burnout. And Rachel’s work has been featured in places like fast company, us chamber of commerce and other resources online. And she is an Amazon, Amazon bestselling author of the fire and up and focused challenge in your business sweet spot. And when you tune into last week’s episode,
you’ll hear that I have been a huge fan of Rachel Cokes for a very long time. So this is a very special treat for me personally, to be able to bring her on today’s show so that you can learn her amazing simplified strategies to scale your business. In today’s show, we’re going to talk about the importance of following systems and creating systems for your business,
including marketing systems, sales systems, and customer-facing user experience systems for coaches, consultants and service-based online businesses. So if you are at the point where you are trying to scale, you’re struggling to scale and you know that the systems part of it is the missing piece. Then this is the episode that you need to be paying attention to of course, partnering with last week’s episode,
number 238 and all of the show notes and everything we’re talking about today can be found by visiting sweet life co.com and simply click on the podcast as well as all the places where you can connect with Rachel tap into Rachel’s amazing challenges. The ones that initially connected me to her over eight years ago in so many other places where you can learn from Rachel directly.
All right, so let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show. Now let’s jump to the next area of systems that companies need to have in place to scale. Yeah, we had talked, I the earlier about, you know, each time you add a new offer to your business, you have to make sure you have a marketing system, a sales system,
and a customer experience or a delivery system for each offer. So you almost need to do an audit of your business and figure out what are the things that you’re doing in each of those that are working and what aren’t working. Because often I find that we’re doing things because we feel like we should do them or that’s because how everyone else does it or how the industry says to do it.
But if we pop the hood and take a look under there, we realize, oh, maybe this actually doesn’t work that great for me. So thinking about marketing, I’m always thinking through the framework I mentioned before the marketing pieces attract, engage, nurture, so attract getting it in front of brand new people. Who’ve never heard about, you don’t know who you are,
what you do, what your brand is about. Engage is getting those people to kind of raise their hand and go, oh, I’m interested in learning a little bit more. I want to connect with you and learn more about what you talk about, what you have to offer. And then nurture is actually building the relationship and helping them to build that know like,
and trust so that they are like, oh yeah, April is the person I want to learn from. Or April’s the person who’s going to solve this problem for me. And then I’m ready to have a conversation about what the thing is that I’m buying from you. If you don’t have a clear idea of what your strategy for each one of those is going to be,
it tends to be throw spaghetti at the wall marketing, right? And that is the biggest waste of time. And this is where I see so many people burning themselves out. They create these ideas of all the things they think they need to do all the places they think they need to be, but nothing works together and pulls people in a singular direction.
So for example, in my business, my number one attract strategy is doing interviews on podcasts. See, And you guys are all gonna follow her after this and eat up everything she puts Out. So interviews on podcast is my number one strategy. How did I realize it was my number one strategy? I actually went back, looked at my last 10 or 25 or a hundred clients.
I pay attention to where they came from. And if 80% are coming from podcast interviews, then I’m going to do more podcast interviews. And I intentionally designed systems around it. And when I was able to, I hired someone whose whole role in my business is to pitch me for podcast interviews, because we know that it drives results. So we’re putting a system in place we’re tracking it.
We’re adjusting when we realized this one thing is working really well. Once I do a podcast interview, what happens? Well, I’ve already mentioned the fired up and focused challenge, which one is one of my best performing engaged pieces of content I’ve ever created. So it’s free value where people can come get into my ecosystem and learn more about me and how I operate once they do that.
We’re nurturing them with our podcast, promote yourself, CEO. And every week they’re getting more content along the same types of topics as the fired up and focused challenge and what we’re talking about now. So it’s all very congruent. It’s keeping people on a similar learning path. So everything is mostly audio because we know if they like podcasts and they like podcast interviews,
and we want to make it really congruent for people to access all the content that I’m sharing. It’s all designed to travel with them. And that system is just rinse and repeat for us rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat you. Won’t see me add much complexity to that. I might do experiments here and there. We’re going to drag you on clubhouse.
Well, And that’ll be a fun experiment. Like I am. I’m always open for experiments. When I have the bandwidth to play around with them. I find that there are certain things I could take away from my business and it would not impact the bottom line. I could go silent on Instagram and it would not change the revenue I bring into my business.
But if I go silent on my podcast, it will absolutely change the revenue I bring into my business. Right. So you have to know what actually works for you and be able to track so that you can make those smarter decisions. And it follows that 1, 1, 1 rule, like you just need one thing in each thing and make sure it makes sense for your people.
So that’s kind of a marketing system is what is your attract strategy? Where are you sending them? How are you engaging with them? And then what’s your nurture strategy? How can you make sure that all of those things are very symbiotic. They’re all working together in this really easy to manage ecosystem. Now, as the CEO, it doesn’t mean you have to be doing all of those things a hundred percent by yourself.
Your goal should be to have other people who are helping you deliver those things, because the most important thing for any business is consistent marketing. If you turn off the marketing, it’s like driving your gas tank down to empty, and then hoping you’re going to go somewhere. You’re just not. So if you’re starting to feel like you’re on a content hamster wheel and you’re exhausted and you feel like I don’t have time for this stuff,
then you had to hire some help and have team to help you with that. So I have team that helps me with every part of that. Literally the biggest part of my role in all of it is to sit right here in this chair with this big microphone and talk, everybody else handles all the other moving parts of that. All I have to do is sit down and talk,
which makes it sustainable. So if you can answer those three things, you will have a marketing strategy that becomes scalable. And if you’re willing to keep it simple and instead focus on the quality of what you’re putting out there, instead of the quantity of places you are on, you will see amazing results. Hmm. I love that. And I think that’s important for our listeners to hear as well,
you know, especially with so much push to, to be everywhere and do all the things. And I really, it’s just so important in, in fundamentally proven and Just think about everybody points back to, we talked about Gary V and how he’s like be everywhere. Do all the things. If you follow him long enough, you’ll realize he has a team of about 15 to 20 people who all they do is follow him around all day,
record everything coming out of his mouth and then repurpose that into tons of content. So he is not doing that on his own. He has a massive team that is producing at that volume. And his play is as an influencer. He has to be everywhere because that is his approach is widespread messaging. That’s not everybody’s approach. So if your approach is you have a very specific topic,
a very specific niche, a very specific person you’re trying to talk to go deep. You don’t have to be shallow and playing on the surface level, trying to reach as many people as possible. You can go deep with a smaller group. Well, And I love that you said that too. And I think that this will resonate quite a bit with our audience as well.
Is it? You said something. I think I wrote it down here, somewhere in my, in my notes, but you said that you’d rather be, you know, incredibly significant for a smaller group of people than superficial and barely making an impact to thousands and millions. And I think that that is really an important differentiator because it is a different business model.
And I think that maybe even starting there, if you guys are listening to this and you’re like, oh, you know, which, which approach do I really take? Listen to what Rachel said and think about what aligns with what you want to do, your significance, your impact, and frankly, your, your business model in your, your life.
I mean, listen to the show, you guys know me, we’re always talking about building, you know, really the life we build the business, you build life. Like, what do you, what do you really want? And so building a profitable business with a small audience is done all the time again and again and again and again. And so I think that that is maybe the first step as our listeners are thinking through what you said for you guys to think about,
you know, how does this really fit into, you know, really what I want my big picture to be, who do I really want to be in this space? And how does that align with how I see myself in my significance? And so I really appreciate that. You said that. So we talked about scaling with teams. We talked about scaling with marketing.
I really, your simple marketing three-step system is amazing. And then the third area that you were going to share with us today is scaling through your customer experience. Yeah, yeah. That I love this too, because I feel like no one talks about customer experience. Everybody is so focused on the brand new people coming in the front door that they forget about all their clients are losing out the back door.
And the reality is most strong, successful, sustainable businesses. It’s not about the one-time sale. It’s about the repeating sale. It’s about the lifetime customer value. And these are things that I feel like no one talks about these days. But if you look at any traditional business model, which is the world I come from, they’re always looking at who is their customer and how are they getting those people to continue,
right. Customers. So retaining them as customers getting repeat business from them, getting rave reviews from them, getting referrals from them and just having those people continuously engage with them. And if we change it, our perspective there, instead of putting all of our effort on the front end and into putting it behind the scenes and how we take care of our clients,
it gets a customer for life versus a customer that’s one time. And I think this is a huge differentiator for a lot of people. If you think about the research shows that it’s seven times easier to keep an existing customer than to go out there and buy a new one. Well, we know right now that there’s more noise than ever before. Ad costs are going up.
It’s harder to break through than ever before. Our industries are becoming more saturated. They’re becoming more sophisticated. Taking care of your people is one of the simplest things that will help you to stand out. And it does not mean that it needs to be complicated or it needs to be expensive. It just needs to be thoughtful. So a huge piece of this is actually thinking through the delivery of what you’re doing.
And this is like the bare minimum, the delivery of your promise and your product program or service needs to be thoughtfully done and not just thrown together at the last minute. And I’ve seen this happen so many times, especially in this online world where people are so focused on how big the launch is that they forget that on the back end of those launches is upwards of a 10 to 20% default or refund rate.
And the reason that is so high across the industry is because the customer experience is terrible because there’s no follow up with those clients because they buy something. And then it’s like, thanks for your purchase. And they never hear from that person again, there’s no personal attention given. So this is one thing where we want to scale deliverability in a way that brings back the human touch to business.
And I think we’ve gone so far in the direction of automation that it’s been to our own detriment. Like the idea of everything should be evergreen. Everything should be automated. It’s left a whole lot of people right now who are saying things like, I don’t want to buy another course, right? I didn’t open this course. I didn’t complete this course.
I didn’t get as much value as I thought I’d get out of this. But if we do a few things differently, they would have a different opinion and a few simple, simple things. You can do one, you can continue doing the automated things like you should have some sort of email delivery reminding people to go in and use the thing. They just bought coaching them through it,
answering questions, highlighting cool things going on in the community that is like the bare minimum that is highly scalable. But then do the things that don’t scale because the things that don’t scale or the things that are memorable Heights, this is one huge thing. We forget that some of the most amazing businesses in the world will still pick out a few people to send amazing experiences to they’re still upgrade people’s experiences.
And that’s how we end up with these customers for life. So one of the things that we do, I mean, these are just little things. One is we actually track our clients progress through our programs. And if we see in our coaching platform that we use that they’re getting stuck, or they’re not moving forward in their plan that we’re tracking with them.
If they’re not responding, if they’re hiding, we proactively reach out and we’re like, Hey, what’s going on? Right? And half the time they’re surprised. They’re like, hold on. How’d you know, and it’s like, well, we can tell that you haven’t logged into anything. We haven’t seen you on any calls. And so we’re concerned,
are you okay? How can we help? And to some people, that’s all they need. They just need that little nudge. And sometimes it opens up a whole like, oh, I’m stuck or I’m having a hard time and we can get them back on track and deliver the promise of our offer. But if we let them default into overwhelm or I don’t know what to do,
then they’ll fall off. And there’s another customer who feels less than happy about the experience they had with us, as opposed to a customer. Who’s like, oh my gosh, they actually reached out and checked in on me. Right. It’s just bringing that human approach. Right. And, you know, and even small things like you were saying, writing like a handwritten card and dropping it in the mail.
And we were talking about this. And one of our programs is where identifying where that places, where people can, whether it’s the hardest work in the program or the part that’s not fun and doing that phone call then. And, and I think that, so it’s really interesting. Again, there’s a certain need to have a, a higher level perspective on the evolution of online business to have this conversation about,
you know, being in this space for a good deal of time. So I actually speak about this often on the show, but just for our listeners that haven’t heard that yet. There’s an evolution of like courses like the, we’re talking about where we used to do these like huge courses and set it and forget it. And evergreen, huge launches and people ate him up and he was amazing.
And then like 2015 came along, 17 came along and now we’re to the point where only 6% of people are completing online courses. And I love what you said, it’s doing the things that don’t scale. It’s doing the things that actually matter. Like, okay, if I’m a teacher and I’m actually trying to teach people and not just sell them into my big launch,
what do they really need from me? And I love that you share that you guys do that because you, that those are the things that separate the oil from the water. When we’re talking about businesses that really, really delivering a transformation to their clients and their students. Yeah. And this is important if you’re delivering a transformation, you just have to know that the industry has shifted away from the automation,
the evergreen, I know that’s what everybody’s selling right now because they made their money on it five years ago. But right now, what is getting those clients stick around. And like, we had a 90% renewal rate of our program this past year, 90% of the people who took it last year, renewed again this year. Okay. And you guys,
Rachel has a year-long CEO program. We’re going to make sure you know about, so this isn’t like joining us for, these are people that have worked with her for a year. 90% of them are like, I want to stay with you. They want to continue. And they’re either continuing in the same program or they’re upleveling to work with my team in a higher level one-on-one way.
And when you start looking at it from that different lens, it’s like, does it make sense for us to send a handwritten note? Yeah. Does it make sense for us to say, Hey, do you want to come to Richmond for just a small peer mastermind day? Here’s some people who live in the area, let’s just send them a quick invite.
Heck yet, does, does it make sense that we ship out books and print planners and all these things that five years ago, people thought I was crazy when I was mailing out little bundles to my clients. And I’m like, but you don’t understand. These are the tools that I think will help them and they get it. And they’re like, it feels like Christmas because no one gets that stuff.
So it’s not about sending a gift. That’s just like a fun thing. It’s about how can you make this experience thoughtful? How can you show people that you’re really committed to the result that you’ve promised them? Does it mean that if you see somebody struggling, you offer to jump on a quick 15 minute call. Yeah. I mean, this past year we have gone through new babies.
We have gone through miscarriages. We have gone through divorces. We’ve gone through weddings. We have gone through movies across the country. We’ve gone through spouses, losing jobs. We went through the global pandemic. We went through a crazy election cycle. We went through all sorts of things. And at the end of the day, it’s the commitment to saying,
you know what? As a team, it doesn’t take us a ton of extra time each week to sit down and go, Hey, who could use a little extra love and check in with our team of mentors, check in with who’s running our communities and say, who could use a little extra something from us? Do they need a little email? I’ll send video emails out to people.
Do they need a little extra love? Do they need a reminder? Hey, we’re here for you. Those are the things that stand out compared to just feeling like another number on a list that paid, you know, a couple of thousand dollars for a program. And that program designer, celebrity, entrepreneur doesn’t know who you are, right? It’s a whole different experience.
Does that mean every business needs to be as high touch in their approach as I am at this point, no, you don’t have to be at all. You can definitely scale up lower price point things and have a more hands-off delivery of it. But I think this is where you have to know your purpose and the work that you’re doing in the world and how you want to do it.
There’s no right or wrong. I’m just giving a different perspective of, I would rather work in a really meaningful way. Go really deep with people have clients who work with me for a few years at a time. And then they come around and tell me the things they’ve been able to do. You know, like my husband quit his job and is working with me full time.
I was able to take two months off this summer and the business kept making money. I was able to hire people in my team to deliver my course. And all I have to do is show up a couple times a month. Like those types of things are really exciting to me because it does give them back the freedom and the life that they really want.
And I love how you design businesses. And that’s why I’ve followed you for so many years. All of these really, I don’t want to say common sense because they, they aren’t common unless you’ve gone through the process of seeing what else is out there. But fundamentally we’re teachers, we’re, we’re coaches, you know, we’re we’re teachers. And especially if we just compare it to like how our kids,
third grade teachers are to them, you know, they’re doing these things are trying to figure out all the ways like to make them laugh and make them happy and make them, you know, do all these things. And granted it’s totally different situation, but as teachers and as people that people pay us money and they trust us to help them. Yeah.
I love the way you engineer your programs. And I love the way that you explained that customer experience. So we talked about a lot, totally to break this episode up into two episodes. This might be a, two-parter Going to be a two-parter. You guys are recording it Now, not a plan, but this will be a two-parter if you know,
I think that what is so important, what I want people to take away. In addition to all the things you should see, all the Rachel Cook quotes. I have that written down on this paper. You guys, you’re a scale is about adding and it’s not, no scale is not about adding it’s about subtracting. I can’t even read my own writing.
What comes easiest to you is most often your greatest asset. I mean that you are gold. You’re like just gold or gold. I have like five quotes in my chicken, scratch written here on my paper. You know what I want you guys, listeners, you know, every, every show we want to give you proven processes, trainings, tactics,
and strategies that you guys can take to the bank, but it doesn’t mean you should take every one of them, right? We have shows and all these different topics, but why I’m so excited to have Rachel here is because of the fact that if you are designing a, like, Rachel does, like I do, you know, family, how frequently we work,
how often we work, the capacity in which we work simple is always better. And it doesn’t mean that it’s the right way for everybody, but it is very, very profitable. And it’s very tempting to make things really complex. It’s really tempting to make things complex. So I really want you guys just to like, take a deep breath as you’re listening to these now,
two shows and put them on repeat, make sure you’re following Rachel. And the first and the first episode, I, you know, we, we sent you to go do the fire up and focus challenge. So hopefully you did that. If you’re listening to part two of this, go back and listen to part one, take a deep breath and just,
and just be like, this is doable. This is smart business. This is taking what you were saying, traditional business and applying it to the online landscape, which not very many people do. Looking at those metrics, referrals in, you know, lifetime customer value, things that are very important to look at that again are oftentimes missed and not discussed in the shiny world of the online coaching space.
Go back and listen to this episode of repeat, just absorb. And then we really want you guys to reflect in what aspects of what Rachel talked about today, that you could be implementing into your business because it’s not about adding it’s about taking away in the simplification in order to scale in getting away from the grind, the more, and really coming back to the key factors that are going to increase profit and decrease time and capacity is such an important,
there’s so many lessons in gold that, that you share today. Rachel. And so I appreciate you being here so much. We’ve talked about a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming. You know, tell everybody, you know, in the end of this episode, day time that we’re spending together, what do you think that you know about yourself as a leader,
through this process of what you’ve done? What do you, what do you feel like that you really love of how you grown as a CEO in this space over, you know, over how long have you been in business over a decade? For sure. Right. I mean, Yeah. I think I started my business in April of 2008. So it’s been awhile.
It’s been awhile. I would say, you know, the biggest thing I’ve come to love about myself as a leader is that I’m continuously willing to be uncomfortable. I think as a leader, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable and to be able to sit in discomfort, which does not make leadership sound too appealing. But what happens when you’re willing to sit in the discomfort,
when you’re willing to sit in the discomfort of coming up against your own inner critic, coming up against your own imposter syndrome, coming up against your own resistance, being willing to look at the different sides of yourself that maybe you really don’t want to look at. That’s where the leadership growth has been for me has been when I’m willing to sit in that discomfort and lean into it and push myself through it.
Because often for me, the leadership parts that have been the hardest have been the one about the parts about surrender and letting go of control and getting out of the way and trusting that I am hiring amazing, amazing, smart, brilliant women who also have a gift. And who also have things that they’re here to leave the world with. And I’m providing them an amazing opportunity to make an impact within the scope of this container called my business.
And if I’m just willing to continue leading into my own discomfort and stop trying to control the heck out of everything and let other people do great work, too, we’re going to do amazing things together and it’s going to be incredible, but I can only do that if I’m willing to push myself out of my own comfort zone. And right now that comfort zone is learning how to rest.
It’s tracking my sleep. It’s taking intentional time off and not feeling like the urge to jump in and start a new, a new thing because what I really need right now is rest. And I really need time off. And sometimes as an entrepreneur and as a leader, it’s hard to really fiercely protect that thinking time, that recovery time, but it’s so true.
The more higher up you get in your career and your journey as a leader, the more you need to protect that so that you can come back to your team and really give them everything you’ve got. Everybody’s just kind of gone nodding their head listening. Yep, yep. Exactly. Free to aware. Can besides we said it in what will now be the first part of this episode?
I really highly encourage all of our listeners to follow you. I, like I said, I’ve done it for years. I have my team follow your stuff. You’re very, very smart. And the way you teach is very understandable. And so I appreciate you consistently showing that you have consistently shown up. And that says a lot, that says a lot.
So, so we appreciate that. Where can people find you The best place to find me is going to be on my podcast, promote yourself to CEO. We have an episode going out every week, all about how to scale a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout. So I’d love to see you over there. And of course, we talked about the fired up and focused challenge.
You can get the full 10 days@firedupandfocused.com it’s available on demand and absolutely gratis. So go dive in. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for all your time and, and making this a two-parter cause there was so many things. I just, anytime you, anytime you’re talking, I’m like writing it down. If I know our listeners so much appreciated getting to know you,
if they don’t know you already as well. And so all of the show notes will be available for you guys@sweetlifeco.com, click on the podcast. We’ll have everything there, all the resources that Rachel said and how you guys can continue to follow her as well. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. I really appreciate finally getting to meet you face to face after all that you have poured into our company from your knowledge and wisdom over the years.
Well, thank you so very much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Okay. Thank you so much for sticking with us. That was amazing. Rachel is one of my favorite people and now you know why, again, don’t hesitate to follow Rachel, reach out to her and connect with her. And of course, Rachel and I are also connecting on clubhouse live in all the places that you can find her and tap into the solution she provides can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com,
simply click on the podcast. And thank you so much for listening to this show. It’s because of you guys that we’ve been named the top 50 moms in podcasting, and this show is going on our fifth year. Really, really appreciate you guys and appreciate you sharing the show with your friends. Have an awesome day and I’ll talk to you next week.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator a probate Back to the show and welcome to a very special two-part episode here on the Sweetlife entrepreneur and business podcast, episodes, number 2 38 and 2 39 coming straight at you. As a matter of fact, these episodes are so good.
I didn’t actually set out to take the value today’s guests offers and break it up into two shows, but it was so great. There was so much information and I want to make sure you have an opportunity to absorb and implement it, that we did break it into two shows for you. So welcome. If you are a new listener here, I’m April beach,
founder of the Sweetlife company host here of the Sweetlife entrepreneurial podcast and everything we do is to help entrepreneurs design, launch and scale their business online since 2006. And we are so glad that you are here in tuning into today’s show. Today’s guest is somebody, let me be really honest that I have totally fan girl over four years. And if you know me,
I don’t fan girl often like ever actually it takes a lot to impress me, but I totally fell hard for this one woman because of her scaling systems. When I first found her back in 2013, and I have followed learned from it admired her ever since this is Rachel Cook MBA. If you do not know her, I am super excited to be the one to be able to introduce you to her.
She is literally a systems genius and all the way back in 2013, 14, her lead magnet guys lead magnet, it was called fired up and focused was so good that I put my entire team through her lead magnet. So let me give you a formal introduction into who Rachel is. She’s an award-winning business strategists who believes entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be so complicated over the last decade.
She’s helped thousands of women, entrepreneurs, design, predictably, profitable businesses without the hustle in burnout. She’s the author of Amazon bestselling books fired up and focused and your business sweet spot and hosts a weekly podcast promote yourself to CEO. She’s a sought after speaker on entrepreneurship, marketing productivity, productivity. Look, I can’t even flow through that word because Rachel is so amazing.
She’s just going to make everything so much more productive on this show. And her work has been featured by the us chamber of commerce Ford’s coaches, council, fast company, and more, and we are going to dive right into today’s because I want to give you an opportunity to truly focus in on what we’re talking about, implemented in your business and walk away on the other side,
changed and transformed by what you applied from, what you learned today. At the end of this episode, you’re going to learn the difference between growth and scaling. You’re going to understand why the best sales starts with subtraction little puzzle there. You’re totally going to understand what I’m talking about at the end of the show. And you’re going to gain confidence that you really don’t have to be everywhere,
online to be profitable. So all of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And let’s go ahead and dive in to episode number 238. All right, you guys, I am super excited to be joined by this very, very special guest. And you need to know a little bit about why this woman is so special to me. First of all,
maybe eight years later, she never knew how special she was to me and how powerful she was to our business Intel. Like right now, this is the one person I can say that I have probably fan girl over for almost a decade in this space. And so here’s a story why, okay? She said here, I’m telling embarrassing her behind the scenes,
but here’s the story why you guys know I’ve been in all my business for a very long time, since 2006, but inherently, I am not somebody that thrives by creating systems. And so 2013 was coming around and although we had our online offers, we didn’t have the systems in place that we really needed to scale. And I came across this amazing woman who’s here today and literally her lead magnet back in 2013 was so amazing.
I put my entire team through it and it completely got our business organized and in place. So that’s the intro. This is literally very surreal for me to be here with this woman that I have found, because what she teaches has literally changed our business. And I know it will change your suit. Welcome to this. And we live podcast, Rachel Cook.
I’m so glad that you, Oh my gosh, April. I think I need that little intro to just come with me for every interview and every talk that I give from now on. Thank you for having me. This is going to be a fun conversation. You are amazing. Okay. So tell everybody let’s like take it back. Was it 2013?
Is that how long ago was, yeah, It was end of 2013, beginning of 2014 when I created the fired up and focused challenge. And it’s still around today. Yeah. Everybody, what that was and the situation, the circumstances in which you created it, because that’s what makes it even more bad-ass than it already is. Oh gosh. So the circumstances for me creating the fired up and focused challenge is I was at that point,
it was actually going into new year’s 2014. And I had already planned this very fancy online marketing launch for my, at the time signature course, I had hired a videographer. We had done the three-part video series. I had a makeup artist, I got my hair done, all the things. And about a week before I was set to release that very professional,
fancy looking launch, I was just getting this feeling like this. Isn’t what I want to talk about. I don’t think this is as relevant to my community right now. So I sent out an email. It was like that quiet week between Christmas and new year’s. And I was like, Hey, I’m just curious as I’m creating content for the new year,
what is your biggest challenge when it comes to getting things done in your business? And I sent that little quick email out. I said, just hit reply. I did not realize that within a day I would have hundreds of replies. And I went through all of the responses and just saw that there were these themes coming up. And what I realized was,
you know what? Entrepreneurs have no shortage of great ideas. We have no shortage of creativity. What we tend to have a shortage of though is follow through is the sticktuitiveness to actually implement those big ideas and to get to the other side so that we can see these goals become reality. And that’s when I decided I was going to create the fired up and focus challenge,
because I realized where a lot of people were getting stuck wasn’t that they didn’t understand the opportunities in front of them or ideas for how they wanted to grow their business. They were simply running out of time and didn’t know how to manage your time and didn’t know how to structure their schedule. They didn’t know how to structure their team. They didn’t know how to structure much in their business.
And unfortunately, when you hand a bunch of creative people, no structure, not much gets accomplished of really good at starting things, not so good at finishing them. So we created the fired up and focused challenge. I remember my son who was born earlier that year was a baby, which means I was up probably to one or two every morning. I was only a couple of days ahead of recording the challenge and releasing it at the time.
It was 28 days. It’s now 10, but it became such a huge pivotal piece of work that I’ve created because it was a moment for me where I realized things that I had learned and had intuitively or, you know, implemented in my life and my business that I took for granted for how I was approaching my work and how I was approaching my business.
Other people didn’t know those. And I think it comes back to what comes easiest to you is often your best asset, because it comes easy to you because you have mastered it. You have a level of mastery over it. And that is something a lot of times other people want and need is someone who has that level of mastery to show them how,
or to help them do things at that level. So, yeah, so we created this challenge. It skyrocketed my business. It totally took me on a different path because up until that point, I hadn’t really been talking as much about systems and productivity and the operations and internal structure of businesses. I had been talking a lot more about just marketing and sales and I realized that marketing and sales is what draws often a lot of people in,
because let’s face it. It’s very sexy to talk about marketing and sales, but when you have the operations in place, that’s when you actually have a scalable, sustainable business. Right. And that’s a perfect flow into what we’re going to talk about today. And really that challenge. I went through all 28 days, all of my team went through the 28 days,
like I said, and we ate up every single bit of it. And it was amazing. And that’s exactly what we needed at that point of time as a company. Yes, we had, you know, we had the marketing down, we have the offers down, but there’s this middle place. And I can’t wait to talk about it today where,
you know, everybody says, they want to scale. Scale is sexy, right. You know, scale is what we do. But, you know, without these things in place, it’s going to be a bottleneck for your business. And oftentimes companies fail. And like the word that you use behind the scenes that we were recording was like, they implode on themselves.
So now this is something I’m so glad that you’re here on the show, because I don’t think that you’re saying that yeah, the marketing brings people in the marketing and the sales is what everybody wants to talk about, but what really people struggle with or the systems, the actual systems to scale. So first of all, did you ever watch that thing?
I don’t even remember. I just was so into the fired up and focused challenge, what did you do with your, did you still want your signature program? Yeah, it was actually our best lunch ever. It was my first six-figure launch after that very first time running the challenge. But you know, it’s interesting is fast-forward I turned that challenge into a book,
into a podcast and two signature talks it’s turned into multiple other things. The challenge continues to be one of my biggest assets and I give it away pretty freely just because I know it’s so valuable to people. Yeah. Let’s tell everybody where they can find that before we move on because listen, you guys seriously. It is absolutely amazing. Amazing. It really is.
It’s very clear, very precise, very like pinpointed to what people need to do. So how can they Find that fired up and focused.com? You can go there and get access to the full 10 day version of the challenge and it’s available on demand. So you can go get that at any time. You guys totally go get that, especially for those of you,
for our listeners. If you’re in phase one or two of our business growth system, if you’re a listener to, you know, our different phases. So it’s really planning really the launch or you’re in that launch phase, moving on to scale, you guys need this. So I think that’s a great asset and resource. Okay. So we have a problem.
We globally here, you know, we have a problem. The problem is systems systems to scale systems to grow the teams systems, to manage the marketing, all of the systems that really make a well-oiled machine, whether you know, our listeners have just themselves on their team or they have a team of eight or they have a team of 80 systems are still necessary.
So what do you feel like right now? And we’re going to dive into your most important systems to scale here. What are you seeing? It’s 20, 21. There’s a lot more online businesses now than there were, you know, back in 2013, what are you seeing now are like the biggest bottlenecks that your students are experiencing when it comes to growing their business?
Yeah. Well, one thing when it comes to systems at scale is remembering that scale does not equal growth. They’re not words that you can just transpose and think they mean the same thing in business growth can happen where it takes just as much effort to achieve each level of growth. So you can bring in more revenue in your business by just working harder,
putting in more hours, bringing in more and more team scale comes from economy of scale, where you’re actually having less resources produce higher results. So that’s where you’re getting to the point where the growth is more exponential with less resources, less time, less energy, less money, less team going into achieving that higher level of revenue. And I think that’s a really important discernment because oftentimes I find people think that scaling their business just means working harder,
just means throwing more at it. And those two things couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not about working harder. In fact, if you start talking to CEOs of businesses that are making multiple 6, 7, 8 figures, you will find that they get to the point where they prioritize their thinking time, just as much as they prioritize time that they’re in their office,
because they know how important that time away is in order for them to show up and lead and be creative and be strategic. So it’s not about more time and energy and efforting. That’s not what scale is about. It’s also not about just throwing more at it. Scale is not about adding it’s about subtracting scale is about taking away all the excess. And this is something that I think when we’re in earlier stages of business,
we have to try out a lot of things to find out what works. Because with each thing that we’re offering, we have to have a marketing system, a sales system, and a customer delivery and experience system in place. So for each offer, you have, it doesn’t matter if it’s working one-on-one or having an online course or having a product, you have to market it,
sell it and then deliver it. So when you add more and more and more offers, which is often what happens for a lot of people, they they’re like, oh, I have an idea for another program. I’ll have another thing for this next thing. And what happens is each time they’re adding a new thing, they’re not adding one thing, they’re adding three.
So they’re adding layers of complexity. And when you add layers of complexity to your business, it makes it harder for it to run efficiently. It makes it harder for you to reach economies of scale in any area. And it also makes it harder for your team because your team never knows what’s the priority. What are we focused on? Where should my time and energy be?
What is the goal right now? Because there’s too many things going on behind the scenes in the business, cause it’s too complex. So if you want to scale, if you want economies of scale, the key really is to do less, to hone in and look at your metrics, look at your numbers, figure out what’s actually working and double down on what works and strip away anything that is extraneous to that we don’t need to just keep adding more and more and more.
So I often see this happening in, like, let’s say in marketing, there’s always something new happening in the world of marketing, right? And so what you’ll start to see is people who, and this is one that’s easy to see what’s happening just because it’s very obvious when people are trying out lots of things, right? We see them suddenly. They’re not only on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn,
but now they’re on Tik TOK and they’re on clubhouse and they’re doing all of these other channels. And if you try to do too many things and spread yourself too thin, it is very, very difficult to do any of them. Well. But what if you find one that you started as just an experiment like April, you found clubhouse is working really well for your business.
Well, if clubhouse is working great, but you’re getting nothing really off of Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. Then the scalable approach would be okay. The channel that works best for us is live audio. So I’m going to strip away anything that is not aligned with live audio. And I’m going to take that time and energy and resources and apply it towards the marketing channel that is working for us instead of saying,
oh, clubhouse is working, let’s go do Tik TOK and this and that. You know, I really, I love that you said that because one of the things that is really being spoken about so much as Omni presence of needing to be everywhere and all the channels, and it’s this old, you know, Gary V approach to crushing it. And it’s really,
really tempting. And it does make entrepreneurs and small business owners feel like they need to be everywhere and they need to be doing everything. And so I just think that this is, so this is so fundamental to building profitable companies. And I love that. I love that you’re sharing this. I also love that you showed the difference between growth and scaling.
We talked about that a couple of weeks ago on the podcast and actually did a clubhouse room on this. Nobody I asked when I started the room, like, do you understand the difference between growth and scaling? Not one person could define that. And so it was really interesting. So when we’re in clubhouse together talking about this episode, we should talk about that because it’s,
it’s really, really important in that. Have you heard of the rule Of ones? The rule of ones? Yeah. So I, I didn’t come up with this. I, I heard this Program, one client, one marketing tool, one sales strategy. Yeah. That’s pretty much the approach I take is I have one core, one core strategy for each area of my business.
And I use a framework that I teach a lot, which aligns your marketing and sales with the customer journey, where we have one attract strategy, one engaged strategy, one nurture strategy, one invite strategy, and one delight strategy. And once we, once we figure out what our primary one in each of those are, I just doubled down on those and try to avoid anything that is taking too much effort away from each of those.
Yeah. The rule of one, I haven’t heard it that way in a long time. Yeah. All that. It’s super old and that’s why it’s like old is good, but you know, and yeah. I was wondering that. Yeah. And so, and I think, I mean, we’re not old, but when, I guess when we think about online business,
we’ve been an online business for like we’re old on my business. People we’ve been online business for a long time. And so yeah, as you were saying that, I was like, oh yeah, this is like that rule of lens. This is really great. And it’s so smart. So when we’re talking about scaling and we’re really talking about these systems and thank you so much for sharing your method,
if you guys should pause this episode, rewind it 20 seconds. And listen to Rachel’s method. I have her like five or six steps of whatever that was. I was genius. Let’s talk about these scaling team, scaling, marketing, you know, scaling client experience. Let’s jam on each one of those a little bit. Can you dive in and help our listeners understand when we’re talking about scaling with teams?
What does that mean? And where can they start in this process of doing this and what are the problems I’ve shared this before on the show? My greatest weakness is delegation. I have been a terrible person to work for for years, and I have amazing people that work for me. Not because I don’t honor a value them, but because I don’t stop and think about what I’m doing to best communicate and to empower them.
And about seven years ago, I had an amazing woman working for me who loved me enough to say, Hey, listen, I don’t want to quit. Cause I love you. But you know, you’re not good at this. You’re a terrible boss. And I knew it. I knew it, but I didn’t know. I guess it was more than seven years ago.
Cause it was before I found the fired up. It was like 2010, 2011. And so I say this to say that I think are a lot of leaders like me who struggle in this area. At least I’m conscious about it now. And I work really, really hard at that, but it does not something that comes naturally To me. It is not something that comes naturally.
And I think, again, as entrepreneurs, we have a lot of those double edged sword parts to our personality and our kind of mindset. It’s like, we’re really great at what we do because of this. But it’s also the thing that holds us back. So being raised by entrepreneurs as I was, I had a built-in mentor in my dad and he told me the most important lessons in leadership that I could’ve ever learned.
And he said, your job as a business owner is to fire yourself from every job in the company. It’s to fire yourself as quickly as you can. And some people are like, well, what do you mean if I fire myself, then what am I doing? You’re being the CEO and the business owner. You’re not being the marketing director and the project manager and the assistant and the bookkeeper.
You’re not doing all those things, but this is really hard for entrepreneurs to embrace because especially for those of us who are building our businesses from the ground up, our businesses are built on our experience and expertise and our intellectual property, our passion, the thing we care about the most, it can be so hard for us to pull ourselves out of our business.
And when we are really bad at it, what tends to happen is we get in everyone’s way, every person who we try to hire on the team, we end up getting in their way. And that’s where they’re emailing you finally and being like, can you just get the hell out of the inbox? Because I am trying to do my job here.
And can you just let me do my job, right? So you have to learn how to fire yourself. And this is one of the most important lessons when it comes to scaling your business is every time you bring someone new into your business, it is changing your job description as the CEO, because you’re no longer the CEO and whatever their role is that you just brought in.
You’re eliminating again, you’re taking things off, you’re taking things off your plate. So one of the exercises I always have people do that are working with me inside of the CEO. Collective is whenever they’re bringing new people into their business, I make them rewrite their job description as CEO. Now this is an exercise that most people have never done because we go out there and rewrite job descriptions for everybody that we’re bringing on the team.
But we never sit down and say, what is my role as the CEO of this company? What are the most important things for me to be focused on? And each person is going to be a little bit different because we all have our own different strengths as the CEO of our business, right? We all have something a little bit different to bring to the table,
but you have to get really clear on what your role as CEO is. And when you hire people in, you have to reevaluate, okay, what is most important? So for me and the CEO of my business, my top three tasks that drive results, that I only allow myself to focus on content. So my business is built around my intellectual property.
So I’m either creating content free or paid my clients really diving in and understanding who they are, what their needs are, what their challenges are, having a deep understanding and connection to my clients. And then connection, connection drives my business. I am not here to be an influencer and make a small impact in lots of people’s lives. I’m here to be someone who makes a big impact in fewer people’s lives.
So I know that that connection is what drives my business. And so each time I bring somebody on my team, I’m like, okay, those tests are off my plate. What do I need to stay focused on? Is it related to these three things? If it’s not related to these three things, then it should not be where I’m spending my time and my energy.
And that has prevented me from doing things like getting into the inbox or making graphics in Canva or editing podcasts or, you know, any of those things that we start to do when we are like itchy to get our hands back in the day-to-day of our business, you’ve got to get used to pulling yourself out of it. And a huge part of that when it comes to bringing on your team is just knowing that you have to be constantly firing yourself.
And re-evaluating your role. And even as you reevaluate your role, you will have to be constantly asking yourself, what is my zone of genius versus my zone of excellence? Because for a lot of us, we’ve had to get really good at lots of things, but it doesn’t mean it’s what we’re best at. Like I can put together a really great slide deck.
Is it what I am best at? No. Is that the highest and best use of my time? Absolutely not. If I am bored and I don’t know what else to do with myself, will I sit down and start getting into Canva? Absolutely. That’s my favorite way to procrastinate doing the real work that I’m supposed to be doing is to be getting into Canva And say,
Canva black hole mine. It is, It totally is. But if I talk to my team, they’re like, well, why did you do that? Why didn’t you record something new? Why didn’t you go take some time off so that you can have that thinking space. We know that you need, why didn’t you write the first chapter of the book that you’ve been putting off for six months,
because the canvas is easy and right there, and I’m pretty good at it. That’s why. So we have to be aware of that and really get into, as you’re growing your business, you’re pushing up against your growth edge as a CEO in your own leadership. And it is uncomfortable and it’s not always easy to sit down and do the higher level things that we know will move our business forward.
Like sitting down and writing my book is more likely to move my business forward, then making another slide deck in Canva. But I’m more comfortable making the slide deck in canvas than I am sitting down and figuring out what do I want to say right now? Right? And when you do say it, I want to be on that team. So make sure whatever,
whatever you put out there, I’m waiting. And I think that’s important to know too. So let’s talk about it from my perspective, everything you said is so, and you guys now know why leverage heal so much, right? And like, yes, that is exactly what is happening in my mind right now. I’m thinking the exact same thing. I do the exact same thing,
but then they put me on perspective as somebody who’s learned from you, I need your content. And I think that, that is like sometimes I think that helps me as a CEO to think like, I’m the only one that can do this. Right. And I know that there’s somebody out there that literally needs to hear what I’m going to say, whether your books about whatever,
raising kids or systems or whatever you write about, I don’t care because I’m going to read it because I, I appreciate everything that you say and I resonate with it. And so I think that that has been a driver for me to push through that. And I feel that there is, it’s almost like walking up a river, like upstream, like your thigh deep,
and you’re walking up upstream and you really want to just go to the side and sit on a rock and work on canvas because it’s fun. But instead you need to get back out in the middle of that river and walk upstream in think like my husband always says, she’s like the hardest work that we do as entrepreneurs is, is that thinking it is for sure.
Absolutely. And so I, I appreciate everything that you just said. And because I, I literally, that is me you’re is resonating and with our listeners too. I know. So this team aspect of it, where we’re talking about scaling with teams, let me ask you, how is it, how many people do you have on your team if you’re willing to share that?
I think we’ve got about 15 right now. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we have seven, eight now and I mean, I honestly, it’s like a shared, like, that’s hard for me to help each one of them, Brad, just because of who I am as a leader. How do you pick people for your team? Like how do you know they’re the right people?
I know we could do a whole, I think I just did an episode with this on it and somebody else, but I love asking these questions because I think it’s very important when we talk about scaling. I know that the selection of team members is a bottleneck for leaders. How do you navigate That? It is because you have to be able to not just outsource and delegate,
you have to be able to give ownership and that’s a whole different level. And this is one of things. It does prevent a lot of people from scaling because they will hire someone to delegate the marketing or to delegate the launch process or to delegate all the onboarding their new clients. But they always end up in a bottleneck because if all you’re doing is delegating,
it means those people are going to be coming back to you to ask questions and for decisions to be made. And if you are the only person in your organization that has clarity about where the business is going, that understands the values that you have and your purpose, and that understands your kind of internal framework for making decisions. Then you will always be the bottleneck because you will always have people coming back to you to ask a thousand things.
They will always need things from you. So building a self managing team is like a whole nother level. Another show about that. I mean, it is, it’s a whole nother thing, but for me, when it comes time to hiring people, I mean, I have people on my team. Who’ve been with me for over 10 years now and they’ve grown with me.
And the biggest reason why I think I’ve had so many people, I mean, I hear all the time people saying, I can’t find a great assistant. I can’t find a great project manager. I can’t find this. I can’t find that. And they’re like churning through people. And I’m like, do you have clarity on what your purpose is and your business and who you’re really trying to help and how you really want to show up and what your business stands for.
Because if you don’t have clarity on any of those things, it doesn’t matter who you try to bring in. Because at the end of the day, you can train anybody to do just about anything from a tactical practical perspective, but you can’t train people to care about your business or about your clients or about why at any of it matters. So when it comes to hiring great people for your team,
it takes time and you just have to know, it’s just like dating the first person you’d go out on a date with might not be the love of your life. You might have to kiss a few frogs and eventually you find the right person. And maybe sometimes you end up with somebody who’s great for a while, but then you kind of grow apart and you need to go find somebody else.
Like it’s a relationship. So like any other relationship you have to spend time having clarity about who you are showing up as and who the ideal person is. Who’s going to be that good compliment for you in the role that you’re looking for and take your time and finding that person, just know that it’s, it might not be the first person you talk to,
or the first person you hire. You might have to try a few different times, but if it’s a fit and you’re willing to invest in the person and in the relationship, then the delegation part of it becomes easy because they understand who you are, what you stand for and how you would make a decision about something. So they can take ownership over that.
Thank you so much for sharing your, your perspective on that. I know our listeners are already thinking about that. The processes we’re talking about delegating the team. So I think that that was really, really helpful to share that All right. You guys, that was an amazing show. I know we cut it off there in the middle. And as I said,
we didn’t start out this interview to actually break the show up into two episodes. But Rachel was so generous with her expertise and she delivered so many tangible things you can take right now and apply to your business. I really wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to actually do that. So make sure you tune in with us next week on episode number 239 to catch the second half of systems to scale your business.
And again, all of the show notes, all of the resources and all of the ways that you can connect with Rachel directly can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com and simply click on the package. All right, guys, talk to you next week. Bye bye. For now.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. Hi guys, and welcome to episode number 237. Here it is the end of July, 2021. And we are so glad you’re listening to this episode. I’m April beach host here at the Sweetlife entrepreneur and business podcast and founder and CEO of the Sweetlife company,
where we help entrepreneurs did not design launch and scale a business for high profit, deep impact lifestyle. Freedom today’s episode is really special. You’re going to love this guest. She is an absolute delight, and we’re talking about the actual proven step-by-step process to build a global empire. This woman did it starting only 11 years ago with a baby on her hip.
And she is breaking down her exact formulation for how she did it without running high cost ads and really in a way that creates brand consistency and gets her message across. And so I’m very excited to introduce you to our guests today, and if you’re new to the show and you have never listened, thank you so much for tuning in. There are a lot of really amazing podcast episodes out there from different hosts all over the world.
And I’m so appreciative that you are here hanging out with us today. All of the show notes, everything we do as a company, to help you design, launch and scale your coaching business, your consulting business, or your expert focused business can be found by visiting us@sweetlifeco.com as well as all of the show notes and all of the resources we have available for you.
Let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode. I am pleased to introduce you to Lorraine doll Meyer. She is absolutely literally an amazing woman. You’re going to be so inspired. She’s an award-winning CEO of formula. Botanica the organic cosmetic formulation and business school, which has trained over 13,000 organic cosmetic formulators and ND beauty entrepreneurs in 177 countries. And probably counting.
She’s voted the most influential person in natural beauty for 2020 and awarded the digital achiever of the year for the cosmetics industry by Google. Lorraine is on a mission to teach the world to formulate and in this process and you’ll hear her story. It is so cool. She’s going to break down what it was like moving from an employee role, becoming a mother,
realizing that that isn’t what she wanted and that she just had so much more that she wanted to do. And you are going to leave this episode, understanding the exact six pieces. I should say, being six steps to her formulation. She breaks it down very, very clearly her six step formula on how she created this global empire. So the end of this episode,
you’re going to know her exact six step formula. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in the beauty industry or whatever you’re in. If you were in the education industry, if you were a coach or consultant, this is the level of business that you want to design. You’re going to walk away knowing her step-by-step process. And you’re also going to realize that you can absolutely do this yourself.
So I’m so excited to dive in today’s episode. It is episode number 237. So all of the show notes, everything we’re talking about can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com simply click on the podcast. And this is episode number 2, 3 7. All right, let’s dive into the show. Hi everybody. I am so excited to be joined by my new friend,
Lorraine Domar and she is going to blow your mind. You are literally going to be inspired just by the little chat that we have done behind the scenes here to get ready for what she is going to teach on this show. I am taking crazy notes and you are going to absolutely love this woman and be incredibly inspired and learn so much from this show today.
Lorraine, welcome to the show. Can you give everybody an introduction, share who you are, how you started out and all about this amazing online empire that you have built. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me on the show April. It is amazing to be here and I can’t wait for our chat. So I’m Lorraine. I run formula Botanica,
I’m a biologist, I’m a chartered environmentalist and I am on a mission to teach the world to formulate. So I run formula Botanica the online organic cosmetic formulation at school, and we train people how to make their own natural skincare and haircare using botanical ingredients are we are taking the world by storm with what we’re doing at the moment. It has been phenomenal.
So I’ve been running the school for almost eight years now, I guess. And I have 40 staff. We have over 13,000 students and graduates for in 177 countries. It has been a roller coaster to get here, but it wasn’t always like that. So just to give you a short intro into how I got here, I was on maternity leave with my eldest son who will be 11 in a few weeks.
And I decided that I couldn’t go back to my day job anymore. I had to work for myself. You know, I’d had really good jobs, but I just couldn’t handle working for other people anymore. And having listened to a few podcasts with you now, April, I think you probably heard that vaping quite well. So I decided I was going to start my own business.
I was watching the BBC’s apprentice. I was sitting there on the sofa with breastfeeding, my son. And I like, if these idiots can do it then, so can I, so that’s, I guess where it started. And then by the time I was on my second maternity leave, I had my business up and running. I was teaching people online already.
I had an app, I was teaching people how to make simple beauty products. And then I had the chance to actually buy formula Botanica in its infancy. It was a one woman side hustle. At that point I was, as I said, I had my second baby with me at that point. And I thought, you know what? This could be a fun hobby project.
And then I went back from attentively for a second time and my employer has ghosted me entirely. And so I thought I got to make this work and I have, so that’s like a potted history of, of how I got to where I am today. I guess You said something to me before we were recording. You know, you said I went from being this,
you know, mom would just a baby on my hip to having this global empire in 117, a hundred. How many different countries? It’s insane. Saudi 777 different countries, friends. Okay. This amazing woman has done this. And you literally have a formula just like you teach people how to formulate natural beauty products on their own. And I want to,
I want you to share your mission because I think that’s incredibly important. But what you’re going to share today on the podcast is the act is the actual formula from how you went from a mom with the baby on your hip, to where you are right now. But I think it’s important to know that for people to know, like, why are you doing this?
You shared this a bit with me before. Why are you so particularly passionate about what you teach women to do? Well, I love formulation because it takes us right back to our roots. It’s a skill that we’ve lost, that we’ve forgotten. And yet everyone used to do it. Like they’ve even found like fossilized face creams from Roman times. You know,
this is not something new and we can all formulate. Cause formulation is fun. It’s easy, it’s empowering. And most importantly, it disrupts the mainstream beauty industry because they want you to go and buy that product for 150 years. They’ve been telling us we’re not good enough. We don’t look right. We don’t smell right. We don’t conform to that.
Blonde stick thin what teeth person that they put, all the adverts, you know, everyone is different and we can embrace our own beauty by reclaiming that power from the beauty industry and learning how to formulate ourselves. And that is so incredibly empowering because then not only can you make your own skincare and haircare and even makeup whenever you need it. But it’s also more sustainable because the beauty industry produces over 120 billion units of packaging a year with that is just staggering.
And most of that ends up in landfill or in our oceans. And we can do better than that. And we can do that by learning how to formulate for ourselves and making things as in when we need them. So I am on a mission to make formulation as commonplace cookery and the entire world had to do it. And thankfully the world is very receptive,
which is a good thing. And you’re doing a very Good job out of that. You are doing an incredible job. And so thank you for sharing that. So before we even go into these six steps to how you have built this online empire in hearing these six steps, and I know our listeners after they hear them are going to be like, wow,
I can absolutely do this as well. I want to point something out. You are so incredibly deeply fiercely fire, really passionate about what you do. And you are very clearly leading with that determination. It’s not leading with the money because you want to build an empire to take over the world. You want to change and you want to create a transformation for women and disrupt an industry that needs to be disrupted.
So I say that. So as our listeners are listening to understand that underneath all of these things that we’re going to talk about in content marketing and all the other strategies to build literally a global empire with your online courses and your education business, that under that all is a fierce passion and conviction for what you are doing. And I think that in order to be successful,
frankly, anything, unless you just want to make a lot of money and not have a deeply purposeful company. I believe that that’s a requirement. And so I just wanted to point that out to our listeners and our listeners and pick up on that anyway, they’d be like, wow, this, you know, this, this woman’s amazing. She loves what she does diving into,
you know, history and, and the history of what she’s doing. So let’s transition. Let’s dive into that a little bit. How on earth did you go from this mom who was kind of working kind of decided she wanted to stay home, had an app, bought a company, having another baby to where you are now. You literally have a formula for this as well Through it.
Well, first of all, thank you for all those lovely things you said as well. I mean, yes, you have to drive forward with that passion, but then there are various steps that as you say, anyone can do. And the first one for me and I live in a brief there, so I absolutely love this is content marketing. Now I have been a prolific content creator since I was 15 years old.
And I badgered my parents to get the internet at the home. We were one of the first adopters of the internet where I lived. Everyone was like, why do you have the internet? I didn’t know what to write to, you know, web pages that really had anything of use for me. But I started blogging when I was 15. I started designing websites then,
and that has stuck with me ever since. So a big, big part of what we do is putting out content and I call it edutainment, which is a slightly pretentious word. I mean, you’re mixing education entertainment, but it says what it does on the 10 basically. And so we write, we film, we record content every single week that our followers want to read,
want to listen to what to watch. And a lot of people say to me, well, how’d, you know what to record? And I’m like, well, I go to ask people, you know, because they tell me what they want to know. And we put that content out there and that has been so, so successful for us because by showing up every week,
it doesn’t matter if it’s raining. It doesn’t matter if I’m on holiday, it doesn’t matter. What’s happening. That content will go out. And that means that our followers become dependent on it. They want to read it. And actually as a result of that, we’ve become like a publication as well as an online school. And we get more visitors now than the many of the sort of mainstream publications in,
on niche as well, which has been phenomenal. So let me ask you, where do you distribute the majority of your content? I know our listeners are thinking, okay, well, they’re doing this content. What are your, I know every industry is different. What are your primary social channels or content distribution channels that seem to have worked for you?
Well, social does well for us, but I have to say the main channel has been email. I mean, it’s all in the list, right? And I’m sure everyone listening who wants to do this understands you have to have a list. And I started off at 300 people on my list. I now have 125,000 and we clean that list rigorously.
Let me boot people off all the time because they don’t open our emails. Otherwise we’d have hundreds of thousands of peoples out there. So that is the primary outlet for content because people then sign up and they know they’re going to receive value in that inbox every single week. And that is so powerful because it means they stay subscribed as well. So you guys send a weekly email.
Yep, absolutely. We’re thinking of making that bi-weekly, but at the moment it’s just weekly and yet then the rest goes out on social. I mean our main channels, I suppose, are Instagram. I mean, we have, we’ll have over a hundred thousand followers by the time this episode ads, which quite exciting Facebook, we have big groups on Facebook.
I have a big networking group there with 47,000 people, which is free. So those are the main channels ready, but email first and foremost. And then, and I suppose that’s 0.2 and the sort of six step process. It’s all about the SEO as well. And I’ve only recently hired someone for the first time to do that before that it was just me writing lots of really good content,
then hiring people to write really good content. And I’ve always believed that rather than delving into what Google says about its algorithm, the best thing you can do is to just write top notch content, make sure it’s a good length and make sure people want to keep coming back to read it basically. So, you know, one of the things you said to me behind the scenes as well before we started recording this with that,
and I think this is important for people to know that you have been consistently hitting the pavement with content and putting content out for seven years. I think that’s important for people to know that consistency is king here. And I’d love also how you say that you clean your list. And I think people are afraid to do that as well. You know, get people that have an open things off their list.
I think people are really afraid to do that. And I love that you said that because we want a vibrant list of people that are actually absorbing your content in and really love what you’re doing rather than a dead list. And when people really don’t, who wants to talk to people that don’t want to listen. And so I love that you said that as well,
but I feel like one of the important things to say here about this number two is that you were just out there posting, like you said, rain or shine for seven years, and this is organic growth. You guys, we aren’t buying a hundred thousand people to end up on the reins list. This is, you know, fully putting amazing content out there that people want to absorb and organic growth.
And so I’m really admire how hard you’ve worked at doing this. And I just want to commend you for that. People want to shortcut all the time and it’s not that you can’t be successful fast, but there is, there’s much more to the iceberg underneath the water, for Sure. Absolutely. And I’ve seen so many people sort of try to shortcut or get bored of doing it.
And then if it doesn’t work within three months, they’re like, oh, I’ll do something else. And so many of the entrepreneurs who started in my sort of year group, I suppose, when I got going, they’re all doing something different now and I’m sitting there going why? And they’re like, I’m really impressed. You kept going with like, well,
yeah. And look at what I’ve achieved by just plugging away at the same thing every single day. It’s been amazing. Wow. Well that alone, what a great testimony and just a great amount of encouragement. That’s exactly right. And I think that we get so afraid that maybe we’re doing the right things, or we need a confirmation faster in that trust in what you’re doing and what you’re creating and the consistency in doing it.
And that’s a whole podcast episode on itself. So I just want to highlight that. And I just think that’s incredibly powerful. So we talked about step number one and then step number two is just really being out there consistently posting SEO, you know, really diving into that. And then step number three is one of my favorites in people. It’s not that I think that entrepreneurs don’t want to do that.
They all do, but I don’t necessarily believe that there are many entrepreneurs that fully understand how to fiercely protect their brand. So let’s talk about number three. Yeah. So three is all about the brand and I’ve created a really, really strong brand around formula Botanica. And when I look at a lot of digital marketers online, they often bypass that step.
They just go straight for the ads, the shortcut, as we said, and actually building that strong brand is something that has made the company so unshakeable. So rock solid that if something terrible happened to us, we would weather it because the brand is so strong. And I protect that brand fiercely. Now I have brand guidelines. I make people read them all the time.
I, I tweak little, you know, the very fact that I’m sat here in a green top, in a green office, it’s just all part of the brand. I live in every single components of it. And that comes down to how we speak the tone we use in the emails that go out, even in our help desk, the way we support people,
the way the courses are put together, the way we show up for events, just literally every little detail is overlooked by that brand. And people often come to me and they’re like, can I say this? And I’ll go, ah, let’s rejig it slightly. So it looks like that. And this is the reason behind it. So I’m constantly trying to educate my team as well so that they can live and breathe that with me because no one can take that away from you.
You know, if your ads bomb or if no one comes to a website, oh, you know, if something goes horribly wrong on social media, your brand is still there. And that is a thing of beauty that I think, yeah, as you said, lots of people overlooked, but yet it’s the core components to growing an online empire. Wow.
That is so powerful as I have my, my wave mug and my, my way of wall. And it’s what we do. If you guys are watching behind the scenes in the video, you have to, you have to go to the YouTube channel. You have to see Lorraine behind the scenes and see all her great. It’s fabulous. And this is an example of that,
but I also love what you said with the language and the tone and the brand personality. And I think that that is so incredibly important as well. So thank you for that. I love number three. So what’s number four. What was a fourth thing? What’s a fourth step in your formulation for building this online empire. So we’ve got the content,
we’ve got the distribution, we’ve got the brand step. Number four is all about the community. I mean, it’s the people who sits at the heart of all of this in some respects, they should be step number one, but I thought let’s walk through all of them in sequential order. So I’ve built a really strong community around formula Botanica as has my team as well.
And these are people who we know we love, even though we have over 13,000, almost 14,000 students and graduates. We know so many of them and we get really excited by them because we know what they’re doing. You know, I have, if you’re watching the video, I have all of that products behind me. I sit here with them on my desk.
I’m always sort of holding them up, going, oh, this is so-and-so. She lives in Denmark. And this is so and so she lives in India and you know, the community is what makes us who we are. We wouldn’t be where we are without these incredible people. And I’ve met so many of them over the years. I know their stories.
I’ve become friends with so many of them as well. And they inspire me to do better as well, because that constantly out there changing the world, being part of this global green beauty movement that we’re spearheading and yeah, they’re helping us drive it forward. So to do that, we’ve used social media. We use Facebook groups. It sounds really simple.
And it is in a way, and in the beginning I would be in that and I would show up all the time for our students and graduates. And that was how we built this incredible heartwarming community where are really kind and generous to each other. And that still exist today. Even though we have, I think about 10,000 students in our online classroom,
it’s got huge, but still that, that really heartwarming aspect is that. And if someone posts and says, I’m having a bad day, you know, there are hundreds of comments from people just going, we’ve got your back. And most of the people who go through our courses and launch a brand, go, I love the courses I learnt so much.
I can formulate, you know, you’ve empowered me, but oh my goodness, the community, I wouldn’t have got to where I am without my, my sisterhood, basically, because as you can imagine, it is mostly women who go through our courses and that has just been heartwarming and incredible to watch. So that’s step number four. And Question about that.
You have both a free, and so we’re talking, you know, we’re talking about business modeling, restructuring for our listeners. You have both a free and paid community, Correct? Yeah. We have a big free networking group as well, which has almost 50,000 members. And that’s incredible too. And now I have a community manager, but not just that.
We also have a whole team of people around the world, our student mentors, so that we have 24 7 coverage in our groups because otherwise, you know, it is like a groups. You have to be there to sort of support, to help, to moderate sometimes as well. And so I have staff members literally around the globe so that there is always someone on and they have a rotor.
So they’re going through the groups all the time. And that has been incredible actually. So the community is everything to her. I love that. I love that. And Facebook makes sense, you know, the global community Facebook makes sense. And, you know, it’s when we talk about structure and tech and enabling what you want to do and the experience that that does,
you know, it’s really completely make sense. Okay. So then number five, what is the fifth step to your formulation to building a global empire? So stage, you’ve got your ducks in a row and now you have to start really putting yourself out into the world. And so step number five is very much that I’ve made sure that we are viewed as thought leaders in our space.
And again, that can sound like quite a pretentious word. You know, what is a thought leader? It’s someone who has an opinion, the other people readily take on board and follow. And we have that. Now people follow us because we teach them all viewpoints and all sorts of what natural means and what green beauty means and what clean beauty means.
You know, we’ve redefined a lot of these concepts and we’re regularly tagged in social media posts where people go, I listened to this podcast from formula Botanica and I now understand that the three or four shades of natural, and I’m going to show you have made my own little infographic. And I finally understand these concepts and I’ve learned them from these guides. And we do that thought leadership through,
I have my own podcast as well called green beauty conversations, which is all about green and sustainable beauty and the science and indie beauty. But I’m also constantly on summits, on podcasts, giving interviews, speaking to journalists, you know, I out that all the time as is my team. And that means that people view us as the people to follow because we hold opinions on things.
We share those opinions. I make sure that they’re always balanced. They fit with the brand. They’re very sort of rational and scientific and the heartwarming and friendly and natural and people buy into that. So you have to have opinions when you’re running a business. And I see a lot of people really struggle with this because they don’t want to put themselves out there,
but it is. Yeah. Step number five, for reason, it’s been a huge part of our growth in becoming this global empire. It is so important. And I understand that. And I, I think that there is a, there is a fear about not having everybody agree with you, but that’s also part of the destruction and the part of leadership and,
and most leaders don’t have, you know, everybody that loves them. I mean, that’s the way it is when we’re doing works. That work, that really matters. It means it’s work, that’s different. And to do work that’s different. It means that you’re probably going against the grain on the way that the commonplace has been. And so I really love that.
You said that. And I think that that is, that’s just very encouraging for some of our listeners to hear. Okay. And then step number six, what is this final icing on the cake to bring it all together? So following on, from what I said about putting yourself out there, now you have to go and form a network. And that means getting to know people,
big players, small players, any players, really people who also hold opinions and who are active in your world in your sector. And we now have partnerships with NBC brands, with our graduates, with bloggers, with influences, but also with the mainstream beauty industry. You know, I have stood on major stages in front of the big players, the L’Oreals,
the Unilevers, the Proctor and gambles, but also the indie players at the same time. And I’m trying to bring people into our world so that they understand that we’re the bridge that brings everything together. So for instance, we are, we’re the formal NDBC partner for the world’s largest cosmetic ingredients exhibition. They have 12,000 visitors a year. You know, they tour around Europe.
It’s like going into three aircraft hangers. You know, when you go and visit these trade shows and we’re there in DVC part in that. Now I have spoken at major industry events because of a lot of the work that we’ve done and the networking that we’ve done. And because of that, that’s opened the door whereby people don’t do formula Botanica as Lorraine’s little side hustle with her baby on their hip anymore.
They view us as a big accredited award-winning online institution. And obviously that’s all part of the seven years of just showing up every week and just putting yourself at that. But you have to make a network and you have to invest in that network and be kind and really give back because it will come back to you tenfold every single time. And that’s certainly what I’ve found over the years.
That’s Incredible. And so let’s recap these six steps, and then I have one last question for you. So Lorraine’s formula to build a global empire, but not just any global empower you guys that really matters. It’s really, really making a change in this space are your six steps. Okay? Step number one, content creation, educate and entertain your followers at the same time.
Step to constantly promote that content, put it at that great SEO, social media outreach, but most importantly, your list, you need one step, number three, build a strong brand that you fiercely protect and build. And you’re constantly growing it. Step number four, create a thriving and happy community. Make sure that the people around you know, that you love them because they’re your biggest assets,
your biggest fans, they’re everything. Step number five, be viewed as a thought leader, have opinions and put those opinions out there and make sure that people buy into those opinions and hear you. And step number six, build a network and build a strong network that you pour your love and heart into because it will come back to you. Tenfold, how I Love that.
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom. This is an amazing lesson. You guys hear that you are hearing and I’m taking notes and listening right along, right along with you. And so I have one last question for you. And I don’t ask this. Isn’t like a set question. I ask all the guests. I just really,
I would love to know this answer from you. What have you learned about yourself along the way through this process? What do you believe about your, I know I didn’t even prepare you for, this is such a tough question, right? Sorry. You know, like what, what do you know and believe about yourself that only could have come through your tenacity,
your resilience, your consistency. What have you learned about yourself in this process? That is a great question. So before I took them formula Botanica I worked all over the world. I lived in multiple countries. I worked in high-powered jobs. You know, I ran all sorts of fantastic projects, but I kept coming up against this massive glass ceiling everywhere I went.
You’re too young. You’re too inexperienced. Lorraine. It’s too scary, too outspoken too. In your face, you voice your opinions too much. I do that. And it got to the point that it started to chip away at me because you start to internalize a lot of what you hear. And when you’re constantly told you need to tone it down,
you need to be less outspoken. Yeah. You need to put your opinions out there less. You start to do that. And I now know that the only way I think for women to achieve true gender equality in the workplace is by building something like this for themselves and driving it forward. And I know myself that I am more confident and more able,
and I believe in myself more than I ever have before because of the work that I’ve done here over the last seven years. And no one can take that away from me and I will never walk into a workplace ever again, where someone will tell me I’m too scary because I will eat them alive. Thank you so much for everything that you have shared.
I know our listeners just like Marriott, we just want to eat up everything you’re giving to us. So, you know, and just absorb from you. So this is, I’m just so honored to meet you. Thank you so much for applying to be on this show and wanting to come here and share your story with this audience. It’s incredibly powerful and proven and you know,
that’s what we, that’s what we do. We bring in experts like you, that have created their expertise through resilience and, and determination. And, and I’m just so glad that you’re here. So how can people find you? How can they connect with you? All of you join your, your formulation school. If we have listeners that want to start doing their own thing and they haven’t done it yet,
or go and follow you to learn and watch and observe how you are building and how you’re continuing to grow your empire, where can we find you? So wherever formula botanica.com, where we have a free online organic cosmetic formulation course that anyone can take Instagram is the biggest platform for formula Botanica as well. But I am also on Instagram and on Facebook where you can follow me.
And I talk more about the business side of things, the sustainability side of things. Cause that’s my bag. And I just want to say, thank you so much April for having this amazing podcast and for welcoming me onto it, because it’s fantastic to talk to you. And it’s a real honor to be here. It’s such A pleasure and Lorraine and I will be live in clubhouse.
You guys. So this is episode number 237. It will be episode number 237 when it drops. So Lorraine and I are going to be here to talk to you. And you guys get to come in, ask Lorraine all of your questions, whether it’s about formulations or how she went from baby on the hip to literal global empire creator through online business.
These steps work. This process works with consistency. And so we’re going to be live in clubhouse on July 28th at 12 o’clock Eastern time. Please come join us there. We’ll make sure all of the links to where you can connect with us in clubhouse are found in the show notes of this episode@sweetlifeco.com. Ryan, thank you so much. We really, really appreciate it.
Thank you. It’s been awesome.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. Hey there. And welcome back to the show. This is episode number 234, and I’m April beach, your host. And I’m so glad that you have tuned in to hang out with me today here on the sweet life entrepreneur business podcast.
Today is a great episode and we’re diving back into some online business foundations. So for those of you who have been listeners to this show for over four and a half years, you know, especially in the very beginning, it feels like forever ago, we really dug into funnel building list, building lead gen all of these online business foundations. And since then things have changed. And so I felt like it was really important for me to come back in here and for us to have a conversation so that you’re aware of what is changed, what has changed when it comes to lead magnets that are working right now in 2021. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about on today’s show, because I want you to be generating amazing high quality leads with the perfect ideal buyers. And so we’re going to dive in here on this episode, just a little item of business. If you have not listened to this show before, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I’m April beach, I’m the host here at the show founder of the Sweetlife company. And we serve coaches, consultants, experts, and service based businesses who are ready to launch scale or amplify their business online specifically for high profit, deep purpose, to make sure that business we’re designing for you is in fact going to equal the lifestyle that you want. So everything we talk about here on the show and all of our coaching services and programs@thesweetlifecompanythatcanbefoundatsweetlifeco.com are all for that purpose. And all the show notes can be found@sweetlifeco.com as well. And this is episode number 234. So if you’re listening to me, it is July, 2021. Praise the Lord. The world is reopening. We are out as a family, a little bit behind the scenes for us headed up to Vail, Colorado. Like we do every single summer for a few weeks. And I hope that you have some amazing adventures planned on your end as well. So I try to keep these summer episodes a little bit shorter than most. So let’s go ahead and dive right in this episode is for you. If you were in phases one, two or three of my start to scale up system, that’s a roadmap that entrepreneurs follow from the very beginning of deciding you want a business all the way through building a high profit business that equals lifestyle freedom. If you don’t know what phase of business you’re in cruise over to sweet life, co.com forward slash quiz, and you can answer a five really quick questions and you will get a list of exactly where you are in your business and what you should be working on. So this episode is for those of you guys who are in phases, one, two or three, primarily two or three, if you’re in one, you’re still in the beginning, but I want you to know these business foundations. And it’s great for those of you who want to generate high quality leads and build an audience of your ideal clients. And frankly, if you’re listening to this episode, you’ve probably been in business for long enough to know that traditional what I call old school lead gen really isn’t working that well in generating high quality leads is becoming more and more of a challenge. So we’re diving into all that on today’s show. So let’s go ahead and get to business Okay. So let’s chat about what is a lead magnet for those of you who are new, a lead magnet is something of high value that you give away for free in exchange to receive an email address and name and possibly a phone number or other contact or data information from somebody who may be interested in your services. So we call it a lead magnet because it’s a post to literally magnetizes leads to your business and get the perfect people. But that term is a little inaccurate because you know, a magnet just attracts anything that’s metal. We don’t want to just attract anybody. You do your business. We want to attract the right people. So let’s talk a little bit about what those examples of a lead magnet could be. Particularly if your new lead magnet could be a downloadable PDF, or it could be a free video series, anything that you are giving away for free that is high value to your client. But now the conversation’s shifting a little bit. That’s what we have been saying for the last 11 years. And here’s a, some history I want you to know about online business. And for those of you guys who might not be listening to have been listening to this show for a long time, I have been a online business coach for over 14 years in. So we’ve seen a lot of changes in the online business space and what’s working and what isn’t. And so back in 2012, we used to be able to just throw out these really fancy, cool PDFs and get high quality leads. And now you’re lucky to get any leads at all. And if you do, you’re just kind of throwing something to the wall to see if it sticks without strategy behind it. You’re ending up with the wrong kind of leads. So a lead magnet, again, is something you give away for free in exchange for a name and an email address. Primarily some of you guys might want to collect other information like phone numbers so that you can follow up or dive in a little bit deeper and build a relationship with that perspective client to find out if you are right for each other. And the history of lead magnets is, has definitely changed. What we used to do is not working anymore. So in the past, we used to be able to give out bowl how to guide sides, reports, white papers, complete eBooks, you know, from 2012 to 2017, honestly, you guys, the, or the lead magnet, the better those businesses were that were winning were the ones where we were giving away, you know, an hour long video series and 30 page white paper documents, and that’s not working anymore. And so I don’t want to make like a blanket statement across the board because it really actually depends on your industry, but you’re listening to this podcast. If you’re a coach or a consultant or a service based business provider, you’re a speaker or you’re an author. And so let’s just talk to us. This is you and I having this conversation. If you are in a different industry, those lead magnets are probably still working really well for this coaching and consult teen space. It’s not working so well, but what is working so well? Is this a lead magnet that is high value and low time? Let me say that again. Hi, and you load time. So short, fast transformational, not just informational. And I’ve said this a million times, no buddy is out there waving their hands for more content. Right? Right. Now nobody’s doing that guys. Nobody’s saying, please flood me, firehose me with a million zillion pages, even if it’s the best darn information in the whole entire world, because nobody has time for that. We have reached our threshold and we are on content overload, right? But they’re babies need to be transformed. They’re begging to learn something that they didn’t know before, or they’re begging to see a change or a transformation in their business or their life or whatever it is that you coach. Okay. So short, fast transformational, just informational lead magnets are what is working. And just a little side note here, you guys might have heard Brittany, my podcast editor. She probably won’t even cut this out anymore. If you’ve been listening to the show, we keep it real here. You’ll probably hear the garage door slamming next to my recording studio. I have three teenage boys and it’s summertime, and they’re all here going in and out of the house. So why cut that out? I love my life. So let’s continue on with what we were talking about in order to generate the right leads. You have to, you absolutely must know your customer’s problems and you must be able to offer an immediate solution to them when you offer a very specific solution in your business. So when your leading program, your mastermind, your membership, your coaching program, your online event, whatever it is you sell, when the value of your product reaches a very particular audience, a very specific audience, your lead magnet is going to be able to attract that right client. So adjust a tip. If you do not yet have knowledge information, or you’ve not yet built that leading coaching program that you want to need for your business, or you’re ready to scale up and have a variety of programs, make sure that really specific, make sure that they give a specific transformational measurable result in that knowledge, in your own generation of that leading program is going to then allow you to reverse engineer. So you can look at this lead magnet, this free thing you’re giving away and really attract people that are already interested in the specific solution that you are providing through your solution and your services. So let’s talk about what is working right now because that’s what this podcast is all about. So hi time, hi, inundation of fire, hose of content. Nobody’s raising their hands saying, please, can you send me something for free? Because I can’t wait to sit there for an hour and a half and review it this weekend. That’s not our life, but let’s talk about what is working. What is working right now are customized and curated high value, low time lead magnets. Here’s some examples of that. A quiz or an assessment are two great examples of customized and curated lead magnets that are working. And I have a bunch of other podcasts here about how to create a quiz. I even give away a free hour long training. There you go. That’s more in depth. If you want to create a quiz, you can go back and search that here in this sweet life entrepreneur podcast, with this being said for you just generating or updating a lead magnet, a quiz or an assessment is an ideal lead magnet. And they’re doing really, really well. I’m a big fan of these. We have used a quiz and an assessment for years. It’s now been about eight years. We’ve been using a quiz and an assessment. And do you remember in the beginning of this podcast episode, when I shared with you that link where you can go take our quiz to find out what phase of business growth you’re in, that is still our number one lead generator, and I’m giving you real behind the scenes here. Okay. And here is why that’s amazing. Number one, it only takes literally a minute to take it if that, but number two, it delivers really high quality curated information. And number three, it gives me and our team and the client, or you a lot of really great high value information. That’s curated to where you are. So when people take our quiz, they immediately know what phase of business they’re in. And according to my method of growing and scaling companies, I have five phases. So they get a very specific list. It’s curated to where they are about what they should be focusing on right now to get to the next level. So take a second and think about what could you create a quiz or an assessment about if you have a process that is already created in your business or a process that you walk people through in your programs, that could be really cool to create a quiz, having them get some information and knowledge about where they may be, or how successful they are in different phases of your process. If you are looking for a certain type of person, whether they have a certain personality or whether they’re lacking in some sort of skills, do you teach that is that your solution, a quiz could be a really great asset for you and for your potential clients. Because again, we want to give high value, low time, and we want to deliver a transformation, not just information. We want to give them a transformation. So they’ve gone from not knowing something about themselves to having more knowledge and knowledge is power. So the first tip I want to give you is if you are not using a customized quiz or an assessment, we highly recommended. And for most of our clients that work with us to design and grow their business, a quiz and an assessment who has been working very, very well for frankly, over six years. So that one still is really working well in 2021. Number two, the next type of lead magnet that’s working really well is something that entertains people. Okay? So this is gamification. These are quick accomplishments or challenges or something with group interaction. So if you have a way to get people entertained, have them laugh or feel good, or be part of something. Those lead magnets are working really well. And of course, that’s going to be all relative based on what your area of expertise is, but those are doing really, really well. The next tip is a magnet that levels up your audiences IQ. So anytime we can level up somebody’s knowledge, we’ve given them a transformation, right? So if you, if this fits along the lines with what you’re doing, if you have short videos with juicy information that make people wanting more, those lead magnets are doing really great. And I’m not talking about things you give away for free on Tik talk or a little videos that you put out in IgE live or YouTube shorts or whatever it is. I’m talking something that’s locked down, that’s even better when then what they can see for free. And it makes them feel more special that this is even more curated and it’s going to level up their IQ. And again, a short period of time. So short videos with juicy information that pay, make people wanting more, the next tip for a lead magnet. That’s working really well right now are audio files with the introduction of clubhouse and now Spotify greenroom and all these other things that are coming around. People love audio because they don’t have to be staring at a screen while they’re driving down the road or while they’re at a gym. So actually any length of audio that is personalized for your audience is working really well right now. If you have an exclusive interview that you want to share, that could be a very cool thing. Maybe you’re not a podcaster. Maybe you want to keep that just for your audience, but sharing it, access to an audio file is very cool. And people are really into it right now in 2021. The other thing they can do is frankly, in a lot of cases, they can speed it up. And again, we’re busy people so they can get information and, you know, sometimes put you on two or three X, the speed and, and really get information even faster. Another example of this, and we have actually quite a few clients that are doing this, or like drips of daily, meditation’s drips of inspirational quotes. And these are all audio files where you can drop into somebody’s email box, or they can be texted to your clients. That’s just something like, Hey, good morning, gorgeous. How are you today? You are enough. You know, that’s an example of an audio file if that fits in line with your business. So, and then another example of this and, and clients are using this as well are tips for leaders. So if you have leaderships leaders that follow you in your, your leadership coach or an executive coach of some kind, any sort of tips, they don’t even have to be daily. It can be five days of audio files. These things are really doing well and people are eating them up. The next tip of a lead magnet. This is working really well right now in 2021 or trials. And these have usually always worked really well. So this particular thing has not changed. So trials demos of a product, testing your offer for a short period of time to experience it. Those things are really good. People love experiencing things. And when they’re really looking for a solution, especially if you don’t have a software product or a physical product, they want to know that they jive with you, that they can trust you, that they feel you in. So it’s really important if you are selling them into a higher end program, that’s an experience that you give them a little piece in your lead magnet of some way to experience you. Then next tip for you is a lead magnet that provides a quick win in a PDF form. Now, I really hesitate to be recommending PDF lead magnets, but people still are opting into them. Here is the important thing. They have to be super juicy and not very long. So if you have like a meal plan or a calendar, a marketing calendar that you could give away for free or a workout plan, or perhaps it’s a, a written step-by-step on how to, self-publish a book, those lead magnets are still doing really well, but just make sure that they’re short and giving people a quick transformation so that they are immediately totally in love with you. You’re the bee’s knees and they want more of what you have. And here’s something, this is a really interesting one. I admit I have not personally used this one, but in making sure I’m doing my due diligence in the research of preparing for this episode for you, I was going through and found a suggestion of a lead magnet. That to me, frankly, seems genius. So I just want to share it with you. This is a state of the industry survey. And I remember a long time ago, like three, four years ago, I think Amy Porterfield did something like this and somebody put out a state of the industry of something. And this is really, really cool. And so I’ve found this from Sam rush blog, and I wanted to share it with you guys. So this is a survey that exists primarily for your market research and can also be used as seriously, one of the best lead magnets ever. So what you do is you encourage users to answer a few survey questions and share their contact details in exchange for getting the whole report. So you make it super clear that you’re putting a report together. They obviously need to be in that space and you want to gather their state of whatever it is that you’re collecting on. Could be the state of self publishing in America. It could be the state of branding. You know, it could be the state of whatever it is, the state of mindfulness, the state of health, whatever that may be for you, collect the data and then share the report with them. And again, just make it really clear to them that you’re putting the report together, that their opinions matter to you and other people in your niche and that you will be sharing that report. So I wanted to make sure I included mentioning that because I can’t say yes, this is one of those ones that’s really working great in 2021. But let me just take a sidestep here for a second. One of the divisions that we coach clients is, is what I call amplify. It’s our amplify phase. We have launched clients, we have scale clients and we have amplified clients for my amplify clients. They are in the process of creating courses and programs, or they’ve already created courses and programs. And they’re doing one of two things. They’re either licensing those corporate, those programs or courses to corporations, or they’re in the process of creating their own certification program and training other people on their method. That’s our amplify phase. And I’m going to do another episode for you guys about the difference between the launch scale and amplify coming up here on the show, because we get a lot of questions about that. I share that because this state of the industry survey for our clients that are licensing their content or their courses to other companies, this could work really, really well. So I can’t wait to get back and talk to that group of clients and share this information with them. And I see this as being a really big asset, depending on who you’re serving. I think that could be a really good asset. So just want to share that if you are brand new in the coaching space, this is probably not appropriate for you, but those of you guys that fit into our scale and amplify clients. So again, you’re in phase three or four of my roadmap, then this could be really good for you by. So I wanted to make sure I included it. And in the show notes, there’s a link to where I found this data from. Okay, three more. And then I’m going to recap them all for you. I promise this episode would be short because the sun is shining and we need to go out and play. So the next one, our events. So these are round table discussions and virtual events live virtual events. Those are converting really, really well for lead magnets. The next one is templates. So any sort of a template, a marketing calendar template, any sort of a template where somebody can make it their own. Those are always great. Again, high value, and you’ve just saved them a ton of time. And then the last one, which isn’t kind of really a lead magnet, but it’s an important way to engage with your audience is having a popup on your website, which is a live chat and in the process, collecting their information in exchange for giving them an opportunity to chat with you. So we’ve talked about a lot today. We covered the state of lead magnets that they’re changing from these big mega things. Nobody wants our 500 page free book anymore. Now they want high value, short time transformation. And depending on your industry, it’s going to look a little different, whatever it is you give away as a lead magnet. But here is the most important thing I would love to make sure that we nail into the ground. Your lead magnet is a prerequisite to your leading programs and offers and packages. So don’t just throw anything out there, make sure it’s reverse engineered and it meets prerequisites for what you’re trying to sell. As long as it does that. Now let’s talk about what’s converting. Number one, customized curated lead magnets, like quizzes and assessments. We talked about number two, entertainment. So quick accomplishments challenges, group interaction. Number three is leveling up their IQ with short juicy videos that make people want, I mean, more number four or audio files, frankly, of any length. They can be dripped out daily. They can be a long form interview. People are really loving audio right now. Number five are trials, demos and testing of your offer so that they can experience six quick wins in PDF form. Quick, short, juicy PDF wins. But I will said move that to the bottom of the list. We’ve used PDs literally for over 13 years and people are not quick grabbing them anymore, but if that’s what you need to do, if that’s what aligns, if that’s really the best prerequisite that you can do do it. Seven surveys, state of the industry surveys for those of you guys that are at that level of business. And you’re moving from scale, the amplified five, eight events, virtual events, round table discussions. That’s basically relationships. People want to hang out and they want to be part of something really special and they want to share their voice nine templates and number 10 are live chats that are done through your website. Wow. Okay. I hope you found that very informative. I’m here to make sure that the work you’re doing because entrepreneurship is really fricking hard work, that the work that you’re doing gets traction your business. We don’t just want to do stuff because other people are doing it or you saw somebody else doing it. I’m a business strategist. And so my mission literally here on this podcast, we’ve been doing this podcast for almost five years, literally giving away free trainings that other coaches charge thousands for. And the purpose for that is so that every single minute you were doing something in your work, anything you build, anything, you plan, anything you release, anything you do in your daily activities. All of it is very clearly leading towards a purpose. It is high profit, deep impact lifestyle, freedom for you. And it looks different for everybody, but it starts with mindfully doing things, not just following the herd. And so I really felt like this episode was important to record. I know it’s a holiday week here in the United States, but we have listeners all over the world and hopefully you’ll tap into this when you have an opportunity. And if you have a lead magnet, that’s not converting. Let’s take a look at it. Join me in clubhouse. I’m always in clubhouse, every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock in the sweet life entrepreneurs club. And I would love to chat with you about your lead magnet, troubleshoot your lead magnet, and really help you find a good solution. That’s going to attract the right people. Don’t forget. We don’t want all the people. We only want the right people and therefore funneling all those right people in so they can become raving fans of you and your business forever. Okay, you guys, that’s a wrap. This is episode number 234. Again, all of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. We have some amazing quick win business coaching programs. Both our sweet life business launch program is coming back out. We’ve just totally updated that program. I’m so excited about it. So if you’re here and you are in the process of launching your coaching and consulting business, then this is the proven program that has been launching online entrepreneurs since 2008, all across the world. And we would love to have you be part of it. We’d love to link arms with you and get your business off the ground. All of this can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com and I hope you have an awesome day. Thanks for hanging out. I’ll talk to you. Bye-bye.
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You’re listening to the suede life entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach. Hey everybody. And welcome to episode number 200 in 33, we have a very special treat in store for you today. You’re Going to leave today’s episode with fully knowing how to look at your own videos,
how you’re showing up in video and edit and change anything so that you can create an, a crazy devotion to you where people love you and increase your sales. So we’re going to dive into all of that in just a second with our guest expert today, McCall Jones, before we get started, first of all, welcome if you’ve never listened to this show before I’m April beach,
founder of the Sweetlife company and host here at the sweet life entrepreneurial podcast. Thank you guys so much. I keep forgetting to share back with our audience. I’ve been trying to in the last couple of episodes that you guys have just voted me top 50 moms and podcasting, and I appreciate you so much that never would have happened without you turning in your votes and lifting this show up and lifting me up.
And I appreciate it so much. So I just want to say thank you to you guys. We’ve been producing this show for about four and a half years, and if you’ve been a faithful listener here on the show, you know that the Sweetlife entrepreneurial podcast gives you business trainings from the trenches proven business trainings from decades and decades of proven frameworks systems pass and coaching to bring your business to the next level.
We like to say that this is the podcast that other coaches would charge thousands for the information you hear on this show. And I just want to thank you so much personally, for being a listener. If you are not officially a subscribed yet, please click that subscribe button and take a screenshot and tag me in it. Take a screenshot tag at April beach life.
And so I can know you. I can know who’s listening, and then I want to follow you back and I want to follow your business back, and then we can keep supporting you back on Instagram. So I would love to do that for you as well as if you haven’t connected with us yet. Every single week we host a live Sweetlife entrepreneur pot house podcast room on clubhouse at 12 o’clock Eastern time on Wednesdays.
That is your time to come to me, come to our guests and ask your questions. We want to workshop with you based on the podcast trainings that we drop here on the show. So listen to the show as a drop some Monday, join us live in clubhouse on Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time. And we’re there to workshop with you in order to find us on clubhouse.
All you need to do is search my name. You can search at April beach and then click follow up and click the bell little bell next to it, to turn on notifications. And you will actually also see a schedule of rooms that I’m hosting, and you can even RSVP for those rooms to get a notification on your own calendar, as well as we always post the clubhouse calendar every single week to my Instagram,
which is at April beach life. So lots of places for you to get connected and to get answers and to get support. We’re just not here talking to ourselves. Everything we do here is about giving you proven strategies and giving you support to take your business to the next level. And let’s go ahead and dive in and talk about what we’re talking about on this episode with our amazing,
amazing guests. So who this episode is for first of all, if you don’t know what stage of business you’re in, just stop for a second. We actually have a self-assessment you can take, you can go to sweet life co.com forward slash quiz, and you can take a self-assessment and you can find out exactly what stage or phase of business you’re in as composed as compared,
I should say to my lifestyle entrepreneur roadmap. And the reason why I say that is because every single one of our episodes here on the podcast are tagged to a stage of business, because I don’t want to just give you more content. We want to give you a transformation, but if you’re not ready for what we’re teaching you and talking about on today’s show,
based on where you are in business, then go pick another episode to listen to this. That is, that means that, you know, you, aren’t in alignment with where your business is growing right now. And we want to make sure that you continually stay in alignment. So I say all of that to say that this episode is for those of you who are in phases two,
three or four. So primarily you two and threes, but also some of you fours. So if you don’t know where you are, again, you can pause this and just open up a new window on your phone. Really quick, go to sweet life co.com forward slash quiz, or you can text the word quiz to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0. And we will send you a link to take that,
to make sure that what you’re being taught, what we’re pouring out today aligns with something that is going to take your business to the next level, because you’re ready for it. Okay, let’s go ahead and dive in. This show is very important because you’re an expert and you’re probably really pretty incredible at what you do, but sales from your online videos.
Aren’t maybe re exactly reflecting how incredible you are, how great your services are. This means there’s a disconnect between who you are and how you’re showing up a video. Or there could be some bumpy roads between how you show compassion on video, establishing your authority, or maybe making your videos a little bit more entertaining. So that’s what we’re solving today on the show.
And my friend McCall Jones, creator of charisma hacking is here and she is breaking down her proven formula to solve these problems. So let me tell you whom a call is. She’s going to introduce herself a bit. So I’ll just read a little bit here to get you prepared. She’s a founder of charisma, hacky, and a set of business systems built from Hollywood tactics that make audiences notice you then obsess over you and then compulsively buy from you.
And she goes in and she’ll share her whole entertainment story on this show. It’s fascinating. And the connection between her background in entrepreneur growth is this perfect superpower that she has is there. You’re really gonna love today’s show the secrets of charisma hacking success is in its systems and how they adapt to each entrepreneur’s personalities. McCall says we’ve cracked the code on how any entrepreneur can amplify the best parts of themselves to build a rabid fan base,
regardless of whether they are as intense as Gary V nurturing his Bernay brown, energetic as Russell Bronson, or matter of fact is Dave Ramsey with charisma hacking clients have increased YouTube video watch times by up to 242% tripled their revenue, 20 X, their Facebook ad click-through rate, and more than anything else, finally, we’re able to connect with their audience and meaningful way and deliver their message in a way where they responded by being the best versions of themselves.
That’s everything you get today on the show. And it is a little bit longer than most of our episodes. So I just wanted to prepare you for that. You are going to want to stay till the end. I promise you, you are those of you go getters that never leave before the end. You guys are so rad. We love you,
but if you can’t stay too long, make sure you pause the episode and you come back to it. All right, let’s go ahead and dive in and all of the show notes and everything I mentioned previously, and everything that is going to be mentioned on the show can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And this is episode number 233. Let’s go Hey guys,
welcome to episode number 233 here on the sweet left entrepreneur and business podcast. And I am joined by my new good friend. I say new good friends because yes, of course, all my listeners are laughing and be like, oh yeah, I bet you met her on clubhouse. Yes, you’re right. I’ve met McAllen clubhouse. By the way, side note,
if you aren’t over there yet, you need to come over there and chat with us on clubhouse, because this is what it’s all about. Meeting amazing people that can pour into your business that can pour into my business and create these amazing dream teams, a business collaborations that bring us all to the next level. And I have had such a great time the last five months getting to know my friend McCall Jones.
And I’m so excited. She’s here on the show today. So I’m so proud of be April. Yeah, guys, you got to get over to clubhouse is the place to be. We’re just making all new friends kind of hang out with us. Kim, hang out with us with that being said, one of the things that we know about clubhouses is it’s a great place to establish your superpower,
your true superpower for how you get people results and your exact method and strategy. And you have risen to the top. It’s like the best rise to the top and clubhouse because of your very niche, amazingly charismatic, important like important superpower. So tell everybody who you are, what you do and how you got into doing what you do first. Let’s start there.
Yeah, of course. So I own a company called charisma hacking. So with charisma hacking, we work with coaches to solve two problems in their business. Number one, people aren’t watching my videos and number two, people are watching my videos, but they are not buying. So we tap into your specific personality to make sure that you are being yourself so that you get higher value customers that stay forever.
The way that I got into charisma have you, I’ll give you the short version. It’s a long story, but I grew up actually as a child performer. So I was performing in front of audiences of 25,000 when I was eight and 35,000 when I was 11. And I was performing on a very consistent basis, did a couple of movies in high school.
I was in high school musical two a, which was really fun. But the whole time I have this incredible performance anxiety, that was pretty crippling. All of my worth in my mind was wrapped up in the fact that I was a performer and I had this recurring nightmare. That one day I would wake up and not be able to sing, not be able to act,
not be able to perform and that nobody would love me anymore. And this nightmare started when I was a really little girl and it led me to, you know, long story short, it led me to creating these frameworks back then I called them checklists so that I could wake up and feel like I could teach myself how to do what I did the night before.
I also started paying attention to what audiences paid attention to and what they cheered for louder, things like that. It all started with Donnie. Ozmen, it’s a long story, but basically I was watching him perform. He saying right before me at the Steve young benefit retirement cruise. And when I was having this panic attack backstage, basically I saw the audience interact with him in a way that I had never seen before.
And I snuck over to the side of this room divider that they used as this backstage area. And I honestly got really envious and really jealous. And I thought to myself, I could do exactly what he’s doing. And I started to make a checklist of like, oh, what he’s doing with his hands, what he’s doing with his space, what he’s doing with his voice,
who is he pointing at? How is he walking on the stage? And I started to log these things into this checklist. And then I realized that these checklists were going to lower my anxiety considerably. And I just made checklist for everything. After that, I realized that it’s more of a science and it led to creating checklists for acting, for dance for all different types of audiences and sizes.
I used it for auditions. And then when I was 18, I was fired from an acting job for being too fat. They literally dismissed me from set because I had been wait between the audition and when we were actually filming, which it isn’t their right to do that. But it was very devastating to me. All of a sudden this fear of rejection became just rejection.
And in that moment I vowed to never get on camera. Again. I knew that I never wanted to do that again. I, I didn’t want to feel the way that I was feeling in that moment. So I didn’t, and I stayed low for a couple of years. Then the really depressing thing about that. I went into this very deep depression.
I had spent my whole life at this point, perfecting the art of being in front of people really perfecting it of, you know, all of these checklists of like, this works, this doesn’t in front of these audiences. You move this large and in front of these audiences, here’s what you’re supposed to do. And you know, an auditions. And then I wasn’t using the skills that I built over,
you know, my entire life. And within a couple of years I had somebody come to me and asked me if I would help then with an audition. And I said, yes, under very strict circumstances, because I didn’t want to be the reason they succeeded or failed. And I told her that I would help her as long as we did it before after video.
And if I could prove that I made a difference, then yes, we could do it again. I could take her money and we can move forward that way. And I just taught her some of the checklists that I had really never verbalized out or verbalized yet outside of, of my brain. And it worked in a very real way. The before after video was insane,
which led to my whole first business, which was helping entertainers basically be better in front of people. And then about a year and a half ago now I went to funnel hacking live, which is a big internet marketing convention. And I just went to see my sister-in-law speak. She was speaking. I knew it was big deal for her, but I knew nothing about the internet marketing world.
And as I looked around, I started taking notes of all these entrepreneurs that when they would come up to me, they would light up and share all of their solutions and the amazing things they were doing. And then we’d go five feet, you know, to the left or to the right. And they would be networking with other people and they would shut down and it would be a completely different person.
And then I’d see them filming things for ads or joint ventures or logs. And they were just not great. They were not themselves. And I realized that nobody would ever hear their solutions. Nobody would ever listened to them. People on stage that I was just like, oh my gosh, they just had these techniques. I could help them. And as I looked around,
I realized, you know, with entertainers my whole life, I had gone through, you know, the, that I’m going to change the world first as a performer was, I’m going to make people happy. Then as a coach of entertainers, I’m going to change the world by basically trying to help people be famous. And then as I sat there surrounded by people who had these incredible solutions that truly were going to change people’s lives.
I realized that my impact on the world could be infinite because theirs was, if I empowered them to make people, listen to them, basically. So Prisma hacking it’s been going really well. And it’s really fun. All of the techniques that we use, like I said, have been proven. I’ve used them since I was eight years old. I have hundreds of before after videos proving their effectiveness.
Yeah. That’s what brought us here. That’s I really, I don’t think I could do anything else. This is so much a part of my identity and everything that had been since I was a little girl. Wow. I have honestly, never heard that whole entire story. I never knew that that was your background actually in all the time we spent together on clubhouse.
It’s really interesting what you say. So I don’t know if you knew this, but my middle son is a professional hip hop dancer. And so we have lived in Los Angeles before COVID a week, a month. He was there working. And interestingly enough, since COVID, and since he’s kind of not currently dancing right now, but in some of them,
some of the, the wave that you were sharing, like about viewing yourself and how you show up. I see some of that. I’ve seen some of that in him and some of those same challenges actually. And so it is really, really fascinating to hear that. And just being like a mom in that industry, there is nothing like that industry.
And how cool is that that absolutely a completely, perfectly positioned you to help other kinds of stars, people that have amazing solutions for businesses, but actually utilize what you know, from the entertainment space, because it’s like, what does that reminded me of gladiator of Russell Crowe when he’s like, are you not entertained? You know what I mean? I just think that’s such an amazing story and absolutely you’re the perfect person to give this solution to people.
And you know, me being in the entrepreneur space, my whole life you’re right. I see so many people that have these amazing solutions, but yet it’s not getting out. There’s like a block of some kind and you have the gift to see that. So I’m so excited. You’re on the show today. We’re going to talk about your framework that you’ve developed,
literally, since you were eight, this genius started following your framework that people need. And when we give people frameworks to build their own genius within that’s when we truly created something, that’s amazing. That’s going to, like you said, your one framework impacts literally a magnitude and a multitude of people. Let’s talk about what does this look like? Like,
first of all, when people say, what is actual charisma hacking? Like what actually is the definition of charisma hacking? Let’s start there. Absolutely. So I defined charisma a little bit different and I will tell you why. The first thing that I feel like people define charisma as is like what the masses consider high energy. And they’re like, oh,
they can command a room because they’re this very specific personality type. I do not define charisma that way with all the research that I’ve done with all the clients that I’ve worked with. And with my own experience, I defined charisma as making strangers trust you and making those who know you aggressively devoted to you, that does not matter. And it’s not dependent on your personality type.
It only matters the level in which you communicate with people. So for me, you know, it’s exactly what you said with the entertainment industry. Everything is about rejection. You get so many more rejections than you actually get jobs, really. And you know, people who like you or dislike you and people are picking apart every single part of your personality.
And for me, you know, growing up a lot of times, people wanted me to be something different. And because I was an actress, I could do that. I had a very specific skillset that any time somebody didn’t like a very specific part of my personality, I would change. And a lot of times they wanted me to be sexier or I was called step Ferdie.
Once some people have told me that because I am bubbly, they thought I was stupid. Like, there’s so many different things that kind of built up this, what people want me to be, which I know a lot of times that’s how people define charisma. They say, what do people want me to be? What do they need me to be?
And I will be that when I started charisma hacking, you know, remember I made this vow to myself that I would never get on camera again. And at funnel hacking live, I had this really interesting experience where the whole first day that I was planning, you know, creating this new business model, I was trying to figure out a way for me to do it behind the scenes.
Cause without whole first business, I was, I was very much behind the scenes. I was pushing other people, you know, out in front of the spotlight on the stage on camera. I was the director, the producer, and I felt like I was happy and satisfied with that. So that’s what I tried to do the whole first day. I tried to figure out a way to not be on camera,
to not be the face of my business. And I very quickly realized that that was not possible if I wanted to make the impact that I wanted to. And there was a wonderful woman who spoke at funnel hacking librarians, Heather Quizzle, she’s a friend of ours now. And I went up to compliment her on her speech and she stopped me and said,
what do you do? And I tried on my new business title and my new business description. And she just told me it was like, she saw through me. She’s like, whatever you do, make sure the face of it, make sure that you are on every video, on every ad on everything. And it really struck me. I was like,
oh my gosh, I’m being seen. So when I got home, I had to make this promise to myself that I made all of my clients also promise themselves that they have to be themselves 100% of the time. They cannot try to think, Hey, if I’m going to be charismatic, I need to be whatever people want me to be. Whatever people think I should be,
whatever will attract the masses or satisfy the masses, whatever they will. Like. Instead we focus on this aggressive devote. And like I said before, that actually draws people to your specific personality. I will tell you, I am not for everyone. And a lot of people will tell you that, right? I am cooky and crazy and silly and all these.
And I wasn’t that for a really long time. And my greatest achievement, I believe with charisma hacking is building a business around actually who I am. Because every time people watch my videos, every time they move higher in my programs or up my value ladder, they only want to get to know me more or at the very bottom. They know if I’m not for them and they leave don’t waste any time,
I don’t spend any money marketing towards people who are not a good fit. So with this, when we put it okay, charisma hacking, right? We make people themselves and we make them not only themselves, but that version of themselves, that level of themselves is the very best person they can be in their business and for their clients. So when I said like,
I didn’t want to be the face of my company or led me to taking all of these amazing things, all of these things and really breaking down what was important, how do we make you yourself? Because the frightening thing is you absolutely can build an audience if you are not being yourself. And that should terrify you because all of a sudden you’re creating a new problem.
You are building an audience for a person who does not exist. If you create an alter ego and a character that you feel we’ll help you be less nervous and you just no put on your Sasha fierce face and you go on camera, you are building an audience for that person. They are investing in that version of you. That is not sustainable. You can build an audience that way,
but you will spend time and money acquiring an audience, acquiring a customer that is not a good fit for any of your higher programs, especially as a coach, because the closer they get to you, the more they will realize. First, you create distrust. You create a sense of discomfort because they realize you’re not the same person and they leave, right.
So instead we say, okay, you’re going to be the face of your company. You’re going to be the same 100% of the time so that we can create trust and we can make them aggressively devoted to you by being the face of your company. So I know we have a big face framework that we’re going to go through too, but that’s the core Prismic mapping.
And that’s a scary statement to hear for some of our listeners. And I am so glad that you said that the fact that you are literally building an audience around somebody that doesn’t exist, because it isn’t you and you aren’t showing up authentically to who you are and who you’re going to be after they buy you and, you know, refunds and, you know,
disgruntled people. I mean, that’s all part of what happens in that. And so it’s so important that you said what you said, but I also think it’s pretty sobering in the fact that you said it as clearly as you did. And so I also know that, you know, we have a lot of listeners and with the process of where they are in business,
when you are starting to launch, I actually think that in my experience, in coaching businesses, through the development and growth phase, the launch people, surprisingly, they, yes, they deal with kind of struggling with this so much. They actually are pretty good at being themselves. It’s after they start getting a little traction, I have seen them go to this next point of saying,
oh, but I’m not enough. Oh, now I need to become somebody different in order to actually keep getting a little bit more attraction. This is usually like in the first 18 months, sometimes I see that transition. And so I love that you said that because eventually that’s going to be a brick wall for them. And thank you so much for speaking the truth.
And that’s what we do here on this show. And I know our listeners really want and need to hear it. So let’s talk about this face framework. What is it, why do people need it, break it down for us? Absolutely. So with the space framework, what we are really assessing is two things. So it’s your personality style or type,
or your charisma style or type that’s one side of it. And the second side of it is the level, right? So the first thing that we establish is making sure that your personality type is right, or we can even say is true, right? And I’ll break down the different parts of your personality that we make sure that we assess the second part of that.
It never changes your personality or charisma type never changes, but the level does as you get more competent or more, you know, at an expert level on video, these very specific things are going to level up, but who you are and your personality type doesn’t change them up super important. So we go through F a C E so F is the floor,
or we can save a level. We can call it the Flavell level if you want. Right. And this is where we assess how competent you are or how effective you are at making sure these next three, the AC and E are the right type and what level they’re at. So Fs floor. So we’re going to assess the level a is authority.
C is and E is entertainment. So with all of our research that we’ve done, you know, not only over the last year and a half, but obviously for the last, you know, 20 years, I have found that you have to have these three things in order to fully connect with a human. Now everybody has them within their personality. So it’s really important that on-camera,
we make sure that all three of these things are present in very specific times. So authority makes people act, it makes people buy. And I’ll tell you how we measure that in just a second. Compassion makes people confess. It makes you safe. It makes them engage in the comments. And I’ll tell you how we measure that. And then entertainment makes people watch,
right? So with each one of these things, we have a way to measure, not how you are in person, right? What we’re saying is we have to make sure how you are in person when you are with your very favorite person in the world is the exact same person. We call this emotional accuracy as you are on camera. So we look at these very specific types of your personality or parts of your personality.
So authority would be like, when you’re in charge of something, when you are in your element, teaching something, how do you act when you are with your very favorite person? We have very specific ways. We measure that with compassion. It’s when you’re being empathetic with people, when you are counseling them, when they come to about hard things or when you’re being vulnerable,
how are you sounding? Right. Voice face, body language, right? How do you sound? How do you move? How do you speak when you are actually doing those things with your favorite person in real life? And that entertainment is when you are goofing off, when you are being lighthearted, all those different things. Now, each one of these things are going to look very different for different people.
Some people’s authority is based in strength and empowering, and it can even feel a little bit aggressive. Some people’s authority is very much based in patients and making sure that people know that they know what they’re talking about by being very patient with them, right? Compassion, same thing. Some people are like, Hey, I’m gonna kick you in the butt.
Like we got to go. This is how I’m being compassionate. And other people are deep listeners. And they want people to feel very seen entertainment. Some people are dry, some people are bubbly. Some people are, you know, the kid in the back, coroner making jokes under his breath, right? There are different types of all of these different things.
So making sure that you assess how you are when you’re with your very favorite person, once again, I’ll give you the ways to measure these. You say, how is my voice? Right? The most common thing that I see with my clients is when they’re on video with me and they’ll be like, oh my gosh, I’m so excited. This is so great.
And then they get on video when we’re filming now. Like I am so excited to be here. And I’m like, okay, well, if your voice like this, we’re actually excited. And then you sound like this. When you’re on camera, when you’re excited, it’s not emotionally accurate. Right? A lot of people say the word authentic. I don’t actually like to use the word authentic for this very specific reason.
I like systems. I like to measure. I like to be measurable and repeatable. And authenticity is just a little bit vague. Right? I know what they mean. And I, I think that that’s fantastic, but emotional accuracy with exactly what I just did with my voice, we can say, is it accurate? Or is it not? Is that actually how you sound move speed when you’re excited,
when you’re being compassionate, when you’re being authoritative or not. Right? So we dive into all these different things. So now with the level, so once we find the type, once we find your specific personality type, then we assess the level. And as you go up in level, you are able to retain attention more. Your watch times go up.
That’s the entertainment part. You are able to know pain points, objections, and get more comments and engagement because your compassion is higher and you are able to move people to action in very real ways, any call to action that you give them, whether it’s by opt in, watch the next video. If it’s in a course, it’s very effective. And people do what you basically tell them to do,
right? So we have your type and then we start moving up your level. So within the authority, I’ll give you this. And then I’ll tell you a quick story. So within authority, we have five different levels. Only the top three, make you any money. The bottom two do not. The very bottom level of authority is the level of authority where,
okay, have you guys ever watched somebody and thought they have no idea what they’re talking? Right? You watch them in your life, their stuff, or associate my business with them. It would do bad things to my business. It would not be a good idea, right? Yes. Bottom level of authority. The next level is the most interesting level because it still does not make you money,
but this person is very likable. You watch their stuff, you share their stuff. You like route them on from the side, but you would never pay them money if you will watch them. But you’re like, oh my gosh, they’re making their dreams come true. This is so great. I would never hire them as a coach, but I would totally,
you root for them, right? I’ll share their stuff. This is great, right? Still doesn’t make you money. You can be the most likable person in the world have the most views in the world. But if you’re missing that authority, you still aren’t making any money. The next level up from there is employee authority. What this means, we’re basically saying how much control will somebody give you of their business?
Right? So with employee authority, somebody would give you a checklist. They would feel, and a lot of coaching clients, guys, if you are a coach and you get clients that feel like they will give you the checklist of what you’re going to do, you have employee level authority. Even if you can get them to bring you money. At first,
it is not a good client for you, right? Because they feel if they gave you a checklist of exactly what to do, you would be competent to accomplish it. The next one is contractor level authority. This is the good, because of the glides who feel like every single thing you do is up for discussion and that they can decide which actions they want to take.
And not because with contractor level authority, they trust you in one very specific area, but they don’t trust you with steps. They don’t trust you with direction. These are things like funnel builders, where we say, okay, you know, I am in charge, but I trust that you have expertise in building this funnel. But every single thing we do is up for discussion.
And in the very top level of authority is coach level authority. When you get to this level of authority, not only will people pay you and see you as a coach, but when you get coaching clients, you have been given control. They do what you say. They trust your expertise in your area. It’s something where you can give them steps and direction.
And they are ideal clients. They pay you money. And then they thank you for taking their money because you have this level of authority. They don’t question that, which is really great. So with all these things, like I said, I have not said anything about some personality types have more authority than others, right? Every single personality type, regardless if you’re introverted,
extroverted, loud, quiet, whatever, right. Every single personality type goes through these levels. Right. And the way that we measure, if you’re being effective in this is do people move to action, right? Do they buy, or do they opt in or whatever your call to action is at the end of your video, if they don’t, you know,
your authority is probably down in the second from bottom level, right. They probably like you, if they’re engaging with you and be like, oh my gosh, I’m being myself. Right. But they do not see the authority enough to buy from you. Go ahead. Given you so much. So yes, obviously so much to say, I’m sure our listeners are like,
oh my gosh, okay. I’m like, I’m not taking notes by the way, side note, Macola and I are always co moderating clubhouse rooms. So just join us in a clubhouse room and, and McCall, and even expand on this for you personally as well. So this is really interesting as you were breaking it out. One of the things that I,
from like the offer development side of it that I see as I see like level three and four, for those businesses that do like the done for you or the done with you type services, which is interesting because some coaches obviously also have another separate of their division of their company that is like the build-out or, you know, whatever that is the done for you.
But one of the things that I coach my clients on is you’re not the person that does that. You’re the coach. Like you have to have a separate team to do that, that works with that client to actually implement that. That is a way to grow and scale your business. But I’ve never clearly, I like the way I’m communicating it has gotten through,
but the way you communicated, even now, I’ll be able to say yes, because that’s a different level of authority in taking your coach authority and bringing it back down to the contractor or that employee authority is actually reducing your expertise and bringing you down a scale after they have paid you top dollar or whatever it is that you do. And so, as you were saying,
all of that, that’s immediately. What I was thinking is these entrepreneurs that are listening to this show, small businesses that are listening to this show that have the coaching authority, but also this separate, oh, I’ll do it with you or I’ll do it for you after I coach you and strategize how to do that. It’s a great business model. It’s a great way to scale and grow your business.
Like we even have a separate design division of our company, but I don’t do it. And so it’s just really interesting that you were saying that. So getting back to these coaches though, what do they do? McCall, if they are like, oh my gosh, I think I’m at this. I’m looking at my notes here. And like millions of McCall notes behind the scenes and with a pencil because my children steal all my pens.
It’s all we have left in the house and you know, like, what is the deal? If they’re like, oh my gosh, I met this employee level. I’m not showing up with confidence. How do you get them from where they are now to that level five that I have the authority here. I know what I’m doing. You know, me,
I’m like, I have a framework. Everybody has to have their own framework or method. How do we help them? Absolutely. Such a good question. So the very first thing that everybody needs to do is they need to make sure that their type is correct. Right. So you can be very competent. And if you’re trying to, you know,
I don’t know how many of your listeners know who Garrett J white is, but if Garrett J white and Russell Brunson, right? These are two internet marketers in the online space. If Garrett J white and Russell Brunson, or let’s say Tony Robbins and Bernay brown, or Marie Forleo, if they tried to use the same tactics, they would work for one of them.
And they would not work for the other one of them because they’re very different people, right? So if you look at Marie Forleo, the way that she entertains is very authentic to her, right? He uses her voice kind of like this, and she’s kind of spilling all over the place with Bernay brown. If Bernay brown, tried would be Marie Forleo,
it would be a disaster. And Renee brown people would be like, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy, it would not only like lower her entertainment level, but it would also lower her authority level. Right? The first thing that people can sense is just a yes or a no, they just say is something off here, right? Is something off.
So the first thing that you want to make sure that you do is we’re going to find emotional accuracy in all three of these areas. I’m going to give you a very specific thing that you can do in order to do that. Because being emotionally accurate first, then you can actually be likable, right? As soon as you’re likable, we can start to increase your authority with very specific things as well.
So the first thing that you’re going to do, I’m going to tell you a very quick story. That’s going to make sense of how to do this. So we’re looking for emotional accuracy. So when I was a voice teacher, voice acting performance teacher, I had this wonderful nine-year-old student named Beck. He was incredible, was like a bounce off the wall,
kind of spastic kid who seriously, it was one of my very favorite humans ever. And I had taught him singing lessons, voice lessons for the last six months. But this was the first time he wanted to try acting. It was big audition coming up. It was this all male version of Annie, which was really interesting. And he had a three line audition.
He had a script that gave him three lines and a description of how to say it. And he memorized his script because he was a go getter. And remember, my whole first business was before or after videos. So he comes down to my studio and he’s all ready to go. And I’m taught him singing any hard to get him to stand still.
Right. And I read this description. I like, he hands me the script. I read this description. It just says very excited, basically excited out of his mind, there’s boats in the Harbor. He’s never seen boats and it’s, it’s supposed to be really exciting for him. And I was like, oh my gosh, he’s going to nail.
This is going to be thing. So I’m like, okay, back, we’re going to do your before video. Are you ready? He’s like, yeah, I’m totally ready. And you kind of see him, like looking off to the side to recall his script, that he’s memorized. These three lines. I was like, okay, ready? Action.
And he goes, the boats, mama, you were holding me up to see the boats. And they were right there. I was like, yeah. Okay, cut. Let me kind of like bounce around. He’s like how’d I do all day. Well, I was like this time. I just want you to be excited about the boat. Right.
We just need to be excited about the boats. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m like, okay, ready? Action. He’s like the boat’s mama. You were holding me up to see the boats and they were right there. I was like, okay, let’s try something different. So Becca wants you to tell me about your very favorite thing in the entire world.
My puppy snickerdoodle it was the best puppy in the world. When you tell her to sit, she sits. And when you tell her to stay, she stayed. I was like, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to talk about snickerdoodle. We want to be just as excited as we are when we talk about snickerdoodle. But instead of saying snickerdoodle we are going to talk about the boats.
You understand? He was like, oh yeah, totally. I was like, okay, ready? Action. Just like the bumps, mommy girl, you have to see the bumps. And I can see the bright there. And what I understood in this moment with this wonderful nine-year-old is he didn’t have any emotional context for his copy. He had memorized it,
which for a lot of people, if they have something memorized or scripted, they feel like they are doing it well, when instead that accuracy was not there, he knew need to have something in his life that was emotionally accurate for the emotion he was supposed to be on camera. And then he just had to make the match. Right? Coolest thing.
I’ve had people when I’ve done this in trainings before say, well, what if I’m not like that? What if I’m not bouncing off the walls? Right? What if my snickerdoodle story? Cause this is what we call them. Sounded like the boats, mama, you were holding me up to see the boats. I can see them right there. That’s perfect.
Right? Because then the way he talked about snickerdoodle will be, you know, my puppy snickerdoodle, Snickerdoodles coolest. As long as it’s emotionally accurate, it’s effective. Doesn’t matter what personality type. It just has to be accurate, has to be emotionally accurate. So with which one of these things we want to create or have snickerdoodle stories for authority, compassion,
and entertainment, right? These are going to be, our triggers are trigger snickerdoodle stories. So when you are authority, when you’re in charge, when you’re in your element at home, right. With your friends, when you’re giving advice and you’re making sure that they’re moving to act in the way that you tell them, right. As a parent, whatever,
as a teacher, right? In person, what are you like when you are doing these things? Things, how do you sound? Next voice was different. It was from the boats, mama snickerdoodle to the boats, mama. Right? Don’t let that happen. If it’s snickerdoodle, then it needs to be the boats. Right? How do you move when these things are happening?
What do you do with your arms? What do you, how do you speak if you use very formal language online, but you will never use that in person. It is not going to translate very well. Right? So you need snickerdoodle stories for all three of these things. Once you find your personality type, you also can start to charisma that other people who have the same personality type in one of these areas,
but a higher level than you, right? Easiest way to do this, find somebody who you feel you can. I can see yourself in and pay attention to how they communicate with people, pay attention to what’s effective, take notes, see what they’re doing with their voice, with their face, with their language body, right. You can say, oh,
I like this person. They are like me authoritatively, but there’s so much more effective. Okay. I’m going to, I’m going to charisma, hack those things. I’m going to write them down. And I’m gonna use that. If it’s somebody who has a different personality type than you, like I said, Renee brown can not be Marie Forleo. If they tried to be something different,
it would be a disaster. Right? So find your personality type. First with authority, we have content strategy and we have charisma strategy, right? Making sure that we have emotional accuracy. And second it’s making sure that you’re hitting very specific things in your content that lead them to buy before you ever to what all of my clients called the pitch transition.
If you’re doing it right there, shouldn’t be a transition, right? The entire time you’re pitching or telling a story, you’re establishing your authority in a very specific way so that people ask people, ask for your programs. So when you get to the call to action, it is so easy. All of a sudden they just buy. They just buy from you because you have highlighted their pain in very specific ways.
You’ve highlighted your solution in very specific ways, right? The way that you deliver it and the content that you bring to the table, the way that you structure your own frameworks that I know April has helped you with. Cause she’s a genius. That’s what I would say. That’s where I would start. Oh my gosh, the sneaker, everybody needs a,
here’s my notes. This is what I wrote down. That we all need a snicker doodle story for each one of these areas, authority, compassion, and entertainment. So, okay. Next question. So when we are speaking in authority, when we’re speaking in compassion, when we’re speaking with the entertainment component, I know it all comes together into one video.
What if those different stories bring up like another part of our personality? Does that make sense? Like what if like when you’re talking, like some of this is like, this is really serious and blah, blah, blah. But then it goes into my, but like, does that make sense? Am I making sense? Like if part of when somebody is on video,
if the flow of the stories brings them through experiencing multiple, I don’t want to say multiple personalities. Cause that’s not the right word, but multiple emotions from me or whoever’s making the video. What about that? Like we’re taking them through a wave of different types of experiences through that. Is that okay or not? Okay. So you’re a genius because that’s what we call emotional mapping.
That is 100% of thing that we do in everything. So with very short videos, usually you will have one snickerdoodle story, right? Very short videos. You have one emotional point that needs to get across. That is one, but with longer form content, right? We have what we call an emotional map with every single part of your speech, of your life,
of your webinar, of your ad, whatever it is, right. If it’s long form video, then you are going to map out the different emotions that people need to feel. And then if you have a script you’re going to color coordinate it, right? You’re going to color code it. If you have bullet points, you’ll color code those, right?
So you’ll have a color for entertainment. You’ll have a color for authority. You’ll have a color for compassion. Now, every single video doesn’t have to hit all three, but your audience has to see all three in order to fully connect with you. A lot of times, compassion isn’t introduced into every single video, right? Deep compassion, vulnerability. Sometimes you don’t see that in an ad,
right? You only see entertainment and you only see authority, right? A lot of times when we get to sales calls, because those are also on video, compassion is extra high. You need people to confess their pain to you in very specific ways. So that compassion piece needs to be higher. So as you map out your video and you map out these snickerdoodle stories,
you’re going to emotionally map it at which points do they need to make sure that they are feeling very specific things. Now, what I have my clients do is write out, post it notes and just stick them to your computer with those snickerdoodle story triggers in them. So when you get to those stories, you can look at your trigger and you can say,
oh right, that’s the emotionally accurate thing. The other thing I would say is before every single video, we call it a cold open versus a warm open. You have to make sure that you get into that snickerdoodle story that you get emotionally accurate before you ever push record. The analogy that I like to use is imagine you were an Olympic sprinter and you decided,
right. You’re like I got this or you were nervous and you had a 400 rates, right? Four times around the track. And you decided that because you got it or because you were nervous, you were not going to warm up. The first lap of your race would be your warmup, right? Either your warmup is chosen for you or you choose your warmup,
right? So you would hit your stride after that first lap, after you’ve warmed up. Same thing with video. So many people push record. And then they’re like, well, five minutes into the video, I really get to be myself or like eight minutes into the video. All of a sudden I hit my stride. It’s because you are not in an emotionally accurate place before you hit record.
Instead you push record. And then you’re like, hello everybody. I’m going to try to do this right. 30 to 45 seconds before your video starts, before you push record, before you start a clubhouse room, before you start your podcast, before you start whatever, speak out loud, your snickerdoodle story. But we turn it into an I M phrase,
if your snickerdoodle story is all about, okay. Yeah, my entertainment, oh, that is silly. Right? Then you say, I am silly. I am silly. Right? Whatever this snickerdoodle story puts you in the frame of mind to write voice-based body language, right? You say, I am silly. I am silly until you get to the point where it is emotionally accurate and say other things out loud as well.
If it’s authoritative and you’re like, I am empowering. I am empowering. So then when you start your video, you’re not like, hi guys, I’m here. You’re like, hi guys. I’m here. And here’s what I’m going to do. I’m an emotionally accurate person. Who’s being authoritative right now. Instead of having to warm up, having that time and losing people at the beginning of your videos.
So you have a snickerdoodle story for each one of them. You map out those points. If it’s a long form video. And before you ever start those videos, you warm up, you do a warm, open 30 to 45 seconds before you get in that emotionally accurate place that we practiced with those snickerdoodle stories. So that it’s effective from the time you push record.
Amazing. You guys, this is so much more McCall, just poured so much more into us. And we discussed before we started recording that she was going to talk about on this show. So as usual you have shown up and delivered and supported our listeners and you are freaking amazing. It’s just, it’s super unique in what you do. And I love that you have found your stride and your super power that is so different from everybody else’s out there.
And it’s such a pleasure to work with you and to know you and do fun collaboration stuff with you. It’s just, it’s just always a blast. And I appreciate you so much. So this is ton of great information, and I know our listeners are going to go and really start applying the actionable steps that we talked about here. But like we have tomorrow’s next level entrepreneurs to listen to this show.
People hone in here because they want to know that they’re getting trusted business advice, not just anything it’s really proven and trusted by us. And so we also have people that are action takers here, where they know if this is something that you guys know that you suck at this, that this is something that it is like, this has been it everywhere else in your business.
You might be nailing or maybe you’re even not there, but you keep trying and trying and trying. And there’s just something off about the way you’re showing up. Then I want them to make sure that you guys know how to connect with McCall. In addition to our clubhouse rooms, in addition to the places where I would highly, highly recommend that you follow McCall and clubhouse,
and that you do join our rooms, because we talk about these things, she’s goes in there and workshops it, all these things and helps. But like what would be the first step for somebody who is thinking, Hey, listen, I am really struggling with showing up authentically. I have tried. I want to be myself. I want to be true to myself.
It’s deep rooted. I really want to be what I know that I am to my people, but I can’t figure out how, how do they work with you to start going through that process? Yes. The first thing that I want to be very clear on is most of my clients. So yes, absolutely showing up authentically. We work on that,
but a lot of my clients feel like they rock on video, but their sales are not great. Right? They’re like, I am very likable. I am myself, but I am not selling right. Or they are rock stars. 90% of my clients speak in front of audiences of hundreds, of thousands of people in person. But for some reason can’t sell on video,
right. Something doesn’t translate. So the way that you guys can work with me. I know that April’s going to put all of the links in the show notes that you guys can check out all the things, but I felt like the very best thing that you can do. I have a free thing for you. It’s charisma vault.com on charisma vault.com. I break down five days a week on Facebook live,
and then I put them into this vault different personalities using my charisma hacking tactics. So you can see people of all different personalities, all different levels broken down using these tactics so that you can find those people who have the same type of different levels@charismavault.com. When you sign up, you get an email that literally says, be my friend. And if you want to work with me,
you book a call. When that comes through to be my friend and we can bond and you can hire me as a coach and do all the things you also will get the free thing. No, you signed up, you get access to every single episode. There was like 120 episodes in there separated by different people, different personality types, different video types,
whether you’re wanting to do ads, whether you’re wanting to do Facebook lives, YouTube webinars, live presentations on stage. Any of those things, they’re all broken into different categories and really, really easy to find. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is incredible. Charisma, vault.com. You guys. All right, Ms. McCall, we really appreciate you.
Thank you so much for your wisdom and pouring into our guests today on the show. Super pleasure. Hey guys, such a great episode. I love that McCall was here and she spent so much time with us today. Again, all the show notes and everything we talked about can be found by visiting sweet life co.com clicking on podcast. And this is episode number 233.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Please take a screenshot of this episode, tag me at April beach life and tag McCall Jones in it. And let us know your favorite part of this episode and how you’re going to apply her charisma hacking formula. I can tell you right now, I literally have two pages of notes from everything we talked about and I get to hang out with a McCall all the time.
And I learned so much on today’s show and I really trust that you did as well. Thank you so much for tuning in here on this sweet life entrepreneur podcast and sharing this episode with your friends. We really, really Appreciate you. You guys have an awesome week and I will talk to you again.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate Welcome to episode number 228 here at the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast. I’m April beach host and founder of the Sweetlife company, where we give you proven tools and strategies to design, launch, and scale your business online for 26 years collectively with our business and four years here on the podcast.
Thank you so much for joining us everything that we’re going to talk about. All of the resources, if you’re a listener, you know that you get a lot of gold from this show. This show is known for delivering business trainings and strategies that you can take to the bank, but business coaches charge thousands for you. Get them all here, free on the show.
So because of that, I want to make sure you know where to find the recap and the links and the resources mentioned on today’s episode, you can cruise over to sweet life co.com simply click on podcast. And this is number 228 today on the show. This episode is for entrepreneurs in the first three phases of my sweet life business system of the start to scale up online business system.
What does that mean? If you haven’t yet? We have a very short self-assessment that you can go take very simply by going to Sweetlife co.com forward slash quiz. And it will tell you exactly what phase of business growth you’re in and based on the base of business growth you’re in, there are certain things you should be focusing on this particular show falls into an appropriate tool for you to be focusing on if you were in phases one through three of that business system.
So that’s where you can access it. Make sure you’ve done that all the resources are of course, proven, trusted, and they are available to you completely free again@sweetlifeco.com forward slash quiz. So today on the show, this is what you can expect. We are talking about unlocking your potential in achieving your goals and dreams with the one and only Ashley Wilkerson. I can’t wait for you to meet this powerhouse woman.
She truly is dedicating her time and she’s dedicated her life to teach and elevate other professionals. And so she is such a gem and a treasure, and you are going to walk away with tangible tools. You’re even going to get access and understand her proven method to help women walk into empowerment and unlock their potential to achieve their dreams. She actually gives that to you here on the show,
and we dive in a little bit deeper to help you implement that process. So there’s a lot of great things coming to you today. So let me give you a little bit of an introduction. Ashley has received distinguished honors, such as being named the who’s, who among professional women, the state 2040 Columbia business, monthly best and brightest 35 under 35 national council of Negro women living a legacy award,
the ramp foundation education trailblazer Midlands chapter, the American business women’s association business associate of the year, Brooklyn Baptist church, millennial magic award, South Carolina, black pages, 2040 Columbia metropolitan magazine, top 10 Columbia young professionals, alpha Kappa alpha sorority incorporated. South Atlantic region married the vote in outstanding graduate member incorporated cluster seven leadership award United way of Midlands live United cheeky award and Columbia regional business report,
2020 phenom. Wow, she’s amazing. Let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show<inaudible> Hey, you guys welcome back to the Sweetlife entrepreneur and business podcast. I am so excited to be joined here by my new friend, Ashley Wilkerson. And yes, we met on clubhouse actually is an absolute rockstar. As a matter of fact, she’s one of these people that,
you know, those people like you’re in a room and that’s the person walks in the room and everybody just gets happier because they’re there the whole atmosphere and the room is just like, Ashley’s here. Well, that’s what it’s like on clubhouse. You’re watching the video. You’re going to see this, you know, behind the scenes in this episode. And I’m so excited to have her on the show.
Ashley, welcome to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. Tell everybody about you, what you do and your superpower. Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure, thankful for the opportunity. Love you April beach. And thank you clubhouse for club because I’ve had the opportunity to meet some phenomenal women such as yourself. So I greatly appreciate the here with the sleep life.
So I am a health and thought leader of the phenomenal women leading a community. It is a women empowerment community where we strive to help women become better versions of themselves, unlock their full potential and achieve the goals and dreams that they have for themselves and their lives personally and professionally. So it is an honor to serve as a coach, to the ladies in my community,
as well as a mentor and a friend, everyone in the community does not necessarily need coaching itself. They may be a part of the community for the support for the empowerment for the connections network with others is so there are different reasons why people join the community, but they do have the option to utilize the coaching services if they need to as well. And you know,
I know it’s such a fantastic resource because on clubhouse people actually come in the rooms that you’re hosting and talk about, oh yeah, I’m in your community. And I love it there. And I mean, there, there’s nothing more powerful as a coach than having other people who you didn’t even ask to be there, show up and be like, oh my gosh,
I love Ashley’s stuff. I love being part of this. So kudos to you for truly designing an engineering it place that is so real and safe for women to grow. So it’s amazing. The stories that I’ve heard people say about this community, and we’re going to be making sure you guys know how to tap into Ashley here. So let’s go ahead and talk about what business training,
you know, this, this show is known for business trainings and strategies that other coaches charge thousands for. And so our listeners I know, are fully excited to come and show up here and be like, oh my gosh, what is Ashley going to teach today? And so today you and your area of expertise, you are going to guide us through your framework.
And let me set you guys up for this framework because yes, I, I get to get a little peak to it before Ashley walks us through it today. But you guys listeners, you guys, you know how a lot of those coaches out there are saying, Hey, listen, you know, really live your dream life or walk into who you are.
And there’s a lot of motivation. There’s a lot of amazing inspiration out there, but there is a gap between where we want to be and actually how to get there. Well, what is so special about Ashley is she has a method and she has a framework to actually guide you to that process. And you’re going to get a sneak peek of that framework here today.
Actually, can you tell us just a little bit about how long you have been working with people and how you really got into this space of, of guiding women to empowerment and achieving their goals and dreams? Absolutely. So my background is actually in early childhood education and psychology child psychology. And so I’m a former kindergarten, first grade teacher and that’s how I entered into the space of education in the field of education.
But then as my career evolved, I became a teacher trainer. My first year teaching the school district hired me to lead a series of professional development sessions, teaching other teachers how to best teach reading. And a lot of the teachers were senior level teachers, meaning they had over 10, 15 years of experience and I was a first-year teacher leading and conducting those sessions.
And so in that moment, that’s when I developed a love, not only for children, but a love for adult learners as well and the entire continuum of education. And so that is really the core part of everything that I do. I believe that education is my true framework. That’s my pillar, that’s my foundation. And I bring that into everything that I do even as I facilitate and moderate sessions on clubhouse education is a part of my moderating style on clubhouse.
So that’s where I started with bringing adult learners into the fold of what I do. And from there, I ended up transitioning into higher ed. And so from teaching those professional development workshops, hosting conferences, leading seminars, developing curriculum, I then transitioned into the higher ed space. And I became a adjunct professor, a professor, a sitting on a university board of trustees and being really ingrained in higher education and the adult learning process.
And so transitioning into that, I initially taught in the college of education, but then I was approached by our local women’s college. And they asked me to do something that no one ever asked me prior to them, which was, Hey, can you develop a course for our women in leadership studies? Hmm. Interesting. You want me to develop that course?
Because my background is in education. So the courses that I usually develop are pertaining to education it’s early childhood and elementary education and they say, yes, well, your background is education, but you’re elected to a university. It’s a state level board. You’re the youngest, you’re the only woman of color. You lead leadership initiatives in the area you’ve completed different leadership preparation programs.
You would be ideal to lead the charge for developing this course and you’ll serve as the inaugural professor. And so I said, okay, I’d be happy to do that. But know that if I do that, I need the autonomy to develop the course as I see fit. And they said, sure, that’s totally fine. So I said, okay.
So I developed the course and I included an educational component. My husband always says that learning happens in a conversation. That’s what I sought to do in that course. So in that course, I didn’t structure it as me being the instructional authority for 14 weeks, I actually developed the course to include a panel discussion 10 of the 14 weeks. And what we did was I focused each week on a different topic.
And I feature women leading the charge in that topic area, in that area of expertise. And so one week it was women in religion. Another week, it was women in medicine. Another week, it was women in politics with another week. It was women in media. And so for 10 weeks I had women from all over the state of South Carolina,
come in, we had CEOs, we had senators, we had mayors, we had everyone doctors, attorneys, everyone from all backgrounds come in and they share their trajectory. They share their journeys, they share their teachable moments. They share their backgrounds. And that is where the true learning takes place. When we can glean from the insight of others, where we can learn from their experiences where we can ask them it real time questions that we have,
that’s how we then answer and unlock our full potential. That’s how we then develop ways that we want to improve, enhance what we do, what we offer, who we are or identify who we’re trying to be. So that’s how I entered into the space, but the course was for two semesters, it lasted for one year. And then that department was downsized in that course was not offered again after that.
And I became a mother of two during that second semester. And so I transitioned my schedule and I transitioned my life. And when I did that, the ladies missed the community because I actually opened up the courses. I opened up the sessions of the course for people in the community who weren’t students of my class. I made it open to the public and free admission.
So we had women coming in from all over to sit in and listen to these conversations. It’s a really grow and learn with the attendees and the participants and the feature speakers. And so I did that and they did not want the community to end. And so, as a result of them not wanting the community to EDD four years ago, it didn’t transition over into a Facebook community,
a small intimate Facebook community, a few hundred people. And then from there, it evolved into mentoring sessions and webinars offerings and our conference, our women empowerment conference. And so it just kept evolving and evolving based on the needs of the members of the community. And it grew even more so as a result of COVID and clubhouse, I say the two CS COVID club app.
And so I grew as a result of those two days, and now we have a platform on clubhouse. We have a platform on Facebook, we have touchpoints on other social media processes. And then we also have a targeted group on mighty networks through our mentoring circle. So it’s really evolved over the past four years. It’s evolved significantly. So over the past year,
as a result of COVID in clubhouse and yeah, that’s how we’ve started. Okay. So many this could go in a million directions from there. I’m going to, I’m going to hold to the promise of stain so that you can teach everybody your, your method here. A couple of things about this for our listeners. I think it’s really important for you guys to pick up on,
and I want to just highlight this. And what Ashley was saying is that you see the evolution of the process of business development. So often it is tempting to think that you want to start at the very end that you want to launch this thing. And it’s just going to be what it is. As a matter of fact, I had a client this morning that was struggling to move forward because she wanted it to be perfect.
She wanted it to be at the end, but it wasn’t an evolution of the business. And Ashley’s story is a perfect example, how your ideas and your intellectual property evolves and grows. And so this is just such a great example of such a powerful story. And so want our listeners to take that away. We could have just end the episode right there and just say,
see what Ashley did. It’s it’s so cool. So I, I just appreciate you sharing that so much. It’s just a lot of wisdom and business growth and development there. So as we’re sitting here right now, we did meet on clubhouse. I actually remember now, I think we’re in one of John Lee’s rooms and you were asking a question about mighty networks,
which is a whole nother conversation that we can have. And I think that was the first time that I ever saw you. And I love how you have curated a bunch of different places for conversations to happen. So smart, the way you’ve done that in here on the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, we’re extending the conversation too, as well with your method. This is an very important topic because of the fact that this is what every woman really wants,
but yet again, they lack the framework to get to this injury result. There is an idea there is this picture painted and there’s a feeling inside women of, of what they want to be and who they know they’re called to be. But there’s usually these barriers to get there in this process. So start guiding us through your process. First of all,
what is your process called so that everybody knows the phenomenal pink print? Yes. Okay. It is absolutely amazing. So this pink Framp process is Ashley’s and you ladies can bank on it. I will tell you, so, you know, kicking this off, you said the very first step in this process is really helping women to identify their goals. Can you walk us through the first step in this process?
Yep. So oftentimes, and I work with women on all ends of the spectrum. I work with a women who are transitioning out of college and they don’t know exactly what they want to do to begin their adult lives in their careers. I work with women who moms and significant others, and they spent a lot of time pouring into their children and their family so much so that they feel they’ve lost themselves,
or don’t quite know what they want to do next in their lives for themselves. And then I work with women who have had amazingly successful careers. They’ve achieved all the goals, they’ve done all the things, and they’re still stuck with what’s next, right? And so those are three different age points, but it’s really the same pain point that they’re experiencing.
Who am I, what do I want to do? Who do I want to become important aspect, an important element of our journey. And as women, we experience that element several times through, out our lifespan, our lifetime, our journey. And so really, really focusing in on what goals do we have and what do we want to do next is so important.
And you have to really map out what those goals are. And those goals are not just for your professional side, it’s for your personal side too. So what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? Where do you see yourself in the next year, two years, three years, 10 years, 15 years. Where do you want to be?
What are the goals you want to achieve during that time period? Where do you want to go? That is so critical. And that’s the first step of the pink print is identifying. What are those goals? I have a question for you. Do you find that when women come to this place and they want to identify their goals, do they ever feel,
I guess guilt is the word I’m thinking of? Do they ever feel guilty or shy or embarrassed? Because sometimes I know the women have huge goals. Like I want to be a TEDx speaker, or I want to do these really big things. And are women sometimes afraid of actually sharing how big they really want to be, because they feel bad about that.
Is that something that you see very often? So I see a couple of things. I see the confidence. Isn’t always there to work towards or to go towards those things. And so they’re not confident in who they are, their abilities, their value. They don’t feel worthy of attaining certain things at high levels. They feel embarrassed sharing. They get caught into the comparison trap of,
I don’t have what this person has. I haven’t done what this person’s done. I haven’t attained with this person hesitate. So I must not be able to get those things. And so they get sucked into that comparison trap that happens oftentimes. And then ultimately, sometimes the issue really is being able to name exactly what it is that you want for your life,
what that desire is, and then be able to walk towards that safe. And that’s why the pink print is so important because it helps you to name it. It’s to identify. What’s a part of it. What are the components of it what’s required to achieve it. And then it takes you through that roadmap of identifying strategies for doing that thing in achieving that thing.
Wow, it’s so powerful. Absolutely. And I can imagine that that is you have a great deal of experience in all these different situations, all these different reasons why women come to the table with a big heart’s desire, but yet all the excuses are the reasons why that they maybe shouldn’t or don’t deserve to achieve or do those things. So again, why your pink print is so powerful.
So after somebody goes through this process of really identifying what those goals are, what’s the next step? What do they do? So then the next thing I have them do is to get focused, gain clarity, because it’s one thing to have all of these goals. But if you are actively trying to accomplish all of these goals, but they don’t contribute to each other,
or they don’t compliment each other in any way, then you’re going to find yourself And Running all over the place. Right? And so you have to gain clarity and you have to get focused in, in order to do that. I walk them through prioritizing their goals. All right? So all of these are goals. Ours. I have a lot of goals,
but let’s put these goals into priority. And that priority is up to how you see fit, the priority that you set for your goals. So it could be a time priority. It could be a finance priority. It could be whatever it is, whatever way you define that, how already system it’s neither right or wrong, it’s yours. So you identify how you’re going to define that.
And then you prioritize it that way. Once you do that, once you prioritize it, then you go through and you get focused and you gain clarity on these are my goals. This is how I prioritize it. This is my roadmap. Because now that you have this, guess what the books you read are going to be determined by this rooms you attend on clubhouse are going to be determined by this.
The conversations you participate in are going to be determined by this, the things you watch and listen to, they’re going to be determined, this, the actions that you take, they’re going to be determined by this. And that’s what clarity and gaining focus for you. Woo that’s Right. That’s so great. So powerful. So powerful. I mean, just,
I had somebody called the other day a shiny squirrel. So it’s this, it’s this shiny object and squirrel absolute fix. And I think also when women can, I don’t know, everybody relates and sees things the way I do, but I know a lot of us are visual and we need to see things. And when we actually see that pink print,
we can actually see it there. And there’s just so much power in, in having something come to life in this very clear action plan. Okay. So somebody has gone through this process, they’ve gone through the process. They have this clarity, they have their roadmap that you’ve guided them through. They are seeing things the way they have never seen it before.
Almost a simplified way. A very, like all the noises calmed down. They’re hyper-focused, their goals are crystallized what now? So this is the step where we actually develop the pink print itself. One of the words that I use in, within my framework is called smart goals. Okay. And so for smart goals, you’re breaking down the acronym, smart.
You are making sure you have all of the components that are a part of that goal. So you have the specifics, you write specific details, information needed for that goal. All right. And then the M is for measurement. How do you measure if you’ve achieved that goal? How do you measure your progress? If you are on track towards completion of that goal,
what’s the measurement that you’re going to use? The a is for achievable. Is this goal achievable for you with the time, with your effort, with your skillset? Can you achieve it? The next letter R is for realistic. All right. Is this something that’s realistic for you to do? Is it realistic within a time frame? Is it realistic within your skill set?
Is it realistic based on the measurement? Is it realistic based on the specifics of the details you’ve identified. And then the T is for time, you set a time for when you want to start this goal and you set an anticipated time for when you would like for this goal to be complete so time. So I use smart goals, which is a framework within my framework of developing your peat print.
And once you’ve already identified those goals, you’ve gained clarity. You’ve prioritize those goals. You’ve made sure that those goals are smart goals. Now it’s about developing your strategy within your pink print. So what are your strategies for achieving each one of these smart goals? What are those action items that you need to complete for each smart goal to be achieved? And that’s the pink print that is genius.
That is absolute genius. As someone who teaches people, how to develop frameworks, this is why people in your programs are so successful is because you have taken the time to truly create a transformational program for them using these frameworks and frameworks within frameworks. And I have a lot of listeners that are laughing. Cause we talk about frameworks within frameworks and methods within frameworks here on this show all the time.
And sometimes they get our listeners are like really confused about that. Cause they’re trying to do it. What’s the difference? What comes first, a method or framework? Well, this is a perfect example of how Ashley has brought this to life in her transformational program. So great, amazing explanation and job. So I have a question for you also, because this is constantly a topic you’re on the show.
Totally random question. How do you find people tend to measure their own results? What are some examples of the way people? Obviously the goal is different. So that’s going to dictate the measurement, but just generally speaking, if some of our listeners are like, gosh, you know, I really, I really want to start measuring my results. What are some examples of the ways people can measure their own results as you’ve seen your students do in your programs.
And so some of this is a probing thing and I have to probe out of them, what I really want, what I need to know about what they want to achieve. And so for instance, one of my clients, they knew that they, they wanted to sell their new book project, right? And some question for her was how many units do you want to sell?
And I said, Hmm, let me think about it. And I said, well, you need to identify, you need to know how many units you’re trying to sell. Because knowing how many units you trying to sell will help guide you when you are utilizing your strategies. And you are really targeting in on your book promotion, you’ll know exactly how many people you want to target.
How many groups you need to speak to. If you’re on track for selling the number of books that you’re trying to sell. And then I challenged her to take it a step further. Now that you know how many books you want to sell. I want you to break that down into three categories that you offer. How many paper book, back books,
how many hardback books, how many Kindle versions? No, what you are striving to do, and then identify the measurement. So if a business owner says, I want to increase my revenue. By how much, if a business owner says, I want to sell more products, how many units, if someone says, I want to lose weight, how many pounds,
if I want to save money, how much do you want to say? If I want to eliminate debt, how much debt do you need to eliminate? Knowing what that number in that measurement is helps you to then target in, right? If you’re trying to make an additional $20,000 a month and you have services and products that are 1000, 5,000, 10,000 a year,
trying to make an additional $20,000 a month. Okay? It’s different to say, I’m trying to make an additional $20,000 a month versus saying, I’m trying to close two, $10,000 clients, right? Close $4 clients to close $21,000 clients. Great example. We took our goal from I’m trying to make more money a month. I’m trying to make an additional $20,000 a month.
I’m trying to close $21,000 clients too. I’m trying to close five of four or $5,000 clients too. I’m trying to close to $10,000 clients. Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. What a great example of that. What Ashley just shared. So bring it down, down, down, down, ask yourself more specifically, more specifically, more specifically such a great example.
Okay. So your students, they’ve gone through this point. They have their pink print, by the way, such a cool name of your signature framework. I love it. And they have, they have their phenomenal women leading pink print. Yes. What happens next? And I already know what you’re going to say. And obviously our listeners are probably like,
okay, well then they need to do it. But like, let’s actually talk about what this really looks like in real life. What’s what’s next. So all of my clients will tell you that I’d say three things to them. Number one, take action. Number two. Don’t let me work harder on your goals than you’re working on your own goals.
And number three, I will fire my clients. Meaning I will fire you. If you’re not taking action, I will fire you. If I don’t see you committed to your process, I will fire you. If you’re not making progress, I will fire you. If you’re not doing your homework, which are whatever the action items are. I will fire you.
If you’re not honoring your commitment in yourself and your investment in yourself a year time needed support into yourself, into things that you want to achieve. Make absolutely that you’re taking action that you’re working hard on your goals is that you’re honoring the commitment with yourself. Amen. That is so important. And I love that you fire your clients. I think that is such an important thing to do.
It’s almost like you’re, there you go. I’m going to fire you because something needs to change here. And I, and I, and what was your second thing? Don’t let me work harder on your goals than you. We’re going to, we’re going to get that out. That’s going to be an Ashley Wilkerson quote that goes out how good This podcast episode.
All right. So my team, as you’re listening to this, pull that quote out of that is like the winner. It’s just amazing. And there’s one other point you said, you know, as we’re wrapping this up in the beginning is that you said to me before, behind the scenes, before we started recording and I wrote it down, cause I was like,
it’s just so important. Is it? You said, we, we bring all of what we are to what we do. We buy all of who we are to everything we do to everything we do that is also so important because I think that especially those of our listeners that are transferring from corporate and really getting into entrepreneurship or those people who have been entrepreneurs for a great deal of time,
which is a lot of our most registers. Now in that scale phase of their business, there is this division where people think, okay, well this is life and this is business, but I love your philosophy. It’s a philosophy that my husband and I abide to as well and our family. It really is. It’s everything who you are, is brought into this.
And I love how you teach creating this cohesive harmony between everything we were designed to do for the people that we were called to serve. And so I, I really love everything that you teach Ashley, and I love you being here on the show. I appreciate it. Thoroughly enjoyed myself. You just a gem. I absolutely love it. So let’s talk about how you guys can connect with Ashley.
So as you know, now we have our regular weekly Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast room on clubhouse happening every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time where you guys get to jump in and jam with our guests. Talk about the topic of this week. So this week, especially if you’re alive subscriber to this show on all of our podcasts listening channels, which is everyone,
as you guys know, even Pandora and apple music, now we’re everywhere as you’re listening, make sure you join us on Wednesday and you get to connect with Ashley directly as an extension of this podcast episode. So she is going to be there like she always is on clubhouse. Totally. They’re pouring into you and taking your questions and workshopping with you beyond what we’re talking about here on the episode of this show.
And besides that, okay, so those of you guys are like, oh my gosh, Ashley is exactly what I need. I’m ready to move. I want my pink print right now. Ashley, how can people move forward and get in line as far as joining your program or working with you privately? Absolutely. So they have a few ways they can do it.
They can connect with me personally. It’s a S H L Y E V on all social media platforms. You can connect with me at Ashley B on all social media platforms. They can also go to my link tree slash Ashley B. And when they go to my link tree slash Ashley B, they will be able to see, they’ll see the community group that’s on Facebook,
the free community groups. They’ll also see the option to get registered. So tin our second annual moving and leading phenomenally conference taking place on October 23rd, they will see details for coaching with me. They can join the group, mentoring, coaching circle community, or they can register to sign up for a free consultation with me for one-on-one coaching services. So either way,
whether they are in the free community, whether they are joining us on clubhouse. They’ll also see my, all of my social media connections on my late tree, so they can email me directly. They can tap into any and all of my social media pages right there on that page. Everything is right there, easy peasy for them to access me and access the phenomenal women leading.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I just have to send, or it’s my pleasure. Absolutely. For everything you’re doing and thank you, clubhouse for our listeners already been on there yet. So they’re Android listeners. So I promise you guys, you guys are getting on there soon in the meantime, connect with us on Instagram here.
And of course this is episode number 228 of these two great live entrepreneur podcasts. So we will make sure that all of the show notes are available for you@sweetlifeco.com click on the podcast and you guys know the drill episode two 28. We’ll have all the goods. All right, thanks again, Ashley. Appreciate you.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate April beach here, founder of the suite led company and host here at the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast. And this is yet another week of business training and coaching. You can take to the bank today. We are continuing our conversation,
actually, an ongoing conversation that we’ve been having about clubhouse. And I’ll be honest, about five minutes before I’m sitting down here to record this show for you. I was just in over my head with eighth grade science and trying to help my son with science and wow. I had no idea what I was doing. And so it really feels good to be able to come and record a podcast in an area where I do feel like I know exactly what I’m doing so I can pour into you.
It is very humbling having teenagers and you can’t do their math or their science. I’m just saying that for the record, just a little behind the scenes here in the beach house, or you, they use so much for tuning in this week. This again is episode number 227. And this is what you can expect from hanging out with here with me here on today’s show.
First of all, this is for those of you guys in every single stage of my suite life business roadmap. And that is phase one through five. If you don’t know, you can go take a very simple quiz right now by visiting Sweetlife co.com forward slash quiz and find out exactly what stage and phase of business you’re in and get a curated, customized checklist of exactly what you should be working on right now to get to the next level.
So this is for those of you in any phase, and I want to make sure that, you know, this is a good show for you to tune into it is for those of you who want to understand how to use clubhouse to grow your business and brand. Now on this week’s show, we’re diving into how to grow your clubhouse moderator team very specifically,
and talking about clubhouse in general, it’s truly the ultimate collaboration platform, and it’s a powerful place to build brand awareness. As we talked about a last week show. So tune in to episode number 226, if you haven’t listened to that one yet, and clubhouse is a really powerful place to generate revenue. And I also shared our stats and our numbers just within the first couple of weeks of participating on clubhouse in last week show.
But clubhouse is really not like any other social media platform out there. So I know that businesses are having trouble understanding really how to approach it, how to grow your audience. And so that is what we’re talking about on today’s show. At the end of this episode, you will know how to find your clients on clubhouse. You will understand and know how to create collaborations with other business and leaders on clubhouse.
And you will understand how to create a moderator team or join a moderator team, and really how to approach other people to create amazing collaborations that are good for you. Good for them, and good for the people who are in your room, listening and getting help from you. So if you’re ready for that, then we’re going to go ahead and dive in here.
And also, if you haven’t yet, please follow me on clubhouse in raise your hand, wave your hand and say, Hey, April, I’m a listener to your podcast. And I would love to welcome you on any of my stages. And of course, if you were not yet in our club, we actually have a couple of clubs. That first one is sweet life entrepreneurs.
You can just search sweet life entrepreneurs under clubs in clubhouse and join our club. That is an extension of what we talk about here on the podcast. So I would love to workshop with you and every single week at 12 o’clock Eastern time on Wednesday. So Wednesday 12 o’clock Eastern time, we host the sweet life podcast live room, and that is where we take your questions and workshop with you and give you extra support based on the podcast topic of the week.
So if you want more help and you have questions about how to join and build moderator teams, make sure you are joining me in clubhouse this week on Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time. And I’ll be there waiting for you to support you in doing that. All right. Are you ready? Okay, let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show. All the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com
click on podcast. And this is episode number 227. I give a little bit of background information before we really dive into moderator teams. For those of you that are unfamiliar with actually how to use clubhouse. So, first of all, if you haven’t dove into clubhouse, or if you’ve been in there, talk to a lot of businesses that have tapped in there,
and they’re just like, I just really don’t see how to use it. Like I don’t get it, like just bunch of people talking to each other. So here are some foundational steps to get started. First of all, you want to curate the content that you see and clubhouse helps you to do that by selecting topics, you can go into clubhouse and you can select topics that interest you.
So that is step number one. If you have not done that, you can search clubhouse by topics and you can also search people and clubs by typing in certain key words. So if you are a speaking coach and you don’t how to use clubhouse yet, go ahead and type in public speaking or speaking trainings, and you’ll be able to join conversations on top of that.
You can also start following other people on clubhouse and clubhouse. We’ll give you some suggestions to do that. Now, once you get onto clubhouse, my first recommendation is just to start by observing, start by joining rooms, listening to rooms, listen to rooms of all kinds, not just in your area of business. Listen to how people, moderate rooms listen to the,
the culture that is being created in certain rooms in certain spaces and just chill and listen, you can take clubhouse with you on the go to the gym and the car, everybody multitasks on clubhouse. So first of all, step number one is curating the content you see, secondly, if you follow me and if you follow our clubs that like the Sweetlife life entrepreneur club or my second club called the wave makers club,
you’re going to be able to see who else is part of that club. It’s a, you’re going to be able to see a list of other like-minded people that’s already curated right there for you. So you could just simply go to sweet life entrepreneurs club and fall other members of the club. And that’s a really great way to get started. So step number one is curating the content you see,
start observing and follow people that have similar interests to you or serve a similar audience. Step number two is really connecting follow people. You want to connect more with off of clubhouse and on to Instagram. And this is something that I talked about last week, more in depth about taking your clients off of clubhouse. And so I’m not going to go in depth right now,
but I just want to share with you how this works in a really great way. So when you’re connected with somebody and you’re listening to them, speak on clubhouse, or you’re looking at their profile, they should have a link to their Instagram account. Some people use Twitter, but most people use Instagram. And so you can tap on that and you’ll still stay in clubhouse,
but your phone will open up another window, opening up Instagram directly to that person’s profile. And so if you heard somebody that said something that just really moved you, or if it’s somebody that you roll and want to connect with more, go ahead and follow them on Instagram, make a few comments on some of their posts and send them a direct message and say something to the effect of like,
I’ve heard John clubhouse. And I like what you said about XYZ. So start building relationships and start building great collaborations and friendships and, you know, really start complimenting and connecting with people. Just be really specific. I get so many messages on clubhouse. Some of them are just like, Hey bro, I saw you in clubhouse, which I love getting those,
but the best ones that I really stop and I’m able to respond to is when somebody says, Hey, April, I heard you on clubhouse today talking about this. And I just wanted to say that that helped me so much. Those are the messages where then I’ll respond back and I’ll be like, okay, great. I’m so glad that helped. Why,
how did that help? Why did that help? And then I can build more of a relationship. So, you know, try to be specific about the messages you’re sending to people in Instagram, from clubhouse. So this is just some foundational information about relationship building and how clubhouse works. Now, seven number three. First, I want to talk about joining other moderator teams.
Okay. So if you see a room and you go to a room and you just really love this room, you’ll start to notice it. Usually some of the same people are moderating again and again, you’ll start to recognize faces. And so those are what we call moderator teams. You’ll also see the way that teams work together. Whereas some of the hosts may leave for a period of time and they’ll really intentionally say,
Hey, listen, you know, Lindsey’s going to take over or Sarah is gonna take over. And so the moderator teams that are good moderator teams do a good job, communicating the fact that they are a team. And so when you’re in rooms and you see rooms that you want to be part of and you’re thinking, wow, I really could lend a lot of value to this.
Then talk about the opportunity of joining their moderator team. And here are my tips to do that. First of all, all of the hosts and all of the moderators, be respectful, follow the hosts and the moderators of the rooms that you want to speak up and raise your hand in. And just really a big advocate for that, that if you were going into a room and contributing in somebody else’s space,
that you should be following the host or the moderators that you know, at least those that you want to connect with, and those that invited you up on stage to speak. So that’s really step number one, step number two is follow their club. Make sure you are following the club of the moderator teams that you want to join or be a part of,
and then raise your hand to speak. Okay, here’s something I want to say about this. Don’t just join a room immediately, raise your hand to speak. Just like chill for a sec. Like feel the vibe in the room, listen to the conversation that’s already happening. Cause as soon as you’re brought up in stage rooms, run where you’ll either sit there for a really long time before you have an opportunity to speak,
or you could be brought up on stage and just be like fun right then. And somebody is expecting you to speak. So you really don’t want to be in a position where you come in a room, raise your hand to speak. And you’re like, Oh shit. Like what are we talking about? That’s really, really disrespectful. So just stay there for a minute,
get the vibe of the room and make sure that you can in fact lend some value to that room. Or if you have a question, please do not hesitate to raise your hand, clubhouses the place to ask questions. I know that there are some rooms that are really intimidating to ask questions for, or ask questions in. And I just want to encourage you to be bold,
speak up and ask what you want to ask. I also want to let you know that all of the rooms hosted under my clubs are really safe, great places to speak. Our moderator teams are amazing, and we really want you to always come into our clubs and raise your hand and ask any question that really applies to what we’re speaking about or how we can serve you.
Just a little side note. There, there are amazing clubs that have amazing welcoming moderator teams, obviously in addition to mine. But I do understand that sometimes it can be a little intimidating. So step number three, and talking about joining other moderator teams is raise your hand and ask to speak and add value to that room without selling. So if somebody is talking about a topic that is perhaps in your area of expertise or paired with collaborates well with your area of expertise and you want to lend to it,
raise your hand, ask to go up on stage when you’re invited to go up on stage, ask if you can contribute some value to the room. So first of all, you want to, you want to ask and be respectful for the moderators and just say, is it okay if I contribute some value based on a question perhaps somebody else had and don’t dine in dash,
okay. I called this like dining in dashi. Okay. When you go into a room and you’re up on stage, especially if it is a room comprised of moderators, and you’re really interested in joining their moderator team, stay there, like be present, show your commitment to the room and respect for the conversation and for those hosting that room. And of course for those people that are being served in that space.
So if you’re really trying to join a moderator team, I highly recommend that you intentionally be there. Like I say this all the time to my kids. And sometimes my students might business. Students is like this term be here. Now there’s a lot of multitasking. Like I just mentioned happening on clubhouse. You can be at the gym, you can be driving a car.
Most of us are, but still be mindful and present to the room that you’re in to be respectful of that space in stay, be present, continue to land value if you’re invited to do so and just stay as long as you are allowed to stay showing your commitment to that space and always lending with value, never leading with selling. You say that again,
always lending value, never leading with selling. In fact, when you’re joining a room where it’s another moderator team, you should never come up and pitch your own stuff. Period. You should only be lending value to that space unless somebody says to you, Hey, would you like to tell us what you do? You know, really who you serve and what programs are or what services you have available right now.
I mean, this is common sense. I think it’s common sense. You guys, you would be blown away by how many people, this actually is not common sense for, but be respectful. That’s all I’m saying is just chill. Be present, be supportive and be respectful. And then what you’re going to do is make sure you’re following all the moderators and the hosts in that room and ping the moderators off the platform and on Instagram and ask them,
compliment them, say, Hey, I love your rooms. I come every single week. You know, I’m showing up here consistently. I would love to add value. This is my areas of expertise or these are my superpowers. If you believe I add or could add value to your room, would you please consider allowing me to join your moderator team?
It just a very respectful, but it is important to ask because clubhouse is a busy place. And if you don’t ask for what you need, it’s going to be hard to get it. And so be bold, be respectful, show up to the room on a regular basis and then ask, in most cases you don’t want to just show up to a room.
You’ve never seen anybody before and ask them to join their mod team. They’re going to want to see you consistently and know that you’re trustworthy. When somebody adds you to their moderator team, they’re trusting you to serve their people. And that’s a great deal of trust and it’s direct representation of them and their club and their brand. So that’s how to join other moderator teams currently.
And I say currently, because clubhouses fluid, you guys, they are constantly updating this platform by the time this comes out, you know, we’ll have DMS in clubhouse and I don’t know, there’s no predicting, but I just want to make sure that you know, that the fundamentals we’re talking about here are going to apply based on however, the technology evolves.
And then the next thing I want to share with you, the final thing is how to create your own team, how to create your moderator team. So step number one is create your own club. You can create a club after you’ve been trusted by clubhouse. And that’s usually just a couple of days. You’ve kind of lost some lost some warning flags a year,
a newbie, but I would wait a little bit to create a club and make sure that you know, how your club is going to fit in amongst the other clubs and the value you’re going to bring to your space and how you’re different. So you can create your club. You want to brand it well, and just follow the steps that clubhouse has put before to create your club rules and club description.
And you also can put tags in your club about what the general topics that your club speaks to. Step. Number two is to establish a set schedule. You want to show up regularly. As a matter of fact, when I first joined clubhouse, we had to host regular rooms for at least three weeks in a row. In order for clubhouse to consider us launching the Sweetlife entrepreneurs club.
Now anybody can go in there and anybody can create a club, but it took us literally weeks and weeks of backlogs of proving that we were worthy in order to create a club. So you don’t have to go through all that. But I do recommend that you create a club and create a set schedule of when you’re going to show up every single week so that you can train your audience.
You can train your people. And not that you can’t change that schedule, but you want to start out with something set and something consistent. So plan your room schedule and your room content. What are you talking about? Name your rooms, really cool, catchy names. You know, open-ended questions for people to join that they know that they can contribute in your spaces.
And of course in all things, make sure that aligns with your brand and really how you want to establish your club as a leader and your company leading in a certain area of conversation. And then the next step is reach out to others and invite moderators who align with your brand and your voice and your mission to help co moderate rooms with you. Now,
there are a couple different strategies about how to go about doing this and they aren’t right or wrong. I’m just going to share with you the strategies and then you can choose what’s best for you. Strategy one is to find other people that do pretty much the same thing you do, other therapists or other fitness coaches, other van, life travelers, other surfers,
other speaking coaches, other graphic designers. So that’s step number one is finding other people that do the same thing as you and collaborating. I have hosted rooms in clubhouse with people that do very, very similar services to what we provide here in the suite company. And it’s so cool to be able to collaborate with them because still the people in that room,
they’re going to choose who they resonate with more. It’s not a competition in this space. So however you speak and show up. If you invite people to do the similar thing, some people are going to love you. And some people just aren’t and then that’s okay. Some people are going to want to work in your programs and some people are going to choose,
you know, the other moderator and that’s okay, too. So option number one is finding people who do pretty much what you do. Option. Number two is define those who provide different services and different areas of expertise, but who reached the same audience. So let me say that again, other businesses that serve the same audience, but they don’t do what you do.
And that’s the dream team that we have formed in our wave makers club. We have literally a business dream team of moderators and each person. And there’s usually a few people that have an area of expertise that are similar to each others, but we have created an entire complete pie. There are many pieces to a complete business, profitable impact business pie from Instagram strategy to how to use IgE TV.
You know, I have different experts that are on our moderator team, but one person talks about reels. One person talks about hashtags and of course, you know, marketing and branding and website development, but also leadership speakers and people that can come to how to delegate well, how to grow your teams. And so we curate a really amazing moderator team in that way that we go and we search because we know what the people who come to our rooms want and need,
and you can do the same thing. So whatever you do ask yourself, what are other things in my clients really, really need that we may not directly provide? How can I curate a team around like that dream team approach for our listeners in our rooms, that we can really curate a space where people want to come back to because they know that they are getting helped mindfully intentionally getting helped.
And then the last step, and this is just a logistical last step for you. I could do a whole I’d should, and we’ll do a whole episode on this is just to know, to create a back channel for your moderator team. You know, back channels are created primarily on Instagram, but also in text strings and WhatsApp. And so bring all the moderators who’ve agreed to moderate for you and your rooms into one place.
So you can communicate in the back channel while the room is happening live. I have had to numerous times send messages to my moderator T and saying, I’m so sorry, my dog won’t stop barking. Can somebody else emcee the room right now? Or I’m so sorry. I have to go potty, which like you got to go pee sometimes when you’re on clubhouse stages for hours and hours,
or I’m so sorry, I’m walking out of the grocery store, you know, having this back channel, sorry guys. I’m just keeping it real. That’s what I do. You know, having this back channel, just make sure your mic is on mute if you go pie. Okay. I mean this back channel and I’m communicating with your moderator team is really an amazing way to create a cohesive group of people that show up every single week.
And a couple of just insider tips that I do with my mob team. I usually present a question and the topic. So my moderator teams know what we’re talking about before every room. So they in their mind can start strategizing. They don’t just kind of show up to a room and be like, Hey, whatever. They already know how they can start strategizing and how they can help people in the room.
They also know how that topic can help their businesses grow. You know, our moderator teams they’re just to grow our company. You know, we love to position our moderators to help their businesses grow. It’s really a win-win win for everybody. It’s a win for us. It’s win for our moderator teams. And most importantly, it’s a win for the people that join our rooms.
So in summary, we have certainly talked about a lot today. This is how to build or join clubhouse, moderator teams, moderator dream teams. And that is a term that we use in clubhouse. That’s actually a term that we use in our business. We have business dream teams for our clients as well. And I’m so happy to be able to have an opportunity to talk to you today and to share these strategies with you.
If you would like more help on this, please join me on Wednesday at 12 o’clock and our suite life podcast live room under the Sweetlife entrepreneurs club. And we are here to pour into you again, this is episode number 227 at the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast. And all of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com click on the podcast. And this is episode number 227 and next week in episode number 228,
we have Ashley Wilkerson who is an absolute clubhouse powerhouse as a guest on the show. You just wait, you are in for a treat. She breaks down her entire methodology on how she helps women build a pink print to achieve your dreams. It’s amazing. And I can’t wait for you to hear her speak. Thanks so much for tuning in and being a faithful listener of the show.
Take a screenshot of this and tag me at April beach life on Instagram. And I will message you directly with the link to join our rooms this week so that you and I can personally Connect be awesome. I’ll talk to you again next time. Bye bye for now.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator a probate. Hi everyone. And welcome to it. Episode number 224. Thank you for joining us back here at the sweet life entrepreneur and business podcast. And today I am joined by a very special guest. Who’s going to help us dive into brand archetypes the way she teaches it is so easy to understand.
And so I can’t wait to get into today’s episode, but before we get started, just a little bit of housekeeping, first of all, if you are not yet following us on clubhouse, please do. So. We host a live clubhouse room every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern based on this week’s podcast. So if you’re listening to the show and it drops on Monday,
and you’re a subscriber of the show and you have questions and you want us to dive into your business with you and answer your specific questions based on the content we’re talking about on this week’s podcast, we do it every single Wednesday on clubhouse faithfully at 12 o’clock Eastern time, and you can join me and my guest and this week it is Carrie. I’m so excited and we are here to support you.
It’s an extension of this podcast, a free service, and part of, one of the many outreaches we like to do here as a business here at the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. If you’re new to listening, we give you tools and proven business coaching and strategies for decades and decades that have been proven that you can bank on. And one of the most popular tools that we have,
I want to share with you, if you haven’t grabbed it yet, is the lifestyle business roadmap. I call it my start to scale up system. And that is a very quick short self-assessment that you can take to find out exactly where you are in the process of designing and launching and scaling a business for high profit and deep purpose. And you can take that self-assessment simply by going to sweet life co.com
forward slash quiz. And when you do, I’m going to give you a specific customized list of exactly where you are in the process of growing and scaling your business. And you’re going to get a pinpointed checklist of what you should be focusing and working on right now. So you can go grab that@sweetlifeco.com forward slash quiz, and please join us on clubhouse so we can get to know you and know all about your business.
All you have to do is follow me on clubhouse at April beach. The link is also in my Instagram bio at April beach life. And I would love to connect with you further and take your questions. Okay? So today’s podcast is about brand strategy. I love how my show is about brand strategy today. We’re talking about really, what is a brand archetype?
How does this fit in? And when I sat down with our guest, you are going to love her, by the way I met her on clubhouse. So we love the collaborations that are happening on that great app, very real time and authentic. And her name is Carrie, Carrie Thomas Omaro. And I want to make sure I’m pronouncing her last name correctly.
She has a beautiful last name. She is a branding expert, and here are the things that you can expect from today’s episode. You’re going to understand your customer’s core drivers and motivators and how they fit into your brand strategy. You are going to understand brand archetypes in general, and you are going to know how to exactly create raving fans from your brand archetype.
So let me go ahead and give a formal introduction. Carrie Thomas Amaro is a former corporate rebel turned entrepreneur. She’s a branding extraordinary Carrie’s top mission is to help entrepreneurs build premium brands to increase their visibility, credibility, and profitability in the business market. Carrie believes there are so many good people with amazing messages and MIS and missions that can really be impactful to others,
but they lack visibility. Raise your hand if that’s you, you have an amazing world changing message, but you’re just not exactly sure how to get that out to the world. Then this podcast is for you, Carrie dives, into her personal story and how she literally fell into brand strategy. And because of this, well, maybe godly accident is some people might call it.
She is become a leading brand strategist, and I know you’re going to be able to relate to her. I can’t wait for you to connect with Carrie after this episode on clubhouse with us. And let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show. All of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And this is episode number two, two, four.
All right, let’s go ahead and dive in. All right. You guys welcome back to another episode here on the show. I am super excited to be connected with Carrie and to bring you Carrie’s genius today on the podcast. Let me give you a little bit of back story, Carrie and I met on clubhouse and immediately when I heard her speak, I was like,
Oh my gosh, I want to hang out with her. I want to learn more from her. And you’re going to know exactly why if you haven’t met her already yet on clubhouse today’s episode. So Carrie, welcome to the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. And so excited that you’re here. Tell everybody a little bit about how you became such like a brand whisper.
You’re like the landing branding, Ninja genius teller. First of all, thank you so much. Like it literally means the world, like for you to invite me on show, literally all The things. So I actually started in this journey. I used to be, well, I have my degree in human humanistic psychology. So I’ve always wanted, like,
even when I was little, like I used to always be like, why do people do the things that they do? Like, what are the things that make them like, make the choices that they make? So I was doing that, that my degree in human psychology. And then I actually got a job. It was actually thrown at me. I was working at a restaurant,
like, what am I really like? My, my brother. He was like, Hey Kara, I want you to run my restaurant. And I’m like, you not, never did any of this ever in life. And he was like, yeah, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out, figure it out. So I did that and I remember like the most pivotal moment.
That’s why I was like, I gotta get my stuff together. It’s like he was a pizza place. And I was like doing the order and stuff. And I was like, okay, we need cheese. I was like sick. Not knowing that this was like six boxes. Is that like, It’s bulk ordering. I definitely originally spent a lot of time in restaurants,
so I absolutely totally know what you’re talking about. Yeah. And it’s funny. Cause he left me, like, I would say at least three weeks, then he left me to go on vacation for a month. But like I’m over here, like trying to do orders and do all this stuff. And I’m just like, well, the shipment comes in.
It’s like all the shift keeps coming in and they’re like, what is your I’m? Like, I ordered like snakes and it’s like, each box has 12 bags and I’m just like, okay, let’s figure this out. So we have key pieces of dollars slice it out. But actually it’s funny. Cause everybody always asked me like, how did I start learning all the things that I learned that mistake,
like we were very new in business and I was like, we have to get people in these doors. I have all this chief Shamar comes home in two weeks and he’s got to literally like yell at me and cuss me. Yeah. I have to figure this out. So I was like, I need all the people around us. Like, no we’re here.
Like how can I do it? And I was like, well, what would be the easiest thing to do? And I was like, easiest thing to do is like to get in touch with all the restaurants and businesses around me to know us to come over. So Lily, what we did, I was like, Hey, we got this chief.
We’re going to give everybody a free cheese pizza. We’re just going to drop it off. So I literally just started dropping off cheese pizza and me happy personality. Hey, thank you guys so much. My name is Carrie. I’m the manager. I probably seek the pallets. I just want to drop off this chief. Please let me know if you ever want to come hang out.
I’m always there. My team’s always there. We would love to have like literally just everywhere, like just drop it off cheese pizzas, the glory I’m like Oprah, which it was so crazy. Cause literally like within a week people just start coming and they were like one, they were like here, like no one’s ever dropped this off pizza. And then like,
you were just like, your energy was just so amazing that we just went to come hang out with you. So literally like people just start coming and coming. Luckily all the pieces, all the cheese was Columbia before he came. So that was good. Yeah. But that was when I realized that I was like in business, you need to double down on what you’re good at that.
For me, it’s always been connections and relationships. So I was like, I’m going to have to double down on this. I’m going to have to create this visibility strategy and what I start calling with a fat visability. So like literally I want to be extremely visible to every business within five minutes, like around the perimeter. And that’s what we did.
And we were able to become extremely profitable in the business. And I did that for about two years, but like I just graduated from college and it wasn’t cool to have that type of insurance anymore. So I had to go into corporate and I did corporate restaurants and I actually was at felt like corporate working on the opposite side as a business consultant, working with franchisees have increased their visibility and profitability.
So that’s what I was doing. But the whole time I was still with my thoughts of like, how can we get people in the restaurant? How can we change the perception? Because of course the way big plays, how come change perception, especially when there’s so many subways, how can we make this the way the go-to set weight in terms of everybody else that’s in the area.
And that’s what we kept doing. How can we do the things? How can we do it? And sadly, my father passed away March of 2019 and that’s kind of when I was like, I wanted to do more. My dad was in the military for 26 years. He may so much impact. And he replies, like I remember at the funeral,
they were like, I had one conversation with Paul and like literally my life changed. I was like, Oh my gosh, one call like one conversation. And that’s when myself, I want to do more. I wanted to do more outside of that. And one of my franchisees, he always used to say that, cause I made those schedule and I didn’t really work a lot of hours.
She was like, here, you need to do something like start a business. And I was like doing what he’s like, and I was going to do it in restaurant. But after my father died, I was like, I really want to work with impact or entrepreneurs. I want to work with people who have missions and messages that they want to get out,
but they’re not visible. They’re brands. Aren’t in alignment with who they are. I need to help them get visible so people can like, so the impact that they want to make, they can find, make it. First of all, I’m so sorry. You lost your dad. I lost my dad six years ago and I still every single like week or so,
like pick up the phone to call him and then remember he isn’t there. It’s really, really tough. And sometimes having a vision into seeing something differently, whether it’s, you know, what happened to you is just such an eye-opening thing. And I I’m sorry that happened, but I also love your story because it’s usually something like that and it makes us stop and be like,
okay, Hey, wait a minute. Am I really where I’m supposed to be in my actually using my skills? The thing I love about what you said brand strategy, is that what you have taught these businesses to do. Isn’t this like, you know, Proctor and gamble or Budweiser or huge big brand strategy. You’re really talking down on this level to these what we call micro businesses.
Okay. Like 90% of our listeners is a show where micro businesses wouldn’t qualify to be a small business cause that you can have up to a hundred employees. Right? And so these micro entrepreneurs that have very, very small teams and the concept of being the go-to business, not for everybody, but just within this fear of influence, granted it’s different. We’re talking about online business is so simple.
It’s yet so smart. And so I love what we’re going to dive into today on this show. And thank you for sharing that. I think that so many are like I did years and years and years waiting tables and bartending, my husband was in the restaurant was in corporate restaurants. There are so many entrepreneurs that are from the restaurant industry. It’s because we are bad-ass and multitasking actually I’ll say that if you can,
if you can be in the restaurant industry, you can do anything, anything. I usually do fine dining. And I think that’s what I was like, Oh, I can do all things out. Right? Yeah. I did find dining. Like at the end I did find dining and I was like, man, I actually should have been doing this.
I sell $300 bottle of wine, make as much money as I did. You know, back when I was 17 serving vegan food across a bar, but you know, it was great. It was, it was good experience. And so diving into, you know, kind of brand strategy, some of the things that we’re going to talk about today in our audiences want to know my people ask me this,
your people ask you this, like this is the thing they want to know. And we’re going to break this down for you guys today on the show. The biggest question is, is how do we build this business and personal brand at the same time? How do we know the balance between, you know, what we’re sharing out there as a company and what we’re sharing out there as a personal brand,
as a human that kind of behind the scenes and you have three different things you’re going to take us through today, which I’m so excited to talk about. And so the first thing that you say in your process that you bring people through in branding and strategy is understanding your customer’s core drivers and really like what keeps him up at night. Can you elaborate on that?
Teach our listeners, that process and this being step number one. Here’s what you guys got to do in order to tap into this level of influence. Yeah. So what do you want to do is you really want to understand who they are. So of course, like people say like, what books do they read? What Facebook groups that, Hey,
that’s great. But you also want to really understand the psychological like back, like who motivates them. Like when they have a bad day, what, like, what are the things that kind of gets them out of? And the way that you do that is the easiest way to do that is by start talking to your customers, like start asking those personal questions.
I have that relationship. Cause we were like, Hey, you know, I know that was crazy. Like you were doing that launch. I know it was a little rough. Like what were you kind of going through? Like, let’s talk about it, let’s see if we can adapt to it. So next time they might understand what you’re doing next time we can fix it.
And a lot of times they were like, you know, Carrie, like I want like, I really, really want to be able to like be there for my family. I want to be able to create this life for my family. So that’s, what’s keeping them up at night. Like that’s the thing and you’ll hear it. They’ll tell you.
And they’re like, I want to be able to do this with like every time I feel like I’m getting almost there, I just can’t take that leap. So having those interviews with your clients and actually listening to what they say, because I think a lot of times we don’t really listen to what our clients say, but actually listening and then actually diving deeper,
say, okay, like, so you really want to help your family? Like what, like what are you trying to do? Like, what do you want to do with your family? I really want to put my daughter in private school. I really want, I really want my wife to be able to homeschool like our youngest stuff like that. Having those conversations is what is going to be able,
so you can understand how to communicate with them and how to do those other people that we’re going to talk about in a way So smart. Okay. So first of all, people don’t like taking time to do this and it’s the best market research they can do. And it’s the most direct. And I love that you said that because a lot of entrepreneurs,
like we are solutions finders, so we just want to solution and be like, Oh yeah, yeah, it’ll sell. And I love that. You talk about how important it is to actually talk to your audience for sure. The best market research. If you guys are not on clubhouse with me and Carrie, you should go and clubhouse. Cause it’s like market research gold.
You can just room about a question that you want answered and you’re going to get all that feedback. Some you don’t want, but some really great important feedback regarding what, what you guys are trying to do. And so understanding basically what keeps him up at night and the things that matter to them that do not have anything to do with what you’re selling.
That’s what I heard what you said. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah. It’s funny. Cause I feel like I’ve been, I’m always on the soap box is especially because we’re all entrepreneurs just because we’re an all white space doesn’t mean that our clients are just like these people laid at people. They’re real people in the real world with real life,
things that are going on every day and those things just because they’re on the screen, it’s still happening. So you have to take time and ask those questions and try to figure out what is their real day to day life. Like for me, I’m a at, so I get up at seven o’clock in the morning to homeschool my knee, that there is something that up and that’s a driver for you.
And, but it very impressive by the way, just so you know, your superstar rockstar For sure. But very important. Okay. And just understanding Those other drivers behind the scenes and like the second thing you had said in this, like really kind of pulls off of what we were just talking about is understanding your brand archetype. First of all, can you please explain to our listeners that don’t even know what a brand archetype is?
Like, what is the definition? What is a brand archetype and then help our listeners understand how to utilize? Yeah. So the easiest way to explain what a bread archetype is, if everybody is familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So everybody has certain needs and desires that they have to get to be able to survive and feel like they’ve made the next step.
So of course, you know, water, shelter, money, commitment, relationship, that’s what people need. Those same things that they need are the same things that go into the bread archetype. Like they have the hero brands, musician brands, the innocent, the Sage, like all those are different bread archetypes, but all of those are based on the core needs that we have Nate.
So what happens that how to really leverage it is a differentiation factor. So a lot of times, especially right now in social media of everybody came online. But a lot of people that do the same thing, like I feel like you’re gonna throw a rock in social media and he had a bread strategy. Yeah. But because they haven’t leveraged a brand archetype,
they’re speaking the same language that everybody else and speaking actually create a brand archetype and speak in that language. You’ve differentiated yourself. And you’re actually now tapping into the coordinate and core desires of your dream client of your Raymond band. So now when it comes to your offers and your services and your updates, they’re like, Hey, I’m going to listen to this person because they’re speaking to me is that it’s speaking to every black everybody else.
And it’s what we call is that the true foundation of creating a frictionless print. Wow. Okay. And one of the things, one of the notes I took and we were talking a little bit behind the scenes in planning, this show is that people go to the brand that understands their thought process. And I thought that was so smart that you said that and they’re going to the ones that speak to their heart and they’re going to the ones that speak to their true desires.
And honestly what their personality is as a person. Those are the ones that they’re attracted to you even like said, you said something about your mom, you shared this really cool thing. Like your mom’s are attracted like safe brands. Like, you know, like a lot of moms are in that, you know, and that whatever Ramy is and moms are right.
And maybe that just generation where as that’s not the same thing that necessarily drives everybody else. Yeah. Cause it’s like a key example about, let’s say you have a mom who really like bills. Like I’m looking for like a brand that’s safe, that’s secure. They’re going to be looking for conversations and words. That’s going to be like assurance secure. Like that’s the words that they’re going to want to hear because that’s going to speak to their language.
But for me, like, I get excited by like transformation, innovation, things like that. So I’m going to want to hear things like creative, like innovative moving things like that. That’s the stuff that I would like to me. And that’s why I said it’s super important to understand who your customer is, that it may level to be able to have that conversation when it comes to your brand archetype.
So cool. So cool. Okay. And then the next step you’re going to take our listeners through is understanding now how to represent that visually. What does that look like? What are your tips on actually bringing a visually to the world? So the thing is like always tell people that colors have feelings and fonts have emotion. So you want to make sure that when ever you choose your brand architecture,
you look and you kind of see like what feelings actually are kind of bringing off like what the words are actually bringing it all. So let’s say you have a rebel brand. If you think of a rubber brand, like if you think of like Harley Davidson and things like that is very bold, disruptive, challenging the status norms. So when you think of their colors,
you’re going to think of Rez black, things like that. They’re not going to think of like a baby pink is going to throw it all out. You and be like, hold up. Like, this is not speaking to me Down. Yeah. And you said colors have feelings and fonts have emotions. Wow. That is so true. Yeah. We wouldn’t,
we wouldn’t think that for sure. And I think oftentimes we’ll look at a brand and wonder why that maybe that brand doesn’t really turn us on or we’re really not really attracted to it. And yeah. A lot of the times like, yeah, those colors just don’t make me feel like I want to go on a field. They don’t do it for me.
And it’s funny. Cause I always, I feel like makeup brands. I used to be a makeup artist. Like in my past life, I love entrepreneurs. We’re so cool. We’re so mixed up. There’s so many experiences. Yeah. So I used to do makeup and like I used to always think it was super cool. Like how makeup brands created different looks and feels to attract different people.
So like, are you a makeup girl? I literally don’t wear makeup at all. I’d go, I get my eyelashes glued on. So I don’t even have to wear mascara is anything I do. I don’t know how to do makeup. I’ve never worn makeup. I have zero clue. But all of my I’m just weird. All of our listeners probably know exactly what you’re just about to say.
Yeah. So like benefit tarts. Like those were really poppy, like millennial brands. Like that’s what they give off. They give that puppy millennial, like this has the new trendy items, but then you have like NARS, Estee, Lauder, things like that. They give like this look spiel and the prices are different just because of it. Cause you’re like,
Oh wait. But when you go over to nurse and Estee Lauder like you and your mind already say, Hey, I’m probably gonna spend $300 And what, what I don’t, but that’s an airplane ticket to me, but I get what you’re saying. You know that that’s a ticket on a journey to me now I get what you’re saying and it’s such a good correlation.
And so this visual representation. So first we talked about understanding what keeps your people, your ideal people up at night, at night, not even necessarily as it actually relates to your product or your service or your program or your course or whatever it is that you’re selling. So what are their core drivers? The second thing that you talked about, I love the brand archetype in understanding how to create that connection between the personality of your buyer and the personality of your brand.
And I know that, you know, that’s spoken about often, but I really appreciate you breaking it down on the show. We haven’t had somebody on the show in four years, that’s actually talked about brand archetypes. So I wanted to make sure that that was really defined for our listeners. And then you’re talking about bringing it out visually and making sure that there’s a visual,
very clear visual representation that is thoughtful in color and font. And then obviously in messaging and the work that you did within the brand archetype development. The last question I want you to answer for us today, very interested to get your take on this. This is clearly a topic of conversation within my mastermind today. You know, everybody has a different thought on this for entrepreneurs that are building both that business and that personal brand.
And we’ve talked about understanding the actual brand strategy of it, but now actually the process of posting and sharing. What percentage do you recommend people share transparent, totally irrelevant behind the scenes versus about the business. Is there a split that you have seen that’s working behind being transparent in what you’re showing your audience, even at literally Siri’s listening to me, she’s always listening.
You guys turn her off. What does that percentage, what is that difference that you see as far as posting about the business and posting about the company brand versus posting about what’s personal, maybe what you’re cooking for dinner or a hike you’re on or even your kid. Okay. So this is exciting for me because I always talk about this and we have a thing.
We call it our content bucket. And in those contents, it’s not me. There are about, I would say at the minimum about three to five, but that kind of depends on like where you’re at, how we try to map it out is what strategic pieces of content. And this will kind of break down, like how all is it happens?
The strategic pieces of content. That is how you think about STEM. So like, what is your thought processes on your business? And a lot of times the easiest way is like, what’s your show? Like what’s your stage? Like, do you have a podcast? You have a YouTube, you have a Facebook show where you’re actually able to have conversations with people and people can understand how you think.
So that’s going to be your one bucket. Your second bucket is going to be, what are the, that can come from those pieces of content that you just talked about. That can be resourceful for people who might not be ready to work with you now. So what are the things? So for me, like if you ever go to my social media,
like we teach about bread architects. We teach about color theory. We teach about different pairings and color palettes that people can use. That doesn’t really do anything for me, but it becomes a resource will aspects for somebody else which provides education, but also still goals aligned with our strategy. The next car is always going to be, what is your, what is your heart’s feet?
Are you a person that like is motivated by like, you want to inspire people. You want to motivate people. You want to make people laugh. What is that heart piece? That’s like, really like really close to you. So for me, it’s always to try to inspire other people. So in March we’d have like the Sheik who marches. We had nothing to do with our business,
but it was aspirational for me because I always want to highlight other people, inspire other people to show like, Hey, these amazing people are doing amazing things. You need to see what they’re doing. Get inspired by them. The next part is who are our clients? What’s their testimony is whatever our case study. What are the people that you want to actually work with insight?
Like who are they are inside? Like what, who are your avatars? Why do you work with the people? Like where are they at in their journey? Why they want it? When are they ready to work with you have that in there. And then the last piece. So it will be 20%. If you decide the last piece, we call it all things,
your name. So it will be all things, April, all things. Carrie’s like, what are the things that is about me? So those are like, for me, it’s like my real, like I’m showing my personality. I’m doing all my things. I’m doing my dancing because that’s me. I’m actually like a happy-go-lucky person. Like I did like an egg drop thing with my niece and nephew this weekend.
I did that in my story. That’s my day-to-day life that showed the different parts of me, but what happens? And this is what super cool. And I love it with our clients is their social media becomes a place where people just want to hang out. Cause they just want to see what’s going on. What are they doing today? Like, Oh,
this is really cool. I didn’t know about that. That’s a great thought process. Then think about that. They keep coming back over and over and over again. You start seeing all these profile businesses while you’re patient. Like these people just keep hanging out. I really anything this week, but it keep coming back because you become a place where they just want,
they feel comfortable and happy. Mm. I love that. Okay. Those five buckets are absolutely genius. And I know people are like, okay, don’t forget you guys as podcasts. You can replay it. Let me see if I can restate the five buckets. Number one is your thought processes or your methods or your systems are kind of your, your,
what I would call your signature method, your signature framework, like your IP, your zone of genius. The second one are actions people can take and a place where you can be resourceful based on your zone of genius and what you teach, who aren’t ready buy from you. The third one is what does your heart speak? Like, are you a motivator?
Are you funny? Like what other things can you share that might or might not relate to your business? The fourth is who are our clients? What are the case studies? What do they need from us? How to know when they’re ready to work for us or work with us, what does that trigger? What are some of the things that our clients are working on?
And then the fifth one is all things, your name, like, what are you up to today? What are you doing? And so that does answer like the 20%. I think that what is your heart speed is also possibly very personal is what, But it can go business. And that’s the really cool part because like, for me as caring about people as a part of our core values.
So when it came to the shoe marches and even like our biggest coming up in June, it is an alignment with that. So like the boss brushes in alignment with what my heart speaks with my heart speaks of how to inspire people, to take those next steps in their life. Even if it’s not, when we just take the next step. So cool.
It’s the things that your beliefs and your motivators and things like that. I, I love that so much. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show. This was a lot of great information. And I know our listeners went from some of our listeners who went from never even understanding branding to going from how to understand the audience and even now how to create content.
I mean, that’s just way above, you know, but I think a lot of our listeners, so if you guys hung out until the end, you’ve literally got your content buckets, which is super genius. How can people find you? How can they connect with you if they want to know more about your services? Yeah. You can just visit us at www dot Connect dot com.
It’s funny because the last is the Irish word that means to bring light to which goes into our brand, which is what we try to do. Even like in our businesses and shining light on other people’s brands, bring light to them and have people see them. So that’s why I love, like, I, I love our business Smart. Say you’re a brand strategist,
good meme or good, good business name or two. And then this is episode number 224 here on the sweet life entrepreneur podcast. So you guys can find all the show notes and all Carrie’s links and how to find her in the show notes here@sweetlifeco.com. But then also we get to jam in a clubhouse room. So if you guys are unclip housed in your listeners to this show and you are subscriber,
like you’ve clicked the subscribe button, you’re getting downloads of these episodes. And so you’re listening to it real time. Carrie and I are going to be live on clubhouse on the Wednesday that this show drops at 12 o’clock Eastern time. So if you’re listening to the show in real time, Carrie is going to be in our clubhouse room, taking your questions,
workshopping with you, talking about these five buckets and brand archetype and in all this stuff. And if you, if you’ve never moderated or with a room with her, you never been in a room where she moderates. She’s so much fun. That’s where I found her. And I can’t wait for you guys to get a chance to dive in deeper with Carrie as well.
So Carrie, thank you so much for being a guest on the show and all of the genius that you brought. It’s been such a fun time hanging out with you. I love everything that you said, and I know our listeners really appreciate you pouring into us. Thank you so much. It literally means the world to me. I said at the beginning,
you’re so sweet. It’s it’s truly our pleasure. All right. You guys, thanks so much for hanging out with us today. Isn’t Carrie, just such a gem, such a sweetheart. I hope you walked away with exactly what we promised you would the understanding of brand archetypes and how to use this in your business to speak to the core needs of your audience.
Again, you can join us on clubhouse, the live conversation and Q and a at 12 o’clock Eastern time, every single Wednesday, simply by following me on clubhouse and clicking the little button next to my name, to turn on alerts. So, you know, when we’re going to be talking and you can find me at April beach on clubhouse. All right.
You guys have an awesome, awesome day. I can’t wait to talk to you again soon. Bye bye. For now.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator a probate. Hi everyone. And welcome back. So the show April beach here, host of this show and founder of this wheat life company. I’m so glad that you’ve joined us again. This is part two of a two part series that we’re doing with our special guests,
Francesca Whitesburg. Last week, we dove in to trademarking protection who needs trademarking, the difference between word marketing and design marking. And so if you miss that, please pause this show, go back and start with last week of that is an area of need in your business. That was episode number 221. And today this is episode number 222. This episode is for those of you who are in any stage of business development in that stage is connected to our start to scale up system.
If you don’t know what phase of business development you’re in, we have an amazing, powerful, free resource for you where you can take a short assessment and get the exact stage and phase of business development you’re in and get a complete list of what you should be working on right now. And you can get that short assessment and access all of those tools by visiting Sweetlife co.com
forward slash quiz. If you haven’t done that, or if it’s been a while, since you’ve tested where you are in your business growth phase, I highly recommend you tap into that amazing resource. Now let’s talk about what we can expect from today’s show. So this episode is for those of you who want to know how to step into the process of protecting your creative work through filing for copyright protection,
our guest is absolutely hands down amazing. She has done work for our company and many of our clients, and I’m so pleased that she agreed to be on this show. Today, we are talking with the trademarking attorney, Francesca Whitesburg about what you need to know when it comes to protecting your creative works by filing for copyright protection. If you’re a course creator,
if you’re a content creator, if you have work that you have actually built, brought to life in tangible form and you have not protected it yet, we need you to be very careful. That is your creative work. That is your genius, and you need to protect it so nobody else can take it from you. And so we’re talking about how to go about that in today’s show clearly a very important show for our audience.
Now, the end of this episode, you’re going to know if you have work that needs to be protected. You’re going to know the process of going through the first steps to filing for protection. And you’re going to understand a few other very important things like how to own the work that others create for you. Other independent contractors, and even how to avoid getting into trouble when using protected material from other businesses within your marketing.
There’s so many important things that we discuss on today’s show. And so I’m so glad that you’re here and you’re not missing it. So let’s talk about our guest. If you did not hear her amazing introduction last week, let me give you an introduction. Francesca Whitesburg is an award winning intellectual property law attorney specializing in trademarks brands and copyrights. She advises Tom businesses,
brands, entrepreneurs, professionals, talent, startups, and individuals. Francesca has experienced working at various in-house global luxury brands. She has also worked in the world’s largest law firm today. She’s a partner at an IP law firm, Loza and Loza and creates content on her Instagram. And she can be found at the trademark attorney on Instagram. She’s absolutely amazing.
So I’m very glad that you’re here, power packed episode. So let’s go ahead and dive in all of this show notes and the resources that we’re discussing can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com and simply click on podcast. And this is episode number two 22. Also, we have one more important bonus. So Mark your calendar. If you are on clubhouse,
we invite you to join Francesca and me in our regular Wednesday room on Wednesday, April the 14th at 12 o’clock Eastern time. Now, what does that mean? That means you get to jump into a clubhouse room and you get to ask Francesca your copyright questions, your direct business questions. That’s what we love clubhouse. And we actually use clubhouses our community extension to this podcast now.
So we have a regular room. We host every single Wednesday at noon. You are invited to join us there this week on April, the 14th, Francesca is going to be there taking your copywriting questions as an extension from this podcast episode. So it’s an amazing opportunity of course, completely free and a chance for you to really get your business legal questions answered.
If you’d like to join this room, here are the steps to do that. Visit me on Instagram at April beach life. And you can click on the link in my bio and simply follow me on clubhouse and follow our club on clubhouse. When you do that, you’re going to have notifications and with clubs house, when your notifications are on, that gives you access to these very special rooms.
So very simply follow me on clubhouse. And I can be found at, at April beach on clubhouse, where you can go to my Instagram at April beach life on Instagram. And both of those opportunities will give you a chance to follow me there or giving you notifications in access to Francesca. So that’s our special bonus with today’s episode. And I know that’s going to be so powerful for so many of you who really do have important business questions you need answered right now.
So let’s go ahead and dive into today’s podcast episodes. Welcome back to another episode here on the Sweetlife entrepreneur and business podcast. I am joined again by my very favorite person this year, Francesca Whitesburg. She is here diving in with everything legal for you to protect your content, your intellectual property. And this is actually part two of a two part podcast episode we did last week.
We dove all into trademarking. So if you miss last week, pause this, go back to episode two 21 and start with that one and then come back here and join us. If you listened to last week, let’s get ready to go. We have so much to cover today and you are going to gain so much knowledge by this wonderful woman who is here just strictly to pour into you to protect your intellectual property.
So welcome back to the show. Francesca, thank you so much for me. Thank you for having me April. I’m excited to talk about copyrights. Yeah. Okay. So actually let’s go ahead and dive right in. So really what is copywriting for anybody who is absolutely brand new at this? They know they need to know what it is, but they don’t even have a baseline starting point.
Yeah, of course. So copyright is a form of intellectual property protection that the text creative works that can be your videos, your photos, your courses, the layout of their website, your podcasts. It covers anything that you’ve created. That’s fixed in a tangible media. So it can’t be like an idea in your head gotta be written down, actually like manifested in the real,
but once it’s out there, it’s protected automatically under copyright law. Okay. So let’s take a step back. I know we talked about it extensively in last week’s episode, but can you just give a general description to our listeners in what is intellectual property, Of course, intellectual property, which is IP, which we refer to as refers to creations of the mind.
They’re your invention. Anything that’s proprietary that you can upload your photos, your grants, your slogans, trade secrets. These are all things that you have created that either you or your business owns. I like to say you have your IP toolbox. And then in that tool box, there’s different tools you can use like patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.
So good. Okay. So incredibly foundational, but yet so many businesses aren’t aware of that. All right. So my next question for you, and I know our listeners, especially those who listened to last week are automatically asking this question right now. What is the difference between a copyright protection and trademarking? Yes. Trademarks really protect source identifiers. So Sweetlife when you read that name,
you know, that that’s April beaches programs, she’s offering her consulting services April. You’ve seen, created a full brand around that. And also it’s your company name too, but to consumers, we know that that’s April. So that word tells people that if you get consulting from this person, it’s April, who’s behind it. The same thing. When you see Coca-Cola or burger King,
you go to a McDonald’s in Spain, you’re in a know that it’s the same person who’s behind that. That’s the function of a trademark. Now a copyright is a very different tool, but they can overlap. So copyright extends to any creative expressions. So if you have a really unique logo that went along with sweet life, I it’s like a little like circle with some interesting artwork in there that you use.
And when I, anyone one sees that I think April, but also it’s very detailed. It’s original. That can also be protected by copyright. So if you are working with IP counsel, a good lawyer is going to advise you holistically and really tell you all the tools that you can use to protect your intellectual property from different angles. Okay. Fascinating.
And so for our listeners, do they need to register their works for copyright protection? So copyrights are similar to trademarks in that they are granted automatically. As soon as you create something you posted online, put it, like we said, in the fixed medium, then you have protection. However, if someone is using your work in an unauthorized manner, that your permission,
right. To actually get them to stop in the United States, you need a registration certificate. So I like to say, you know, you could send them a letter, you can send them a DM telling them to take it down. Cause it’s, you know, using your copyrighted material. But with that, without a registration, it’s like waving an empty gun.
You’re really not gonna have any teeth behind it. Got it. Okay. And so let’s kind of just pause here because I want to get back into content around courses and really big written works that many of our listeners do, but let’s just kind of take a jog for a second and talk about a couple of areas where people tend to run into trouble and they have absolutely no idea when they’re using other people’s works.
So the first one is photography and using somebody else’s photography within your business, what do people need to know in relation to copyright? Anytime you use photos taken from the internet or anyone else’s photos, technically you need permission and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you use it even on just a random post or you’re using it for something more visible,
even mental, a lot of trouble. And so the way that you get around it is you either use photos and images that you’ve taken yourself, or you can purchase the rights to some of these images. That’s where you can use database as like Getty images to buy a license, to use those infants for certain purposes. Yeah. And I think that the,
you know, so many new businesses and actually even established businesses that are just trying to scale online, just kind of starting to get their Instagram out there. They don’t realize that grabbing another photo out there, you know, there is a license, but behind that and that you have to be within your legal rights to use that. And so just wanted to make sure that we were discussing that here on the show as well,
because I, I know that people have ran into problems with that in the past. Another kind of side question for you here, going back to our listeners original piece of work, their course that they’re creating the content that they’re delivering within their coaching programs or their mastermind, or they’re teaching their intellectual property, their methods, their signature programs, right. With some of our listeners hire other people to create parts of their work for them.
What do they need to know and be careful about when they’re doing that? Yeah, that’s a great point April. So when you hire someone to create whether it’s a logo with design web design, anytime you’re paying someone to build software or whatever it is, if they’re not an employee within the scope of employment, paying them a salary or hourly, or the bank benefits,
then technically they are the owner of the intellectual property. So you need a written assignment called an assignment for what an assignment means is a transfer of rights. So that person needs to sign a document that says all the intellectual property created around this program. And it’s more detailed than that, but I give all that copyright and all that property is transferred to two and you’re comfortable.
It’s very critical, especially if you’re going to pay a lot of money, really need to get this in writing because otherwise they own what you thought you paid for and they can continue to use themselves, or they can give it away to other people and competitors. Yeah. Imagine that nightmare hiring somebody to, you know, create something for you and your course or your program.
And then it’s not actually yours. So important. So thank you so much for discussing that. And that assignment is, is really incredibly important. And, you know, I know that the majority of our listeners, their teams that they have are actually independent contractors. So this is completely something that is critical for them to be aware of is this assignment within their independent contractor agreements.
And that’s why working with an expert like you to make sure it is, it says exactly what they used to say is so incredibly. Okay. So let’s go back to this process of protecting copyright. So another side question for you when our listeners are using the notation on the bottom of their slides or their PDFs or delivering, or their written work, and they have the little copyright protection and then they have the gear on there and then their ownership,
why is that important? And what is the correct way? If there is a correct way just to enter into that sort of, Yeah, you, you hit the nail on the head, you see the copyright symbol, which will say do it in an emoji you’re on like on your phone. And then you put either your name or your company’s name.
Whoever’s really claiming rights to that ID. And then the year, and what that does April is that’s putting third parties on notice it’s again, reminding people, Hey, this is my copyright. This is protectable information. If you use it without my authorization, it’s illegal. So don’t do it. We’ll do it. The only way that you can really get them to stop is if you file that registration.
Got it. Okay. And so I know that we get that question all the time. Clearly if I don’t answer it because I’m not an attorney and I know that so many of our users are wondering that, you know, they see that when can I use it? How do I use it? Especially those that have multiple years listed on that listing and in exactly how to go about doing that.
And so does the year usually reflect the original work or does the year cover when it is currently being protected in that listing on it? It could vary, right? So like sometimes it’s like people open up a book, you’ll see the original publication copyright notice, but then they’ll be the most current version. But for our purposes, I think it’s fine to do it.
Like, let’s say you had to create your website in 2020, you can have 20, 20 is the date, but then if you make changes to it, which you’re going to just keep updating, updating the year. Okay. So many, I already know that these are questions people listening or are having, okay. So now let’s go back to kind of the center of what we’re talking about here today for our listeners,
how do they start the process of protecting their intellectual property, their content course program outlines, where do they begin with this process? Yeah. I’d love the way you put it April, because you implicitly said, how do they protect what they already have? Everyone already has IP. It’s just a matter of understanding, which are your most important assets and how you go about protecting them.
So I actually offer an Ikea audit where I will look at websites, social media pages, courses, some of my clients give me access to their, you know, their subscription-based or whatever, log in to see their forces. I do a very holistic review. And then we will go get on the phone and do a 30 minute call to discuss what their most important assets are or we could talk about,
okay, here’s the name of your operating vendor? Have you thought about three markets that’s going to filing for that copyrights? Do you have your independent contractor agreement language? We’ll kind of go through and just do like a checklist, like as if I literally am doing an audit on your seat and make sure you have everything there. I recommend that as a starting point,
and there’s also an IP audit and I can action plan, which is like the deluxe version of that, which is going to really do a deep dive. And then we come up with eight phase one plan, which is your first three to six months on what filings to do. And then also the next like six to 12 plus months for the next round of filings,
because everyone has so much great content. That’s great IP. It gets a little overwhelming to think, Oh, I have to do everything. The reality is that you don’t, you stage it out. And if you have a plan strategy about it, it’s really not going to be that expensive. It’ll be way more expensive than the end. If you don’t do this.
And if you try to do deal with cease and desist letters or sending this letters as they arise. Yeah. Nightmare. So once somebody submits their work for copyright protection, each time they update it, do they need to resubmit that Great question. So anytime you modify a work that it becomes a new popular, it’s a new work. So I would say as long as the modification is substantially similar to the original work,
then you can rely on that. But if it’s very different and using that a lot publicly, it’s probably worth at least running it by an IP lawyer to come up with a strategy. Okay. So much great information, Francesca, thank you so much for being our guest again here on the show and joining us in clubhouse rooms where we talk about this.
There’s so many places where people can connect with you. You know, we highly recommend that people take up the opportunity to go through an IP audit. And what I love about why I have you on this show is that you understand the way service-based online entrepreneurs work and you understand what they’re creating and you understand courses and masterminds and signature programs, and you understand all these things.
And so it’s hard, frankly, to find an expert like you, that fully understands the assets that our listeners are creating. So thank you so much for being on the show and being an amazing resource and the best place for people to connect with you is through your Instagram. Is that correct? Yes. I have a link in my bio. It’s my counselee.
I’m happy to get on a 15 minute call just to hear about your business And to discuss if you want to do an IP audit or if you just want to Connect. Yeah. Great. All of you guys should take her up on that. It’s a very, I know it’s crazy. It’s totally free. So you can be found at the trademark attorney on Instagram and we will make sure that a link to that of course is in our show notes as well.
So it’s the trademark attorney on Instagram. And what is your clubhouse handle the trademark at the trademark attorney on clubhouse as well? Of course. Thank you so much for being here again and being our guest expert this week. I know that everybody really needed to hear a way, the things we’ve been talking about the last two weeks on the show. So certainly appreciate your time.
Absolutely. Thanks April. Thank you so much for sticking around with us. What an amazing episode Francesca is a super genius and perfectly in line with what our listeners and our clients need. If you would like to work with Francesca, if you would like to just take her up on her opportunity to connect with her for a free IP audit, please visit Francesca directly by visiting at the trademark attorney on Instagram.
So for handle is the trademark attorney on Instagram and the trademark attorney on clubhouse. She can be found at both of those places. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Again, all the show notes and everything we talked about, and all these links can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. You guys have an awesome day. Bye bye for now.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. So two 20 here on the suite live entrepreneur and business podcast. I’m April beach, your host, and I’m super glad to be chatting with you. And yet another week here on the show,
this is episode number 220, and I can’t wait to dive into today’s topic. This is one of those ones where behind the scenes here, I was taking so many notes based on what our guest expert was teaching today. So there’s just gold inside this episode, as we hope to deliver to you within every single episode. First of all, before we get started,
if you’re new to listening to the show, thank you so much for tuning in here. We also go live and talk about the podcast and take your questions every single Wednesday at 12 o’clock Eastern time on clubhouse. So if you are not yet following me on clubhouse, please do so. I would love to connect with you. We can really dive in and roll up our sleeves regarding your business questions.
Every single Wednesday, faithfully at 12 o’clock Eastern time. And my handle is at April beach on clubhouse. So I would love to see you there also, if you’re new to listening, or maybe it’s been a while since you’ve tapped into this important powerful resource, we have our lifestyle entrepreneur roadmap quiz, and this is based on my start to scale up system.
It’s a totally free tool. If you’re a listener to this show, you can go and take a very short quiz, just six simple questions. And it’s going to tell you what phase of business you’re in and based on the phase of business you’re in, we give you an exact checklist of what you should be focusing on and what you should be working on to scale your business,
or just really get your business to that next level. And you can take that quiz any time you can go back and take it again and again, by visiting sweet life co.com forward slash quiz, or you can simply text the word quiz to the number (805) 254-0880. And we’ll send you a link to that. So those are our free tools. In addition to all the gold,
you’re going to hear her on the show that I wanted to make sure that you have upfront so that we can keep your business implementing as we move forward through the entrepreneur podcast here. So I appreciate you listening to this show. This is what we’re talking about today. So let’s set the stage. This show is great for those of you guys who are in the first three stages of my start to scale up system.
So that’s based on the quiz. So if you’re in phase one, two or three, this is a great episode for you to listen to. If you’re in phase four or five of my start Taylor scale system, you’ve nailed this strategy. And so I recommend going to find a different podcast to listen to that applies to your stage of business. I want to make sure that I value your time so much.
And the strategies we’re talking about on today’s show are for those people in the first one, two or three stages of the start to scale up system. So what we’re talking about here is how to literally write emails that are so good. They lick the screen. You’re going to be mind blown about what you hear on today’s show. This is for small businesses who you either currently use email marketing.
You’re not sure if you’re doing it right, or you’ve never used email marketing before, and you want to learn how to leverage email marketing in your business. Email marketing is an important way for you to connect with your warm audience. It’s also important for you to hold an ongoing conversation and to increase your sales. However, most businesses flop when it comes to writing emails,
it’s truly because it’s, it’s actually a skill it’s not as easy as you would think that it would be in your emails really need to compel your audience. So in the show we have Kate Doster, who’s a copywriting expert. She’s going to break down the process of writing great emails in an ethical way, by wooing the hearts of your ideal clients and their wallets open.
At the end of this episode, this is what you can expect. You’re going to know what is the difference between a good email and a great email. You’re going to know how to use calls to action correctly in your emails. And you’re going to know the process of writing emails that convert. So let me tell you who is here today. She is absolutely amazing.
Kate Doster is the host of the inbox besties podcast. Creator of love your list. 2.0 email marketing mega course, it is dangerously obsessed with helping ethical entrepreneurs carve out their slice of the interwebs by winning the hearts and wallets open of their small, but mighty audiences. Thanks to funny bell marketing and easy yes, many offers. So that’s important as we went through our bio,
her bio here, that what Kate’s bio says is she helps you. Even if you have a teeny tiny small list, increase the engagement in the sales based on your list. That was one of the key things. When I was reading her bio and why I asked her to come on this show because listen, you guys, you only need a hundred true fans to build a great business.
That’s what it starts with these huge audiences. I mean, this can be an illusion. So those of you that don’t have huge lists with 10, 20,000 people on it. This podcast is great. And it’s also for those people that do have huge email lists. And perhaps you are failing at connecting well with your list. Kate believes you don’t need to bleed the alphabet or be a dirty rotten spam face to write emails,
adult subscribers, and to taking action gobbling up your paid offers like candy or kale, if that’s what you prefer. So let’s go ahead and dive into today’s podcast. All of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com simply click on the podcast button. And this is episode number 220<inaudible> All right, you guys, I am joined by Kate Doster and she is going to give you the complete strategy that you probably didn’t even know.
You’re actually missing to write amazing emails because what she teaches, what she talks about, isn’t just the fundamentals. It isn’t just like how to section out the content in your email. She literally teaches you how to write emails for so good people lick the screen. And that is her quote. I stole that from her to name this podcast. So giving credit where credit is due,
Kate, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you here tell everybody about your superpower in your company. Sure. So I’m Kate Doster of Kate doster.com and hosted the inbox besties podcast. And my super power is really being able to help people. Not only feel like they can do anything, but actually give them the tools to get them there.
I think that there’s a lot of people that kind of hype you up and make you feel amazing. But then when they’re like, but how do I do X there’s like, go figure it out. But like, no, like we do the whole approach because our mission is to put money in the hands of good people so they can do good with it.
So our business is primarily a digital course business. I am extremely selective about the one-on-one clients that I take on, but primarily it’s courses digital products. We just we’ve got to help the good people out there. Right? And you teach people how to like create these insane bodies of copy that totally bring to life what it is that they do, their super power.
And there’s such a disconnect. I’m so excited to have you on this show. I need to give Angie true blood, our favorite person credit for connecting you with us. And when Angie was like, okay, this is an amazing guest for you. First of all, anybody Angie sends to me, I know it was just an amazing guest, but then I saw your,
your topics. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, yes. Emails that not only like convert, but emails that give an experience. So let’s dive right in and talk about one of the things you said behind the scenes, as I was getting ready here and taking my notes for what we’re going to talk about today is you have kind of like this four things that you go through.
And the first one you talk about is something that really other copywriting teachers don’t, and that is all about mindset. Talk to me about mindset and how that plays a role in copywriting. Sure. So like I said, good people do good. Most good people have very bad associations with things like selling. They don’t want to be annoying. They don’t want to be lumped in with a spammer faces.
Are there really bro Hames as we call him the world, he’s our arch rivals. He has a whole voice as he does. So because of that, they tend to really freeze that when it comes to emails, you know, Oh, I don’t want to be annoying or I don’t want to be spammy. Oh, you know, like I haven’t emailed them in three months.
So now they are literally psyching themselves out because either they feel bad, they feel guilty. Everyone’s been telling them everywhere. Like you need to have an MLS. Why don’t you have an email list, email, your email list, you dummy. So they get all up in their heads and they do no thing because everyone’s been on the receiving end of really bad emails.
But here’s the thing. The sheer fact that you are having this thought of, I don’t want to annoy people. I don’t want to be a spammer means that it is physically impossible for you to be there. And it is physically impossible for you to write one because the really broad themes as a world who are those farmers, they do not care. The fact that you care proves that you are going to send them high quality stuff.
So who guys think you already did it? And when I talk to people like 100%, it is always, Oh, I feel like, or I think it’s like, so it’s not truly the mechanics. It’s I need to get your finger to, to hit the sand on the good old convert kit, Right? Oh my gosh. Okay. Like we can just end the podcast right there.
Like, okay, you need to fix your mindset. You’re amazing. You’re not like a douche bag. You’re going to send grace. So I think that’s so cool. Okay. And then the next thing that you talked about is, you know, being on your list is a privilege. Let’s talk about that mindset all together. What do you mean by that?
Okay. It is a two side of the coin. One. When you realize that people are honestly lucky to get your enthusiasm, your encouragement, your knowledge, your expertise, they are lucky to be there. So all of a sudden that scarcity mindset of, you know, if I send a newsletter, a hundred people are going to unsubscribe. So no,
like I don’t have this mystical thousand number. Like who cares the people on the other end of the screen, do not know if they are one of, 100, one of five or one of 10 million. They have no idea when it is our mission to help you need to help regardless of that number. So when you’re like, Oh, bring it on my list as a privilege.
And somebody sends you a nasty email back, you laugh at them and then you kick them out. You’re like, no, like literally I send a lot of emails. I send a lot of what’s called sales emails. I got two last year. One was because I said home slice. And the other one I think had, but face in the subject line,
I literally went to go see what these people had signed up for. I’m like, how did you get here? I was mad at my landing pages, my gatekeepers, my content like allowed you in here. So when you go out with that mindset of being on my list is a privilege. Not only are you not going to care about the heaters because you’re like,
whatever, Sally, there’s a way more people for me to help. I hope you go find your own teacher is that, then you’re going to have a plan for it. So it’s a two side of the coin, like on next again, you’re allowed to have that human experience. If somebody sends you a me an email back, but then you get to laugh at them and be like,
man, I wish I had so much time that I could sit there and complain and whine and have my day ruined by somebody else. But like I’m too busy out there making a difference. So I can’t, Well, you just like blew my mind. That is so profound because I mean, what are the things we’ve talked about in the, the last four years is having somebody on your list as a privilege and,
and treat them with care and all these things. But what you’re saying is just so true to every single thing that I know, I feel as an entrepreneur bit like basically, like, I feel like you have just given people permission to be like, you are valuable. What you say is worthy. Your content is amazing. If somebody doesn’t resonate with it,
see you later celly, like you said. And then the next thing I said was really important, which we can even get into in this episode. Was that the gatekeepers is that making sure that your opt-ins, we’re totally not going to go there. Cause we could do a whole show on this, but making sure your opt-ins disqualify people at the same time as they qualify people,
the right people, that connection that you meant, I’d love that you mentioned that too. Okay. So when we’re writing email, the next tip kind of mindset strategy that you have is, is really treat people like people. I know I’m literally doing the shocked face. You guys can hear it. So again, because good people doing good things, right?
No one wants to be a spammer face. You tend to forget the, like there’s another person on the other side of this screen. So like how many times have you gone to like check your email, but then like the dog knocks over the plants and I need to clean it up. And then by the time you get back to your email, it’s like the next day or two days later.
So like, if you have this amazing product, you have this amazing coaching program and you only email people about a once you’re being the jerk. Ironically, it is the other way around because what if they just didn’t check their email that day? Now they are never going to know same thing with, and I know that this goes beyond the scope of this particular lesson,
but same thing with launching, like when you’re actually doing a launch. Yeah. If all of your emails are, you’ve got one day left, you got five minutes left and all of those are awful. Awful. You do need to send things about time limits because people do need to know. So I have nothing against timers, but you need to understand what actually goes through a person’s brain.
People are not logical. And when my students kind of grasp that around their heads, they’re like, Oh, Piedmont logical. If there were, you would have all exercised today, there would be no smoking industry. There’d be no drinking industry. There would be no drugs because people, if they were logical, why would you start smoking? When you know,
it’s only going to hurt you. Cause they’re not logical. So realize that they’re not logical trying to be like what? There’s eight modules. And my competitor only has four. You dummy is never going to work because they’re not logical. You have to actually compel them. You’ve got to cut through the crap. You need to know how a human brain works.
And that’s why my students get like astronomical results. And they’re like, Oh my trip wire, it’s converting at like 5%. Can I go higher? I’m like you to realize that normies only get it at one to two. Right? And they’re like, Oh, so then we’re just like, you know, going against ourselves. But when you understand how a human brain works,
treating people like people it’ll all work, which is why, if you haven’t emailed your list in a while and your first emails is big sob story about why you haven’t emailed them in forever. Everyone is going to be like, I don’t like you. Cause like they don’t care. But if you go in with some type of value and then you’re like,
Oh yeah. And if you’re wondering, how would I get your email address? Again, treat people like people because you signed up for this. Oh, all right. Help me out with something. You tell me what I’m thinking. We’re good to go. I’m not going to hit spam. I might just unsubscribe quietly. So treat people like people realize how their brains work.
So many good things that you said there. I love that. Okay. So let’s actually talk about, and I was actually laughing. I had to put myself on mute cause I started coughing. You’re totally. You totally have me. Correct. You know, leverage really love it. So talking about like I know, right? Like talk about, let’s go into actually the mechanics of writing an amazing email.
So walk us through the mechanics of actually doing it after everybody deals with all the mindset stuff, which I’m so grateful that that’s how you open up this training. I mean, you just have to, again, just like set up. So you can’t do one in seventh grade and have a six pack forever. I mean, I wish present witness tasks could have just been like take that postpartum weight.
Right? So again, it can be a daily thing, you know, it can be a daily thing. So don’t just think like, Oh, but I thought I worked on this. It’s always going to have a thing. So when it comes to writing emails so good, they can like the screen one getting out of your own head is important too.
Like we had just talked about treating people like people is important. Why do you check your email? Cause you don’t want to have to write that sales page you’re supposed to, because you don’t want to have that awkward conversation with your VA because you’ll know that you’re supposed to be pitching podcasts, but you don’t want to get around to it. So they’re like,
Oh, let me just check my email real quick. Right? So you’re doing it as a distraction. You’re doing it as an escape, which is why when people are like, Oh, but I send these big, long, huge emails. Yes. I know being in spam is probably a bad thing. Promotions it’s all right. People check that tab.
The thing you do not want to be in is the all read this leader email. Okay. So you cannot info slap people in your emails because people are not going in with the mindset of an email of I’m going to do hardcore learning. That’s what a blog post is for this sort of podcast is for that’s what a YouTube video is for. That’s what a course lesson is for an email is that short hit of escape.
Okay. So you need to realize that. So when you’re doing your email, yeah, you can have on that super long, as long as it’s entertaining. No one’s going to care. And as long as you’re not trying to tell them a hundred different ways to get clients, they’ll be fine. So when it comes down to actually writing an email like that makes them want to like this screen one,
you need to realize what your actual goal is. So your goal might be for them to reply back. Your goal might be for them to read an email, your goal might just be to build comradery. Then you’re going to want to make sure you have an action. I say, every email needs a call to action. It doesn’t have to go someplace else,
but it can be a reply back. I think that reply back is one of the strongest calls to action. Because next time it is more likely that your email is going to be in the folder that you want to be in. Or again, it can be a follow me on Instagram. It can be on this, but you’ve got to give people a reason to go over there.
You just can’t send an email being like, Hey, are we connected over on clubhouse? No, you need to entice them. What is in it for them? Treat people like people. So in order to make your emails more entertaining, I get constantly, but Kate, I don’t have a big personality like you, but I’ve averaged, but I’m boring.
I guarantee you, there are something about you that you can start putting into your emails, whether it is the name of your cat, your favorite song. You can, one of my favorite things. If I can’t figure out, what I want to email about is I’ll go to a website called holiday insights. You can just Google any of them and I’ll see like what day is it?
Like a national nacho day? Okay. So like say if I was a food blogger, then I could just send Nasha recipes because it’s natural nacho day. If I’m somebody else I could talk about like know like it’s natural natural day. And you know, since that’s pretty cheesy, I want to tell you about the three things that are going to make your website cheesy.
Like you can just rip off of these things. And now all of a sudden, not only are you just using just stats to like 200% of blondes, make more money, I’m making that up. But again, look for stats about your industry stats, about what day it’s going on and then just make some correlations. And the more that you get used to doing that,
the better that it’s going to be. Again, there was a reason why you created a blog post or why you’re going Facebook live, which got me thinking about, which is why in the slide. I don’t just necessarily give them the link, give them the link, but then put a little bullet points because you got to remember, people are reading on their phones.
So when it comes to structuring things, you want to make sure, honestly, if it’s longer than two sentences, I say, give it a paragraph. It used to be three. But I feel like if it’s a wordy three, the probably should be a paragraph. So you’ll see that a lot. Cause people will skim, you know, make sure you use things like bold texts,
but have, you know, little bullet points underneath to talk about like, what’s so great on there. Like, Oh, okay, it’s going to tell you the one thing never to send in your email. She’s going to tell you, if you haven’t emailed your list in forever, these are the two words you used to not having your email, like think of what can I do to make these a little bit more interesting.
And then it’s like, Oh, because every email guys spoiler before, really every email is a sales email because you are selling the fact that you get them, that you understand them, that you’re going to be there for them, that you’re consistent, that you want to interact with them and that you are not ability to borrow him. So whether you’re asking for cash or not,
every email is a sales email. So now you don’t have to get over sending any cause they all are. Oh, I love that. I love that. Oh my gosh. It’s so good. You’re just gold. Okay. I mean, that’s just, you just nailed it. That is so good. And I have learned so much here. Okay.
So I’m going to throw out a couple of common questions that we receive as a company. And since you’re the email queen, let’s see how you answer these. So, and you already answered the first one was does every email need a call to action? And so you’ve already answered that. So we’ll just skip through that. And I love how you answered that in some form.
Oh, you know, let me ask this question in case anybody’s thinking, could the call to action, be giving them steps, like now go outside and look up at the sun and take two deep breaths. Like could the call to action be something that doesn’t have to do with replying or interacting back to you at all? Or is it just having some sort of a call to action?
So definitely give them action steps. Like quick wins are huge, which is why I love how you said go outside and take two deep breaths. And you didn’t like tell them like this whole giant routine to do, but there’s nothing to say at the end of it that you can’t be like, and when you go outside snap a pic and tag me on your Instagram stories.
So that way it’s really organic. And so that way you can share them on for doing something. So if you’re going to give them a little task, give them a place where they can brag about themselves, treat people like people, they like feeling good About themselves, post About it. And some people will, some people post in the Facebook group tag me on your eyes,
your story post on my business page. So I can say how awesome you are. Let’s go outside together. You know what I mean? So that way you can incorporate them more in the world and then treat people like people they’re going to associate that good feeling with you and that’s what you want. Cause then So cool. Okay. And so along those lines,
we’ll just say, if you’re listening to this podcast and you absolutely love everything that Kate’s saying, make sure that you take a screenshot, I’ve listened. He does put it on your IgG story and tag Kate and tag, thus we live company, or you can just tag April beach life and okay. So cool. Now next question. Newsletters versus emails,
you know, the newsletter was kinda dead honestly like seven years ago, but now we actually have clients that like their newsletter is so amazing and they only send it out like once a month and it’s like long and juicy and almost like a calendar. What is your take on the strategy and the difference between newsletters in regular emails? How have you seen those playing out?
If you will only send a newsletter and by newsletter, I want to make sure that we have the same definition. Are you saying something where it’s like multiple calls to action, multiple sections? Is that what you’re defining as a newsletter? Yeah. These are huge newsletters that some of our clients, which are larger companies already, that you know, are in the process of scaling that they send out these newsletters,
people like go crazy at one of them could be sign up here for this. And one of them could be, did you remember to join this? There are multiple calls to action. In these things. We call that more of a magazine style email. If that is the only one that you will do, so you will actually send it, then send it.
So I had an interior designer who was a student and when she tried to do of that one call to action type of a thing, she really mindset got into her head a lot. And so what we did is we went ahead and we turned it into like her Wednesday newsletter. We gave it an actual name and I told her just like magazines have repeating sections.
You need to have some repeating sections, but realize that if you are trying to sell, say an ebook and you’re still having all three of those sections, then the likelihood of them buying is going to be a lot lower to people. Like people, you give them a lot of stuff to do. They will do everything else or they’ll do nothing. Like there’s actually a scientific study.
The jam study. If you get 12 choices versus 24 at 24, you’ll just walk by because you’re just like, that’s too much for my brain. Right? So when I told her, that’s not to say she can’t have flash sales or launches because I feel like, Oh my goodness, she’s emailing on Monday. It’s gotta be important. So then she can just do the one that has the one call to action.
So make sure that you are strategic realize with those newsletters, that the likelihood of them going to spam or promotions is going to be higher. The more outward links to different places that you have, the more likely it is to trigger something. So you can link to your Instagram five times if that’s your call to action, because it’s going to the same spot,
your Instagram. But if you’ve got an Instagram one, that’s going to a deal that you have one that’s going to a blog post one, that’s this one that’s that it can go in there. But again, if you are more likely to send us a magazine style newsletter than send nothing and send it, just realize that your sales aren’t going to be as high because you can’t focus them on one particular action.
So like I would never send a new style in the middle of a launch that would make no sense because people would get derailed. So that’s just the difference if what you want to go with. So if you’ll never do anything, just one of those, but again, try to keep it consistent because then people that are interested in certain parts, they’ll always go right down to that section.
Okay, cool. And now I have a couple other questions that are coming up that I know people are probably thinking. So I’m trying to be in the mind of our listeners right now, a question about the frequency of sending. Is it better to send more frequently, you know, less frequently? Does it depend on the relationship between the business and the audience?
Is there like a regular consistent, like rhythm that you recommend with email sending? Okay. For most people, if you only send once a month, this is nothing. That’s your client. And again, if they’re a larger corporation, they could probably get away with it once a month. Especially if you’re a smaller, more personal brand is not going to necessarily be enough because people are going to forget about you.
You’re not top of mind, they’re their goal. Fishes. Everybody has a goldfish treat. People like people. You’re going to hear that a lot. What I would say for people, especially if you are a personal brand, especially service owner, you’re selling your own courses, aim for once a week. That’s four emails a month. Y’all handle writing four emails a month and what’s gonna end up happening is you’re going to get so good.
You can batch them, meaning, sit down and write them all. Sometimes w a lot of my students really love to do is they will come up with a topic for all four and then they’ll write like two at a time. Right? So again, it’s done, they’ll load them into the convert kit. They’re active campaigns. Doesn’t matter whatever tool you’re using.
And then they know that they’re settled and then people get so hyped about this. Or they do some casual selling, which we teach in the course. And then I’m like, okay, I’m going to add another day. But I would never say like, email this. Now, if you’re doing a launch or you are doing a flash sale, you’re going to want to send more than one email.
Because again, people might not check. They might forget treat people like people they procrastinate so that you’re going to have a little bit more. But as long as honestly, what you have to say is interesting and it’s tackling different doubts or your habits that people have, you can keep sending Austin repeat yourself. Okay. And then the one last question I had is when somebody does have a launch,
you know, it’s normal that people unsubscribed from the list and people get so afraid of that. They’re like, Oh, like the whole mindset thing, which we already knocked out of the ballpark, that’s gone. Now, we already dealt with that. What the question here is, is there like an average expectation for a percentage of unsubscribes that you have seen during launches or is it totally vary based on different brands and businesses?
How frequently they launch? How big obviously, how great the relationship already is with building the relationship? Is there like a average percentage that people can quote unquote expect in unsubscribes around a launch period or no, I don’t know if it’s necessarily during a launch period. The only stock that I could find was in general and it’s actually does hold true. If you guys go look at your analytics is usually when you send any type of email,
you can expect about a 1% unsubscribe rate, which is pretty interesting. So again, if your number is a hundred, then your percentages are going to be like very skewed. So keep that in mind. We need to have some logical, even though I don’t do logic, but like, so keep that in mind, right? When it comes to a launch,
the biggest reason that people are unsubscribing is because you started talking to them about something they didn’t care about, or you never gave them an out. So like the launches that I do, even though, like, I teach email marketing. If you didn’t sign up for a launch, trigger a webinar, a challenge, all of that. I’m not going to send you all my launch emails because you’re not going to want them.
I will send you two. And one of them is just a recent it’s like, Hey, I know you didn’t sign up for this webinar, but I know that you were struggling with ABC and D this is open until Wednesday. If you want to come, come, if not, that’s cool. And then in my launch emails that I have, and I always tell my students to do this too.
I always have that link bottom of the email, sometimes top of the email, Hey, if you know that love your list is not for you. This round, then click here and we’ll chat after the launch is over. Or Hey know that you have a great relationship with your list and you’re making more than $10,000 a month with it. Click here.
I won’t tell you any more about my course, because you don’t need us right now. Just give people an out, treat people like people. But again, if you are setting that one hour to go 30 minutes to go five minutes to go, and you’re making everything about you, then I guess if you could take anything away from this, especially when it comes to launching,
you need to be more excited for them than yourself, because nobody, I mean, we do care that like you have expertise. So I’m not saying any of those fake it till you make. And I hate that line. What I’m saying is I am so disproportionately passionate about seeing Sally earn money from our food blog. When everyone else in our whole fricken family thought that she was nuts.
Like, I am like hardcore rather than like, love your list. And I make all of this money. And like, yes, obviously in each of them, a copywriter, not some rando that hit like big with a pin, obviously that’s important, but it’s not like, Hey guys, my course is open. Never it is. If you are struggling with this and I get very,
very specific, we call them moments. We don’t have time to talk about them. Now y’all are going to have to tell me to find out that’s right. Then I got this and it is going to help. And here’s how it’s going to help because I am so excited. Literally you can see my face to see my people succeed. You have no idea.
And when you come at anything that you create that way, and I don’t care if it’s a meal planning guide, I don’t care if you help cleaning products, I do not care. We are more excited for what they’re going to be able to avoid and achieve. It’s like, I know, yeah, I’ve got this thing they’re going to buy. This is why my students and I get a logical Results and people like that’s bananas.
Like no that’s treating people like people. You are so good. I’ve appreciated you sharing and totally pouring out your crazy good expertise into our audience. This is amazing. Okay. So you have, of course an amazing free thing that people can have. Like if they want to connect with you further, or if they just want like these amazing results, you have two years worth of emails that you are giving to our listeners.
Tell them what that is. That’s amazing. Sure. So what it is is two years worth of email idea prompts. So if you’re ever sitting there looking at your screen, you’re like, I’ve got no idea what to email about. Or even if you’re like, I don’t know how to make this next thing sort of interesting. We do have it dated.
Now, keep in mind if you’re listening to this and it’s like July, it’s like, Oh, well, half the month is wrong. Spoiler alert. January is going to come back. So as April, so it’s may, so you can just restart it over. Like there’s no problem. And some people will actually they’ll follow it verbatim. Like,
Oh, may it sets in this, this, this, and this. And we’ll do it. Some people mix them up. Some people go and just peer in other months. And that is 100% there because now, you know what it is. If anything is time-based because a couple of months we’ll have something like, it’s not Neil national hug your cat day,
but if there’s something that’s going to be time-based to be, well, we make sure that at least once a month, you’re really highlighting some type of paid offer, whether it is an affiliate deal, whether it is her own stuff, any of that sort of stuff is in there as well. So you can hand it on over to Kate Doster dot for slash Sweet life,
either with a hyphen or without I got you both. And then you guys will be able to get that. And you can always listen to my podcast, wherever you’re listening to this. It is in a box of besties and my Instagram, which I’m working on. Let’s say it that way. I spent so much time cultivating my email list, social media.
I kind of forgot about, so it is Kate underscore Doster. So y’all can see the name and I’m sure we’ll have it in the show notes. Yeah, we will. And yeah. Yeah. Instagram followers does not equal amazing experts. Definitely. There’s not an equivalent therapist. I want people to be able to connect with you more. And also you are newly on clubhouse.
So I’m like talking to you behind the scenes. You guys, if you’re in our Sweetlife club on clubhouse, I’m talking to Kate about getting on the calendar. And so we can do a clubhouse room for you guys where you can connect with her directly and ask her your questions, which is so cool. So we’ll put all of that information in the show notes as well.
Kate, thank you so much. It was so awesome to get to know you and to hear everything that you deliver today. We really appreciate your time. I think you’ll ever remember guys being on your list is privilege. So treat it like one<inaudible> Thanks so much for hanging out with us at the end, you are the a game players, right?
You were the winners, the ones that stay and apply all the strategies. As a matter of fact, I was speaking in a clubhouse room recently that if people actually just listened to this podcast for the last four years, they probably would save up to a hundred thousand dollars in startup and scale business coaching that they might have spent on other coaches. We really are here to dedicate true and proven business strategies that you can take to the bank.
So thank you so much for listening to this show do join us in our clubhouse room. We would love to meet with you and clubhouse. We’ll be speaking live at 12 o’clock Eastern with Kate Doster herself. If you’re listening to this live, that will be Wednesday, April 2nd, at 12 o’clock Eastern. And you can find that room by visiting sweet life business.club.
I’ll say that again. Sweet life business.club. And all you have to do. If you are a clubhouse member is you can quickly simply click the button and join our club and you’ll get a notification of this room. All right, you guys have an awesome day. I’ll talk to you next week. Bye-bye
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate, Hey there, and welcome to episode number 219 here on the Sweetlife entrepreneur in business podcast. And today we are diving in and Having a conversation all about how to build a personal brand that lasts a lifetime with our guest in the house today,
Nicole Herring, this is a great show and we’re going to go ahead and dive right in. But before we do, I want to make sure you have utilized the tools we have for you here to grow and design and scale your business here at this sweet life company. And through this week, I have entrepreneur podcast, all of which can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com
on there very specifically, I want to point to our start to scale up system. If you haven’t yet taken the self-assessment to find out what stage of business you are in, it is absolute gold. There are some short questions for you to answer. And then based on the stage of business, you’re in, we give you a whole entire list in a checklist,
actually with support in steps to get your business to the next level. So no more confusion overwhelm or shiny object syndrome. There’s a very short assessment will get you there. And you can take that assessment simply by visiting Sweetlife code.com forward slash quiz. Okay, let’s go and head and dive into today’s episode with our guests. This is what we’re talking about.
This show is great for any of you who are in the first stages of your business, launch and development, and even scaling your company. So based on where you are in that, self-assessment, this is great for those of you in stages one through three, and you feel like you might be struggling to make a decision on your personal brand and how to represent yourself to the world.
Because as an entrepreneur expert or professional leader, one of the strongest assets that you have is your personal brand, right? And your brand is an outward representation of who you are and what you bring to the world. But oftentimes commonly leaders struggle with imposter syndrome. They get confused about what they want to show up, who they want to show up as who they want to show up for.
In actually I talk with a lot of entrepreneurs who are kind of afraid just to even put their personal brand out there to the world, because they know once they do that, you know, you can’t really take it back. And so they feel like they are just stuck in this place where they can’t move forward. You’re worried maybe somebody is going to judge you and you don’t want to have any regrets,
but as a leader, as an expert, even if you have a company brand, it’s important that your personal brand shows up to the world, because people are going to connect with you as a person so much more than they’re going to connect with a brand or any sort of accompany brand first. That’s why everybody loves seeing behind the scenes on your Instagram or talking to you directly in a clubhouse room,
who you are and who you show up as are incredibly important things. And so that’s what we’re talking about on today’s show. Today’s expert is Nicole Herring. She’s an NLP practitioner that breaks down her process to help you make strategic, personal brand decisions. And here’s a little bit of Nicole story and she shares it more when we dive into this, because I think it’s important for you to connect with it.
Basically she’s done everything. She’s been a designer and an entrepreneur, and she struggled with the fact of really stepping into who she is called to be as far as being also a mom. And she has gone through the process to create an amazing structure that she’s going to guide you through today that helped herself go through how to make personal brand decisions for her business.
Another little backstory here is Nicole is also, I first met her. She traveled with us to Florida in fall of 2020 for our Sweetlife company planning retreat. I had never met this woman before. She was absolutely a gem, even though she lives like 12 miles from me, isn’t that crazy. We had to fly to Florida from Colorado to meet each other for the first time.
But one of the things that really stood out to me, she photographed our entire week there and it was amazing, but how she did that was she really worked with my team. She photographed my team as well to really extract who they were as people so that it represented in the outward view of the photos that they would use professionally. It was absolute genius.
And that’s why I have invited her on today’s show. You’re going to absolutely love this woman, just like I do. So at the end of this episode, you’re going to understand personal versus company branding. And we’re really diving into the personal branding side. And Nicole has given you a set of questions that you can go through and ask yourself to make the smartest,
most confident, personal brand decisions for yourself. All of the show notes and everything we’re talking about can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. And this is episode number two 19. All right, let’s go ahead and dive in.<inaudible> All right. You guys, I am joined by my very, very good friend, Nicole Herring. And let me give you a little bit of a background story.
Before we dive into today’s business trainings. Nicole lives 15 minutes from me, but we had never met. We were introduced by Cathy Hawn. Who’s an amazing woman and she connected us because I was looking for a photographer. Now here’s a little bit of the background story too. I have never been into like personal photo shoots because I didn’t believe anybody could actually capture me and who I authentically am.
I was, my experience was I was always like forced to be somebody that I’m not anyway, long story short. We were planning our business retreat at a beautiful beach in Tampa, Florida on the beach in Tampa, Florida. And I really wanted to bring a photographer and I met Nicole and I realized he was the first person that I had ever found that could truly capture the authentic behind the scenes of what we were doing as a company and to get amazing photography of really what it’s like to be part of the Sweetlife company and who I am as a person.
So I had the pleasure of spending a week with Nicole on the beach in Tampa and walked away with the most incredible photos, just capturing everything we did as a company. But then also, I mean, this woman took the time to know me. She even had me like laying down in that sand And I was like, yes, you want me to lay down with my hair and the seashells in the ocean.
I would love that. You know, so she, I really took the time to know who I was as a person. And I am just so blessed to have her in my life. Now, the thing that we’re talking about today is one of Nicole’s incredible giftings, and that is helping entrepreneurs actually create this personal brand that lives a legacy that is true to who they are as people.
And so there’s a big process of doing that. It’s not just showing up to take pictures. There’s so much more than Nicole identified in that. And that’s why I’m so pleased to introduce you guys to her today. Because after you hear about her process, it’s going to really put you in the right direction of creating your personal brand in a way that’s true to you.
So Nicole, welcome to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast. So glad that you’re here. Thank you. I’m thrilled to be here. I just want to say thank you. And yeah, I love, I love how we had to travel to another state, literally on the other side of the country to finally meet each other, we have had a couple of calls and COVID kind of came up and our original plans derailed,
but we came together anyway. So I love how worldwide our brands are. And yet, like we still had to meet, we still had to get on a plane to actually connect. And it just, it’s just the way I love to do business. Like, I’ll meet you by the beach. I think I wrote that at the bottom of the email.
I’m like, just tell me when, and I’ll meet you by the ocean. Right. And we did too. Like she met me by the beach. It was awesome. Tell everybody, yeah. Tell everybody about, you know, kind of your evolution To your now area of incredible expertise. Thank you. Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. Cause it’s like at one point when I decided I wanted to leave the version of motherhood,
that was the stay at home, the homemaker version of motherhood. What else is out there for me? I really did not know what that looked like. And I just thought, how can I get paid to be creative? I didn’t know what that meant. There was a whole entrepreneurial part of the journey that I was just like, so outside my realm of possibility at that point,
I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And so I did, I went on a journey for a couple of years of just allowing myself to say, Hey, I would love to get paid as a personal stylist. As an interior designer, I rebuilt and refinished furniture. I paint on canvases, like all kinds of things and then fell into finding that I had a knack for writing.
And then writing led me to copywriting and copywriting led me to branding and branding led me to photography. And then it was like this whole full circle cycle where it was kind of like, Oh, branding, photography, personal style, interior design, all of that is all so well encompassed and all the facets in one nice and neat package. And I was like,
Oh, so like, I didn’t even know branding was a thing. So I really pursued that path. And I really loved it. I worked with some great women, helping them build their brand, writing content, helping them create launch strategy. And then they would do nothing, right? Like they would pay me thousands of dollars to develop these concepts.
And then they would get stuck in their own brain. And in their own minds of feeling like they were an imposter or they couldn’t figure out how to then become visible in their business, even though they thought they were hiring me to solve the problem of, Oh, as soon as I have the copy, I’m good to go. As soon as I have the images,
I’ll be good to go. As soon as I have a launch strategy and I have the bird’s eye view, I know how to take steps. I just need somebody else to show me, help me see the way. And so I thought, Oh great. I’ll be happy to be, get paid to be creative and do all of this. But then I found that they were just not taking action in the business.
And I thought to myself, okay, what is it that is keeping some people from taking action and some people did not. And then it kind of, I stumbled down the path of NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming. It’s a modality for coaching through the mental and emotional blocks that keep you from creating success in your life. And I found some of my own blocks and healed and transformed theirs.
And then I was like, sign me up. How do I become a practitioner? So I put a pause in offering creative services so that I could bring this to my clients so I could support them mentally and emotionally while they are creating a brand so that they’re not living in this tension of who they are portraying themselves on social media versus thinking there’s somebody different in real life.
And so as a really a matter of eliminating that tension and helping them see that they are the best and the worst of both of that and owning the good, the bad and the ugly so that they could actually move forward with their business. So there’s the long and the shit of it. Yeah. I mean, that’s so it’s so important. I think there are so many people listening that have spent so much money on valuable deliverables like you were creating,
right. And they thought that that’s what they’re missing and they still don’t take action on it. And so I love that you were so intentional and you’re like, wait a minute, you’ve paid me thousands of dollars and you’re still not using this stuff. What’s the problem here. So I love your journey. It’s very much who you are now that I know you kind of being like,
okay, now where let’s take another step back, where are we getting stuck? Where’s the bottleneck. So today on the show, we’re talking about how to build a personal brand that lasts a lifetime. And we’re really talking about a really how to encompass that. And there’s so many different things that we’re going to dive here. And, you know, if you’re listening and you have bought many things before and maybe felt like you were stuck and you haven’t taken action,
this was a really important episode for you to keep tuning into cause Nicole’s can actually take you through her framework in order to actually that outlines a thought process for you. So you can make intentional decisions, which is so cool. But before we get into that, let’s kind of set a baseline for somebody who’s listening that might not know. So first of all,
let’s define the difference between a company brand and a personal brand and kind of dive into that just real quick. If anybody, I wouldn’t say, if anybody I know who so many people ask me these questions, like, should I brand myself or should I brand my business? And what’s really the difference. So can you just basically explain that for anybody who might be wondering?
Sure. So when you’re branding a business, you’re branding a solution that appeals to a particular ideal client. And so everything that you’re doing within a brand of a business is okay, who’s our ideal client. Who’s willing to pay for the solution that we’re offering. What is their price point? Is it for a business to business solution? Is it a business to consumer solution,
right? It’s all about the consumer and the problem that they’re attempting to solve when you’re in a personal brand, you’re still very focused on the client, but the client also wants to feel like they’re resonating with the person who’s delivering the solution, who’s delivering the transformation. And so the personal brand aspect is just, it’s a bit about who you are as a human and you’re injecting those qualities into a brand.
And the very simplest way is to take like, like you and I were talking about previously is just taking, you know, a few basic adjectives about who you are as a person and injecting that into the visuals of your brand. And so that when people meet you in person, they feel like they already know and connect with who you are, because your feed or your,
you know, the way that you speak, the energy that you have comes through. And so there’s, there’s no disconnect there in the personal brand, from the visuals we’re seeing online and the person that they meet in person, right. Because you don’t, your brand is speaking for you long before you’ve actually connected. One-on-one Right. And something you said to me before we started recording,
that was just super important is that you said the personal brand also tells the idea of clients. It tells them a story of what’s possible. So they are actually able to see what they personally, it’s very hard to find, see yourself personally, in a company brand, right. But when you’re looking at a person and you’re seeing their life and what they’re doing and how they’re going about doing that,
where they go and what they’re wearing and who they’re hanging out with and all those things, all of that is representative of what is possible for them when they work with your services. And I thought that was so important for people to understand. And that really speaks a lot to, if anybody has that question, should I brand myself, or should I brand my company?
There are very important. We could have a whole podcast on that, but just, just to take away, there are some very important to note that doing both is very important. Moving forward to a certain extent, obviously, based on, on your company and based on honestly, based on your company, exit strategy, if you want to have your company acquired and things like that in the future.
Okay. So let’s go ahead and dive into why it’s important now. So some of the reasons why it’s important to create an authentic personal brand that is really, really true to who you are in a couple of things I want you to define for us, if you could, please are number one, what is imposter syndrome? Because that word is used quite often and people might necessarily not necessarily know the actual definition.
And then what’s in between that in self-doubt. Yeah. Thanks for asking. And I did bring up the definition just because I want to make sure that I am saying it correctly, because the way that I, well, I’ll just go with it. So imposter syndrome, according on a quick Google search, it says that it’s loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud.
And it’s disproportionately affects high-achieving people who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. And so basically when I say, what, how self-doubt and imposter syndrome differ is it, imposter syndrome says that you even look at the evidence and then you diminish it. You actually say, Oh, I’ve created 40 grands in my business, you know, in X amount of time.
But that was just a fluke. Like I got really lucky. These three things happen, X, Y, and Z. I didn’t really make that happen. It was a fluke. It was by accident, all that. So you diminish what you’ve accomplished and also hold it against yourself. And so the self doubt is what keeps you from taking action in the future.
So then you’re now diminishing. What’s possible for you, even though you have evidence that supports that you can create Results because you’ve done it. You’ve now diminished it and created self doubt that then prohibits you and even self sabotages. You moving forward with the expertise, the zone of genius that you have, the skillset that you’ve nurtured, or your natural talents that you have,
right? Like all of that, you then now discount and say, it’s not, I mean, I can’t really charge. I don’t really know what I’m doing. Like I just, you know, whatever. So now you’re discounting what you can do in the future. And the imposter syndrome kind of is how you reflect on what you’ve accomplished and say,
I’m just surprised if, if only people I, the fluke made 40 grand or whatever it is. Right. Right. Okay. So just a random question for somebody who’s listening. I mean, most of our listeners are in this growth and scale phase of their business, but for those that are listening, that are brand new business and they haven’t done anything yet,
like they’re starting from scratch and they’re looking around and being like, like, how do I do this? There’s all these other people that are better than me that have been doing this longer than me, that LA LA LA like all these things that they’re saying to themselves in their mind, we’re going to go through this framework here, which I’m so excited for you to share your framework.
But is there something that you would say to them specifically? Oh, for sure. So all the time, and I mean, this is, I’m not making this statement up. People say it all the time, but it’s like, you cannot compare your beginning to somebody else’s chapter 47 or whatever it is. And so you have to allow yourself to,
to be bad, to be a starter, to be fresh, to be new. And also, if you really want to look at what you’ve accomplished in your life, you can lean back and evaluate self-evaluate every job you ever had, even as a babysitter when you were 14, right. Like take it way back and go old school and look at every job you ever had and look at the skills and qualities and things that you have honed and created from each individual job.
I mean, I know I worked at a bagel shop when I was a child. Like not<inaudible>. Yeah. You definitely got through that. I mean, 15, we were children. Right. We thought, we thought we were so big, but yeah. So, you know, 15, I worked at a bagel shop and then I worked at a law firm when I was 16 years old,
just, you know, working in the back. And so every single job that I’ve had, I’ve been able to look and see like, okay, well, if I could do that job at age 16, then what did I get from that, that qualifies me for what I’m doing now. And you can actually go back and just prove to yourself and self-evaluate and say,
actually, I had no luck, I’ve done a lot, acquired a lot of skills. And so it’s the human condition to look at where we’re lacking, as opposed to where we’re actually having the skillset and honoring what, what we do know. And so you have to literally train your brain to not look towards the negative and seek out the positive. Okay.
So, and then one of the, one of the ways that this works, even with one of my clients recently is that she was like, I was like, okay, tell me a time in which you felt really successful. And she was like, Oh, I don’t know. I’d have to really think about it. And I’m like, don’t think about it.
Just tell me a time in which you felt successful. She’s like, well, I don’t know if the is like successful enough. And I was like, see right there, right there as a, as a feeling of not being good enough. And the reason why is because if I said, tell me something that sad that happened, you could immediately go to a sad memory,
but you wouldn’t second guess, was that sad enough? Was that the status memory I’ve ever had? Probably not. Right. And so it’s a human condition to really look at the least important parts of the detail and make them the most significant things you have to retrain your brain. And so that’s a process that I actually teach my clients. That’s the reframing process that I’m going to teach you right now.
It’s a bit of, a lot of different things that I’ve learned. There are so many teachers out there who teach different parts of this. And for me, pulling it all together was not a feat in the sense where it was a hard accomplishment, but when I really saw the full picture, it just kind of blew my mind. And so until that process,
yeah. Do you want me to Right into it? Yeah. So let’s tell him, let’s kind of set everybody up for what’s about to come. So there are seven steps to it and you actually break out the word reframe into an acronym. So sh so you’re going to guide people through this process. And so at the end of this process, like when they’re done with this,
they’re going to have a clear thought process to make decisions on building their personal brand. That will last a lifetime. So that’s the outcome of what you’re about to teach here. Yes. Okay. So let’s go ahead and dive in. Yes. Tell us your reframe process. Okay. So when you are reframing something, the first thing we want to do is really look at,
okay, what is the real and undeniable facts? What is the reality? That’s what they’ll let our RFC on spore. And so what we want to really do is break it down into three words or less of the problem that you’re trying to solve and take away all of the unnecessary words and all of the emotion and just simplify what you’re trying to create.
And so if what you’re trying to do is sit down and create, copy, offer a website. Or if you’re trying to write sales content in an email, or if you’re trying to start a nurture sequence in, in social media, you know, you just don’t make it into a big problem. You just like writing content. You know, what’s the most simple way for you to say this is the problem that we’re solving with the reality of the situation.
And so then the next letter is E which is experience. And so you really want to talk about like, what is the experience, the reference in which we want the person plays through the event of the thing. So in reference to writing social media content, when it’s the experience that I want my clients to have, when they’re reading through this, what is the experience I want to have when reading this same thing with writing content,
for an email sequence or in sales page, what is the experience we want people to have? And what’s the experience I want to have, right. Do I want to feel confident? Do I want to feel right? So that’s actually F I dumped right into the next step. It’s, it’s such a natural process that I can lead right into it.
And so the next letter of reframe is F. And so then you think about, okay, well, what are the feelings I want to accomplish in the writing this piece of content? I want to convert our readers into clients. How do I want to feel the number, one thing that people neglect to feel as confident, or like they know the answer to their client’s problem.
And so they sit down and they start to go into this worry, like, I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what my clients need to hear. Oh, what am I doing? Who am I anyway? Right. So they go into this emotional mind drama instead of sitting with confidence that they’re the expert and they know how to solve this problem.
If you can tap into that energy and get into that feeling and dictate the experience you want your clients to have. And so when will you, right? So like, let me Over to like building their personal brand. So once somebody listening would be, you know, you’re thinking when you’re writing the copywriting for your social media or in your website, you know,
really going through, you know, what is reality? What isn’t, you know, what is the experience you want people to have when they experience your personal brand? How do you want them to feel when they experience your personal brand? Yeah. This process is so good. Okay. So, and then R yeah, so the R is for the reaction.
And so a lot of times there’s an unintentional way that we react to our own thoughts and feelings. And so just how I was saying, when you’re sitting down and you’re thinking, okay, what is it, how do I want to be feeling when I’m writing the sales page or developing my brand and deciding who I am in the world and how I’m offering my services,
who am I, what are the feelings I want to have? This is the reaction of going in and thinking immediately the human design of just saying, I don’t know what I’m talking about and having that knee-jerk reaction of, of discrediting or diminishing all of the things that, you know, to be true and accurate about yourself and the a and the next one is just assuming radical responsibility and choosing an action instead.
And so instead of having the negative reaction and making decisions about your brand, what if you were just really intentional and you chose to like, trust yourself and believe in what you were saying and believe in who, who you were being and not live in that tension of that, your online personality or your online identity, and that brand is any different than who you are at home.
Sometimes there is some tension there, and that’s the mental and emotional awareness pieces that you have to kind of get the coaching on because the strategy is nothing. If you don’t have the mental and emotional pieces that support who you’re becoming and who you’re growing into in the online world. And so the M and reframe is for mindset awareness. And this is a different way of looking at it than most people usually do,
because a lot of times people think that mindset is, you know, like you’re either in growth mindset, you’re either moving towards something or you’re in limited mindset, or you’re in a lack mentality. And sometimes there’s something in the middle called neutral that nobody really gets to. And so I like to really attribute the mindset awareness to even like a storyline. So if you have a story,
there’s like a hero that’s out there, like saving the world. And they’re the ones that are in the growth zone and they’re making all the magic happen. Right. Then you have the other side, which is the victim mentality, the fixed mindset. And then sometimes there’s these innocent bystanders that are just part of the story, but it’s not really their drama,
but they’re just there, they’re a neutral person. And so sometimes I think that when it comes to in a mindset, when we’re looking, especially if you’re trying to build your brand, you coach people on this all the time, like find your competitive people, look at what they’ve got, what they don’t have assess their brand what’s missing. And then from there,
fill in the gaps with what’s natural and true to you, and really honor what you’re better at, but then get out of there and do not stay in the place where you are now living in comparison land and looking at their, at their content. And now going into the victim mentality that your brand is not as good as theirs, you know, all that kind of stuff.
You just need to get back to neutral by just removing that negative feedback from your own brain, by just knowing who they are, knowing what the competition is, and then not living in their world is the only way you’re going to create success. And so you have to just decide, am I going to grow into this? Can I go into neutral?
Or am I going to tumble down into victim world and, and be in a limited mindset? And now second, guess everything that I’ve made a decision on. And then the very last word is E which is the three E’s. Cause I could not pick one. There’s too many great words here, but listen, you have to experiment. Okay. So you just have to shift things and just be willing to experiment live in the curiosity whenever you’re testing your brand and you’re validating your offers,
you just have to say, what’s working and what’s not working and really take the failure of things landing or not landing away from who you are as a person, a failure. Is it about an event? A failure is not an adjective of me as a human, right? But it might be a rat. The failure of a specific idea that I had,
the idea was a failure. That doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a person. So you have to be able to experiment with curiosity, obviously, execution of all things, right? You give strategy to people all the time, how many people are taking strategy in and implementing, right? Like this is the disruption that you want to create in the market.
And, and in your industry of saying, okay, like, listen, information is not enough. If you’re not executing and implementing, you’re missing the Mark. And you, I know as a, as a brand and as a company are wanting to really change that. And then self-evaluation, I mean, here’s the thing, the reason why we fire people in business is never the reason why we hire them.
So if you can’t go back and look at why you’ve fired employees and you’re not learning anything from that experience, right? So the same for ourselves, like if we don’t self evaluate and look at where we, what worked, what didn’t work and allow ourselves to grow through all the circumstances, building a brand, launching an offer, all those things. If you’re not able to self-evaluate without being hypercritical of yourself,
right. It’s like critiquing and experience without being hypercritical of the self, that’s a learned skill set. So, and that’s one of the things that I found is that people were just, their inner critic was so harsh mine too. Right? Like I was like, everything that I did was not good enough. And I did not become an expert in overcoming imposter syndrome because I just learned from a book.
This is the crab. I don’t know if I can say cuss words on here, but I’m like, this is the S H I T that I went through to overcome my own self doubt and my own imposter syndrome and be like, actually do know a lot and had to go through this process. So this came from a year’s worth of wanting to get out of my own damn way to be honest.
Right. Right. And I love your framework. And I just want to highlight something you said, just kind of in recapping here, it was under the mindset piece. I love the neutral piece. And I think that you’re so right. I don’t hear that spoken to very often too, though, the gross or the fixed mindset, but what you said is you have to just decide to grow through this.
And I think that is so important because I mean, there’s nothing sexy or glittery about that. You just choose to go through the process of taking the action, which is your next step, you know, really in believing in what you do. And you just choose, take action to continue on, to force that wall down. And I think that that is so important that you said that.
So let’s go ahead and just kind of recap this reframe. So this is your reframe process. And what our listeners can expect is when you go through this and you take these concepts and you apply them to developing your personal brand, it gives you the thought process. So these are things that you think through as you are developing your visual in your written brand and the way your brand is represented to the world.
And so first you said the Aras reality, what is real and what isn’t the E is experience. And you elaborate on that. So beautiful. The F is diving into your feelings. The R is the reaction that a is assuming radical responsibility, love that the M is really the mindset piece. And then the ESA experiment execute. And self-evaluation, was it evaluate?
Yeah. Yeah, it was evaluate. It’s also good. It’s also good. And so this really is a thought process. I love that you have created a process of thinking to make sure that people are making strategic decisions about their personal brand personal branding. And I think that that’s why so many people get stuck, but when we’re branding a company, you know,
it’s totally different and we can pivot brand strategies and all those things. When you are personally branding yourself, especially putting it out on that forevermore timestamp on social media and what that looks like online, things that, you know, we cannot take back. Like once we put them out there, they are there. I think that’s also why people like there’s some confusion or fear or worry of doing it incorrectly,
but you’ve just done a beautiful job laying out this framework to have people really consider, you know, this is what I want to create. This is why I want to create it in a very intentional way. That is in fact, going to build a personal brand that lasts a lifetime. So thank you so much for taking the time for people. And how cool is it?
Like it’s always through our own journey that we build the most incredible solutions for other people. So the one thing I do want to say, I just want to say one thing is that a lot of times too, people put, they put this feeling of this as like, Oh, it’s, it’s forever, right? And it’s, it is building a lifetime brand doesn’t mean that you have to choose this one thing,
and then you’re going to stick to it for the rest of your life forever and ever. Amen. It just means that, you know, like you’re going to be true to yourself no matter what. So your brand is going to be aligned with you for the lifetime of your brand. It doesn’t mean that what you’re choosing today is the thing you have to stick to for the next 72 years.
It’s just how to be aligned for the lifetime of your brand. No matter how your alignment, the ebbs and flows of your own journey can always re attribute and rebranding is a thing. People do it all the time. You don’t have to say this needs to be set in stone. So don’t worry about that part. Just know that your brand will always be a reflection of you.
If you are really in tune with your and who you are as a human and confidence in that is what creates the most beautiful brand identities. Right? So well said, thank you so much for being on the show, Nicole, and we’ll put it all in the show notes here, how people can find you, but in the meantime, for those just listening,
tell everybody about your business and how they can find you on social media and online. Thank you. Yeah, I do personal concept coaching and I do brand identity coaching. And really it is the beautiful part that I love is to support the woman, to feel like she is the best of who she is in real life. And then making sure that that transfers into her brand.
And so that it feels this like it’s business, it’s personal and it’s, it’s a one beautifully reflective relationship. Instead of living in the tension of that, my website is really simple. Nicole herring.com and I C O L E H E R I N d.com. I have brand retreats coming up. Let’s all fingers crossed. The travel opens up internationally for right now,
we’re doing some, you know, a mainland of retreats. And of course I do coach my clients on a one-on-one basis. And I do have a group program that the sweet life company is helping me to get out into the world. So that’ll be exciting. And yeah, on social media, you can find me on Instagram as Nicole Herring, brilliant or no mine mastery coach.
Sorry. I recently changed the name of that. And then of course, I’m on clubhouse under Nicole Herring, just my name. So come find me, I’ll be getting on there and helping women to break through their self belief and limitations within themselves so that they can just get out there and make a difference. Yeah. And I will say, I actually get a lot of questions on who does our photography.
So this is the woman you guys, if you’re following me on Instagram, you want to know who’s taken all of our pictures. Nicole is the one and people have been asking me actually like, who is she? I want her to come to me and on my retreat. So those are, those are all good things. And what she’s teaching here in her coaching process sets you up to make sure the outcome,
the visual outcome is in line with who you are. So yes, the photography, the retreats are amazing, but I would highly recommend if you aren’t sure, and set and confident in who you are and who you were supposed to be to the world to really make sure that you’re honing in with Nicole and getting that set first. So everything you build and create is manifesting in the way that it is supposed to,
and it’s in line with you. So thank you so much for being on the show. I absolutely adore you. Thank you for who you are to us and the things you do for us as a company as well. All right. You’re welcome.
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. Hi everybody. And welcome to episode number 218. And I’m April beach, your host founder of the suite Life company. And I am so glad to be talking to you again, usually on this show,
we’re talking about scale strategies, online, offer creation, how to create your courses or your mastermind and funnels and marketing. But we are all about building a business to give you the life that you want. And so that requires a holistic view on strategies for both business and life. And so I love doing shows like the ones that we were doing today.
And let me be completely clear with you about why this show really hits home for me. About two weeks ago, I landed in Philadelphia from Denver for a weekend to visit my oldest son who plays lacrosse for the university of Delaware. And I was on my laptop. The whole entire time got out of the airport, got in the rental car, turned on clubhouse,
and I was really tired. You guys, I had just gotten to this point where I had been going, going, going, by the way, I thrive on going, going, going, but I turn on clubhouse and I was browsing through the rooms of what I should listen to. And there was a room that popped up regarding sleep and it really hit home for me because I knew that this is something that I do not do well in this area.
Now a little bit more behind the scenes. I don’t like sleeping. I love being awake. I do really well from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM. You know, the world falls away, everything’s silent. And that’s when I really thrive as a creator, frankly. And so I would much rather be awake living life than be sleeping. And that’s the way I’ve been my whole entire life,
but it’s really taken a toll on me and let’s even go a little bit deeper in transparency behind the scenes. What I used to think when people talked about, Oh, you know, I hit quote unquote, that wall. These are the things that I thought, Oh, you’re going to love me. Or you are totally going to hate me and never listened to this podcast.
Again, here’s the honest truth. When I heard anybody say or tell their stories about how they got like super tired and hit a wall. These were the things that went through my head, keeping it real. I thought I am stronger than those people. I thought that will never happen to me. And I thought I am born to thrive in like this balls to the wall type of a life.
It’s always how I have been. I love living like this. These people just aren’t built like me. Okay. Talk about really, really judgmental. And that’s when things like hit us on the face because it is in the face because that’s exactly what happened to me in over the last couple of months, I have gotten completely exhausted. The second part of this and why this episode is so important to me personally right now is that I lost my father to dementia.
And I realized that the way my brain is functioning is not the same way. It was 10 to 12 years ago. And for whatever obvious reasons that is, you know, age, maybe being one of them, I’m not taking care of my brain. And it is one of my greatest assets. And so when I heard our guests today speak on this clubhouse room about sleep.
I knew that I personally needed for her to come in here and deliver some insane wisdom to me as a CEO, as a business owner. And I believe that there are some of you guys out there that need to hear this message and what she’s talking about as well. Now here’s the deal. If you’re like me, you haven’t seriously, no desire to listen to a podcast that discusses everything you already know that you aren’t doing right?
But this episode is different. Our guest today is going to dive into tracking your sleep and understanding technology behind sleep trackers. And she’s talking about simple steps, okay? Simple things that you can do. You know, we’re not going to come in here in this show saying you got to get sleep, but that’s not at all with this show is about,
which is why I personally appreciate this episode so much. So let me introduce you to who our guest expert is today. Molly McLaughlin is a creator of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes people’s sleep through a unique blend of technology, accountability, and behavioral change. She created this company from her own experience when she literally has had not slept well her entire life,
she had massive, poor sleep habits. And all of a sudden she found herself in for months. She dealt with insomnia in her background is in behavioral change. And so she went down this rabbit hole to figure out like, what is going on with these disturbances in my sleep. And she really went in a way that did not include sleep AIDS. And because of her experience,
now this company was born and she is an absolute expert at helping you know, how to really get the sleep that you need and understand sleep. And that’s what we’re talking about on today’s show. So at the end of this episode, you will know how your circadian rhythm affects your peak performance. You will know how to read the data from your wearable technology,
which was super cool because I wear sleep technology, but frankly, I really didn’t understand how to read the data. And so that is very cool. We’re talking about this on today’s show as well. And you’re going to walk away with some basic things you can do. First thing tomorrow morning to move towards more productive sleep in more healthy sleep. So here are the background notes,
everything we’re talking about, including a link to join the Sweetlife entrepreneurs club in clubhouse, where Molly and I are going to be going live. And she’s going to be chatting with you about your Entrepreneur sleep and peak performance questions can be found by visiting the show notes for this episode. There’s a lot of things in here and even more tools that Molly’s given you.
So if you want to know more about, we’re talking about Connect with Molly further, be part of this conversation and frankly learn right alongside me, visit Sweetlife co.com click on the podcast. And this is episode number 218. So let’s go ahead and dive in with Molly.<inaudible> All right. Hi, you guys. Welcome to another episode of the Sweetlife entrepreneur in business podcast.
I am so excited to be joined by my guest today. I’m actually found her on clubhouse. Many of you know, who’ve been listening that I am bingeing clubhouse and can’t get enough of it. And this is exactly why, because I get to dive into spaces that I never would have been able to before in find people like Molly. How do you say your last name off?
Yes. Perfect McLaughlin. Absolutely. Yes, I know. Is it phonetic? Is it not? Yes. And find people like Molly McLaughlin. I am so excited to welcome you here on this show. Can you introduce everybody to your area of expertise in super power? And just give us a little bit of background before we dive into what we’re talking about today.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me here. This has already been a pleasure. I can’t wait to get into more with you. I am the creator of a company called sleep is a skill that helps people optimize their sleep through a blend of technology, accountability, and behavioral change, and a little bit background on me and why I’m so obsessed with the topic of sleep and why it’s totally changed.
My life is that for so many years, I did everything not to do for your sleep. You know, every article you read what to do. I was doing the opposite in a lot of ways, but it really didn’t think it was much of a problem. I didn’t think much of it at all. Living in Manhattan as an entrepreneur, burning the candle at both ends stressed to the max.
And I just thought of my sleep as a lot of labels. I thought of it as I’m a night owl, I’m a short sleeper. I’m not the greatest sleeper. Oh, it must be in my jeans. That’s just how it is for me. And, and you know, a number of different things, but didn’t think of it as something that I would have much of a say of how to transform.
And I didn’t correlate when I was starting to get more and more sick at different things, you know, just getting run down anxious. I had guessed straight as I had shingles. I had a number of things that were just indicators, right. That you are stressed and things are not working. So, so yeah, and then it was not until I went through my own period of insomnia while traveling internationally.
So in different countries, you know, not speaking the same language and I cannot sleep. And it was really a lot of the entrepreneurship part of it that, you know, our businesses weren’t ready to be taken on the road yet. My fiance and I, and how it manifested was suddenly I can’t sleep. And the amount of anxiety that was happening during that period,
I went to the doctors in Croatia, got, you know, with Google translate and leave with their version of Ambien. And in that moment, kind of like, what is the game plan here am. I’m supposed to just take something like this for the rest of my life, that doesn’t align with my identity of who I think of myself and yet I’m desperate to sleep.
So what do I do? So what ended up happening was really just getting up under this area, going really down the rabbit hole of what it would take from a, what I learned to chronobiology and circadian rhythm perspective to transform my sleep. And then from that place, it really just snowballed into like podcasts, newsletters, courses, all of the things.
Okay. So you said so many things and we’re just going to kind of come together and pack it. But right now, I mean, your super power is helping high performers and entrepreneurs and small business owners have a healthy life and sleep. Yeah. That we all identify just like you said, I mean, I am you back in the past, right?
I definitely, I do not sleep as much. It goes in flows. I have an inconsistent sleep. You know, I have kids which brings a whole nother dynamic into that and I travel about five months a year. So with that being said, I think I have like a recipe for disaster relief disaster. And so I’m so excited to learn from you today.
And I know our listeners too, are going to be like, Oh yeah, that’s probably me. I’m like, so let’s start by just really unpacking this. So you said circadian rhythm. What is that for anybody that is not really aware of that term and what part of our bodies function in that capacity? How does that work? Yes. Perfect.
And I also want to say for what you’re sharing too, despite that being one of the lowest points at the time of my life was what it felt like, you know, just nothing is working. This is the worst thing is horrible. And yet I do now look back on it as being one of the best things that could have happened to me.
So if you are at any given spot in your journey around sleep, I think there really is so much to learn from it. It really, no pun intended woke me up and had me transform my life in ways that I don’t think I would have, unless it was at such a rock bottom place. So having said that, Well, just along the lines to thank you for saying that.
Cause I do feel like, I mean, I’m really transparent here with our listeners on the podcast. I mean, I do feel like, like I had hit a wall, I just turned 45 this week and I’ve always been able to push and push and push on a high performer, had tons of energy, always been able to do it. And it was just finally a couple of months ago as a first time in my whole entire life where I was so tired and I couldn’t push through,
I’ve still always been able to do that. I like, literally couldn’t think I literally couldn’t speak, like the words were coming out of my mouth incorrectly, but it was the first time ever where I feel like I hit that wall and I couldn’t keep pushing it forward. And so I knew at that point in time, and this was prior to Christmas that like,
I’m not healthy. I’m like, it doesn’t matter. I go to the gym every single day. All those things don’t matter. Like I knew that I was literally aging my brain and frankly, as with my father had dementia and these are all things that I’m starting to think about. And I’m saying, listen, I have really hit this wall and I need to sleep.
This is no longer something that, and I don’t want any of our listeners too. And this is the whole point of the show. Like, don’t get to the point that Molly did. Don’t you get to the point where I am, where I’m like stalking this woman on clubhouse. You guys help me. I have hit a wall. So we don’t want you to have to be to the point where I frankly am literally at this recording and where Molly was,
because how much more are you capable of being before you ever, ever get here and so on and so forth. So thank you for saying that. And that’s why I stopped you. Yeah, absolutely. It’s really important because I won, you know, I was reading nonstop, all these different things around how to improve my sleep and speaking with all these different experts and one thought leader in this area had made the point that when your sleep is not working,
there’s something that your body is really trying to tell you. And I’m not trying to say that in a loose, like esoteric way or anything, but I think that’s really important because how I was running my, this didn’t come out of a vacuum. This was from, you know, years of kind of a mismanagement of my time, my days my,
you know, keep pushing it to the next level. And, and so it occurred from a snowballing of that. And so what it really took was that to actually, for me to listen. So I don’t know the plus side while I at the time didn’t want to go through it. It actually was a blessing. And so I hope that there can be that message and that there is,
there are so many success stories on the other side of people being able to shift this area. So one, I acknowledge you for the sharing and the, the vulnerability there, because it’s so important. And to, you know, so then the, how, so what you said about the circadian rhythm, why this is important in this conversation is one just to kind of bring it back to the basics.
So no matter where you’re at and where your sleep journey is that we can always start to come back to one that this is a skill that, okay, so this is learnable. So let’s just let’s learn. So from the strategic rhythm perspective, one that exists on a spectrum was something that I didn’t understand. So the circadian rhythm is this 24 hour rhythm as human beings that we function within.
But that rhythm, the queuing system for that rhythm can either be on the spectrum of, from a strong side or weak side. And you might be falling somewhere in between that spectrum. Then I would make the argument that many of us are on the weaker side of that just as a modern society, how we’re, how we’re functioning and as diurnal creatures.
Yeah. This is all kind of coming from this concept around chronobiology the science of really time and how that impacts our biology as diurnal creatures. We are meant to be active during the day and at rest at night. And of course, in my example, I was doing the opposite, like, you know, upside down living. So we’re looking to,
how can we bring things back and align with those cue givers that will help our rhythms be strong? So we, you know, those people, those friends of ours that might go out, everyone goes out and out super late, but they still wake up at the exact same time, you know, early morning. And you’re like, how are they doing that?
That’s crazy. That’s actually what we’re looking to train for is that kind of specificity around just the automaticity of waking up routinely going to sleep routinely around the same times, but there’s tons of things we can do to get to there. Okay. Fascinating. And I know those people I’m married to one of those people that it doesn’t matter what time he goes to sleep.
It is like, this is what time he gets up every single day. Yeah. Okay. So talk to us about, you know, really why is this important for fully understanding for those higher achievers busy entrepreneurs? How does this fit into our, you know, whole life business strategy? Because to me, as a business strategist, the way I need to form it within my own brain is say,
this is part of my strategic business in life design. This is just as important is marketing and selling and other things. So it’s a very holistic approach to business and life. And so how for entrepreneurs and small business owners are really just high achievers who are listening to this, why is this so important? How does this really affect their everyday? And honestly their profit and their performance.
I mean, that’s what we’re really getting down to get to if that’s the driver great, that’s the driver, are you not making as much money as you could be because frankly you aren’t sleeping. Right. I’m sure that there’s some data and some correlation there. Absolutely. Well, so there’s so many places we can go with that, but I can just even say anecdotally that my fiance owns companies that help train poker players at the table that are high stakes,
lots of stress, and how to make those decisions, that their decisions in their thinking from a cognitive athlete perspective will impact, you know, possibly thousands and millions of dollars as a result. Right? So one of the first places that they begin is the sleep optimization perspective. And I work with tons of poker players in the management of that. And so I share that just because that’s a very tangible experience of at the table,
you can either walk away with lots of money or not. And so it’s kind of entrepreneurial in nature, but you apply that in the high stakes of your days of your, you know, business interactions with people and just that cognitive ability to show up consistently and reliably, like, you know, so in the example of myself for years, I, there wouldn’t be accountable illness around how I would be when I’d wake up in the morning.
It wouldn’t be like, Oh, okay. So for that next, really important client call or what have you, I will be bringing my a game. It wasn’t like that. It was like, I hope I get a good night’s sleep and you know that I can have that functionality. Right. Like, That’s me, I’m raising my hand. If you guys are watching the video,
it’s like, this is me. Yeah, for sure. Yes, exactly. Cause that, you know, and there’s tons of studies that will point to this. So whether it just error rates, if you’re sleep deprived and the amount of errors that you might make, if you’re taking scent, you know, test, or this is important for pilots,
you know, these would become life or death elements, but certainly from a productivity perspective, like you’re gonna have all your faculties available to you in those really times. So just to scale it back, I think of it as a couple of things. One, I think of it as super, super important for that productivity perspective. And also because I had so much of that mental health component in there with anxiety and stress and moodiness and crankiness and freak out,
then, then with that just, it provides for me just a really important space to be at a equilibrium with how I’m approaching the world around me and stress levels and anxiety levels. And we can get into some of the wearable indicators for that. So it’s not so esoteric. It really has some kind of quantified data behind it. Right. Okay. So yeah,
let’s go ahead and do that actually. Can you, I definitely want to talk about the wearables at the time of this recording. Probably if you’re listening to this six months or eight months from now, the wearable part will probably not be accurate enough today because the technology is evolving. And that’s what we’re kind of talking about behind the scenes, but let’s go ahead.
Can you start just by sharing a couple of steps for those of our listeners who listened, they’re like, okay, this is, I am April right now. I mean, just tell me like, what should I be doing to get on top of this, the process of bringing this into order. Yes. Great. Okay. So step number one.
What I actually say is despite the fact that a lot of what I’ll be talking about from the circadian rhythm kind of lifestyle perspective is that a lot of it’s kind of how to harken back to almost Hunter gatherer days and like, you know, aligning with sunrise and sunset. I’m not saying everyone needs to rise with the sun. I’m not making that at all,
but I’m saying that there’s a lot of things we can do to bring about that workability with those rhythms of nature, because that’s going to really result in higher sleep efficiency and quality of our sleep. And at the very same time, despite the fact that I’m saying that I’m also gonna promote the marriage of technologies. And so much of this technology is at the source of our kind of being off-kilter with the,
that relationship, ironically, then bringing in tech, I’ve found to really make a difference to game-ify this. So again, you know, down the road, you’re listening. What I would say is the first place to begin is a logging system of where your sleep is at right now is really, really eyeopening to people because often people say, I know I’m not sleeping well,
but then we try to get up under will. How much, how many hours are we sleeping? What times are we sleeping? How many wake ups, what’s your sleep onset look like? All of these sorts of things. And a lot of it is like, well, I don’t know some gray areas, a lot of question marks because it is it’s,
it’s such a hard area to track. So getting a proper or getting a sleep tracker of whatever at the time of listening to this is known to be one of the most effective on the market at the moment. Right. And follow them On Instagram or club ads. Cause I’m sure she’ll be up to date with this. So yes it is. She will.
I’m sure be talking about what is the most up-to-date thing when you are listening to this episode? Yes. I’m often fondly known as gadget girl by the end of the clubhouse. So we were talking about that was my name and not from a perspective that these are infallible, there’s still things you don’t want to just blindly listen to whatever stats are coming back.
You want to be aware of what they’re good at, what they’re not so good at, but either way, what they tend to be pretty solid at is are you asleep or are you awake? What time does that look like? But then also some health metrics that indicate the, your recovery that you attained throughout the course of the night. So all of those things will give us,
you know, kind of a window or insight into your sleep. So I say, start with that first place because, and years back, what it was, one of the first recommendation was keep a sleep diary, you know, write it out manually. And now you could do that, but also, you know, to begin to start tracking, it will be automated for you and often provide a way more insight that you might be surprised by some blind spots.
And along those lines, I have a question for you about one of those metrics with one of my slit trackers that I, that I had used in the past. And you mentioned it when, before we started recording this, which was heart rate variability, can you explain? I mean, I saw it on my sleep tracker. I, when I’m like Googling it online,
it was actually really hard for me to understand why that was so important. Can yes, it was a one Oh one on that. I’m so glad you said that. So this metric, this one metric you could devote into multiple podcasts, there’s actually entire podcasts that just talk about how to kind of understand this one metric and influence it. You’re not alone in the confusion of it better.
I’m like, why don’t I get it? So it, but it’s the reason why it’s I foresee one, it’s already ballooned in popularity around understanding this. And I foresee it being even more and more influential in our health. So the one, what is it? It’s heart rate variability HRV is basically the time interval in between your heartbeat and indicator of your recovery.
So if you can think of heart rate as kind of your load, that’s put on to you, you know, moment to moment, then HRV is reflective of how quickly can you recover from moment to moment? So it’s recovery of both mental elements of recovery, but also physical elements of recovery. And that physical can be about like the foods you’re eating the workouts,
you’re doing the air quality in your space, preexisting conditions that you might have going on. But then the mental component is really eye-opening to just how you’re relating to the world around you as entrepreneurs to, Oh my goodness. Like that can be really eyeopening. You get a lot of stuff on your plate and suddenly that that number will show that impact. And that can be a really cool way for those of us that might want to do that.
Push through, push through mindset. And I’m so one of those to start to respect the importance for recovery time and almost relating to our body, like an athlete would to build in that really next level of recovery so that you can take on all the things you gotta take off. Okay. Yeah. And I can see that I do understand a certain aspect and the correlation of that because when I used to train for fitness competitions and we used to do the heart rate training,
and when you know, between the things I was doing, like how fast would my heart recover between sets? And so is that kind of the same thing that we’re talking about here that’s happening in sleep that we’re measuring? Yes, exactly. So that’s why a lot of people are excited about particularly longitudinal nocturnal HRV. So there’s, you can measure, of course your HRV 24 seven and the nighttime HRV can be really eye-opening because that’s giving us an indication while there’s not presumably as much noise that’s happening because there’s a lot of noise on your measurement of your HRV during the day.
Cause you’re, you’re eating, you’re, you’re talking, you’re working out all these things. Whereas when you’re sleeping, presumably that’s largely recovery time and that is what HRV is all about. But so if you wake up and traditionally, this is very simplified because there’s way more nuances to this metric, but often the higher it is from your baseline, the more recovered you are and the more you see it kind of dipped down,
then that can often indicate that you are being more taxed, you’re stressed or you’re getting sick. So it’s actually really popular right now. That’s why it’s trending to with COVID that a lot of people are looking to this as indicators and days in advance of when you might even feel that you’re getting rundown, that that number is shifting. Then that can be a signal to really prioritize that recovery.
So those are just some of the ways that you can relate to it. But in the practical application, what I see with my clients is so all the clients are wearing wearables. They’ll see, Oh my God, my HRV is really dipping like significantly. So then they’ll prioritize recovery from whatever that looks like. So if they’re big time athletes, then they will adjust their training to really lower that.
And to take that off time, if they’re just entrepreneurs and they might kind of scale back some of their calls or what have you to really make a difference with that number and then get recovered in a way that can make a difference. The following day, That’s amazing. This is so much great information. Okay. So number one, log, make sure that we’re paying attention to what we’re doing.
Get a wearable let’s, you know, we’re not going to do with the archaic way of tracking when we go to sleep. I mean, there is just absolutely so much data out there that I’m hearing you say that it’s important for us to track know and be able to understand so that we can adjust things. So what else would you recommend for those people who are listening after they go through these first steps?
Like what type of common adjustments are typically? I know every single person is different, but are typically beneficial that you have seen with high performers and entrepreneurs. Yeah. So one asterisk that I would put for the wearables is just ensuring that you’re, we’re not getting like a no CBO effect by saying, Oh my God, I have so many friends that literally would come because I’m only getting 20 minutes of deep sleep,
30 minutes of REM or whatever. And so one just know that as of, at least this time, the recording, most of the hand and wrist wearables, they are said so much great information. I love what is available there. And the sleep stage classification in particular. So knowing is this deep is this Ram is this light, it’s not the best.
So to not get yourself all riled up around that part, instead focus on those basics that we talked about, what time did you go to sleep? What time did you wake up? And then some of those recovery metrics, so to stay in that zone. So that’s just my aspect around that. But then what I would say for, for all humans and particularly entrepreneurs is this concept of circadian rhythm.
Entrainment is really, really valuable to have a framework by which you set up your days so that you can strengthen that circadian rhythm. So you can be like your husband, right. And just kind of the goal is to be like your husband and to basically wake up around the same time off to go to bed at the same time, all of that comes from that.
So this is actually a term you can find in any kind of chronobiology textbook of understanding that you are in training your circadian rhythm, but that is from a number of what they call time givers that are external to you, that you are playing a role in from a behavioral perspective of getting so a couple of those that’ll just rattle off real quick. The top down most important one is light,
particularly sunlight. And the timing of that. So if you get nothing out of what I’m saying, then I would definitely say that first thing in the morning, how to train yourself to get even just a few minutes. I mean, ideal would be more, but a few minutes of sunlight outside. And unfortunately behind a window, doesn’t really count. It counts,
but takes much, much longer estimates with Jamie’s ICER out of Stanford, puts it at anywhere from 50 to a hundred times a longer to reset your master clock each morning, if you’re getting sunlight behind a window versus outside. So you want to just get yourself outside, but also expose particularly your eyes to that morning, sunlight, you know, you want it to be wherever you might be on the globe.
We’re aiming for that to be in the morning hours usually before like 10:00 AM of getting that morning light. And the reason for that is that behind your eyes is the super charismatic nucleus, which is your master clock that influences all your peripheral clocks as to what time it is. And why that’s important is then a whole cascade of kind of hormones and functionality happened based on what time the body perceives it to be.
And so we want it to be as consistent, those triggering systems as possible. So that’s that light in the morning and then dosing it throughout the day. But then you want as bright days as possible and as dim nights as possible. And when I say dim, it’s like post sunset, you want to be getting, I mean, really the, the actual recommendation is like candles,
but I know that’s not always so practical. So even like, I got like red lights over here. So, you know, you can, that can be another thing that you can bring in if you’re not willing to do the candles. But so we’re looking for very, very dim lighting that allow us to have our cake and eat it too. So versus like how things used to be sun would set.
We kind of go to sleep not long after for thousands of years now, we want to be able to still like, you know, do things, but we don’t want to impact our melatonin production. So that kind of red light candles or worst case scenario, incandescent lights that have more red in them, those can make a difference. So that getting that light right,
and then the next step would be temperature. So being mindful of really having this arc of your body temperature throughout the course of the day. So high temperature throughout the day movement activity, eating, you know, having engaging in lots of dynamic, cognitively demanding tasks, all those things during the day. But then in the evening, shifting over to fasting,
you know, relaxation, resting, connecting kind of calming everything down. So for entrepreneurs, what we do is create really like say layout of your day, where you have a set wake up time, he was set bedtime. And then from that place that had a Creek kind of two parts of your day, like a day mode and a night mode.
And then even just these little things like understanding like, Oh my God, when I have my food will influence the timing of when I fall asleep. And when I wake up and, or the amounts of wake-ups that I have throughout the night, things of this nature can be super, super empowering for people I learned so much. I never knew that about the sun in the morning.
Thank you so much. I’m like, literally I’m here taking notes. It’s just incredibly fascinating. And so the sun and the light, obviously all makes sense now that you explained that, but that would never be anything that would be, you know, just obviously common knowledge to those of us who aren’t experts like you. And so thank you so much for sharing that.
Okay. You have given us a ton of information. I have one last question that I’m curious about how you’re going to answer. Obviously I don’t know it, and that’s why I’m asking it. Is there a minimum amounts of sleep that general and I’m sure everybody’s different, but generally speaking that you believe people need to function in a healthy capacity. Oh yeah.
That’s the million dollar question. Everyone wants to know that one for sure. And you know, so some of the, the known recommendations are having us as it, a healthy adult, as it changes throughout the years, basically what age you are. But as a healthy adult than getting anywhere from seven to nine is the recommended amount that we’ll have thrown out.
There are other people that will speak to that you can, for some people might make sense to be in the, you know, six is range and what have you, based on their, the quality of that sleep. So I will say that it’s kind of split on that, that topic, but certainly what you can do is through the tracking element of things,
start to get up under that. The more we have some of these kind of top down, most important things addressed, then what often begins to emerge because, you know, sometimes you got to get past all of this sleep deprivation and built up time of variability, of sleeping all kinds of hours, and then not enough and ups and downs. So once we start having those structures often,
what emerges is more of your kind of set point for your sleep at the age that you’re at and at the health level and energy expenditure that you’re at each day. So you can have a clear understanding of that once everything else just kind of falls into order as well, is what I’m hearing you say. Okay, I lied. I have one, one more question.
Can you catch up on sleep? Mm, yeah. Good question. I know. Cause then it’s like that sleep debt topic was very popular for a number of years. So that is another one that is a bit of a point of contention, but there’s different schools of thought so well, if we go back to the conversation around dementia that you mentioned,
that’s a really big topic that’s come out of. This looks like a really strong correlation between sleep deprivation and neurodegenerative disorders. So whether it’s Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s dementia, different things of that nature really linked because of the lack of proper cleaning. So glymphatic drainage was the coin, the term that was coined around this. So glymphatic drainage meaning versus lymphatic it’s glymphatic and glymphatic is the cleansing process of the brain each night during sleep,
during deep sleep in particular. And what it’s doing is it’s basically rinsing out with a janitorial process of your brain, of the buildup of waste products in the brain each night. And that’s what amyloid beta plaques are. Basically what’s left over. It’s a kind of calcification in the brain if we’re not having that proper amount. So the concern, so the reason I mentioned that is that we don’t see a lot of great ways to counteract that.
So say if you’ve been doing that for years and years, and there’s this buildup of this kind of a dirty brain, if you will, that buildup, and it’s very similar to brains that we see for late stage Alzheimer’s dementia or what have you. It looks a hand in hand and we don’t have a really strong way to then reverse that. So what I would say,
even from that perspective alone, is that we don’t want to rely on this kind of messy relationship to sleep where I’ll make up for it on the weekends, or what have you, because also if we just get back to the basics of what we know for great sleep, that the more we have that variability and the up and downs, one of the term for it is actually social jet lag.
And so social jet lag being this concept that, you know, Oh, around five days of the week, I’m really great with my sleep. I do pretty consistent, but then on the weekends, you know, I want to let loose and then you stay up late and it’s like three hours difference and, or more or whatever. And so with that,
then it’s, you’re having the experience that’s similar to, from a biological perspective, similar to jet lag. When you try to get yourself back on your normal schedule on Sunday night or Monday or whatever, but you didn’t go anywhere, but you’re still having that negative impact on your body. So the long and the short of it is it doesn’t seem to be a reliable method to build that sleep debt and kind of knock it out by having these long stretches of sleep.
Because then that also impacts cause quality sleep is a measurement of how your sleep was the night before the night before that. And they, before that. So it kind of all plays a role in there. So if you didn’t sleep so well, one night, often people will benefit from what’s known as kind of rebound sleep because you now, the body is really craving to get itself back on track and it will,
you know, kind of greedily get the sleep staging that it needs, but you can’t rely on that as a sustainable element because then that throws off your circadian rhythm. And now you’re getting tired at the same time. And it’s so frustrating. Right? All of that makes sense. Oh, thank you so much. I learned so much today. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show and we’re going to make sure everybody knows how to find you in the show notes,
but can you tell everybody who’s listening to this? Like, Oh my gosh, I need more of Molly. I need her help. I need her in my life. You know, what does that look like? How can people work with you more? Yeah. Well, number one, just thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for your also just transparency and vulnerability about how you’re relating to your sleep.
And, you know, just gives us all hope in these different periods when we are struggling to hear, okay, I’m not alone. Cause you know, that’s really what I was dealing with with my sleep. So, and it’s takes courage to share that cause you could be like, Oh yeah, I’ve got my whole life together. And dah, dah,
dah. So, you know, I really, really admire that. So great work with that. And then yes, if you are struggling with your sleep, this is a real mission-based thing for me. so1@sleepasaskill.com, there’s lots of things that are available for free. We have a weekly newsletter, so I call it Molly’s Monday obsessions, cause I’m pretty obsessive about this topic.
And so all of these, you know, things that I’m obsessing about in the world of sleep and also kind of asleep experiments, lots of graphs and fun charts and whatever. And so that’s every Monday when you sign up for that, you also get a free downloadable PDF. That’s optimized bedroom, how to optimize your sleep environment comes right along. And then we also have a sleep assessment that you can take.
So whatever you’re dealing with with your sleep, then that will get you some kind of tailored advice around those areas. We have weekly podcasts with different sleep experts and you know, sleep tech and what have you. So all of that is available for free. And we put out a lot on social media and we’re really amping that up as well. And then if you are really struggling,
you need more than that. Then we do have courses and one-on-ones and different ways of working together as well. Wow. All right. Thank you so much, Molly. I’m definitely going there and I appreciate your time and your expertise and pouring into me and our whole entrepreneur community. And I am sure that this is going to be an important topic. It has been,
but really, as you said, moving forward. So we just really appreciate your expertise and, and being here with us today and it was such a pleasure to get to meet you same here. Thank you so much. You are welcome. Thank you.<inaudible> What a great show. Thank you so much for learning alongside me and hanging out. Most likely you knew a lot about this information.
Probably a lot more than I did, but it’s just such a pleasure to, to learn. And I took a million notes if you’d like to join Molly and me in a clubhouse room where we are talking all about sleep, wearable technology and all these things so that you can function at your peak performance as an entrepreneur, whatever that looks like for you go to sweet life,
community dot and There you can join by link our clubhouse club. You still need to join separately on clubhouse if you’re not a member, but you’re going to get an email with reminders and, and an invitation to this room with a direct link to this room. So again, you can go to sweet life, community.com to join our Sweetlife entrepreneurs club on clubhouse to talk to Molly live about this.
And of course, all of the show notes can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com click on the podcast. And this is episode number 218. Have a great day. And I’ll talk to you guys soon.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
To kick off the new year, I’ve brought Peak Performance Coach, Eric Partaker, on the show to help you get started on the right foot and make 2021 the year you become the most productive version of yourself in multiple areas of your life and business. Eric has worked with and led high-performing teams at McKinsey & Company, Skype, and Chilango. He is one of 300 people worldwide certified as a High Performance Coach, by the High Performance Institute. Over the last 20 years he has studied and modeled the traits and habits of the world’s most successful people, in order to help his teams and clients break through their barriers and reach their highest potential, in both their work and life.
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
You’re listening to the SweetLife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator a probate. Hi everybody. And welcome to 2021. The first show, and we are starting out with a major bang that is going to be a game-changer for you. I’m so excited to dive in and help you understand how to be a peak performer in your health,
wealth, and relationships this year and beyond with our guest expert, Eric partaker. So let’s chat about what we’re doing here and why this show is so special. You know, as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as human beings, we all want to operate at our highest level. We all want to be that person that we envisioned we would be right. But what happens is we get burned out.
We get stretched thin, and there are some things that just don’t balance out to equal the vision that you might’ve had for what you wanted your life and your company to look like. And so we’re going to dive into that and we’re going to start out with a powerful plan and strategies to really be a peak performer in your health, your wealth and your relationships in 2021.
And let me just tell you, this is not another piece of content or some other podcasts on how to become productive or how to set goals. No, no, no. Our guests today shared strategies that I have never ever heard before. These aren’t the same old, same old things. These things are game changers. You guys, if you watch our video episode of this,
it is totally me behind the scenes taking massive notes. The things that he was saying was just gold. And so this is an episode that is definitely not to miss for those of you that really want to operate at your highest level in 2021. And, and frankly take back control of your health, wealth, and relationships, which are all things that we have left behind struggling with this last year.
We all hope and pray. So let’s talk about, you know, really what you can expect out of this episode. In this episode, we’re talking with Eric and I’m going to give you a bio on him. This guy is super duper awesome. So we’re talking with Eric, who’s a peak performance coach and author of the bestselling book, the three alarms,
a simple system to transform your health, wealth, and relationships forever. And the information on this show, like I said, it’s not going to be the same old, same old. You’re going to discover powerful new ways to increase your productivity, deep root your identity in who you’re supposed to be. And you’re also going to understand how to become even stronger with each challenge that comes your way.
It’s really, really good stuff. You guys. So at the end of this episode, if you apply the strategies in here and the bonus, that’s going to be given to you here with this show, you’ll no longer waste time. You’ll have a, to root your identity and who you want to be, even if you’re not that person yet. And you’ll stop being an amateur and become a pro.
Now let’s introduce you to Eric partaker. Eric’s a CEO coach and mentor, author, and peak performance expert. He was named the CEO of the year in 2019 business excellence awards. One of the top 30 entrepreneurs in UK 35 and under by startups magazine and among Britain’s most disruptive entrepreneurs by the Telegraph, he’s advised fortune 50 CEOs while at McKinsey helped build Skype’s multi-billion dollar success story and has founded several businesses of his own.
He’s a certified peak performance coach and has also completed a coaching certification and apprenticeship with professor BJ Fogg who leads Stanford university’s behavior design lab told you this guys it’s just super rockstar. He continues research evidence-based studies in psychology, neuroscience, habit, change leadership and peak performance. And he is giving you a totally free digital copy of his book. You can cruise over to Sweetlife co.com.
This is episode number 208, and a link to download his book will be found in the show notes. So if you are really ready to make a change that is going to stick and your business and your work and your relationships so good. You guys let’s go ahead and dive into today’s show.<inaudible> Alrighty. You guys, I’m so happy to be joined by Eric partaker here today,
and we’re talking to all about peak performance, peak performance, usually in the past, have you been listening to the show for a long time? We talk about peak performance with extreme and adventure sports. And as that relates to the company you’re building basically. So you can have more time to take off and play with your extreme inexpensive venture sports. But today we’re really talking about peak performance that comes before that something that is not discussed often enough in the entrepreneur space.
And that’s about really performing at your highest level all the way across the board, so that you have an opportunity to reap all those benefits and rewards. And Eric is in the house today, talking all about his new book and how you guys can get to this state of becoming a peak performer and doing this in your business. You can do it in your life.
Eric. Welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the Sweetlife podcast. Super glad to have you tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thanks April. And thanks everyone for taking the time to listen. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve been obsessed with peak performance for over two decades, but well, first, definitely in the wrong way.
And then in a, in a much better way. So about 10 years ago, it was all, you know, work. It was hustle mentality, and that’s how I was for the whole first half of my career. You know, so a hundred plus hour work weeks at McKinsey and company and helping build up Skype before we sold it to eBay,
few of my own businesses. And you know, I’m on a plane. Start to feel unwell, Dr. On-board rushes over, takes my vital signs and says, we need to land the plane immediately. I think he’s having a heart attack 10 years ago, playing emergency lens, where to a small town in France, the runway shut down. They take me off into a waiting ambulance where they administer nitrates to open up the arteries and increase the blood flow to the heart.
And as the ambulance sped off to the local hospital, I looked up to the eyes of the French paramedic looking down at me and I said, please don’t let me die. I have a five-year-old son. I didn’t say, please don’t let me die. I need to clear my inbox. And you know, my point there is that as entrepreneurs we’re so into the hustle,
we’re so into, you know, what, what do we got to do next? And, and it can all go at any moment at any time. And what I said in that moment, it really truly changed my life because the next morning I woke up and I thought, you know, all of my success to date at that point had come at the price of my health and relationships.
I almost lost my life. And then the very first words out of my mouth had nothing to do even with my own life. But, you know, with my boy at the time, right, my two boys now, but at the time, my, my only son and then that just struck me as, okay, that’s the three legged stool.
That’s what peak performance means. You know, we need to perform at a peak level across our health, our wealth, our work as a wealth driver and our relationships. And when I say peak performance, I’m not meaning turning. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t mean like in a turn a person into a Ferrari, you know, I mean, close the gap between your current and best self across all the areas of life that matter most,
you know, on the health, you know, work and home front. That’s the mission that I’m on now that I’ve been on for the last 10 years. And my book, the three alarms is, is about that mission. And it’s about how I’ve, codafide it as if you want to reach your best on the health, wealth and relationship fronts,
you need to do it through IPA, like the beer, but better for you and the IPA standing for identity productivity and antifragility. Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing your story. You guys watch the videos of these, you know, any sort of story like that. I’m here, like tearing up behind the scenes, but I understand that there are so many people that are on their way to hit that point without what you’re talking about in this book and,
you know, praise God, you were able to come back and figure it out and, you know, share it with the rest of us and really be able to leverage this to the next level and come in here and step in and help entrepreneurs. And so this is a perfect episode before we were recording. I was thinking, I wonder, are we going to air this?
And this is a perfect one to kick off 2021, because some of the things that you’re talking about, you know, we all want 20, 21 to be different than 2020. And it wouldn’t be nice if we just woke up and the whole entire world that was glittering on January 1st and everything was perfect again. And, and, and it’s okay to want those things.
But what we know is that we need to have a plan regardless of what comes about. And that’s what you talk about here in your book. And I love that now you have worked with really high level executives and entrepreneurs and your work in the past and getting people results in this. And it has really been extraordinary. And so I’m super excited to dig into what we’re talking about on today’s show.
So you say how to become a peak performer with IPA identity productivity, and antifragility, let’s go ahead. Can you dive in a little bit, and let’s kind of dissect each one of these things. So our listeners have an idea of some immediate actions and some areas in their life that they can, you know, rebalance or correct, or take a look at and,
and make some adjustments. Can we dive into IPA and the identity first? Yeah, let’s do it all. Talk about each and a practical tool. And the book of, I give loads of practical tools, but we just give like one quick win takeaway for each, each section. And let’s go ahead and say this too. If I can just interrupt.
You also said, all of our listeners are going to get a free digital copy of your book and we will make sure that is a huge gift you guys, and we’ll make sure that the link to that is in the show notes for this show@sweetlifepodcast.com forward slash two zero eight. So yeah. So let’s go ahead and dive in. Yeah. Cool. And,
and I just want to step back just super quickly once again, and say, you know, 20, 20, it was a challenging year. And part of what I’m trying to do with getting the message out around this book is to have it perfectly timed with making 20, 21, a rebound year making 20, 21 the year where you stepped back up to the plate,
right? Where you take things back up a level and you kind of dust things off and you say, all right, let’s go again. And IPA is the path forward. And, and one other thing to remember, my definition of peak performance is not turning you into a Ferrari. None of this is about achieving perfection. This is just about you showing up as your best self in the areas of life that matter most.
This is about you kind of gaining entry to what Abraham Maslow estimated was the 2% of people in the world who realize their full potential. So IPA for me is about gaining entry to that 2% club. So identity, identity, why don’t we start with identity? So the why here is because we cannot become a better version of ourselves now and going forward,
if we continue to be the person that we’ve always been, that doesn’t line up. So what got you here? Won’t get you there. You need to make a change. And entrepreneurs leaders, CEOs are very intentional when it comes to work, they get it. They know that I need to have envisioned. I need to model myself after that vision,
but they don’t bring that same intentionality often to their health and home, or you know, their, their health and relationships. So what I talk about in the book, the three alarms is how I decided, okay, what is the best version of me look like on each of those fronts? And that’s what I’d like everyone listening to do right now.
Just ha have a thing. If you were to give the best version of you, you at your best, a name on the health front, what would it be if you were to give the best version of you, a name or a phrase or a persona on the work front, what would it be? And if you were to do the same on the relationship or the home front,
what would it be? So I gave an example of what I’ve done with myself. So on the health front, it’s not me who goes to the gym in the morning, I’m a world fitness champion. That’s who goes to the gym in the morning. That’s the person who walks through the door. And when I’m in on, in a particular exercise and I get to the eighth rep,
and I’m not sure if I’m going to get to the 10th, a little voice goes off in my head and says, of course you will, because you’re a world fitness champion. And that’s all being driven by identity because behavior follows identity. When I take a Spider-Man costume and I put it on my seven-year-old Leo, I do not need to teach Leo what to do next.
He doesn’t need to go through Spider-Man training camp. I put the Spider-Man costume on and he starts shooting webs from his wrist, jumping around, making funny noises. Right? So what it really, all I’m trying to do here is to get everyone listening to, you know, remember that you’ve already done this. You did it as a kid. You picked an identity,
maybe when you were playing, you changed into that and it changed your behavior. Same concept. You’re just remembering back to something you used to do. Every time I go to the gym now I’m wonder woman, perfect world fitness champion. Now I have that on my phone as an alarm at 6:30 AM, I’ve changed the name of the alarm. And it says world fitness champion to prompt that intentionality.
Okay, because I’ve segmented my day into three parts and I’ve chosen basically a best self identity that will power each of the segments. And so 6:30 AM world fitness champion goes off. The next alarm on my phone goes off at 9:00 AM and it says, world’s best coach, am I the world’s best at all of these things? Of course not. But that’s the version of me.
That’s going to start the Workday. How does that version of me show up and behave in the world? You know, how decisive inspiring and reliable will I be for my clients? If I’m coming from the vantage point of the world’s best coach versus just Eric and at 6:30 PM, the game-changing alarm for me, we’re all different for me. This is a game changer.
It goes off and it says world’s best husband and father to prompt the, how would the world’s best husband and father walked through that door right now? That’s the power of intentionality, right? So I’ve chosen, what does best look like on the three areas of life that matter? Most, I queue it at a particular time of day, that would most benefit from being powered by that best self identity.
And I get three massive benefits. It brings intentionality into the day. It brings wise counsel, you know, into a moment, you know, okay, what should I say in response to this person? What should I do next? Well, what would the world’s best husband and father do? And number three, it prompts, reflection, because if I do lose my cool with my seven year old,
for example, I’m not perfect then because I had something so high to measure against, I feel like a real jerk afterwards. Right. And that’s good because that’s making the gap painfully obvious and it means that I get better and better at closing it. So that’s the identity piece I’m taking course millions of notes here. I’ve already named all of my different sections of my day and who I am.
So I just I’m appreciating this and eating it up. I’m a sponge here, loving this information. I love that identity too. And it’s so true. Like when along the lines did we forget who we believe that we are rather than, you know, what the world tells us. And so, and I, and I love that. And you’re so right about the fact that as entrepreneurs,
we are so apt to believe that before in our business, but maybe not so much in our health and our personal lives, those things for sure are not the same. Maybe it’s because money doesn’t drive it. And it’s not because they aren’t as important to us. Well, maybe the health at first, you know, so I think this is super awesome.
Loving this so far. So let’s talk about productivity, the identities, EEI, and in IPA, what do you do and what do you recommend as far as productivity and how does that, why did you choose productivity as part of your methodology for obtaining people? Yeah. Great question. So, okay. So context then, you know, setting. So first we start with,
well, who is it that we want to be? That’s the identity piece. So now we’re operating from the vantage point of our best self and the three areas of life that matter most. So what do we do now to make progress? Because we’re just awesome, but we’re standing still, right? And we need to progress. We need to climb the mountain now.
Right? And so we do that through action. So that’s why we talk about productivity because knowledge isn’t power anymore. These days I can Google anything and be knowledgeable about it. Within seconds. Knowledge is not where the game is played. It’s about taking consistent persistent deliberate action. That’s where the game is played. And that’s why we need to optimize ourselves for productivity,
because we don’t want to just be taking any action. We want to take the right action and most efficiently, so smart. So there’s loads I go into in the book and productivity. I actually, it’s a big thing that, although the IPA acronym is it’s only three letters I had to do productivity planning and productivity execution, because it’s about, you know,
plan, execute, plan execute. Right. Right. And I think before you go into it, you’re an expert in this. Did you realize that I know a lot of entrepreneurs that have the best laid plans, but then zero ability to execute. Is that why in your experience of dealing this, you know, entrepreneurs, we can think of these,
Oh, this is going to be the plan. We can even set the plan, lay the plan out the steps of the plan, reverse engineer, the plan, Gantt chart, the plan, whatever it is, but then actually doing it tends to be a lot harder. So is that because we all struggle in this? Yeah. Yeah. Well,
I was a chronic over planner. I would just plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. The other thing though, too, that I noticed with myself was that I was also a world-class procrastinator and may have something to do with the entrepreneurial mindset because of our tendency to dream and to, you know, think about, you know, big opportunities and the next big thing,
it’s almost like this, you know, proneness for distraction, right. Or at least it was for me. And so I had to transform myself from a chronic procrastinator to a super producer. And, you know, we won’t have time to go into all the productivity tools, but I want to drive home. One in particular that I think is mind blowing.
So the average person loses and this, this data, I first picked up, by the way from the book, the one thing, the average person under observation loses 28% of their Workday to multitasking and effectiveness. So the person thinks that they’re multitasking in an efficient way, but what they’re really doing is they’re doing what’s called task switching, going from one thing to the next,
very, very rapidly. And that leads to a 28% loss in the day, because rather than sticking with one thing, they’re jumping around. So when they get back to the thing that they originally intended to work on, they’ve lost their place. They have to retrace their steps at the regain, their momentum, all of this leads to lost time, 28% loss of a day.
Now the book just leaves the stat right there. And I thought, hang on a second. This is like not doing that stat justice. So I took that number and I said, well, let’s generously take off six weeks for vacation in a year. So let’s do 28% loss against 46 work weeks. That means that the average person is losing 13 weeks a year,
which is an entire calendar quarter. So of course you don’t feel productive. Of course you don’t feel like there’s not enough time for everything you’ve lost a whole quarter every year Because you aren’t productive. And because you would have lost all that time. I mean, you’re playing a game of basketball and you’re going against the competition. You get to the end of the third quarter and then news to you.
Somebody says, Oh, by the way, we’ve got to tell you, but you and the rest of your team had to sit out the fourth quarter. You’re like, huh. And you’re like, well, how do we even have a chance of winning then? And they’re like, Oh we don’t. Yeah. It’s. So if we extrapolate that across a 40 year career,
that means that the average person loses an entire decade. What could you do with an extra decade? That’s like two more careers potentially. Wow. So what’s the problem here? The problem is people just jumping around too much throughout the day that in their phone disturbed their, their focus and the concentration, having too many browser tabs, open notifications coming in left,
right and center all of these lures to kind of guide us off our path for peak performance, our path for realizing our full potential that’s the issue. And so what we have to combat all of that with is developing the power of single tasking, which is a bit of a lost art, especially nowadays with smartphones angle tasking is nothing more than making sure you stick with what you’re working on for a good chunk of time.
At least 30 minutes provided there’s 30 minutes of work to do. I like to shoot for, you know, 30 minute chunks throughout my day. And then I take a break after 30 minutes. And the way you can develop the habit of single tasking is by becoming a lawyer for a few weeks. And what I mean, what I read is that lawyers timesheet their days because otherwise they don’t know where to assign the client time.
And when I thought about that, I thought, well, if a lawyer can do this every single day as part of their career, then I could certainly should be able to manage it for like, you know, few weeks. So all I did was I had four columns activity start time, end time, total minutes. And I literally recorded every single task I did from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed kind of before and after work,
I was more like grouping stuff together. You know, it’s like getting ready for example. But once I started the Workday, it was everything. So working on presentation nine to nine, 13, nine, 13 to nine 17, LinkedIn nine and 17 to nine 20, you know, Google search nine 20 to nine 23, reheated coffee and check Twitter.
And the alarming thing that it revealed was just how much task switching was going on. On the first day that I did this, I had 77 entries in my Workday. Wow. As I was bouncing around unknowingly from one thing to the next. So when you do this, it does two things. One, it raises an unprecedented level of awareness in you in terms of where is my time actually going and how often,
you know, am I switching and bouncing around? And then two, it starts to become kind of painful when you have two for the third time, for example, on a day, right. Facebook 20. Right, Right, right. It’s really eye-opening. And I could see how that would be incredibly. Eye-opening really, really fast. And gosh,
I mean, I just think that there is so much last time, by the way, the one thing is one of my favorite books of all time. And we’ll make sure that the notes to that book as well are in the show notes for this show. And I think that one of the things that you’re saying here was really, really interesting, the art of single tasking.
So when we single task and chunk our time and block calendar, a block and tackle and do those things, how fast and how much more of an increased you see in productivity in your clients that you have do that. I mean, is that like instant results that they’re seeing when they actually change these are, what are your case studies working with clients who have,
who’ve really tried to apply this. Yeah, that’s a great question. So we’re not machines, we’re not robots. And so what that means is that we can’t actually reclaim the entire 28% and then that may lead you to believe that, okay. So then I can’t actually get the full quarter back. That’s actually not true because when you start to develop your ability to focus,
it also speeds up your output for the 72%. That wasn’t an issue anyway. Right. So what I see is, well, beyond then the 28% capture, it’s almost like people are becoming twice as productive as they previously were and that’s life changing, right? Because you’re producing more with the time you have. And that suddenly gives you the time that you are yearning for when it comes to your health and your relationships.
And yeah, it’s been life-changing for me to personally, because I just work, you know, with an extreme sense of focus I’m intensely on and then intensely off. And there’s no real anxiety during my Workday. There’s so much to be said to this. Like you were saying, I mean, it’s, you guys are just going to be super excited when you get a chance to experience Eric’s book with that being said again,
there’s so many things we could talk about, but moving on to the anti-fragility, let’s talk about that and why that is so important. We were talking about it a little bit behind the scenes before we started recording. What exactly is that to our listeners who are just wondering, I don’t even know how to define that necessarily in my life. Yeah. Okay.
So let’s play a game. Let’s say that you are a shipping container, you know, and my question would be, well, what does the container or the crate, you know, say on the side, if you’re that crate, what’s your label, is it fragile? And then that means you get hit a couple of times you break. And then my question to you would be,
well, what’s the opposite of being fragile. And then you’ll say probably something like robust, you know, or strong, robust, and strong synonyms, you know? So that just means that, okay, I can kick you a few more times and eventually you break and then you might say, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no. I’m resilient. Okay. Well, by definition, that means that we can keep hitting you and you’ll absorb the shock and you’ll stay the same. It’s like, Oh, okay, well that’s pretty good. Enter antifragile. The more we kick you, the stronger the crate becomes, wow. That’s where we want to be.
Now people, when they first hear this say, okay, wishful thinking, that’s like, you know something in a Marvel movie, that’s, that’s not reality, but then you’re dead wrong because every single person, your body is a perfect temple for anti-fragility. You stress a muscle and it causes it to grow. You expose the body to germs and bacteria.
It builds the immune system. You expose tissues to, you know, small doses of, you know, ultra by light. And it actually generates vitamin D you’re already, anti-fragile physiologically your body’s already doing it without you even realizing it. So it’s hard coded in your DNA. You just need to get what’s happening in your body, up into your head.
And so anti-fragility is about realizing that the gym, where you go and you train doesn’t need to just be there in the gym. You can turn life into one massive training camp. So every moment of adversity, challenge, frustration, disappointment thing, that doesn’t go your way. It’s nothing more than a personal trainer in the gym of life, walking up to you and saying,
Hey, here’s a Dumbo. Do you want to curl it? And you can either grab the dumbbell, curl it, complete the repetition and grow stronger as a result. Or you can wimp out and walk out of the gym. So it’s up to you. And the antifragile mentality says, yeah, I’ll take that dumbbell. Yeah. And if you’re in an argument with somebody,
for example, and now they escalate the argument, all that’s happening there is that they’re saying here here’s a heavier Dumbo and you could walk away or you could stay there and you can curl it with your best self. So loads of different ways of building this mentally, you know, anti-fragility, you know, that I cover in the book, but probably the most powerful,
I mean, there’s so I have so many favorites, so hard to choose. Okay, I’ll go with this one. If you can embrace this, just this, if you forget everything else I’ve just said, and if you just embrace this one thing, even if you forget to pick up the free digital copy of the book, that’s fine, but just don’t miss this point.
And that’s in 2021. Do you want to remain amateur in life or do you want to turn pro let’s start with an amateur. So the first half of my career, I let an amateur existence by that I made feeling for me, preceded action. I needed feel like doing things in order to do them. So feeling generated action. That’s how an amateur lives their life.
And the amateur will get amateur. Results a pro knows that it’s action that generates feeling the equation is literally flipped, which means they don’t need to feel like doing something in order to take action. They take action, whether they feel like it or not. And in fact, when you really upgrade this kind of way of being or mentality, the less you feel like doing something,
the more discomfort it presents you, the more you step into it, the more you say it’s there for in that direction. I must step, you know, it’s sorta like elite warriors are trained to run towards the sound of gunfire, not a way. Right? And so turning pro versus remaining an amateur, what do you want 20, 21 to be?
And where have you been an amateur in life? And where can you develop a professional mentality and know that action generates feelings, not the other way around. Wow. Eric, I’ve never heard it explained as well as you just explained that there, thank you so much. I mean, that was just, I mean, the anti-fragility part in one of the things you said,
let me look back at my notes here. So I have it, is that the resilience you bounce off and stay the same. And so many you hear that talked about so often like, Oh my gosh, well, you need to be resilient and just bounce around and just pop off this. But what we’re talking about is, yeah, resilience keeps you exactly where you were before you don’t go forward.
You don’t go backwards. You just bounce off and you remain the same in the way that you’ve just explained that with actually changing with actually becoming stronger from each one of the blows, the pushes, the drops, whatever it is super amazing. And I love everything that you said, and I know our listeners are just really going to get a ton out of this.
Not only that that’s so generous of you to give away a digital copy of your book and for your time here on the show, this is the perfect show. So Jeff Goins introduced us. Thank you, Jeff, for bringing Eric here on the show. Jeff was a guest on the show. Oh my gosh. Like almost four years ago now in the very beginning,
when we first launched and he was right on about you being perfect for our audience and your message that you wanted to share. And I’m so glad that you’re here and this is exactly what we were looking for for honestly, for me personally, to kick off 2021, you know, we have guests on the show. I learned so much from you and really wanting to find somebody that was saying exactly what I selfishly personally needed to hear right now is an entrepreneur and a mother and a leader.
And what I would consider was a peak performer up until 2020. And now I just feel like I have been resilient and I have not necessarily gotten stronger through this. And so I will look at myself very, very closely after today’s episode. And I’m super excited to dive in more to the work that you’re doing and really appreciate your time on this show.
And so tell everybody how they find you. I’m really into reading print copies. I love holding a book in my hands, how they can experience your work, where you hang out when you are being incredibly focused and hanging out online, not all the time and how they can work with you when they’re ready to really take their business and their life to the next level.
Yeah. I just have to say April that, you know, when you say, wow, I really needed this personally. Hey, me too. You know, the reason that I’ve done all of this is not because I wasn’t born thinking this way. I had to become an expert about all this stuff because I really needed it. I needed to become anti-fragile.
I needed to become more productive. I needed to start living more intentionally. So we’re all on the same boat on that. So I just wanted to say that. So, okay. The book, if you like print copies of the book, please head over to Amazon, amazon.com, amazon.co.uk. I’m based here in the, in London, in the United Kingdom,
but either Amazon will have the book. If you head over to my website at Erik, Erik with a C Eric partaker, just like it sounds partaker.com got a free digital copy of the book waiting for you there. And I have some free three-part video training with worksheets as well, waiting for you there that will help you further embed some of the concepts in the book I’m coming out with an entire video course that I’m filming actually this week,
like over 40 different modules, all about IPA, which will be available on the website by the time this airs. And then if you’re listening and you’re like, look, I think I benefit from even just a chat, a single kind of peak performance insight session, which, which I run, you know, on a free basis with people, or if you’re like,
I need a coach or any of that, then just get in touch via the website. And, you know, we can have a chat, basically. I’m looking after, at the moment, 24 CEOs, entrepreneurs, other coaches, and they’re running everything from billion dollar businesses down to pre-revenue, you know, they’re just getting their funds raised to start their business,
but they all share the same quest. They want to close the gap between their current and best self. They want to reach their full potential and they want to do it. Multidimensionally and then, you know, my email, Eric, Eric partaker.com. So there you go, Thank you so much and we’ll make sure all those links are in the show notes.
And thank you so much for your time. I am super stoked to kick off 2021 with you, Eric and great to be connected with you. Thank you.<inaudible> Right. And that is a wrap for episode number 208 here at the Sweetlife entrepreneur and business podcast. You can find all of the show notes and the digital copy of the book that Eric’s promised you here on today’s show by visiting Sweetlife co.com
simply click on podcast. And this is episode number 208. And for those of you guys that are really ready to kick off this year with a bang, make sure to join us for commitment week 2021. It is coming up on January the 11th, totally free to join, and we are going to be covering five different aspects to reset and refocus your business for 2021.
It’ll take less than seven minutes a day. You guys it’s insane. We’ll go ahead and leave the link to join commitment week 2021, as well as the link to download Eric’s book in the show notes, or you can also just simply join commitment week by visiting Sweetlife coat.com forward slash commitment dash week dash 2021. Right? You guys be awesome. Can’t wait to talk to you next week.
Bye bye. For now
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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business, mental and entrepreneur activator, a probate. Hi, you guys. And welcome to episode number 206 of the sweet life entrepreneur podcast, and Merry Christmas to those of you who are listening to this live and happy holidays to everybody, regardless of what you celebrate here,
we are celebrating family, and I just hope that this show reaches you and that you’re blessed by what we talk about today. Thank you so much for tuning in with us over the holidays. We’ve never missed an episode so far. And this year with all that’s happened in 2020 is no exception. And so today we are talking about three simple ways to put family first as an entrepreneur and create more time.
So whether you’re listening to this live and it is Christmas week here in 2020, or you’re listening to this down the road, everything we’re talking about is a proven business strategy that you’re going to be able to take to the bank and create more time in your life, whatever you want your life to look like. I know that many of you who’ve listened to this show for years.
You know, that half of the time my teenage boys are walking in and out of the door. On the other side of, of my office recording here, you know, with their friends or to the skate park, you know, wherever it is that you are doing life, we need to create a business model, a lifestyle around enabling that. And so this show fits really well into what we’re talking about right now with the holidays,
with, you know, really cherishing life. I think the one thing that for us, it was just such a hidden blessing that came out of 2020 is just really loving being together at home and cherishing time. The one thing that money can’t buy is a second of time. And so a lot of things we’re talking about here on the show we’ve been talking about for years,
but in this episode is all strategies to control time into a create as much time so that you are enabling family first in your business. This episode is for those of you guys who are in any phase of my start to scale up system. And so that’s phase one through five, whether you’re just thinking about starting a business, or you are a seasoned entrepreneur,
that’s making a huge impact this show. And what we’re talking about here applies to all of you guys who are looking to gain control of time and manage family and company growth. Because the reality is, is a growing a company and raising a family is a lot of work. And oftentimes we as entrepreneurs feel super maxed out right in that song, cats in the cradle,
I’d sing it to you, but I’ve a really terrible voice that song comes on and it’s like heartbreaking. And, and I was actually just listening to it last week with my boys. And one of my kids asked guys, you know, I love song, but what does it actually mean? And I was like, ah, you know, it’s about this dad that worked so hard that he never had time for his kid and he regretted it.
And it was like, Oh, that through the gut, I know we feel that as entrepreneurs. So that’s how we were talking about some strategies here on the show. At the end of this episode, this is what you’re going to know. So you are going to see how you can tweak your current business model right now to create more time like instantly right now,
as you’re listening to the show, we are going to talk about the power of messy days, how you can schedule them and why you will love messy days. And I’m going to share with you some behind the scenes about how I schedule these types of things. And you are going to know more creative ways that you can connect with your number one team,
which is your family. And if you don’t have kids in your listening to this show, this family, your family is your support system, your network, whatever that looks like to you, all of our lives are beautifully different. And so whatever that looks like to you, you’re going to be able to take the strategies that we talk about here on this episode and apply them right away to your business and for all the show notes and the resources we mentioned here in the show,
cruise over to Sweetlife co.com. Again, that Sweetlife co.com click on podcast. And this is episode number two, zero six. Okay. Let’s dive into today’s strategies. It’s going to be a real quick show cause it’s a holiday week, but really powerful. So stick with me.<inaudible> Step number one, in order to create more time in your business for family and lifestyle freedom,
we need to look at your business model. So your business model can either bury you or save you. So the first thing I want you to look at is really how you’re serving clients. How much of that time does that of your time, does that take within a week and understand the demands of delivering certain projects or services places on your time, energy and your ability to focus.
First of all, what do you do? Take a look at what you do. Just kind of picture your, your week and how you’re working with clients. Do you work with people? One-on-one do you work with people, one on group? How does that really look in your life? And right now I want you to assess that. And I want you to understand the time that’s required,
that you are spending currently working with your clients and take a look at this current business model that you have. What does that look like? How do you work with people? Is it one-on-one? Is it one on group? How frequently in the first thing you want to do is you want to ask yourself, you know, Hey, is this working for me or is the actual amount of time that I’m spending with my clients taking away time from family?
Now one might say, well, wow, isn’t that great? You know, you’re, you’re so busy. Your business is so busy. You have so many clients. Yes, that is true, but busy doesn’t equal. Good. So we’re going to give you some tips here to take a look at turning busy-ness into profit and time. And so the first thing I want you to do is I want you to ask yourself,
what can I change right now? So that would be, are you seeing clients five days a week? You and these are just some suggestions for you. Can you block and tackle your client days as an example, I only work with clients privately on Thursdays and Fridays. And I’ve shared this with you guys on the show before, and I’ll share with you again,
because I just get great feedback from this time. Number one, I think, I think best when I consolidate my work. So if I know that Thursdays and Fridays are, or my business coaching days, when I work with entrepreneurs and small businesses, then I get in that mindset and I know what I’m doing. I also then can look at my business model and I can say,
okay, all of these businesses are in this same type of need, this same type of area. And so now I’m going to create groups and I actually scale my business model and I always do this again, reassess it. So I have, if I have five clients that are in the same place and need the same things, I actually will offer a group strategy call for those clients.
It’s great for me, it’s great for them to network with other people and everybody gets the same results. So I want you to look at your business right now and ask yourself, can I number one block and tackle my days. And then within those days, what sort of smart scaling can I do for my business model? So can you create group offers?
Can you create some on-demand content that your clients or your customers might want to absorb, instead of saying the same thing to different people? One-on-one can you create maybe an online resource center for your clients to tap into some of your more, more frequently asked questions to help save some of that time or even create a course or an actual program for them to go through online.
Other strategies for you are creating maybe a membership committee, unity, or an online forum this year can be done with Slack or something easily with boxer, where you create a group of people that you want to connect with and you want to help them Connect with each other, but you don’t want to launch a full-blown membership site because that might not really work with your actual business model.
So those are some suggestions of things that you can look at right now in your business, so that you can say, Hey, listen, what can I actually change immediately? What can I actually group together to save my time? And what are the dates phase where I would like to serve my clients? Another reason I haven’t mentioned it here, but why I serve clients on Thursdays and Fridays is because of the entire beginning of my week is on business building content creation and actual strategy.
And so I take care of the business building inside in the beginning of my week, when my mind is fresh. For example, I’m recording this podcast episode on a Monday, usually record on Mondays or Tuesdays. When I know that I can put really powerful, highly impacting content. And then I take care of serving my clients because once I go in and I start immersing myself in my client’s businesses,
it fully takes over all my thought processes. So that’s one of the reasons why I serve clients towards the end of the week. And then I have that weekend break in between. So action item. Number one is take a look at your current business model. Can you group together the days that you serve your customers, serve your clients, and can you make some changes to how you’re serving your clients?
Creating group offers a membership community, or even just an online forum and really take a look at controlling instead of spreading yourself out throughout the week, consolidating your work into different types of work that you were doing at a time. That’s really strategy. Number one, within that same strategy. We talked about this a few episodes ago on the show within that same strategy,
you should be planning your year in advance. So planning what you’re selling when you’re selling it. So, you know, we have a big macro plan and then we have a micro plan week by week. So you really should be taking a look at what’s happening for the year to come. Regardless of when you’re listening to this episode, you can do this at any point in time and really know what you’re selling when you’re selling it and what demands that’s going to put on your life and your family,
okay. Strategy, or I should say, tip number two is my favorite. And I call it for the love of messy days. This is what a messy day is. A messy day is a day that I have scheduled in the middle of my week. My messy day is always Wednesday. And that day is a break between my strategy and my content creation at the beginning of the week.
And my client service at the end of the week, messy days are totally to be spontaneous. And this is an amazing thing. It’s especially amazing if you have teenagers like I do. So on my messy days, I really don’t schedule any client meetings, but this is the day I schedule like the kids’ teeth cleaning, or if I need to stop by the grocery store or any appointments like I would have for myself,
like going to get my eyelashes glued on or a haircut, all of those things are always scheduled on a Wednesday. This is also the day where I am completely able to be spontaneous with my kids. Do I have to get work done? Yes. I still work on messy days. So Wednesday is my favorite day to be this day. But it’s also the day that,
you know, if my kids just want to sit down and, and have a cup of coffee and hang out where I always don’t have somewhere to be, I always can make sure that that is in that day. And they literally throw the plan out the window again. Do you have a list of things you have to get done on messages? Yes.
Are they so regimented and scheduled? Not at all is one of the things I love doing with my kids on messy days is we have this taco wagon down the street and it’s just this amazing Mexican food that’s here in Lafayette, Colorado love taco wagon, and the kids will just be hungry. I’ll say, Hey, let’s, let’s go to taco wagon and grab some tacos and it’s super spontaneous and they love it.
We listen to music. We play music messy days are the days where I can just stop and walk out of my office and share songs with the kids and listening to what they’re listening to, or watch YouTube videos or sit down and play call of duty, which by the way I suck at on Xbox. But I try, you know, those are the things we do on messy days.
And so messy days are a day sometime in your week, if you can’t fit it in every single week, maybe plan and schedule a messy day every two weeks. And again, this is the time for you to know this is when you can fit in your haircuts teeth, cleaning, having to run an errand, maybe go to the post office. But it’s also the day where you can totally stop and have a cup of coffee with a friend who just might really need you call your aunt on the phone,
who you haven’t talked to in forever. And all those things that get scheduled out because the schedule is too regimented. Messy days is totally to not be regimented, but you will love it because you’ll actually get more work done in the other days. When you know, you have your messy day, wherever that may land in your week. And then the third tip I have for you is to really over communicate with your family over communicate with your team.
Again, whoever that is, it can be, you know, young, old, it can be your dog. You know, I used to communicate with my toddlers, my boys, when I was working from home and say, okay, you know, mommy really has a lot of work to do for the next two hours. But after that, we’ll sit down and we’ll watch Mickey mouse together or whatever.
And so as long as you’re over communicating, what’s about to happen with your team. Then everybody is going into that with open eyes and they understand how they can support you in that process. Again, it doesn’t matter if they’re three or if they’re 35, they all understand that. So some suggestions on how to over communicate with everybody, but in a way,
that’s not going to take you too much time because that’s would be against the point of this whole entire episode is number one. Every single Sunday night, just have a quick weekly powwow. We do this all the time. We go through the week, we look at our calendars, see what’s coming up and everybody’s just on the same page. It literally takes five minutes and that’s for a family of five to do,
but it helps to just communicate and what’s to come. It also helps us all mentally prepare for the week ahead and how we want to show up in that week. We also have a nightly pregame. And so a nightly pregame again, literally takes like one minute saying, okay, this is what the morning is going to look like. This is what I have today.
This is what you know, you have going on this next day. This is what this looks like for our family. Let’s again, have everybody be on the same page. It’s also the place where I can take a minute. If my kids need to talk about school or things they’re struggling with and help them strategize a plan to, you know, maybe make up some schoolwork,
which frankly has been a lot since everybody’s doing online school and it’s a freaking mess. I won’t go down that rabbit hole, but it’s a time for me to really connect with my boys and hear like, yeah, I just have this, I have this math test tomorrow. I have no clue what I’m doing and really be able to focus in on them.
And I know that they really appreciate this nightly pre-game as well. Couple of things we also do and we’ve done for years and years and years is we calendar share. We’ve also taught our boys how to add things to our family calendar. So we have one Gmail address where we manage all of our kid and family things. And so anytime one of our kids has something they want to do.
They want to ride to the skate park or they want to go sleep over with a friend or whatever it may be. My boys can add that event and share it to our family calendar. So without even talking, we all know what everybody wants and needs over a period of time. And so everybody’s on the same page without taking any time whatsoever. And you might be asking like,
okay, how do I do this? My kids are five. Well, of course this is age appropriate, but I will say that we started teaching our boys to add things to our family, shared Gmail calendar when they were as young as nine years old. So these kids can do anything with tech, right? So you would be very surprised at the wishes we receive on our family calendar.
And it’s really cool. That’s how our kids get to do things because it’s planned in a way that works for everybody. And then the last suggestion that I would have for you is a family chat or a family WhatsApp channel or family Voxer. If you’ve never tried any of that, those are all awesome places to create a group chat where everybody’s on the same page.
And you as the business owner can even just shoot, instead of calling this person and telling this person to pick up that person, you can just get on your boxer and just say, okay, you know, I’m running 10 minutes late from this meeting. We’re having chicken for dinner. I’ll see you soon, whatever it is that you need to say,
you can, you can put in a box or chat to your family. And it’s a really efficient way to actually create more time. Again, if your family is, is a roommate, if your family is, you know, your other business team, or if it’s friends, whoever your people are, these are three simple ways to put those people,
to put your family first as an entrepreneur and create more time in your business. And so here’s what we talked about today. We talked about how does your current business model and know how to group your days together and what you can tweak and scale and your business model right now, in order to create more time each week, we also talked about messy days,
why you need messy days, why you’ll love them, why your family will love your messy days and really why it just frankly, it’s going to make you think, wow, I’m so glad I’m an entrepreneur instead of wow, crap. This is way harder than I thought it would be. Is there ever going to be a light at the end of this,
you know, constant tunnel of demands, messy days, fix that, like in an instant. So if any of these things I can say, I love my messy days the most. And then the third thing is think of more creative ways to connect with your family, whether it’s calendar share or Voxer and different ways to communicate, whether it’s a weekly powwow or a nightly powwow.
We talked about that as well. I hope you found some of these suggestions helpful to you and your team, your people, all the people that love you. And you know what it’s really special to have people in your life that love you so much. They just want more of you and they need more of you. That’s a gift. And you know,
I know we’re also grateful for that. So it’s really important as small business owners that we take strategies like this business model, calendar share and more practical lifestyle strategies in order to create this time and in life freedom, I’m here to help. I’m here to support you. It’s what I do here on the show. I’m a business strategist, but I’ve built multiple companies with kids.
I think I launched my first business when my youngest was six weeks old. So I totally get it. Whatever phase you’re in of parenting. Thank you so much for listening to this show. Again, happy holidays. Happy new year, let’s kick 2020, like to the curb behind us. And I’m so excited to start 2021 with you. We have a lot of amazing things coming up on the show,
including commitment week 20, 21, five days. I’m only 10 minutes a day to completely lay out your entire 20, 21 business plan coming up here next week. And so I dive into commitment week 2021 with us next week’s episode number 207. All right, you guys, I will talk to you soon. Have an awesome day.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Megan Dahle’s FREE 36-Page E-Book: Getting Your Money Right
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life you love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator a probate. Hi everybody. And welcome back. This is sweet life entrepreneur and business podcast, episode number 199. And yes, spoiler alert next week is our 200th podcast episode. And there’s some really cool stuff.
So make sure you’re subscribed. So you don’t miss out on that today. We are talking about how to love your business financials. So, first of all, if you clicked on this episode, then you’re pretty brave because the reality is that you either love to talk about money or you hate to talk about money in your business. And in fact, most entrepreneurs run and hide when we’re talking about financial ledgers,
but on today’s show, we’re going to dive in to make you love your money and take control of it. Getting your money right in your business is seriously. One of the best feelings ever really start to pay yourself. You’re paying valuable team members. Nothing feels better than that, but then we need to take it a step further. Is your business actually going to give you the life that you want.
First, we have the business foundations and financials that need in place, but today we’re talking about your life. How do we have the company generate enough money? And what do we need to do to get your life, to look the way that you want it to? And today’s guest expert, Megan Dali is here to talk about all of that. So the reality is let’s face it.
You either don’t understand the money in your business, or you have zero control of your cashflow, or you’ve done a really great job getting your financial systems in place. And now you’re ready for the next level either way. This is a great episode for you to tune into entrepreneurs. Don’t inherently come wired as accountants, as a matter of fact, most entrepreneurs are creatives.
And so when it comes to these types of systems, you might run the other direction. So that’s why today’s a really important show. And these are the things we’re covering on today’s episode. At the end of this episode, you’re going to know why you need to name your money and what exactly that means. You are going to get clarity on why it might be dangerous to always reinvest your profit back into your business.
So raise your hand. If every time you make goes back into your company, raise your hand. If every time you make those back into your company, but you also pay yourself a little bit. We’re going to talk about why both of those are not good, even though everybody does it and how to start changing that pattern. So you can reach your long-term business goals and we’re diving into important things like the number one number that you should pay attention to.
And why Megan says you don’t have to know all the numbers. We’re not getting into financial accounting lingo here. You’re just going to walk away understanding the most important number that you should know and a simple routine to look at your numbers on a regular basis, to make sure that you are on the right track. And let me introduce you to Megan here,
she’s our guest expert today, and she’s a doll you’re going to love her 15 years in a Megan Dolly’s corporate accounting career. A business owner reached out to her Megan privately because she was worried that one of the partners was taking more of their fair share. After looking at the books, Megan discovered that the partner had in fact taken $400,000 out of the account without the other partner,
knowing it was this sensitive project that was a launching pad for Megan. She is now a consulting CFO who creates light bulb moments inside her client’s businesses. And she makes the numbers easy for you to understand more importantly, easy for you to use so that you can learn how to grow your business stronger and make sure you’re generating cash and that it’s producing long-term wealth benefits for you.
So let’s go ahead and tune into today’s episode. Again, all of the show notes and the resources make it has here for us can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com. This is podcast number 199. And if you haven’t yet, please take a second to leave us a review on Apple podcasts and share this episode with your friends, other business owners who really need to take control of their financial numbers as well.
Okay, let’s go.<inaudible> All right. You guys are welcome to the show. I am here with Megan Dolly, and today we’re talking about money. We always talk about goals and so many other podcasts talk about goal setting, but what are really comes down to is actually looking at the numbers, then the path that you’re on to make it happen.
And so that’s why I’m so excited to have Megan on the show today, because this is her area of expertise. And before she introduces herself, I wanted to read something to you that she sent to me, which is why I knew she absolutely had to be here on the show, talking to you guys today. She said light bulb moments are my favorite thing.
When my clients finally see what the numbers mean, it’s like watching. One of those videos were colored by blind people, put on those special glasses and can see color for the first time. It’s magical. Those magical moments have appeared in many parts of my life. And that’s how I know I’m on the path God has designed for me. Things that start by devastate is devastating.
Disaster is turned into something beautiful. And these transformations, these transformations that make me believe that all things are possible. And so Megan is absolutely an expert. She has crazy credentials, which I’ve already read for you, but what’s so important when we bring experts on the show is understanding the why behind what you do, not only what your Ninja zone of geniuses,
but the why behind. And so I wanted to share that with you guys before we, we dove into talking to Megan today. So Megan, take a minute and introduce yourself to our audience and tell people a little bit about you and how you got to be what you’re doing Today. Sure. Well, thanks so much April for letting me come on your show.
It’s amazing. I love how many shows you’ve done your consistency. The content is like, Oh my gosh, this is stuff I actually use. Like I’ve actually implemented stuff from your podcast. And so it was no brainer that I wanted to be on this show. So I’m a small town girl. I’m from Midwest, South Dakota. I like gardening. I have my kids.
I work with the marching band at the high school. I like to volunteer there. Yeah. And the numbers are my game. Numbers are my jam. I’ve just always seen them differently. Math always came easily. And my math teachers are like, your brain just works different. I love that. Yeah. You have to have a special gift to see numbers differently.
I do not have that gift nor to any of my children. So there you either have it or you don’t. I think. And, and so we’re grateful for people like you. So how do you work with clients? Primarily you have this amazing framework that you’ve created to help entrepreneurs and business owners make sure that they’re on the right path and that they’re going to achieve their goals.
I mean, this is a tangible framework and we’re going to dive into it today, which I’m so excited to on this show. Yeah. So the whole thing is that people are scared of their numbers or they don’t know what it means. They’re timid around them conversations with their bookkeeper and their accountant. Don’t go so well because they’re using that chart in the depreciation,
but you’ve been a, the, you know, those revenues Rose, it’s almost like they don’t want you to be asking questions, right? I’m going to use some jargon. So you just stop asking me questions. What I want to get to is what’s useful for you. I mean, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of your financial statements.
What’s actually useful. That’s going to help you make good decisions that you can have confidence in and know why you made those decisions and see the progress down the road. So it’s breaking it down into what would be a need. Right? Right. And your framework that you share, and you have a book about this, we’re going to, we’re going to let everybody know how to find you is number one,
where are you in identifying that number two is where do you want to go? Where do you want to be? And that’s the one we’re really diving in here today, which I’m super excited about. And then the third one is, Hey, you know, are you really on the right path to get there? So guide us into that second part of how,
how do you protect your goals? How do you identify, you know, really what is it going to take for me to get that beach house or send my kids to college or, you know, sell my company or whatever that is. How do you work with clients to understand that? Yeah. So it’s like the second half of goal making that is completely missing.
People don’t want to talk about the math part of the goals because it’s scary math or they forget about it or, or they’re more about it’ll come set the goal, set your vision board and it’ll come. I’m more about, well, let’s go get it. Let’s not wait for anything. Let’s not sit around and wait for it, but let’s actually quantify it and then go get it.
So it’s like, yes, I want that beach house or yes, I want to sell my business for X amount so I can retire with that cash. That’s great. Now let’s put a number on it. Let’s put a date on it. And where are we at compared to that? So we can go and get that progress. What happens when you don’t do this is that you make progress towards your goals,
but you might not recognize it. And so you take that progress and you reinvest it in your business, or you use that progress towards, Oh, some other expenses that might come up or the next shiny object. And then it’s like, your three-year goal is still your three-year goals, six years down the road. Wow. That is so true. That is exactly what business owners do.
So we think that that progress that we made financially, you know, instead of putting it to maybe what you’re saying is this in goal, they just automatically invested back in the company, which could be great. Or maybe it’s not what they should be doing with that. Yeah. That’s really fascinating. Oh yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So curiosity,
I love it. When business owners get curious and they start experimenting with things, but it’s also important to like have a, if you want to be curious and experiment, that’s great. Let’s have money that’s designated specifically for that, but let’s not be taking all of our progress and throwing it at this next shiny object. Yeah. Okay. So being proportionate about what you invest,
where each time you get each time you make progress, whatever that is. So if you have 20, $30,000, instead of reinvesting all that say, okay, we’re going to put 10 to this and then, you know, 20 or 30 to that. Interesting. Okay. So super interesting. So step number one is really quantifying how much it’s going to cost for you to get to that goal and really drilling down on those requirements.
And I think that alone, like we could just end the show here. How many of you guys listening to the show have actually sat down? And I know you all have thought about what you want because you’re entrepreneurs and we’re creative. And that’s what we do. How many of you have actually sat down and crunched the numbers to figure out what it’s actually going to cost for you to get there?
Connect with us, like send us a DM on Instagram Sweetlife podcast and let us know if you’ve actually crunched the numbers. And we’ll do like a little poll on our Instagram story on this with the week. This show airs, because I guarantee you, I mean, tell me Megan, how many people actually that come to your, like, this is going to cost me a million dollars.
I’ve had one client in my five years. I’ve had one, one that’s like had everything set up and she’s like, I know exactly how much I want for my daughter’s wedding. I know how much I want for my retirement. I will know how much I want for Beneta da. Great, awesome. That was so cool to come across. It’s like,
all right, let’s work on the next step. You’ve got this covered, right? That’s right. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, it’s a 90% of people will not have that 99.9% of people will not have that. Okay. So after somebody identifies really how much, what that’s going to cost the next step you say is really assessing their progress towards that.
Is there a certain frequency in which a business owner should stop and take a look that you recommend financially about how they’re doing? Is that quarterly? Is it monthly? Is it yearly? Is there a routine that you recommend entrepreneurs are in assessing, not their monthly? I mean, this is not a show about monthly operational costs. This is a show about where I am,
as opposed to where I want to be in my future. Right. So if it’s set up correctly, you’ll just be able to look and see, okay. Part of it is just taking that money out and hiding it from yourself in a special place. That’s either getting interest or invest in somehow to protect that progress and maybe do some work for you on the side while you’re not watching.
So I’ve lost my train of thought a second. When you triggered something, when you said it’s it’s mom mode, it’s our mom brain. No, what I was saying was I feel like as business owners, if somebody is like 30th of every single month, you should do this every single quarter. Should you do this? So I think that entrepreneurs,
you know, we’re super creative people, but when somebody gives us a system, we love systems. We geek out on systems too. So do you have a consistent system where you say to your clients, Hey, we’re going to have a, check-in call every quarter and make sure that your money’s moving, where it needs to be, and you’re still on track or we need to assess what’s happened so far or just regular,
like a routine that you recommend businesses really pay attention and reassess. Yeah. I actually have only a few numbers that I want my people to pay really close attention to. Because if I tell them to, you know, start pull your financial statements every month, it’s one of those things that, eh, I got it, they pull up, open an income statement,
they look at the bottom line. They’re like, yep, that’s about right. And they move on, right? It has no meaning to them. So I actually pick a few numbers, like one that you might need to watch weekly and other that you’ll want to look at monthly and another, that you’ll want to look at quarterly just to make sure that things are going along the way that they need to be.
And we’ll do that deep dive, more quarterly. But one of the most important, one of the most telling numbers is your 60 day cash in 60 days, how much cash am I going to have in the bank to run my business? And then we make sure that what we’re taking out and protecting isn’t going back in and what we’re taking out and protecting isn’t hurting the business.
Cause that’s, you know, you don’t want to be taking out too much cash. And when you can see what your cash balance is going to be in 60 days or other types of business, if you’re like retail and you have busy seasons, we actually take that out much farther. They want to know where the cash is going to be. Cause that’s the blood.
We don’t want to be donating blood if we can’t afford it. Right. Right. Right. So smart. And so the next thing you say is to name the cash before it comes in, let’s talk a little bit about that. What do you mean by that? So once we have that cash projection created, we know what we think our cash is going to be coming in for the next couple months.
And now that we think we know what that cash is, we’re going to have a purpose for it because if we don’t have a purpose for it, what’s really easy to do is to spend it. If we don’t know at that way, coming in as man, those coaching programs, the advertising, the marketing, all it’s, it’s sexy and it’s fun and it’s,
it’s new and it’s novel. So we actually name it like, okay, we know that next week we should have about 2000 coming in. And two weeks after that we have 4,000 coming in and then we know where it’s going out in terms of expenses. We know where it’s going out in terms of the progress towards our goals. And we know what’s being set aside for a little sandbox fund cash and owe taxes.
Don’t forget about taxes. I do taxes and taxes yet. So you actually say Before it comes in, so you know where it’s going versus where somebody like myself, I have a tendency to not just name the money to actually spend the money before it comes in. So in my mind, I’ve already and I don’t actually spend the money, but I think maybe I do that.
So in my mind, it’s already saying this money is coming here for this. This money is going to this and it’s not like robbing Peter from pain, Paul, but I definitely know where my money is going well before it gets here. And so I feel like I’m doing good, according to what you say in that area. Although I’m sure that the categories in which I named my money could use some work.
And like you were saying, so you’re saying taxes, of course, business operations. And you’re saying that we really need to pay attention to the 60 day cashflow. And that is the key numbers are our listeners should be paying attention to, is that correct? Yes, that’s right. And on that cashflow, you’ll see the different categories. You’ll see,
like the marketing that one can get out of hand really quick. You’ll see the tax and all of those buckets, because truth is to get a little bit accounting, jargon ish on you, not everything that is cash out actually appears on your income statement. So your income statement might show that you’re showing have a profit, but cash is like, did you know that you paid yourself?
And did you know that you had these debt service payments? And there it goes, what you thought was your free cash flow. Right. Okay. And I’m sure this happens all the time. It’s just why people need somebody like you to make sure that you’re helping them protect their assets. So the third step you say is protecting this actual progress. So as businesses,
they have their structure in place or they’re getting their structure in place. What does it take to actually do that and put that structure in place so that the money is accumulated in the appropriate buckets so that they can reach their goals. How do you put this structure in place for your clients? So I have a really easy Excel tool in all my clients have to do is put in their bank balance.
At the top of that tool, like open up the bank balance today, it says $7,500. And it will tell them exactly what to do with that $7,500. If something’s going to stay in the business, if something is going to be moved to pay themselves and put it in their pocket, or if something is for their goals specifically for that, and going to move directly to,
I work with a lot of like personal finance people, like go put that in that account over there and your personal finance, personal take care of it. If they don’t have a personal finance person, I’m like, go put this in your savings account, your money market, account, your investment account, and just let it be happy over there. All by itself will take care of itself,
right? Who are The primary clients that you work with? I work with creative females primarily, and between being told that you’re creative and between being told that you were a woman you’re generally taught from a very young age, that numbers aren’t for you. And so when it comes to those conversations and showing people visually how this works so they can get that shift of,
Oh, this isn’t hard. I totally get this. I’m smart enough. I’m good enough. And now I feel like I am a true business person. I feel like I’m in control of my business. It’s really cool. Yeah. Super. It feels super powerful. It’s such a rush when yeah. I think as, as women, as men,
they just are expected to, but as women, when we finally take control of the numbers, it’s such a, such a feeling of, I don’t like to use the word empowered because it’s so overused, but this is a perfect instance in which she used that. And so I love, absolutely love what you do. So now I’m going to put you on the spot and I didn’t prepare you to ask these questions,
but I really want to know what are your favorite books for women founders when it comes to being smart about money? Do you have, besides your own? So let’s talk about your book, you know, getting your money. Right. I know that I hear a lot of people whose agenda and Cheryl’s book, you’re a, bad-ass at making money, which is more mindset around money.
It’s not money strategy. I personally actually loved that book. Are there any other books or resources that you recommend that our listeners who might not have a healthy relationship with money in the first place can use to kind of dive into reset their perspective? Yeah. So profit first was transformative for me. Mike McCullough is a great guy. And when it comes to bank balance accounting,
he’s the King and that’s what we’re doing and using what he has built and expanding on it. He’s really good. He’s really funny. If you listen to his books, listen to it on two X and he’s hysterical the other, I’m actually going to stand up and get the author’s name cause I can hear it. Oh, I love it. Thank you.
And then we’ll make sure you guys that we are sharing, we’re sharing these resources in the show notes too. Along with Megan spoke to one of the things that I know that businesses struggle with is just understanding the fundamentals of money. And it’s really interesting. I have a lot of clients that are CPAs and that are accountants and you know, that are finance coaches.
And it’s interesting to see as we’re helping our finance coaching clients build their business, how they approach scaling their business online and developing their coaching service versus our other businesses because they already know. So a part of the strategy is also part of the structure and the foundation of the money. It is that profit first approach. And it’s a beautiful thing as a business development coach,
you know, to go through and watch. And they’re saying, okay, well, this is the way this is going to be. And they’re very, they’re very strategic about that as far as being entrepreneurs themselves. So I, I love to ask these kind of behind the scene questions like about your own business and how do you do this and what are some of the resources that you love for your own business?
Just because I think that teaches a lot as well. So what was this other book? Cunningham has a couple of really great books. His blueprint to a successful business is like, this is why you need to understand the numbers in your business and how they make you incredibly profitable when you understand them. And he’s also not about all of the nitty gritty bits and pieces of the numbers.
It’s just the overall picture of how it flows together and how it works. Yes. Awesome. Cool. Thank you so much for sharing those. Okay. So in closing today, we have talked about how to not only protect your goals, but how to actually make your goals come to fruition because you are quantifying them to figure out the importance of how much your goals and what that looks like is going to cost you.
We talked about the importance of actually assessing your progress on a regular basis and naming the cash before it comes in and making sure that you are hiding and you’re protecting your money and you are not giving 100% of your profit back into your business that you’re pulling out these small chunks of this. And that’s a really big deal, I think for a lot of our listeners as well,
because especially in the first five years of business, like every dime they make, they put back in, and that does, you’re saying that’s a risk factor of, you’re just putting off that amount of time to even start working on their personal goals. Is that correct? That’s right. Yep. They need to start getting rewarded for the work that they do,
change your relationship with your business. Yeah. And then in your book, this ebook, you have getting your money, right. What does that look like? What are some of the things that our readers can expect to really learn from you in that book? So there are three types of numbers that you need to know in your business. There is the number that tells you,
where am I at? Like, where am I even at relative? How did I get here? What direction am I facing? When, where am I? And the second one is, well, hang on a second. Where do I want to be? And that’s the quantifying, this is what I want my from my business. This is how I want it to serve me.
And then the numbers that tell you, are you on the right path? Are you doing the right activities or does something need to shift? Do we need to take a detour in what those different numbers look like and how you can find them? Great. And so you’re going to, you’re going to dive in and guide our listeners through that process. Megan,
thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate your expertise and your wisdom and your sense of humor and just really making this so much more fun than I think that entrepreneurs experience a lot of times when we talk about money and being so real about the fact that you don’t have to know all the nitty gritty terminology, but these are the basic three numbers you need to know.
And our listeners can find out more about that by downloading your free book, which we will make sure there is a link to that in the show notes of this episode and where else can our listeners find you Come on over to Meghan dolly.com or connect with me on Facebook. I love conversations to begin to sit back and have 15 minutes of coffee together, sometime if you want,
Love that. Okay, perfect. We’ll make sure that those links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for being a guest. Oh, thank you so much, April. This was fun. Yes. Appreciate you.<inaudible> Thanks so much for tuning into this show. Here is a reminder that you can get all of the notes that we talked about today,
including all of the bonuses and strategies by visiting Sweetlife co.com episode one 99. And if you are in a place where you’re ready to develop your leading offer or your program now is a time to get in through pre-registration by joining our wait list for our, your leading offer and program masterclass coming in 2021, I would love to work with you and extract your expertise to create your intellectual property,
to make you be this beautiful leader and your space to learn more about our, offer engineer masterclass, simply visit theofferengineer.com. I’ll talk to you next week. We have episode number 200 coming right at you and almost four years of Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast. Rolling out so excited and you appreciate so much have a great week.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Need faster business growth? Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
There’s no doubt that COVD-19 will affect how some businesses run. These are hard times, but on this show, we’re talking about great opportunities to grow and scale your business online. These strategies will help you continue to reach and serve your clients while developing new streams of income and developing a new business model that leads to more lifestyle and location freedom for small business owners.
Schedule a complimentary business triage call here.
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Join the SweetLife Facebook Community
Melanie Fountain’s Facebook Group | Pinterest for Bloggers and Content Creators
Schedule Your FREE Strategy Call with Melanie Fountain
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast on Pinterest
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Join the SweetLife Facebook Community
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Join the SweetLife Facebook Community
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast on YouTube
This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
Luisa Zhou’s Free Gift | Your 9-5 Escape Velocity Plan Join the SweetLife Facebook Community
Louisa Zhou’s Website Louisa Zhou on Instagram
April Beach on Instagram The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast on YouTube
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Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #00: Lifestyle Entrepreneur Manifesto
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #06: Create & Dominate Your Block Calendar
Join us for Speakers Summit Virtual Mastermind!
If you haven’t listened to Part 1 of my interview with Kathy Haan, you’ll want to make sure you do that before listening to this episode.
Kathy Haan is a business coach, travel blogger, influencer, podcaster, and travel agency owner. You can find her work featured in places like Forbes, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, and Thrive Global. When she’s not at home in Iowa with her husband, three children, and two enormous Great Pyrenees dogs, you can usually find her traveling the world, creating content, and storytelling on stages.
Take a listen to this final part with Kathy to understand why she says, “how you can become an influencer in your industry!
[Tweet ““]
Links Mentioned:
Join us for Speakers Summit Virtual Mastermind!
This is not an episode about how to have a million followers. If you care more about the numbers than the results you deliver and the relationships you build, you will fail.
However, if you want to learn from a true international influencer whose story and work has changed lives and if you want to develop your influencer marketing plan for the right reasons, this is the episode for you.
Kathy Haan is a business coach, travel blogger, influencer, podcaster, and travel agency owner. You can find her work featured in places like Forbes, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, and Thrive Global. When she’s not at home in Iowa with her husband, three children, and two enormous Great Pyrenees dogs, you can usually find her traveling the world, creating content, and storytelling on stages.
Kathy had so many amazing insights and tips that we’ve decided to split this episode into two parts. So, make you don’t miss part two.
[Tweet “If you care more about the numbers than the results you deliver and the relationships you build, you will fail.“]
Links Mentioned:
Join Commitment Week 2o20
You’ve been dreaming big and know that the next decade will define your life, you just may not know exactly how yet.
Now is the time to claim your leadership, influence, and role in your own future – and that starts with your business.
Based on what we’ve seen the past few years and what the trends and research tells us about the next decade, there are five core areas you should be focusing on when planning for 2020 and beyond.
This podcast episode will help you lay out your strategic plan to kick start your best decade ever.
[Tweet “You’ve been dreaming big and know that the next decade will define your life, you just may not know exactly how yet.“]
Links Mentioned:
Take the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap Quiz to find out where you’re at in your business so you know what to focus on in 2020!
Join Commitment Week 2o20
As a mom who owns two companies and has three boys, the reality is that sometimes my life gets a little messy.
Unfortunately, this carries over into my businesses and I just can’t do great work or produce very well when things are cluttered and disorganized.
I know you’re planning big things for 2020 so, if you’re anything like me, let’s help declutter your business so you can focus on the things that will bring you those big results.
Whether you’ve just gotten your first idea for a business or you’ve been in business for years, this episode is going to help you sort through the mess in your mind, clean-up your business, and start this next decade off on the right foot so it can change the course of the rest of your life.
[Tweet “As a mom who owns two companies and has three boys, the reality is that sometimes my life gets a little messy.“]
Links Mentioned:
13 Outlook Productivity & Organization Tips
Check out Burn the Picket Fence™: Behind-the-scenes of a lifestyle entrepreneur family
[Tweet “I often get asked how we manage such a chaotic life with business and kids. The truth is, it’s not glamorous.“]
Links Mentioned:
Grab your FREE copy of Joy Wilder’s Top 11 Apps That Will Change Your Life!
December is a chaotic time of year for most people even if they’re not running their own business like you are. If you’re feeling especially overwhelmed you can’t miss this episode with Joy Wilder.
Joy is the founder of the Brilliant Life™ Business and Micro-Planning™ Systems where she helps women design insanely successful businesses around a life they love without sacrificing their family or themselves.
Joy’s a certified business coach and specializes in Micro-Planning™, helping others turn their passion into profit and optimizing existing businesses’ profitability. She’s the mom of four children under the age of eight, owner of three small businesses, and former Location Pastor.
She has a passion for coaching others to live their Brilliant Life™ while impacting their communities for good.
When not raising her businesses and babies, Joy loves date nights with her husband, is a spinning junkie and a Settlers groupie.
[Tweet “December is a chaotic time of year for most people even if they’re not running their own business like you are. If you’re feeling especially overwhelmed you can’t miss this episode with Joy Wilder.“]
Links Mentioned:
Joy Wilder’s Podcast | The Brilliant Life Show
FREE LIVE WORKSHOP: How to Plan Your 2020 Lifestyle Business Calendar to Live Your Best Year Yet
This is a time of year where we’re spending a lot of time focusing on giving gifts to those around us, but I want you to use this episode as a time to focus on giving yourself a gift that will last you all throughout next year.
Taking the five steps mentioned in this episode will help you have a business that will finally allow you to have the freedom lifestyle you’ve always wanted.
[Tweet “Taking the five steps mentioned in this episode will help you have a business that will finally allow you to have the freedom lifestyle you’ve always wanted.”]
Links Mentioned:
It was a bittersweet moment in the Beach household recently when my oldest son signed his letter of intent to play lacrosse at his future university. It helped me realize that not only does this signify a major personal life transition, but it also signifies a pretty big professional transition as well.
My business has evolved as my children have grown. Each stage of their lives has been reflected in how I structured my business and now the time’s come for me to think about the next evolution.
The great news is, once you’re over forty, it only becomes easier to start and have a successful business.
Take a listen to this week’s episode to found out the statistics that back that statement up and why the world needs you to stop being intimidated by the idea of starting a business midlife.
[Tweet “The great news is, once you’re over forty, it only becomes easier to start and have a successful business.”]
Links Mentioned:
40+ Entrepreneur | The True Potential Podcast
How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
Four Secrets To Success As A Midlife Entrepreneur
Beth Rees Jones (@midlifemomsadventureclub) on Instagram
Susan Goodkind Wideman (@ goodkindoflife) on Instagram
Stefanie Pollard (@wearemidlife) on Instagram
Angelique Miles (@angeliquemiles) on Instagram
Join Advance Your Reach Nov 4-10, 2019 only!
Learn About Our Speakers Summit Mastermind Retreat – FREE when you join AYR with Pete through our link above.
Speaking is the most powerful way to grow your business. In fact, every time you get on a stage.. be it a podcast or a local venue… your business will grow.
Last week, my friend Pete Vargas was on the show and we broke down the exact steps to outline your signature talk. This week I’m giving you the exact steps to land almost any podcast guest spot you want.
In this episode, I guide you through 3 simple steps to land any podcast, but of course, we go deeper so you really (really) know what you’re doing.
I also reveal the secrets to what podcast hosts are looking for when they accept guests, and I get very transparent about what not to do when pitching yourself for a show.
If you’ve been in business for years, or you haven’t launched your business yet, podcast guesting is a powerful way to get started.
Linked Mentioned:
Speakers Summit Mastermind Retreat Boulder, CO.
According to our guest this week, speaking is 20x more powerful for growing your business than online marketing.
So, if you’ve ever imagined yourself standing on stage speaking to a room full of people, but you have no idea how to make that happen, this episode is for you.
Pete Vargas teaches people how to grow their business and spread their message through stages. In 2003, his life was deeply impacted by one man who was speaking on-stage and he’s been dedicating his life to the power of stages ever since.
Pete and his team have booked over 47,000 stages worldwide and generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue through those stages. In 2016, Pete founded Advance Your Reach; a company with a mission to impact one billion lives through one million stages across seven spheres of influence.
Pete believes your signature talk is the most powerful marketing tool you have and that stages are the fastest way to grow your business.
I’ve personally utilized Pete’s strategies to grow my own business through speaking and I’m thrilled to have him on the show to share his wisdom with you as well.
[Tweet “According to our guest this week, speaking is 20x more powerful for growing your business than online marketing.“]
Links Mentioned:
Download: Branding Strategy Template
Before you can move on to fun, visual parts of your branding, you need to really learn your market and your people.
That’s why we’re continuing our three-part branding conversation with Elizabeth McFadden.
Not only has Elizabeth been such an important asset to the development and growth of my own businesses, but she’s single-handedly responsible for the messaging behind the entire new industry of baby planning and parent coaching that I helped create back in the mid-2000’s.
In last week’s episode, Elizabeth taught us all about what branding is and who it’s for. This week, she’s teaching us the next section of the fundamentals of how to develop your brand so that you can make money, become known, and attract the perfect clients to your business like a magnet.
[Tweet “Before you can move on to fun, visual parts of your branding, you need to really learn your market and your people.”]
Links Mentioned:
Download: Branding Strategy Template
Branding is so much more than just having a cute logo.
Our guest for the next three episodes taught me everything I know about branding.
With over twenty years of experience, Elizabeth McFadden has successfully positioned small-to-mid-sized businesses in the marketplace by developing brand strategies, engaging copy, and executing marketing and media plans.
Elizabeth’s current role at Novella Brand House involves leading the entire branding process and the marketing strategy side of what they do and overseeing their day-to-day operations.
Elizabeth is also the mom of three boys, like me, and we’ve even taken our families on hikes together here in the mountains of Colorado. See throwback pics below.
[Tweet “Branding is so much more than just having a cute logo.”]
Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #00: Lifestyle Entrepreneur Manifesto
Throwback of me, Liz and our boys. Cc. 2007
Sometimes the things that slow entrepreneurs down are the easy and obvious things.
The purpose of this episode, and the next one, is two answer specific questions to help you get over your fear of technology and help you make really clear decisions on how to move forward with technology.
This episode is for those of you who’re in the process of launching your business. But, what if you’re past that point and you’re focusing on scaling your business? Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered in next week’s episode!
[Tweet “Sometimes the things that slow entrepreneurs down are the easy and obvious things.”]
Website Platform:
Kajabi – 28 Day Free Trial
Email Marketing Manager:
ConvertKit – Free Trial
Easy Design:
www.canva.com
Stock Photos:
www.unsplash.com
Other Options:
www.wordpress.org
www.clickfunnels.com
www.squarespace.com
Our go-to WordPress Designer and Developer is
www.bluerth.com (Tell Katie I sent you)
*Note I do not recommend Wix at this time
Other Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #00: Lifestyle Entrepreneur Manifesto
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #20: 4 Things To Know Before Building Your Website
Get your FREE chapter of Christine McAlister’s Book, The Income Replacement Formula!
I’ve never worked for anyone else a day in my life. I have no idea what it’s actually like to work a nine-to-five job.
However, I know that’s not likely to be the case for you. So, if you’re feeling stuck in your nine-to-five and you’re looking for a way out, I’ve brought you the perfect guest this week to help start creating your escape plan.
Christine McAlister is a business coach, the founder of Life with Passion, and the bestselling author of The Income Replacement Formula.
Christine helps high achievers all over the world replace their incomes, and then some, and quit their nine-to-five jobs.
Take a listen to this episode to find out the seven steps you need to take in order to leave the corporate world behind!
[Tweet “I’ve never worked for anyone else a day in my life.”]
Links Mentioned:
Christine McAlister on Instagram
Christine McAlister’s Facebook Group | The Passionate and Profitable Entrepreneur Society
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #00: Lifestyle Entrepreneur Manifesto
Dan Miller’s Book | 48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal
Join the Reset & Refocus Challenge to get your FREE action planner!
You’ve spent the last few months traveling or transporting your kids to all their summer events and you’re needing to back into your business flow now that they’re back in school, but how? Over the past several years, I’ve developed a way to do exactly that.
Last week was my annual Reset and Refocus Challenge that I do every August with my community. This is honestly something that I have to do every single year in order to make sure I make the most out of the next 90 days.
In this episode, I’ll be explaining the five core areas we covered in the challenge this year so you can do one of your own.
[Tweet “You’ve spent the last few months traveling or transporting your kids to all their summer events and you’re needing to back into your business flow now that they’re back in school, but how?”]
Links Mentioned:
We know fake when we see it. We’ve all come across those Instagram accounts that immediately scream, “Fake!”
Brian Fanzo is a millennial keynote speaker and podcaster who helps global brands and events leverage emerging technology, digital marketing, and social media to connect with digital natives.
I first approached Brian a year ago about being on the podcast because he is really powerful at inspiring others to be authentic and share what actually needs to be shared in order to grow your business and allow people to have access to your life on social media.
If you’ve been struggling to create content and you don’t why or you’ve had difficulty connecting with your audience or if you feel the need to make things seem better than they really are, this is the episode for you.
[Tweet “We know fake when we see it.”]
Links Mentioned:
Test Out Chrys Tan’s Messenger Bot
This week we’re continuing our Facebook ad strategy training by diving into Facebook Messenger bots.
Facebook Messenger bots are perfect if you’re intentionally trying to grow your list with authentic relationships.
Chrys Tan is the host of the Hack Your Online Business podcast and the founder of Chrys Media; a messenger marketing agency for online businesses.
Chrys has been featured in places like Buffer and Our Social Times and has spoken at events and conferences around the world.
If you’ve never used bot before or if you’ve been using one and you’re pretty sure you’re not using it to it’s fullest potential or as strategically as you could be, this is one episode you don’t want to miss.
[Tweet “Facebook Messenger bots are perfect if you’re intentionally trying to grow your list with authentic relationships.”]
Links Mentioned:
Join Sarah and me in the free SweetLife Entrepreneurs Community
Is the automated funnel dead?!
Facebook and Instagram marketing expert, Sarah Tomes, is back on the show for the second half of a two-part series and she’s going to answer this question for us.
This is an episode you don’t want to miss if you want to know what you can do to continue to grow your list with ideal people for your business; even if you don’t have an established business or audience yet.
[Tweet “Is the automated funnel dead?!”]
Links Mentioned:
Download: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Online Business Model That’s Right for You
This week I’m bringing you the second part of my 4-part business training series this month.
In episode 121, I explained what a lifestyle entrepreneur is and provided five steps for how to become one.
This week, we’re going to dive into some of the more popular business models you can use in your lifestyle entrepreneur business.
Choosing the right business model is incredibly important if you want a business that allows you to live your dream lifestyle.
[Tweet “Choosing the right business model is incredibly important if you want a business that allows you to live your dream lifestyle.”]
Links Mentioned:
Napoleon Hill’s Book | Think and Grow Rich
Burn the Picket Fence – Behind the Scenes of a Lifestyle Entrepreneur Family
Download The Ultimate Guide To The Online Business Model That’s Right For You
Summer’s fast approaching and that means it’s time for adventure in the Beach household.
If you’re anything like me, the appeal of being an entrepreneur is being able to travel, have adventures, and spend time with your family.
The only way you’re going to have the freedom to live your ideal lifestyle is if you design your business in a way that supports that lifestyle.
That’s why I’m bringing you the first part in a four-part business training series during the entire month of Month. So, take a listen to this episode and don’t forget to subscribe or come back next week for part two!
[Tweet “The only way you’re going to have the freedom to live your ideal lifestyle is if you design your business in a way that supports that lifestyle.”]
Links Mentioned:
Wikipedia Entry for “Lifestyle Business”
Business Dictionary’s Definition for “Lifestyle Entrepreneur”
Donate $100 To Join The SweetLife Project – Online Business Building Course (100% of Proceeds Given To NonProfits)
Even though entrepreneurship can feel lonely at times, it’s impossible to grow your business without relationships. That’s why this entire month has been devoted to various types of relationships and today’s episode is no different.
Whether you’re still in the planning phases of your business or you’ve been at it a while, there are key relationships that are critical in today’s world if you want to grow your business and I couldn’t go through relationship month without breaking them down for you.
[Tweet “Even though entrepreneurship can feel lonely at times, it’s impossible to grow your business without relationships.”]
Links Mentioned:
Burn the Picket Fence Release Date Notification List
45 Statistics on Millennial Spending Habits in 2019
Consumers are more likely to spend money on companies that care, a new study finds
Laird Hamilton and Julian Borra’s Book | Liferider: Heart, Body, Soul, and Life Beyond the Ocean
Download Jennifer Kroiss’ FREE guide, 7 Steps for Making a Professional Networking Event Feel Less Like Work
Community truly is the new currency.
However, most of us don’t have the time to sit around and start new relationships. So, we have to be very strategic with our time and how we build a bond with our clients.
Jennifer Kroiss is a business strategist and networking enthusiast who says relationships have influenced every aspect of her 20-year career. She’s now become so great at connecting with others that she left her corporate job three years ago and has a successful business based entirely on referrals.
If you’re a new entrepreneur or an established one who feels you’re not fully connected to a community the way you want to be, you don’t want to miss Jennifer’s tips in this episode.
[Tweet “Community truly is the new currency.”]
Links Mentioned:
Download Andi Forness’ FREE Guide: A Dating Profile That Attracts Your Ideal Guy
Andi Forness is an online dating coach who’s been published in Mind Body Green, Greatest, Austin Woman Magazine, Thrive Global and has been quoted in Forbes, Bravo TV, Men’s Health, and more!
Andi helps single, high-achieving, analytical women use online dating as a personal development program so they can finally find Mr. Right and feel fulfilled in all areas of their life.
One of the ones Andi relates dating to entrepreneurship is by pointing out that online dating is just like online marketing.
Whether you’re single or have been married for 20+ years as I have, this episode has something for everyone. So, take a listen now to find out the other ways dating (even your spouse) can help improve your business!
Below is a list of items Andi mentioned in the episode as examples of things that might be on your daily list of activities:
[Tweet “One of the ones Andi relates dating to entrepreneurship is by pointing out that online dating is just like online marketing.”]
Links Mentioned:
Join me on Dr. Cheryl Fraser’s Love Bytes mailing list
“Falling in love is easy. Staying in love takes mindfulness.” – Dr. Cheryl Fraser
Sharp, frank, and fearless, that’s Buddhist psychologist, sex therapist, author, and speaker Dr. Cheryl Fraser.
Dr. Cheryl is a sought-after media psychologist and relationship expert who combines cutting edge love and sex therapy with mindfulness to help couples cut through resistance and ignite the connection and sizzle they think they’ve lost.
Speaking from the wisdom of others and my own personal experiences, I truly believe there is a connection between our intimate relationship with our spouse or partner and the success of our business.
So, whether you’re married, planning to be married, or seeking a more intimate and passionate relationship with your partner, this is one episode you do not want to miss!
[Tweet “Falling in love is easy. Staying in love takes mindfulness.”]
Links Mentioned:
Download: Press Ready Business Kit
I can confidently say my business wouldn’t be where it is today without the press I received when I was first starting out.
Whether you’re just starting your business or you’ve been in business for a while already, press is incredibly valuable.
In last week’s episode, I had my friend Selena Soo on the show to discuss how to get press for your business and I wanted to continue that conversation this week by explaining just how to prep your business so that you can maximize all the press you’ll receive.
Don’t forget! If you enroll in Selena’s Impacting Millions program before it closes at 5pm EST on April 2nd you’ll also receive an invitation to my 12-Month Press Mastermind where you’ll gain access to my press list and get extra press pitch support to make your voice heard!
[Tweet “I can confidently say my business wouldn’t be where it is today without the press I received when I was first starting out.”]
Links Mentioned:
Download Corie Clark’s strategy sheet, 5 tips to SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE starting today
If you want to start or grow a business, you need to make room in your life for entrepreneurship.
That’s where this week’s guest comes in …
Corie Clark is a business educator, creator of the Purposeful Planner, author of The Simplicity Project, and host of the Purpose with Corie Clark podcast.
Corie loves not only helping others find their purpose but equipping them to live it out and turn it into a profitable business.
Today, Corie and I will be discussing all about how you can create the margins and space in your life so you can grow your business.
[Tweet “If you want to start or grow a business, you need to make room in your life for entrepreneurship.”]
Links Mentioned:
Corie Clark’s Website
Corie Clark’s Shop
Corie Clark’s Book | The Simplicity Project
Corie Clark’s Podcast | Purpose with Corie Clark
John J. Ratey’s Book | Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 02: Don’t Make Perfect the Enemy
Download a FREE excerpt of Sashka Hanna-Rappl’s Book, Soul’d Out: Your Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose
One of the most important strategies in business development is doing a great job branding your company. And, since we’re spending this entire month talking all things business development, I couldn’t think of a better way to start off than by speaking with a branding expert like our guest this week.
Sashka Hanna-Rappl is also a leadership coach, business strategist, entertainer, author, and speaker who helps visionaries go from unknown underdog to brand leader using creativity, humor, imagination, and wisdom.
Before you take another step in starting your business, take a listen to this episode to begin finding the soul of your brand.
[Tweet “Before you take another step in starting your business, take a listen to this episode to begin finding the soul of your brand.“]
Links Mentioned:
Sashka Hanna-Rappl’s The Brand Formula Training
Take the FREE Habit Finder Assessment
Steve Hultquist has been an engineer, founder, senior executive, ski instructor, industry analyst, and more. He’s currently a coach for people who want to get past their mental blocks.
In fact, Steve was my very first business coach almost fifteen years ago.
I was making some excuses for myself and Steve helped me shift my thought processes so that I could remove my blocks and stop playing small.
If you think you might be getting in your own way, this is one episode you can’t afford to miss.
[Tweet “If you think you might be getting in your own way, this is one episode you can’t afford to miss.“]
Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode #02: Don’t Make Perfect the Enemy
Join me in my brand new business mentorship and mastermind, The Committed.
Kendra Hennessy is a mother of two, a home management expert, the Founder of Mother Like a Boss, and the Host of the Mother Like a Boss podcast.
Kendra’s mission is to redefine homemaking in the 21st century and make the difficult and tedious parts of running a home smoother through systems, routines, and mindset shifts.
In this episode, Kendra and I take a deep dive into the importance of having boundaries both at home and in your business. This is especially important when it comes to being specific about when you’re going to consume information and when you’re actually going to create things for your business because, as Kendra says …
“If you’re in consumption mode, you can’t be in creative mode.”
[Tweet “If you’re in consumption mode, you can’t be in creative mode.“]
Links Mentioned:
Take a look at my recommended business coach interview questions.
If you listen to this podcast, chances are you either already have a business or you want to start one.
Building a business takes a lot of work and time, and if you’ve been trying to do it on your own with little results, it might be time for a business coach.
In this episode we talk about how to know if you’re ready for a private business mentor and if so… how to find the right one!
[Tweet “Is it time for you to stop trying to start or grow your business on your own?“]
What to do if you can’t hire a private coach right now? Download the DIY Calendar here.
Links Mentioned:
April Beach’s Business Coach | Taki Moore
Sign-up for Ashley Matejka’s FREE Wellevance 101 Mini Course
It’s officially 2019 and now is the time most of us are setting New Year’s Resolutions or our goals for the year. However, I challenge you to instead focus on your intentions for the year.
Ashley Matejka is a passionate holistic wellness consultant and the creator of Wellevance; whose approach helps professional women struggling to prioritize self-care as they juggle all of life’s pieces to create healthy habits and align their lives.
In this episode, Ashley is going to show us how to set intentions in the eight different aspects of life wellness and she’ll explain how doing so will help you reach your intentional and purposeful goals faster.
[Tweet “Now is the time most of us are setting New Year’s Resolutions or our goals for the year. However, I challenge you to focus on your intentions for the year instead.”]
Links Mentioned:
Download the Entrepreneur Commitment Week 2019 Action Planner
It’s time for another Entrepreneur Commitment Week!
For the third year in a row, we’re doing Entrepreneur Commitment Week together so we can all start 2019 on the right foot and know exactly what we should be focusing on for the rest of the year.
#ECW19 is a five-day challenge covering five core areas where you can intentionally commit to yourself to make sure 2019 is the best yet!
[Tweet “#ECW19 is a five-day challenge covering five core areas where you can intentionally commit to yourself to make sure 2019 is the best yet!“]
Links Mentioned:
Alex Miranda’s Launch in 2 Days Program
I don’t hide the fact that I’m a Christian but I also don’t regularly talk about it on the podcast.
However, I do strongly believe in being transparent about your core beliefs when you’re in a place of leadership and, seeing that it’s Easter week, I felt the need to address the often-confusing dilemma of mixing your faith with your business.
Alex Miranda is a former Miami nightclub promoter who, after having a “come to Jesus” moment, left the nightclubs behind to start the Daily Godpreneur; a personal development brand for Christian entrepreneurs.
One topic that’s always been of interest to me as a Christian entrepreneur, is the balance between needing money but not worshiping it.
During part of our conversation, Alex summed it beautifully when he said, “The profits are a byproduct of me doing what I’m born to do.”
[Tweet “The profits are a byproduct of me doing what I’m born to do.“]
Links Mentioned:
Alex Miranda’s Program | Launch in 2 Days
Alex Miranda’s Book | Discovering Your Calling as an Entrepreneur
This episode contains explicit language.
Download April Beach’s Life-First Yearly Calendar
It’s taken me 15 years to perfect the art of being able to plan out an entire year of my business ahead of time.
Today, I’m sharing what I learned over all that time so you can know how to do the same thing!
While planning out an entire year ahead of time can benefit everyone, it’s especially critical if you’re planning, launching, or have already launched your business but feel a little over the place.
Here is a little secret for you …
In order to create a life-first business, you actually have to put your life first.
I know that can seem scary when you’re not making money yet or not hitting your financial goals but it’s incredibly important to the success of your business.
What better way to put your life first than by actually scheduling right into your business?
In addition to helping keep your priorities straight, planning all of 2018 ahead of time, will help you stay focused, know exactly what to work on and when, allow time for professional development, and have more control over your schedule.
[Tweet “In order to create a life-first business, you actually have to put your life first.“]
Links Mentioned:
This episode contains explicit language.
Check out my ICA Masterclass
The first thing I need to say is thank you. Thank you for continuing to tune in. For sharing the show with others. For connecting with me on other platforms. And, for sharing how much this show means to you.
I thought long and hard about how I wanted to celebrate this incredible milestone and then I realized, it had be about you.
This show wouldn’t have reached 100 episodes if it weren’t for you, my amazing listeners, and the only way I can celebrate that is by sharing some of your stories.
The four women featured in this special episode are your sisters. They’re in the trenches building their business just like you.
You’ll hear from Kelly Bond; who talks about “rewilding” herself. As a former extreme athlete turned mother and entrepreneur, she’s finding her way back to her wild side and creating a business that will help other women do the same.
You’ll also hear from Monica Miller. Monica has been in business for a few years but is choosing to completely pivot her ideal client avatar and utilize a local market to grow her online business.
You’ll also hear from Paty Mariposa. The last year has seen Paty turn a hobby into a business, epically fail at her first big launch, and then have her most profitable week-to-date.
Lastly, you’ll also hear from Ali Zabel. While in business school, Ali never dreamed having children would become a priority over her career … until she held her baby in her arms for the first time and realized she needed to design a business that would fit her newly aligned priorities.
[Tweet “The four women featured in this special episode are your sisters. They’re in the trenches building their business just like you.“]
Links Mentioned:
Take the self-assessment to find out which phase of the SweetLife Entrepreneur System™ you’re in
The SweetLife Entrepreneur System™ is a roadmap consisting of five phases that will help you create your SweetLife Project™ (aka: your business life plan) and take your business from idea to impact.
This is the most important strategy discussed on this podcast for your lifestyle freedom business.
I use the SweetLife System™ when working with my private clients and now I’m sharing this system with you. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a better understanding of what phase you’re currently in and the knowledge to spring forward into the next one.
[Tweet “This is the most important strategy discussed on this podcast for your lifestyle freedom business.“]
Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur System™ Self-Assessment
The SweetLife Entrepreneur System™ Roadmap
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 01: Entrepreneur by Design
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 03: Your 8 Step Business Launch Plan
Download Tom and Ariana’s FREE Life Planner Worksheet
Are you getting ready to start a business and want to make sure it’s aligned with your dream lifestyle?
Do you already have a business and are concerned it’s not leading you to the lifestyle you’ve been working for?
Well, this week’s guests, Tom and Ariana Sylvester, have been and done that … multiple times!
Tom is a serial entrepreneur, husband, father, and occasional Call of Duty player. Ariana is a reality-checker, wife, mother, and chai latter-lover.
Together, Tom and Ariana own and operate three very different businesses; including one as business coaches and strategists.
As business coaches, their big-picture goal is to help entrepreneurs achieve fulfillment in both their business and life.
[Tweet “As business coaches, Tom & Ariana’s big-picture goal is to help entrepreneurs achieve fulfillment in both their business and life.“]
Links Mentioned:
Download Rachel Brenke’s FREE Legal Checklist for Your Business
Rachel Brenke is an attorney with an MBA who survived cancer while raising five children. She is also the Founder of the Business Bites Podcast, has launched several successful brands, authored five books, and is Team USA athlete.
Most topics in this episode are going to be uncomfortable, but they’re critical so you need to pull up your big-girl britches.
No matter if you’re just starting out, have been in business for a while, or you think you’ve already got your legal bases covered, you need to listen to Rachel’s wisdom and expert advice in this episode.
[Tweet “Most topics in this episode are going to be uncomfortable, but they’re critical so you need to pull up your big-girl britches.“]
Links Mentioned:
The United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Database
Download Regan Walsh’s Guide: 3 Life-Changing Ways to Shift From Survival Mode to Purpose Mode
Regan Walsh is a mother of two, speaker, and an NYU certified Life Coach whose gift is helping women get from a point of total survival mode to walking into their purpose.
She is a contributor to Forbes and the Harvard Business Review and has also been featured by Elite Daily, Bustle, FabFitFun, Smart Business, and more.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and like you’re doing 1,000 different things without any of them actually moving forward towards your goals and purpose, this is one you won’t want to miss.
[Tweet “Regan’s gift is helping women get from a point of total survival mode to walking into their purpose.“]
Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 02: Don’t Make Perfect the Enemy
Greg McKeowon’s Book | Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Check Out Amy’s Free Webinar: The Ultimate List Building Catch-Up Plan
Amy Porterfield has worked with mega-brands like Harley-Davidson motorcycles and peak performance coach, Tony Robbins; where she oversaw the content development team and collaborated on groundbreaking online marketing campaigns.
Amy inspires over 250,000 online entrepreneurs through her bestselling marketing courses, thriving social media community, and popular podcast; Online Marketing Made Easy.
Even though I’ve been creating online courses for a decade, it wasn’t until I connected with Amy two years ago that I finally streamlined my systems and lowered my “workload”.
Whether you’re just starting to launch your first online course, or you’re a course creation veteran like me, you’re going to learning from Amy.
[Tweet “Even though I’ve been creating online courses for a decade, it wasn’t until I connected with Amy two years ago that it all finally clicked.“]
Links Mentioned:
Online Marketing Made Easy | Episode #179: The Real Truth Why I Hate Video (Hint: It’s My Weight)
Download: Suzanne Brown’s Know Your Why Guide
It’s that time of year when our kids are getting a fresh start by heading back to school. It’s also the perfect time of year for our families to get a fresh start as well.
Implementing strategies and structures as a family as your kids head back to school can lead to less stress and more revenue.
This week’s guest, Suzanne Brown, is a strategic marketing and business consultant, work-life balance speaker, and the author of Mompowerment: Insights from Professional Part-Time Working Moms Who Balance Career and Family.
If you’re finding your home to be a little chaotic with the start of a new school year, take a listen as Suzanne shares structural systems and formulas for ways we can capitalize on the current season we’re in and how we can leverage these systems, both for our business and our family.
[Tweet “Implementing strategies and structures as a family as your kids head back to school can lead to less stress and more revenue.“]
Links Mentioned:
Suzanne Brown’s TedxSMU Talk | It’s Time to Create Professional Part-time Working Mom Opportunities
Request Access to #BurnThePicketFence
It’s the unknowns of being an entrepreneur that can often-times be the most intimidating part.
For parents considering starting their own business, it’s even more intimidating because you have to think about how being an entrepreneur will impact your kids as well.
If you’ve ever worried about this, make sure you take a listen to this special episode with a very special guest who should be able to ease your mind.
My oldest son, Timothy Beach, is on the show to give us his take on what it’s like being in a lifestyle entrepreneur family.
[Tweet “It’s the unknowns of being an entrepreneur that can often-times be the most intimidating part.“]
Download: #CreativityCleanse Strategy Quadrant PDF
We’re approaching one of my favorite times of the year.
The kids are heading back to school (or three different schools in my case) and we can start shifting our focus back to our businesses.
However, sometimes coming back to a business after a hiatus can be chaotic or overwhelming.
As this week’s guest says, “Chaos is nothing but fear. That’s what overwhelm is.”
Cindy Van Arman is a highly sought-after accountability and kick-you-in-the-butt speaker who is super passionate about empowering solopreneurs to get stuff done and giving you the tools you need to conquer overwhelm.
In this episode, Cindy shares with us her proven system to help open the space needed to finally take control of your time and energy so you can have a business that you run instead of it being the other way around.
The great thing about Cindy’s system is that it can work no matter what phase of the SweetLife Entrepreneur System you’re in and it can also help you take control of your life outside of your business.
[Tweet “Chaos is nothing but fear. That’s what overwhelm is.“]
Links Mentioned:
The SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 30: Organize Your Thoughts to Get S*** Done
Stephen R. Covey | The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
If the answer is yes, you might not have niched down enough in your business.
When you try to be everything to everyone, you end up helping no one.
Even though it might be scary, niching down when it comes to your target client or the products and services you offer, can sometimes be the best thing you can do for your business.
Stephen Warley found himself a reluctant entrepreneur after being laid off in 2000.
Now, with over 18 years of entrepreneurial experience, Stephen can’t imagine working for anyone else and is driven to help others find work/life harmony by creating a niche tribe.
With only 50 leads for potential clients, Stephen was able to create a business that led him to generate over $600,000 in revenue in a single year; proving that you don’t need a giant list to make a significant amount of money.
[Tweet “When you try to be everything to everyone, you end up helping no one.“]
Resources Mentioned:
Stephen Warley’s 12-Week Self Assessment
Stephen Warley’s Podcast | Life Skills That Matter
Racheal Cook’s Fired Up & Focused Challenge
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast delivered to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
Launching and developing a business without kids is totally different from launching and developing a business with kids.
That’s not to say one is easier than the other, because that’s simply not the case. They just require you to go about things a little differently.
When it comes to launching a business while raising children, you can’t just wing it. You, and your family, need to be properly trained.
If you’re thinking about launching your business, or you’ve already taken the first few steps, I want you to stop right now and listen to this episode!
Launching your business won’t just impact you, it will impact you’re entire family.
That’s exactly why I created this episode to help you learn how to incorporate them into the process.
[Tweet “When it comes to launching a business while raising children, you can’t just wing it. You, and your family, need to be properly trained.“]
Resources Mentioned:
Join the SweetLife Community on Facebook
Tag Me on Your Instagram Dream Board Post
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast delivered to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
You’ve been working in your industry for a while now and you know your stuff.
You’ve got the experience and the expertise, but you still don’t have the recognition or the audience.
This is a common issue for service-based entrepreneurs and, luckily, our guest this week has a solution for you.
Primoz Bozic went from being a socially awkward programmer who made $7/hour to building a multiple 6-figure business online while traveling the world.
Primoz now helps service-based entrepreneurs establish themselves as experts in their industry and attract more ideal clients by using a 10-25,000-word ultimate guide.
According to Primoz, creating an ultimate guide is an extremely effective way to grow your audience, your email list, and even your client base.
[Tweet “According to Primoz, creating an ultimate guide is an extremely effective way to grow your audience, your email list, and even your client base.“]
Resources Mentioned:
Primoz Bozic’s FREE Ultimate Guide Checklist
Primoz Bozic’s Ultimate Guide System
Peter Nguyen’s Ultimate Guide to Buying a Leather Jacket
Neil Patel’s The Advanced Guide to SEO
Remit Sethi’s Ultimate Guide to Social Skills
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast delivered to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
You’re ready to design and control your life; to travel, spend more time with your family, and stop the daily 9-5 grind.
I totally get it!
Here’s the thing… you have to actually launch your business before you can control your life.
And to successfully launch your business, you need to have intentional “tunnel vision”.
If you keep experiencing problems while trying to launch your business, it doesn’t mean you’re failing as an entrepreneur.
Launching a business can be confusing, overwhelming, expensive, time-consuming, and stressful … if you’re not smart about it.
You just need a plan that will take you from start to launch in a strategic way, and that’s exactly what I’m breaking down for you today.
[Tweet “If you keep experiencing problems while trying to launch your business, it doesn’t mean you’re failing as an entrepreneur.“]
Resources Mentioned:
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast delivered to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
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There’s been a recent shift away from a complete separation of business and purpose.
This shift is due to the fact that more and more consumers are choosing to give their money to brands and companies with missions or beliefs that align with their own.
To consumers, why you do what you do is now more important than what you actually do.
Earth Day is rapidly approaching and, as an environmental activist and non-profit founder, I felt it was important to help you understand how to make your business one that truly matters and connects with your ideal clients and customers on a deeper level.
So, this week, we’re talking about three simple ways to infuse more meaning and purpose into what you do with your business.
[Tweet “To consumers, why you do what you do is now more important than what you actually do.“]
In this episode, I talk about:
Do good and grow your business! Get the complete SweetLife Business System for a small donation to one of the nonprofits we support.
Resources Mentioned:
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast delivered to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
How’d you do?
I can’t believe we’re already in the second quarter of 2018! When I realized that, I was simultaneously anxious about all the ways the first quarter didn’t go as planned, and proud of the amazing things I was able to accomplish.
Are you ready to start a new quarter?
Whether you’re feeling disappointed or excited with the results of quarter one… I’m here to help!
If you didn’t quite meet your goals, let’s work on that for quarter two.
If you did meet your goals, let’s keep that momentum going!
Each quarter of the year is a fresh start so it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the last 90 days. What matters is what you’re going to intentionally do in your business moving forward.
[Tweet “What matters is what you’re going to intentionally do in your business moving forward.”]
In this episode, I talk about:
2. Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
There are a lot of misconceptions about what a lifestyle entrepreneur is.
We don’t all want to drive our convertible Ferrari’s to the airport where a private jet is waiting to whisk off us to our own private island.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly wouldn’t complain if that were to actually happen, but that’s not even close to the reason I created my life-first business and I’m guessing you agree.
Your business is about your dreams. It’s up to you to figure out what those dreams really are and then design your business around them.
It’s a pretty safe bet the vast majority of entrepreneurs prefer to have a business that allows them to spend time with their families, live their passions, and fulfill their purpose.
If the same is true for you, it’s never too early to begin designing your business around those things.
That’s why I’m discussing some things you’ll need to think about during that design process.
[Tweet “Your business is about your dreams.”]
In this episode, I provide four strategies that will help you build a life-first business that truly meets your needs.
Want to find out if you’re a “thinker” or a “doer” and see how you compare to other entrepreneurs? Take the quiz!
Don’t forget to download the free profit math worksheet!
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
Thomas Oppong’s Article: The Overthinker’s Guide to Taking Action
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
It’s no secret that Facebook and I aren’t the best of friends. As an online entrepreneur coach and strategist, I know Facebook is an important tool for me to connect with you, and for you to connect with your followers too.
As coaches and entrepreneurs, we all need to embrace and leverage Facebook marketing in a way that delivers results.
So today I’ve invited our inhouse Facebook Marketing Expert, Sarah Tomes onto the show, to get real about growing your organic reach through Facebook (and dealing with some of the recent changes Facebook has made regarding business visibility).
Sarah doesn’t hold back when it comes to discussing the right and wrong ways to utilize Facebook for growing the organic reach of your business.
Sarah teaches Facebook concepts ways that are easy to understand, and you’ll leave walking away being able to take immediate action.
[Tweet “As coaches and entrepreneurs, we all need to embrace and leverage Facebook marketing.”]
In this episode, Sarah talks about what and when to post, how to speak to your clients in your posts, why you need to stop using 3rd party post scheduling tools, and so much more!
Join the SweetLife Facebook Community and download the guide Sarah is creating to help you schedule your posts natively in Facebook.
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
Simon Sinek’s Start With Why Ted Condensed TED Talk
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
When it comes to starting a new business, you don’t always have a ton of money to pour into every step of the process.
That’s where the strategies in this episode come into play.
While every entrepreneur, no matter how far along in their business they are, can use the strategies in this episode, they will be particularly valuable for those in Phases 1 and 2 of my SweetLife Entrepreneur System.
If you’re still working a full-time job and you’re starting a business that will fit your ideal lifestyle, or if you’re in a season of change in your life and you’re wanting a business that will allow for that change, this episode is for you.
[Tweet “When it comes to starting a new business, you don’t always have a ton of money to pour into every step of the process.“]
In this episode, I break down four strategies for growing your new business using sweat-equity instead of money.
Do you want a clear and focused plan for launching your business?
Join the SweetLife Community on Facebook
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 00: Lifestyle Entrepreneur Manifesto
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
Social media has given us a false sense of connection.
We think we have a large network because of our social media “friends” and followers but the vast majority of these connections aren’t genuine.
It’s always a good idea to network and build relationships with peers but this especially important for those in Phase 1 of my SweetLife Entrepreneur System, entrepreneurs who’ve been doing at it for a while but feel lonely and disconnected due to working from home, and for entrepreneurs who’ve who are ready to grow their business in new ways.
Creativity is contagious.
When you take the time to build genuine relationships, you’ll be challenged and inspired in new ways.
[Tweet “Creativity is contagious.“]
In this episode, I talk about three reasons why you need a network, how to build a network, and some of the reasons you might not have already built a network.
Do you want to connect with me in person and get a jump start on your business?
“Apply to attend the SweetLife Retreat“
Join the SweetLife Community on Facebook
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
Apply to attend the SweetLife Retreat
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
You know where you are right now in your business and you know where you ultimately want to be, but what about the steps in the middle?
What products, services, programs, or events are going to get you to your dream lifestyle?
The steps between where you are now and where you want to be are the items you launch in 2018.
However, it’s crucial you don’t just launch into action without properly thinking everything through and making sure what you decide to launch is actually the right choice for you and your ideal clients.
It’s that important part of the process we’ll be discussing today.
[Tweet “The steps between where you are now and where you want to be are the items you launch in 2018.”]
I break down the three main factors you need to consider to ensure you choose the right product, service, program, or event to launch in 2018.
Learn More About My 3-Month SweetLife Launch Mentorship:
Join Commitment Week 2018 & Download Your Action Planner:
“Commitment Week 2018 Action Planner“
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
SweetLife Launch: 3 Month Business Mentorship
Bill Gross’ TED Talk: The Single Biggest Reason Why Startups Succeed
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
It’s that time of year when people feel compelled to make resolutions even if they know they’re not going to stick to them. Empty resolutions are just a distraction and will keep you from making real progress with your business.
Instead of giving in to this behavior, I want to encourage you to set goals with some substance behind them so you’ll not only have the satisfaction of achieving them, but you also have a better business and life.
That’s exactly why I’m hosting my Commitment Week challenge for the third year in a row.
[Tweet “Empty resolutions are just a distraction and will keep you from making real progress in your business.”]
I break down the four core areas we’ll be focusing on during Commitment Week 2018 and in each of the next four episodes of the podcast.
Join Commitment Week 2018 & Download Your Action Planner:
“Commitment Week 2018 Action Planner“
Serious about growing your business? Get the podcast to your inbox every Monday – Sign up here.
Resources Mentioned:
SweetLife Launch: 3 Month Business Mentorship
LOVE IT? Please leave us an iTunes review. Here’s how!
If so, I want to help you fix that immediately!
Entrepreneurship by design means creating a business that allows you to live your ideal lifestyle instead of keeping you from it.
It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to start a business thinking it will lead to more time with their families only to realize they’re spending more time working and less time with the ones they love.
Making a few simple, but critical, changes in your business can help completely turn things around so you never have to miss another moment with your family.
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In this episode, I explain four key strategies that will help you build a profitable business around your family; including how to avoid the number one mistake new entrepreneurs make.
Want to dive in now? Click here to download your free Entrepreneurship by Design Guide:
“Entrepreneurship by Design Guide“
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Resources Mentioned:
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 01: Entrepreneurship by Design
SweetLife Entrepreneur Podcast | Episode 06: Create & Dominate Your Block Calendar
SweetLife Entrepreneur Self Assessment
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