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Episode #162:
Caterina's Essential Work-from-Home Strategies to Grow Your Fempire, Part 1

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This week Caterina shares part 1 of her 2-part series focusing on strategies to enhance productivity, sales, and overall bliss while working from home. Caterina discusses the importance of having a compelling vision, setting clear goals, maintaining a dedicated workspace, and using time-blocking techniques for both business and household tasks. Listen to this series and use the accompanying handout to upgrade your practices and take actionable steps to optimize your work-from-home experience!

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #162 Transcript

Caterina’s Essential Work-from-Home Strategies to Grow Your Fempire,

Part 1

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today because we have a very hot topic… a hot topic that you are probably already good at. And we’re gonna make you even better.

What I wanna talk to you about today is strategies for you to be more [00:01:00] productive, have more soaring sales, and bliss more in your business while working from home.

 Because this is such a big topic, I have so many super tips for you and things to support you to bliss and thrive more in your business while working from home we are gonna take two episodes for this. Today’s the first one.

Now, you might say, ” Hey, I’ve been working from home for years and years. I got it figured out!” And you might be absolutely right.

Here’s the thing I want you to get. We are always upgrading in our business. We are always looking for that next little something that might make a little difference or it might make a huge difference.

We are always upgrading.

While you listen to me today, share with you [00:02:00] these strategies to increase your productivity, your sales, your bliss, working from home. I want you to validate what you’re already doing that is super working for you, while you’re at the same time looking at how you could even do it better.

Also, you may hear some ideas that you’re not currently embracing. Let’s bring in a couple more ways to support you to bliss and thrive working from home. Because working from home …while convenient, we don’t have to commute. We don’t have to get dressed below the waist every day if we don’t want to. We, we don’t have car expenses much. We save a lot of time.

Still, there are challenges working from home.

You can get distracted by your dog or the dinner [00:03:00] that has to be made, or of course, the doorbell. Plus the many other distractions that are already in your home. Your children, the spouse, the washing machine that needs some laundry put in it.

All of these are distractions too. Let’s look together at how we can be even more effective for you working from home. Okay. Bing. Bing.

My friend. You may wanna take some notes. You know what? I am actually gonna put a handout related to this podcast on my links page,

CaterinaRando.com/links. I will add this handout related to today. Also the link will be in the show notes for you.

Because, what I would love for you to do is: print out the handout that goes along with today’s [00:04:00] podcast. Circle the areas where you wanna upgrade. And pick one to start with, and then do another one a week later and another one a week later.

Remember, we are always upgrading. This is what has us continue to be successful in our business. You know, you’ve heard it: if you’re not upgrading, if you’re not focused on growth, you’re dying. We are focused on growth around here.

Number one, have a compelling vision. Have a compelling vision every day for why you are working your business.

Why am I not sitting around watching General Hospital every day from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM because I am a woman on a mission. And how about you?

What is the mission that fuels you every day? Not only, what is it? Remind yourself of it. [00:05:00] Read your compelling vision to yourself every day.

You say, “Caterina, I already know my vision for my business.” I know you know it, but every day I want you to remind yourself of it. Because some days you feel like the queen of your Fempire. There are some days, my friends, let’s be real together, me and you, you might feel a little more schlumpadinka.

And when you feel a little more schlumpadinka, what does that mean? You are not bringing the same verve and energy and focus and “stick to itness” to your business while you are working from home.

So every day read your compelling vision.

The other thing is read your goals. What are you trying to accomplish this month? Working from home, you got big goals. Let’s read those every day.

By the way, I hope you’re doing this. It’s very important that we review our goals. I like to do it in the morning and at the end of the day when I’m planning for the [00:06:00] next day. Because what that does is at the end of the day, has your subconscious start to work for tomorrow. But also when you do it in the beginning of the day, it gives you more momentum for the day.

But please read your vision, read your goals every day. And when I say read your goals, I do mean your sales goals for the month. I do mean how many calls do you wanna book on your calendar this week? I do mean any projects you wanna complete this week.

I do mean any of those people you’ve been meaning to get back to that might not be related to sales. You wanna make sure you are writing down everything, my friend.

And by the way, you do not have a to-do list… that is for beginners. For super productive entrepreneurs like yourself, we put everything on our calendar.

When am I gonna [00:07:00] record my podcast? When am I gonna reach out to the people that were at my speech last week? Hopefully I reached out within 24 hours. If I’m on top of it, then what I’m gonna do this week is I’m gonna circle back to those people.

You put it on your calendar because your brain is not a filing cabinet. Do not expect your brain to remember little things. You don’t need it to do that. You can write it down. And better yet, you put it on your calendar with the time you’ve set aside to do that.

Next, what is your plan? And what I mean by this is you make a plan for how much time you are gonna dedicate to each of your priority areas.

If you want to exercise in the morning, it better be on your calendar. If you wanna exercise in the middle of the day or the evening, better be on your calendar. By the way, I have found [00:08:00] by wearing a Fitbit or wearing my phone to track my steps, I’m getting a ton more steps because you know why? If you have a Fitbit, you know that it makes a little celebration when you get to 10,000 steps.

And I know it’s like, you know, kind of ridiculous, but it’s also super fun when the little fireworks go off on my Fitbit. I encourage you, move your fanny every day and make time for it and put that time on your calendar.

Now, sometimes, here’s where gals say to me, “well, Caterina, I put it on my calendar, but then I don’t do it.”

Okay? This is where I wanna talk a little bit about self- devotion. Now you’ve all heard the term self-discipline. I don’t like that term. Discipline does not sound good to me. Does that sound good to you? No, it does not.

Self- devotion is when [00:09:00] you are committed to your goals. You’re committed to your vision for your business. You’re committed to the body that you wanna have if we’re talking about exercise. You’re committed to the financial goals that you have. You’re also committed to the social and relationship goals in your life.

You know, relationships take nurturing, and one of the cool things about working from home is you can take the afternoon off to go somewhere and do something. Last Monday, I left early to go see a client who’s also a good friend. She was exhibiting at a vendor fair. I was blissing to go see her. I was blissing to leave my office early.

Some of you know my mom has passed away. My dad is 93 at the time of this recording. I’m spending a lot more time with my dad. Guess what? It’s on my calendar. Sunday dinner. Tuesday [00:10:00] dinner. Go take a walk with him. It’s all on the calendar. Why?

Because when you live a calendar- driven life, you don’t gotta remember everything, but also you take time every week to plan for the next week. You take time every month to plan for the next month. So you have time for your priorities.

Then when your girlfriend calls up and she says, Hey, my friend, when there’s a sale down at the X, Y, Z store, you wanna go check it out? You can say, ” thank you so much for the invitation. I am already booked today.”

And you keep appointments that are already on your calendar, the appointment with yourself to exercise the appointment to make some circle backs or have some sales calls. You keep those appointments because you are devoted to your vision and your goals for your business. And then you can be blissing when [00:11:00] you weren’t able to be a yes, not disappointed.

By the way, maintaining your calendar for your life will absolutely help you with FOMO: the fear of missing out.

Now, I’m not saying you never adjust anything on your calendar. At the same time, by having a calendar and having everything on your calendar, then you can say to yourself, “okay, I, I wanna go to that sale with Sheila. Let me go, but then I gotta take this job that I was gonna do during that time and I’m gonna put it somewhere else.”

And that’s okay. Totally fine. As long as you keep those agreements with yourself once you do move it to another time. Are you blissing with me and vibing with me on this? I’m super hoping.

By the way, feel free my friend. Text me, Facebook [00:12:00] me. Don’t email me. I don’t like email. I love Messenger on Facebook. People talk to me all day on Messenger. Totally fine. You’re welcome to reach out to me if you wanna talk about any of this.

By the way, let me also mention here. I do a workshop every single month. One or two free workshops. Usually on sales, or on something to do with public speaking to get clients. We talk about how to do retreats. We also talk how to bliss more on your business. Other topics, depending on what time of year it is.

I’m hoping that you have gone to CaterinaRando.com/links and you’ve checked out not only our free resources, but that will also take you to my upcoming next free workshop. Or you can go to my main page on the events page.

We’ve got a lot of opportunities in our Thriving Women in Business Community for you to not only learn and grow and, and be inspired, but also to connect [00:13:00] with some amazing women. Hopefully you’ve got a lot of amazing women in your life, and if not, we’ll talk a little bit more about that.

Okay? Bing, bing.

You have your plan. You have time on your schedule designated for different activities that you wanna get in. You are taking time for the thinking and planning. Let’s continue.

You also have a dedicated workspace. Do not be on the kitchen table and then every evening you gotta take all your stuffo off because now the family’s gonna sit down to dinner.

If you are working your business from your house, my friend, you deserve and merit and need a dedicated workspace. Find one. If you gotta buy a desk, buy a desk, [00:14:00] working on the couch with your laptop on your lap is fine once in a while, not as a standard operating procedure.

If you are working from home, you better have a dedicated workspace in your home. This is a big, big factor in productivity. Then when you’re in your workspace, you are in work mode. If you gotta clear out a closet, if you gotta take half of a bedroom that somebody’s not in very much. I don’t care what you gotta do.

You are the queen of your Fempire. Do you think the queen of a Fempire has a dedicated workspace? Yes, my friend. She does. And that’s what I want for you. Okay. Let’s not forget -you are the queen of your Fempire

Next one, I want you to ask for support. [00:15:00] I didn’t say hire support. I said ask for support.

What I mean by this is if you are running your business from your household and there are other people that live in your household, I want you to ask yourself, are you doing all the things that a household requires? Or are you having support from the rest of the people that are residing in the household?

And if the answer is yes, they do help, my next question is can they help more? Because not only are you the queen of your Fempire working from home, you are also bringing revenue into the house.

Now, you might be in the early stages of [00:16:00] your business and you might say, “well, I’m not bringing in revenue yet, or a lot of revenue yet.” That’s because you’re doing everything in the house and you’re not able to focus on your business I would imagine, or guess, or I’m asking you to ask yourself.

You cannot be responsible for cleaning the house, making the dinner, paying the bills, doing everything. Also now you’re supposed to have time for your business?

No, my friend. Get support with a lot of those other things because you have to build a Fempire and that takes time. Or you get to build a  Fempire if you wanna build a  Fempire. There’s no “have to” here.

Do you want to build a  Fempire? If you do, then you need time to build your  Fempire. And part of that is asking for support from the other people that are in your house.

Because guess what? You might be thinking, “they know [00:17:00] I’m wanna work my business, why aren’t they helping me more?” Well, guess what? Everybody doesn’t spend all their time thinking about what can they do for you. It’s our job to ask.

It is absolutely our job to ask for what we want every day, everywhere in our life. And sometimes we ask and we don’t get a yes. But then they start to think about how could they be a yes? Especially the people in your household because they love you, my friend. Let’s start asking for support. Bing, bing.

And by the way, don’t ask for support when you’re at the end of your rope, you know? It’s like finally you blurt it out, “how come I’m doing everything?” Don’t do that. Okay? Ask for support in a way that has the other people in your house win.

“Hey, other person in my house. I know that you know that I’m wanting to [00:18:00] build my business. I need more time for my business. I would appreciate if you would do X, Y, Z every day, once a week, once a month, twice a month, so that I can be more focused on my business.”

And guess what? If there’s something that you wanna do for your family or your partner, or your son or daughter that you live with, or five kids you live with, let them know.

Say, “you know what? I really wanna take the family on a vacation. I really wanna put some money away for your college. I really want to, uh, fix the garage door, whatever it is.” And then you say to them, ” and that’s one of the reasons I’m working my business and I would appreciate some help.”

Okay, my friend?

Ask for what you want in a way that empowers others to be a yes for you and makes them feel good about support, not complaining. [00:19:00] Okay?

Queens don’t complain. I, I want you to think about this. Do we hear the good queens complaining? No, they’re not complaining. They’re making powerful requests and they get a lot of, “I’ll take care of that right now.”

That’s what you want. Be the queen of your Fempire. And also, guess what, my friend? You’re the queen of your household too. And if it doesn’t feel that way, then I want you to look at what needs to change so you do feel like the queen of your “queendom”, which is the place that you live. Bing, bing.

Let’s take a deep breath again, my friend. Ah, let it out. We touched on this a little bit earlier, the next one.

Set clear boundaries.

The people in your life, they know you’re working from home. Sometimes though there’s this attitude that if you’re working from home, oh, you got a lot of time. If you’re working from home, that’s no problem [00:20:00] for you to dash out and pick up a prescription or for you to babysit. Let me drop off my kids. Let me drop off my dog. Uh, hey, could you pick up my dry cleaning if you’re out and about? They want you to do all their stuff out because you’re working from home.

My friend, let the people in your life know that you have a work schedule. And if you don’t have a work schedule, we’re gonna get to that in a little bit. Clearly communicate, this is when I’m working and this is when I’m available if you need something.

Next one. I want you to get really good at household time blocking. What do I mean by that? If you’re gonna go grocery shopping or order groceries from Instacart like I do, when every week are you gonna do that?

Because one of the things that we know, that productivity experts will tell you, is when we do the same [00:21:00] thing at the same time every week, we get more and more productive at it.

I order groceries on Sunday. I order my flowers on Sunday. I like to have fresh flowers every week. That happens on Sunday. Now, sometimes it happens in the morning. It usually happens in the afternoon. That’s when it’s on my schedule. If I’m going out, I do it in the morning. Now, if it’s on my calendar for Sunday afternoon and I know I’m gonna be out on Sunday, then I can move it to Saturday or I can move it to Monday morning. But you put the time on your calendar so that you don’t have to try to figure out when are you gonna do these things.

You know, you’ve heard that barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs of big organizations, they have kind of their [00:22:00] uniform that they wear every day, so they don’t have to figure out what their fashion statement is gonna be for the day. Well, I hate that because I’m gonna make a nice fashion statement every day. Most of you know, I’m a big image and style enthusiast, so I’m definitely gonna be taking the time to figure out what’s my look for the day.

At the same time, by putting all this other stuff on my calendar, then I don’t have to figure out when I’m gonna get to that. Are you with me on this?

Do the things that you love to do. Like I love to get dressed fancy every day, so I take time for that. But I don’t wanna try to figure out when am I gonna get to the pharmacy? When am I gonna order my groceries? All that is figured out and it’s on the calendar.

And I want you to think about what are those things that you’re doing that are not business things? When are you gonna exercise, like we talked about. Right now, we’re talking about household time blocking. When are you gonna do all [00:23:00] those things every week that a household requires? Put ’em on your calendar. Bing. Bing

With household time- blocking we can also talk about family time- blocking. When are the games that you’re gonna go to for your children? When are you gonna go on vacation with your family? When are you gonna go to Wisconsin for somebody’s birthday? Thanksgiving, Christmas, your anniversary?

All that goes on your calendar now for the next year, because that way you don’t have the challenge of, oh, I’m already booked at that time when you wanna go away for the weekend with your partner. Really, really important to take time for family time- blocking that is part of household time blocking.

And really, I said family, I mean, relationship time blocking [00:24:00] for all the other relatives and also for your friends. You know, I’m very big on two retreats a year, at least for women in business.

You can have the retreat that’s not too far away. I’m going next week for our Monterey planning retreat. I get together with a few gals and we have the weekend together. We hang out. We have a good time, and we work. We do planning, we do coworking. I’ll be working on my next book while we’re there. We have a good time.

We leave with full cups and having gotten a lot of stuff done. That’s in the neighborhood retreat, meaning I don’t gotta jump on a plane. Then there’s the jump on the plane retreat. I just came back from Italy, one of my fabulous clients, Paola Versano, she does retreats in Torino. Amazing week, fabulous life- Affirming week. I’m doing that.

What are you doing? Are you [00:25:00] having retreats? A couple times a year. I don’t even, I don’t even have time to tell you about all my amazing retreats I’ve been doing lately that I’ve been attending.

Also, you know, we host amazing retreats. We have the Bliss Retreat, we have our Amp Up Mastermind Adventure. We have a retreat on how to do women’s retreats.

Hopefully, you are putting on your calendar as standard operating procedure at least two retreats a year. One in the spring, one in the fall, or one at the beginning of the year, one in the summer.

Whatever time works for you and the rest of your life, please get some retreats that you’re time blocking on your calendar too.

Let’s take another deep breath. Ah, let it out. Okay?

Now I also want you to get great at business time- blocking.

[00:26:00] Remember I said to you a few minutes ago that the productivity experts will tell you that when you do things at the same time every week, you get more productive at them.

So I want you to think about those activities that you do every week. You might have client calls, you might have sales conversations, you might have some content creation.

All of these things do them at the same regular time every week.

For example, I know that right now recording a podcast for you, I can’t do that during the week nine to five, it just doesn’t work for me. Too much going on, too many distractions. Well, if I’m gonna do it, it happens on a weekend. Because then I don’t have five appointments before and five appointments after, and I have more time for [00:27:00] preparing and not feeling rushed.

That works for me. I’m not saying you gotta do that, my friend. You could take whatever time you know works for you. The other thing is, I know in the afternoon, I don’t necessarily have a vitality to do it. That’s why I like to do it on the weekend when I have lots of vitality and I don’t have any other appointments.

But you find what works for you.

I have a friend who only talks to people three days a week. Two days is for filling her cup again because she’s ambivert. She’s not extrovert, she’s not introvert. She’s in the middle like me. I think I’m ambivert. Maybe you’re ambivert, where you need time alone when you’re not with people.

So she’s very highly focused on having certain days where she does all of her meetings, and then on the other days, she’s doing her strategy, she’s doing her self-care, she’s doing her planning. Content creation. That’s what works for [00:28:00] her.

You have to find your own success schedule, and I want you to block out business time.

Now, remember I said earlier that sometimes gals say to me, “well, Caterina, I put on my calendar, but then I don’t get to it.”

Now, I spoke with you earlier about self devotion being devoted to your goals, and that may encourage you to keep those appointments.

Another way to look at this though, another potential strategy if you’re not getting things done, it’s because it’s at the wrong time of day.

For example, if I’m gonna do writing, I gotta do writing during the day. Now again, for me, I find if I can do it in the morning before the appointments start, it will happen. I will keep that appointment. If I do it on the weekend, I will keep that appointment.

If I schedule it for, you know, 4:00 PM guess what, my friend, it’s not gonna happen because my [00:29:00] creativity and my vitality are both not on high alert at that time of day.

This is very important thing I want you to look at, okay? Because sometimes gals get very frustrated when they put things on their calendar and they’re not getting to them, and this is a very important place for you to look.

It might simply be, my friend, that it’s not the right time for those activities.

Like, you know, reaching out to people to book a sales conversation at 4:00 PM they’re probably not gonna be able to get back to you today, and they might be in a different time zone.

That’s why reach outs for booking sales appointments, and those would be reach outs both by the phone and by direct message or by email, all of that is really best earlier in the day so people have a chance to get back to you. But you decide what’s best for you. Okay?

Now we were just talking about business time blocking.

Well, let’s say you put exercise on your calendar for 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM or 6:00 [00:30:00] PM or 8:00 PM and you’re not keeping that appointment. Don’t get down on yourself. Find a better time. Test some other times that might work better for you. Okay?

My friend, we don’t give up. We just try something else. We don’t get down on ourself. We try something else. Remember, you’re the queen of your Fempire. You are super smart. You can figure these things out, but sometimes it does take a few tries and a few tests. Bing, bing.

This is part one. Come back. Next episode is gonna be part two ’cause this is a lot of stuff for us to talk about, for you to bliss and thrive and be more productive working from home.

What I want you to do now is review what we’ve discussed. Go get the handout or download the show notes, and pick a couple things for you to work on.

Because my friend, [00:31:00] listening is one thing. Action is what is gonna make a difference for you. Pick a couple things to work on and get started right now. And then I got more for you the next time we talk. Bing, bing, love to you.

Remember you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Be loud and proud about your massive value. Ask for what you want everywhere in your life. So you can sell more, you can serve more, and most importantly, you can have more impact and uplift more lives with the amazing woman you are. This is Caterina Rando, hope to see your smile on the screen for a live workshop very soon. Join us on a retreat. Check out all of our excitement at Caterinarando.com.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #161:
"From Magic to Mindset: Heather Rogers on Body, Mind, and Wellbeing for Entrepreneurial Success"

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "From Magic to Mindset: Heather Rogers on Body, Mind, and Wellbeing for Entrepreneurial Success" on Spreaker.

This week Caterina welcomes Heather Rogers, a precision wellness coach, epigenetics expert, and professional magician. They explore the significance of epigenetics in improving health, touching upon how lifestyle changes can impact genetic expression. Heather shares her personal journey from struggling with health issues to becoming an entrepreneur in the wellness field. They discuss practical health tips, the importance of personalized wellness strategies, and the future of health innovation. The episode underscores the vital role of well-being in achieving business bliss and longevity!

Connect with Heather

Ready for more business-building super tips?

Join us on an Alaskan Adventure!  

AMP UP ADVENTURE: Alaska 2026

A Mastermind Cruise for Women Business Leaders to Connect, Collaborate, and Catapult!

Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

Register for FREE: 

Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #161 Transcript

 

From Magic to Mindset: Heather Rogers on Body, Mind, and Wellbeing for Entrepreneurial Success

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today. I have a very special guest, a wonderful woman who warms my heart, who has become a family friend, Heather Rogers. Heather Rogers is a precision wellness coach and an epigenetics expert.

If you don’t know what that is, we’ll learn a little bit more about that [00:01:00] shortly. Heather has also been a professional magician for over 23 years. And you may or may not know that my dad is a magician enthusiast, amateur magician. And some years back I was thinking to myself, what can I possibly get my dad for his birthday, man who doesn’t need anything, used to just ask for tennis balls for his birthday?

And I could never think of what’s a great present to get my dad. Well, I had had Heather come and bring her magic to one of our gala special events that we used to do every year. She did such an amazing job. Everyone loved her. Her big smile, her intuition was off the charts with her magic. And I said, “okay, I’m gonna get my dad three magic lessons from Heather.”

I don’t even know, Heather, how many years ago [00:02:00] that was. Heather is still my dad’s magic mentor, they have performed together many times. And she is a family friend and I am blissing to share her brightness, her huge brain, her amazingness with you today. Heather, welcome. Welcome.

Heather Rogers: Thank you, Caterina. I think it’s been about 15 years since I’ve been working with your dad, Tony.

Wow. Professor Salamini is his official name.

Caterina Rando: Yes. Professor Salamini is his stage name. I love it.

Heather, you are a epigenetics expert, a precision wellness coach. Before we talk about your entrepreneurial journey, which I always like to start with, can you tell everyone what is epigenetics and why should we care?

Heather Rogers: Yes. Well, it’s interesting that there’s actually a health epidemic coming on. And do you realize that 45% of Americans suffer from [00:03:00] chronic disease? That’s half of America almost.

And the cost of this is over $3.7 trillion a year. Interestingly, it turns out, that the infusion of money from health regimes is a gain of $30 trillion a year.

So everybody’s rushing toward figuring out how to create better wellness, and our genes are our blueprint. It’s our recipe. And so epigenetics, EPA means above, above the genes.

So we’re influencing and impacting the expression of that recipe, that blueprint. And they say your DNA is not your destiny. Only 20 to 25% of our destiny is, is from our DNA. So it’s a very exciting time where we [00:04:00] can influence the expression of our DNA.

They say scientific knowledge is doubling every seven days.

It’s only gonna get more. So it’s a very exciting time for wellness. And it’s interesting that chronic disease is at an all time high. So it’s really needed. And so, so epigenetics is essentially changing the expression of your genes through wellness.

Caterina Rando: Changing. Would you say that epigenetics is the ability to impact our genes to improve our health?

Heather Rogers: Yes. Turning cells on and off. You know, upregulating, downregulating, you are the wizard of your biology in this case.

Caterina Rando: Wow, that’s exciting. Okay, now Heather, before we talk more about epigenetics, I have to ask you, because I’ve known you for many, many years. You’ve been a long time entrepreneur. I think you might be like me that you didn’t [00:05:00] have a corporate career, is that right?

Heather Rogers: That’s correct.

Caterina Rando: Okay. So no corporate career like me, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneur. Say a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey, if you would.

Heather Rogers: Well, my entrepreneurial journey would not be complete or have really started without you, Caterina, for 20 years I have been working with you. You brought me in to entertain and then I went into your programs.

The Speaker Summit was the first one. I’ve done your platinum Thriving Women in Business program. I’ve gone on luxury retreats. You have infused in me the true spirit of entrepreneurialism, which is also philanthropy, community, and just loving. So you have infused into me what it means to be an entrepreneur, and that’s just a fact.

So you’re, you’re my coach.

Caterina Rando: Well, my friend, thank you so much for that. Thank you. And so you’ve been doing your magic for many years. I know some years back you started to really focus on [00:06:00] health. You have always been having super vitality. What made you want to embrace epigenetics as your next entrepreneurial journey?

Heather Rogers: Well, the truth is, I’ve struggled with my health. I was 50 pounds overweight my whole life until my late thirties, and I was a compulsive overeater. I used to identify as a food addict. I was outta control with the sugar and the flour and that. And so I found a system, a program that worked for me for the last 20 years.

And that’s part of why is my, the way I’ve suffered, you know, inside cravings and addiction. I wanna free other people from the bondage of self in that regard.

Caterina Rando: And so how does somebody get started to uplift their health in this particular way?

Heather Rogers: Well, it’s interesting because the old model [00:07:00] is a disease model. We focus on the disease, try to fix the, treat the disease.

The new model is a systems model. We integrate the whole body and the whole brain and the whole being. So to begin, we turn our gaze away from cause and from disease, and we turn our gaze toward the system. And then we ask ourselves questions like, “what do I not want?”

This is the first thing I ask my clients, “what do you not want?”

And they’ll say, “I don’t want diabetes. Like my uncle, he’s losing limbs.” Right? And then that’s their why.

And I say, “what do you want?”

They say, “oh, you know, if I could wave a magic wand, I would be ripped. I would be vital, right?”

And then, and then I say, why?

And they answer and everyone has a different reason. And then I ask ’em, what would that look like? And, and ask yourself like, how would you know [00:08:00] when you’re there? You know, lay it out.

Someone once said to me how much would you pay if you could add 10 more years onto your life right now?

And we all know the axiom, super wealthy people would give it all away to have their health back because they can’t do anything without their health.

That’s a short answer to the beginning of the question.

Caterina Rando: I heard a quote recently, a wealthy man has many goals. A sick man has only one. You know? And I guess the point being that if you don’t have your health, there’s nothing else that you want. Right?

Heather Rogers: You know, and so we’re here to crack the code to thriving by design, and we do start with the body.

Caterina Rando: You mentioned that there’s three areas to focus on. Can you give us a overview of those three areas?

Heather Rogers: We start with the body and we, we see ourselves as a dynamic whole in [00:09:00] concert with the world.

And we bring ourselves back into balance through simple modalities: eating non-processed food, getting enough sleep.

In my free monthly zoom call, I talk about the nine hallmarks of aging.

And I won’t talk about them here ’cause they’re a little technical, but we address those and make sure we get enough sleep, that our nutrition is in alignment, that our stress is down. So these are ways that we start with the body.

Caterina Rando: And you know, Heather, one of the things I talk about is five pillars: speaking, selling, serving, strategy, and self care. Because really, like you said, if you’re not getting a good night’s sleep, you don’t wanna sell anything, right? If your health is bad, you don’t wanna sell anything. And my quote, I was wrong with my quote, I said it was a wealthy man.

It’s actually a healthy man. [00:10:00] Oh, a healthy man wants many things. A sick man wants only one. So that was my, I misquoted my quote that I heard somewhere. Anyway, but my point is, like in business, when you’re feeling great, you do want to do many things. You do wanna create a lot of things, but if you are not having vitality, it all seems like too much and we get overwhelmed.

Okay, so first thing is our body. What’s next, Heather?

Heather Rogers: It’s the mind. And you could also call that motivation. You know, if there’s no, why? There’s no drive. So our “why” is our fuel. Some people, they wanna be able to lift their grandchild up. Some people it’s 70 wanna be able to carry two bags of groceries.

Some people wanna be on the dance floor looking like, you know great. Right? So really be in touch with your why.

[00:11:00] Most people are, are running away from a negative why, but not all. In fact, people ask me who my ideal client is, and at first I thought it was people who needed this, and that’s not.

The people who really most need this work, their mindset isn’t ready. The people who really wanna work with me are the people who are already biohackers. They’re already deep in the wellness conversation, but they just haven’t figured the genetics piece.

My specialty is interpreting their genetic report.

So I can look at all their different SNPs and I can look at how they relate to, like for me, insulin resistance. I had high risk for insulin resistance, which was interesting because I was addicted, you know, to sugar, and I was, I was on a beeline for for diabetes. But because I stopped eating flour and sugar 20 years ago, I epigenetically changed the expression of my gene. So that’s a really good example.

So the second piece is the mind.

And the third is the “being” but it’s [00:12:00] wellbeing. And you can think of it as the method.

We can also use the three words, mindset, motivation, and method.

And method is when you hop on my zoom tuneup call and we talk about tips and tricks for wellness. Give you some frameworks to play with and see which one sticks for you.

Caterina Rando: My friend, give us some tips and tricks right now.

Heather Rogers: Oh my gosh. well, there’s, so, there’s so many. Well there are many women in your community who were all getting up there, right? I just turned 56, I’m not afraid to say. And one thing that really helped me was looking at my genetics and seeing that my estrogen levels were gonna drop and that I don’t create, testosterone does change into estrogen to some degree once the ovaries stop producing estrogen.

But mine, mine don’t produce as much. So I needed hormone replacement therapy. So I take a progesterone at night and estrogen in the morning and I’ve [00:13:00] had no hot flashes. I’m haven’t had the moods and other women I know do.

So that’s a tip. You could take a Dutch test that really focuses on hormones. And find out what you need for that. And boy, boy, you know, that’s a huge one.

Another thing is my genetics show me that I am high risk for what’s called sitosterolemia. When we eat vegetables, vegetables actually have fats in them, and my genetics over absorb the fats. And there have been 23-year-old excellent athletes who’ve dropped dead running because they had all this fat in their cells because they were over absorbing the fat from the vegetable. So I now know what to look for the bumps, and I know there’s only one medication that can help, but because I know my genetics, I can look. So that’s just one.

But for you individually, the quick wide sweeping tips are: no more processed food if you can. Or if you do eat some processed, [00:14:00] like I do, I have a chocolate smoothie every day, but I add to it a really thick amount of combined veggie smoothies, all greens that I prep ahead.

And so that’s my processed food credit for the day. And the rest, you know, is fruits, vegetables. So that’s a really important thing.

And get your sleep.

I can offer different people sleep stacks. Like I, I talk to ’em about what they need and the sleep stacker is like what you need. No blue light at night. You know, the room temperature. There’s all these things you can do.

Some people melatonin is good for at night. Others, it puts ’em out for days. For me, I can’t take melatonin.

Caterina Rando: My chiropractor said melatonin is a steroid. She told me not to take it for that reason. And that’s the thing. You know what I like about this, Heather, is we hear these things. Like melatonin is perfect example.

And we think, “okay, great. I’m gonna try this, I’m gonna try that.” Well, all these things are not one size fits all. [00:15:00] Everything is not right for everybody.

And I love the technology that we’re at this place, that we get to look and see what is right for our personal body, our personal genetics. Because health and wellness is not one size fits all.

I know for me, I need at least eight and a half hours to be blissing the next day. You know, some people it’s seven, some people it’s nine. And so to know all of these things for ourself.

And the reason why I wanted to have you come on Heather and talk about this a little bit is because, as you say, you know, myself and my gals we’re getting up there and I was talking not too long ago to a new friend. She’s 75 and for the last 20 years, she’s been taking ladies to Italy for a retreat.

And I love that because as I look 15 years down the road, [00:16:00] whether I’m in business or not, my intention is to be in business as long as I’m above ground to be serving ladies. But that takes vitality.

And the sooner we can put attention on uplifting our vitality, and I use the word vitality, but it’s all aspects of our health, wellness, and vitality.

A vital mind, a vital body, and, also you mentioned about the lifting the groceries and lifting the, the grandchild. You know, strength and fitness is also very important for women as we get older too.

Any super tips in that area, Heather?

Heather Rogers: You know what? Your father is the model. He is 92. Yes. And this man, he’s, he’s the perfect model.

He, lift tiny weights at night. Yes. You know, two pound, three pound weights. They’re doing resistance training because age is a battle to maintain muscle [00:17:00] loss. We know that that’s point blank. Like we lose muscle. And he walks every day. He eats pure plant-based. I think he’s a wonder.

In fact, he is purchased my full total package kit. So we’re gonna look at his environmental detox, his sleep, his nutrition supplementation, his athletic performance. So that’s, you know, the resistance training every day.

 One book I highly recommend, it’s called “Built to Move.”

Heather Rogers: And it’s wonderful. It talks about, sitting is the new smoking, which you’ve talked about, right? But it gives you wonderful tips on nutrition and movement and breath, all these innovations. So that’s one thing.

But I do wanna add one thing about what exciting times we live in.

Now, let me just say ’cause people are talking very seriously about reversing aging. Reversing aging is a very important conversation now with AI and, and everything. And I’ll tell you the truth, that it’s basically split into three camps.

A third of the scientists and experts think you can reverse aging. A third think that’s ridiculous and a third are not [00:18:00] decided.

But that used to be just science fiction and now people are seriously doing it. They’ve able been able to reverse aging in skin cells in a Petri dish. that’s happened.

Wow!

They’re able to bring back hearing by affecting the hair follicles in the ear. And this is five, six years ago, they have taken one liver, cut it into 19 pieces, and they’re growing new livers for people. It was animals and now they’re doing it in humans growing new livers.

So it’s an incredibly exciting time to where it is the age of miracle and wonder, and to keep that in our mind.

And I’ll let you chime in to this comment. I wonder what you think of this? And that is I am rigorous with saying nice things into my head and just leveraging my brain every second to make the most of it and to be happy. Tell me how you do it.

Caterina Rando: Well, I wanna tell you how I do it, my friend. And also I wanna tell you my favorite thing, terms of [00:19:00] the “sitting is the new smoking” is I have a vibe plate under where I sit.

And because sometimes I’m in, you know, conference for the day. I run my vibe plate for at least 10 minutes, if not 20 minutes every hour with my feet on it. And that improves your circulation. And, then when I work out and I lift my weights, I do it standing on a vibe plate, and that also is a vibration plate. And that’s my other favorite thing to do.

And yes, my 92-year-old dad that you mentioned, he is on top of all the health situations and he has taught me many things that it’s not enough to exercise every day, you gotta move every 20 minutes, et cetera. So, this is definitely something we all wanna put our attention on.

Heather, yes. Making a choice to be happy and making a choice to be your own best voice in your ear [00:20:00] is essential.

And something that you may not know, Heather, is that when I was a kid, my dad was a Toastmaster, and so he would listen to Nido Qubein and Brian Tracy, and most importantly Earl Nightingale, the motivational audio tapes.

And that’s how I got moving towards my work was because of my early influence from my dad. And I decided to be a coach when I was sitting in my therapist office in my, I guess early twenties, and I was talking about how effed up my life was. It was kind of like I had an out-of-body experience where I saw myself complaining about my life and that’s when I decided, you know what, this is not my future. And so that’s when I hired my first coach to help me.

And you know, there are many [00:21:00] paths that lead to Rome and there’s many paths to wellness. I think that people get discouraged and disappointed you’ve heard, heard it many times, “i’ve tried everything.” Right?

Well, the truth is that the person you are today didn’t try everything.

The person you were before tried everything or different things.

There’s always another possible solution.

So I’m very excited for what you’re doing because I think that you are what’s the word? Early adapter, if that’s the right word, or early adopter to really bringing this, and pretty soon this is how everybody’s gonna look at it.

So instead of just going to the drugstore and grabbing something, we’ll know what’s the right solution for us, because we will know about our personal epigenetic makeup or our gene makeup.

Heather Rogers: I’ll share one cutting edge thing that’s happening right now that I’m plugged [00:22:00] into, and this is right now happening with one company on earth.

And what they’re doing now, they’re working with the government, they’re working with big hospitals. They’ve created a platform to where they can look at your genetics and then they can look at the medications you’re on and see how your medications intertwine with each other with your genetics and how your medications affect you with your genetics.

And this is a whole new ballgame. And these, these are the people I use the platform with. Very, very cool people. So my ear is close to the pulse of what they’re doing, so I can bring that to you.

Caterina Rando: And I know that they’re doing also looking at people’s individual genes with cancer research. Yes. And to see what’s the best cancer cocktail, for lack of a better term, for people based on their personal genetics.

Heather Rogers: Yeah, True Diagnostic is doing that. Genetic age testing company. They’re, they’re ones to watch.

Caterina Rando: Fascinating. Well, Heather, I’m sure people are gonna have many questions after this, [00:23:00] and I wish we had all day to chat about epigenetics.

You know, I’m in the business of helping women grow their business with their speaking and their selling and their retreats.

And as my years continue to go by of doing my thing, the health aspect of it feels more and more important to me so I can run around the world when I am 75, run with all my ladies.

And so if people wanna learn more about all this, how can they connect with you? And we will put more information of course, in the show notes, but let’s give them a quick report on this.

Heather Rogers: Absolutely. So epigeneticscoach.com is my website, but you can email me heather@epigeneticscoach.com and I can send you my free life plan toolkit, which is a great starter to codify and clarify what you want and where that lands with your health. Then I do have these the last Wednesday of every month, a free community zoom call.[00:24:00]

As you know, Caterina it’s good for the ladies to gather and they get a lot outta it.

Caterina Rando: My friend, be sure to personally invite me to that as so I can get it on my calendar. Bing, bing.

My friends. I hope that something we’ve discussed today with Heather has prompted you to give some thought to what you can do to have more vitality in your body and your mind so that you can bliss and thrive more in your business.

By the way, if you haven’t joined me for one of my upcoming free workshops, we have them on speaking, on mindset, on masterminding, on all kinds of hot topics. For the woman who wants to thrive in her business, connect with me at Caterinarando.com.

You can also get our free gifts there at Caterinarando.com/links.

Heather, I’m always blissing to be with you. I look forward to watching you perform again with Professor Salamini [00:25:00] in the future. I’m looking forward to you keeping my 92-year-old dad fit and healthy for years to come. Thank you for being with us today.

And everyone go put some attention on your health so you can bliss and thrive more in your business and your life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Connect with Caterina

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #160:
The Art of Asking:
Caterina’s Musings from the Balcony of a Cruise Ship

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Listen to "The Art of Asking: Caterina’s Musings from the Balcony of a Cruise Ship" on Spreaker.

In this fun episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast, Caterina Rando shares insights from her cruise ship balcony in Victoria, Canada. During this family trip, she discusses the power of transforming complaints into requests and emphasizes the importance of persistent and strategic asking in business and life. Caterina reflects on her experiences on the Wake Show, the value of visibility, and effective follow-up strategies. She underscores the significance of retreats for women entrepreneurs and encourages listeners to embrace kindness, make powerful requests, and continuously seek to uplift others.

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #160 Transcript

The Art of Asking: Caterina’s Musings from the Balcony of a Cruise Ship

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27]Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and today I’m coming to you from the balcony of a cruise ship in Victoria, Canada. We are in the port right now.

You may or may not know that I host retreats for women on cruise ships. I’ve hosted 13 retreats for women on cruise ships.

We have so much fun. We have a mastermind retreat. We have a [00:01:00] retreat called the Bliss Retreat where we get rejuvenated and work on uplifting ourself and having a great time.

We also do something called Amp Up the Mastermind Adventure, and we have a retreat on how to do women’s retreats.

Usually when I’m on a cruise ship with a group of gals, well, there’s a lot happening.

We’re we’re having an accelerated jewelry exchange. We’re having afternoon tea with fascinators. We’re doing group karaoke. We’re doing a comedy night. There’s not time for me to sit down and do this being with you.

This week I’m with my family. I got a little bit more time for thinking, for thinking about you and your business, my business, the future of women in entrepreneurship.[00:02:00]

And I’m very happy right now to sit down with you and share what I’m calling my musings from my cruise ship balcony.

Today we went to Bouchard Gardens. Beautiful place on the island of Victoria. The Bouchard family were in the cement business. They actually invented cement. Didn’t know that. The wife, Jenny, she built these beautiful, incredible gardens with so many flowers.

We went there today. And when we got on the tour bus, at some point before the tour bus left, the driver turned on the air conditioning, and it got really cold. I put on my jacket. After a couple of minutes, I was still very cold. [00:03:00] And I said to my sister who was with me, I said, “it’s so cold. It’s too cold.”

And then I remembered that a complaint, which is what I was doing, is an unstated request.

And I want you to take a moment to look in your life. And ask yourself, what do you complain about?

What do you complain about? Because that is a good indicator for you for what you want to put some attention on and make a powerful request.

Could be a powerful request of yourself or a powerful request of someone else.

What did I do? I got my derriere out of the chair. I went down the double decker [00:04:00] stairs. I got off the bus. I found the driver and I said, “Hey, it’s very cold on the bus. Everyone has put on their jacket.”

Well, of course, as a result, he said, “no problem. I will turn it down.” Ha. I got back on the bus and it was very comfortable.

I share that with you. because often when we think about asking for what we want, we anticipate that somebody’s not gonna be happy to give it to us. Now, I can tell you right now, it’s not always gonna be as easy as that, but you know what?

Even when we ask for what we want and we get a no, people start to think about what we want and often they’ll come back to us. Or we can come back to them another time and we can get a yes.

It’s this way, of course, in sales. It’s this way, often in your relationships.

I want to invite you to amplify your asking for what you want.

Now I do wanna say graciousness matters. Kindness matters.

Letting people know how much you appreciate them, or what they’ve done for you, before you make your request also helps you get what you want more.

Because you know why? When we’re kind to people, they’re much more agreeable than when we’re not kind.

Kindness is a key part of business success.

In fact, I heard the first woman prime Minister of New England, who was also the youngest head of state. I believe her name was Jacinda, but I might be wrong on that. Anyway, you know what she said? She said [00:06:00] kindness is one of her leadership qualities that she implements.

And I’m hoping that that is one of your leadership qualities. It’s definitely one of mine.

Kindness. Always ask for what you want. Notice when you’re having a complaint and make it a request. Bing, bing, bing.

That’s the first musing I wanna share with you.

When we got on the cruise ship, I started to think about one of the favorite things I’ve done on a cruise ship. Twice, I have been on the Wake Show.

The Wake Show is the morning show that they show all day on the cruise ships in the people’s cabins. And the Wake Show is where they talk about what’s happening on the ship that day, they talk about the destinations we’re going to, and sometimes they interview [00:07:00] passengers.

A few cruises back, one of our fabulous participants, Narelle Sheehan, she met the cruise director who was from Australia. Narelle’s from Australia. And Narelle having a background in the entertainment business and having been a publicist and an agent in the past, she pitched me to the cruise director to be on the Wake Show.

And guess what? The cruise director said yes! And I got to be on the Wake Show. I got interviewed. And then, the next time I knew I was going on a cruise, I asked in advance if I could be on the Wake Show.

And why do I wanna be on the Wake Show? Because what I do when I go on the Wake Show is I talk about women and cruising and retreats and how powerful they are for us to uplift our lives, make friends, have a great time together.

And in our case, those of us that are entrepreneurs, get revitalized to grow our business.

So I’m on the Wake Shown twice. Now i’m traveling with my family. Well, this is really what we would call a pop-up cruise. We didn’t plan it very far in the past because my mom passed away a few months back and my sister and I decided it would be good to take my dad on a cruise to cheer him up. And also, he likes to travel and he’s been on this ship with me to Alaska before about 15 years ago, and he had a great time.

We’re on the ship. Not planned far in advance, and I start thinking about the Wake Show. And I start thinking, “Hey, I’d like to be on the Wake Show and now I don’t have all my gals that I have my attention on [00:09:00] usually. I could do a great job and be relaxed and be on the Wake Show and have fun.”

Well, a day or two go by and then I realize, “well, if I wanna be on the Wake Show. Nobody knows I wanna be on the Wake Show. I should probably go ask someone.”

So my experience is that the cruise director is in charge of who gets on the Wake Show. I call, I ask to speak to the cruise director. She’s not available. I ask to leave her a message. They don’t have voicemail. I have to leave a message with the gal who answered the phone. Which I do, and I tell her I wanna be on the Wake Show and I tell her what I wanna talk about. Well, the next evening I get a call from I guess, her assistant who asks me some questions and says she’ll get back to me about the possibility of being on the Wake Show.[00:10:00]

Another day goes by, no call. Then I remind myself of something.

If you don’t get the answer you want, you ask again.

And I’m telling you that because often you reach out to someone, they don’t get right back to you and you don’t circle back.

You’ve heard the fortune is in the follow- up.

I’m gonna tell you, the fortune is in the circle backs after the follow- up.

It’s not always the case that someone responds from your first follow- up. I’ve sometimes circled back to gals 5, 6, 7 times before they even respond. That’s okay because all those touches count.

And sometimes if Mary, Jane, or Sheila are not responding to you [00:11:00] through your text, through your email, through your direct message, you have to ask yourself, “Hey, what else can I do to try to connect with Mary Jane or Sheila?”

Do you know what I’m doing on my trip to Alaska right now? I wrote 30 postcards. I’ve got 10 more to write. Some of them are to the gals that are coming to Alaska with me next year. Some of them are to potential clients that have been non-responsive.

Here’s the thing, if you wanna talk to Mary, Jane, or Sheila and Mary, Jane, or Sheila have not said to you, “don’t bother me, or I’m busy, or I’m not interested,” the answer is “yes” until you hear a “no.”

And I’m hoping that you’re continuing to reach out, finding new ways [00:12:00] to reach out.

And by the way, here’s one of my big strategies. If I’m trying to get ahold of Mary, Jane, or Sheila and Mary, Jane, or Sheila, or non-responsive, I ask myself this very important question: where can I run into Mary Jane or Sheila?

These days with Zoom, oh my God, it’s so fabulous! I think to myself, what Zoom networking event might Mary, Jane, or Sheila be at? Or can I sign up for Mary, Jane, or Sheila’s workshop?

Is she teaching a class? I go. And my smile is now on the screen. And now my presence there… Guess what? It is building influence.

I love to go where someone is gonna be. [00:13:00] Then after, send them a note: “great to see you at the blah, blah, blah.” Circling back on whatever it was I wanted to talk to them about.

I hope you’re blissing as you hear this strategy because it’s super works. By the way, I wanna remind you about the law of familiarity.

The law of familiarity. What is that? The more someone sees your beautiful face, the more they hear your name, the more other people are talking about you. They see your posts, they see your emails. Even when they don’t open them, they are starting to know you, like you, and trust you more. It’s awesome. Even if you never had a conversation.

Are you vibing with me on this?

This is why all of your reach outs count all of your posts, count all of your emails count, because they’re all helping you with the law of familiarity.

And guess what? Postcards count too. Bing, bing, bing.

So back to my Wake Show story, I ask myself, okay, I am not getting a call back from the cruise director.

Now I’ve seen her all over the ship, but she’s running, she’s on stage, she’s going somewhere else and I was not able to ever find a moment to speak with her. But then I hear her announce on the loud speaker in the morning, “I’m gonna be doing a panel with the executives on the ship at one o’clock.”

I think to myself, “Bing, bing, bing. I know where she’s gonna be at one o’clock.” Since she’ll be moderating the panel, she’ll be sitting down and I’ll be able to catch her just after she finishes moderating the panel. [00:15:00] Well, what did I do? One o’clock I went to the Explorer’s Lounge where she was leading the panel and you know what else I did?

Super tip alert. Super tip alert. When it came to the q and a part of the panel discussion, I stood up. I raised my hand. I asked a question, a very good question that showed the cruise line in a bright and positive light. I asked about sustainability and environmental impact and all the positive changes that they’re making.

She said to me five times, she said, “that was a great question.” But now when I go up after and introduce myself, I have already built a little influence. Did you hear this, my friends? I hope you’re bliss. I want you to take this and I want you to apply it for yourself.

I go there. I introduce myself. [00:16:00] Now she already knows who I am. We have a brief conversation and bing, bing, bing, I am Insta booked on the Wake Show at 9:00 AM the next morning.

I hope you’re hearing this and you’re thinking to yourself, ” where do I wanna be? I’ve reached out. I’ve tried. I didn’t get a yes, I didn’t get a response.” This would be for podcasts, speaking, other opportunities.

Keep asking. Keep showing up. Stay visible, to those individuals, not just general visibility.

And the same thing, of course, with your sales.

Next morning, 9:00 AM I’m on the Wake Show, it’s on the TV all day. They, they play it constantly. Wake Show. In fact, it’s a button that you could press at any time to see what’s happening. Today is the day that my Wake Show [00:17:00] aired. We’re going to dinner shortly. I have not been on the ship all day.

What usually happens is people recognize me. People ask me about cruising and women’s retreats and bing, bing. I have got a new fabulous clip for my social media. I am blissing, all because I asked for what I wanted.

I didn’t stop when I didn’t get the response I was looking for, and I got strategic about how I could get the response I was looking for.

Caterina Rando: That’s what I’m hoping you’re doing.

And let me be very clear, asking -making powerful requests- my friend, it’s a skill, just like speaking and writing.

In the beginning, it’s nerve wracking to do. It’s uncomfortable. The more you do it, the better you get.

And let’s remind you of another important thing. The goal is not to do stuff. The goal is to master the [00:18:00] stuff that you’re doing.

Master your speaking. Master your writing. Master your asking, and making powerful requests. And mastering leading groups, mastering, leading retreats.

And I’m hoping that you have also embraced retreats as standard operating procedure for your strategic plan. Because two retreats a year is a very important strategy for you.

Now, you don’t have to come all the way to Victoria, Canada, or you don’t have to go to a foreign country. You can do a retreat an hour or two from your home. Ideally with other amazing business women that you’re gonna pour into them, they’re gonna pour into you. You’re gonna make new friends. You’re gonna create new collaborations.

Retreats [00:19:00] are very powerful for your business, for your business bliss. And I’m hoping that you’re embracing that. If you have not been on a women’s retreat, or if you haven’t been on one in a while, or if you have, and you know how awesome they are, connect with me and our Thriving Women in Business Community.

We’ve got retreats every year that we offer. We offer not only retreats on cruise ships, we also offer, our speaker mastermind retreat twice a year at our center in San Francisco. Where you will gain skills and you will become a more confident speaker. You will become more strategic with your speaking. You’ll be able to scale your business more with speaking, which is what I want for you. And again, you’ll be blissing more in your business.

My friend, I hope you will take my musings from my balcony of my cruise ship. You [00:20:00] will say to yourself, “Caterina,. I like that idea,” and you will incorporate something for our discussion today to uplift your life, to uplift your business.

Please reach out to me. Please let me know how you’re enjoying this podcast. By the way, we’ve got over 150 episodes. There’s a lot of great ideas, a lot of great strategies that I’m hoping you will be embracing. You’ll be listening to some more episodes.

Let me say, my intention for this podcast is that every time you listen, when you are finished listening with any episode, you are more uplifted than when you showed up. That is my intention.

That is my intention for every conversation I have. That is my intention for every relationship I’m in.

By the way, there’s another guiding principle for you to embrace. Look to uplift everybody you come in contact with. You know what happens. You end up [00:21:00] uplifting yourself too, which is a great thing.

I’m sending you much love. I’m reminding you, you have massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve.

I encourage you, be loud and proud about your massive value.

I encourage you to ask for what you want with graciousness and kindness.

I encourage you to not take the first no or not take the non-response and figure out, Hey, how can I get more of what I want?

Because the more you do, the more you will be uplifting others having more impact, and as a result, uplifting more lives. Bing, bing, Bing. Can’t wait to be with you again on another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Love to you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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Episode #159:
From Trauma to Empowerment with Karen Robinson

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Listen to "From Trauma to Empowerment with Karen Robinson" on Spreaker.

In this episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast, Caterina Rando interviews Karen Robinson, a trauma recovery therapist who specializes in helping women holistically heal from complex trauma. They discuss the importance of addressing trauma for women entrepreneurs, how trauma can manifest in business, and strategies for overcoming it. Karen shares insights on mindset and self-talk, and emphasizes the power of community in the healing process.

Connect with Karen

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #159 Transcript

 

From Trauma to Empowerment with Karen Robinson

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00]Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando. I am blissing to be with you today. We have an amazing guest, the fabulous, phenomenal, big hearted, Karen Robinson. Her specialty is helping women on a mission, just like you, holistically heal their trauma so that [00:01:00] you can bliss and thrive more in your business.

Karen, welcome, welcome, blissing to have you here.

Karen Robinson: Caterina, it’s, it’s such an honor to spend time with you and your audience today.

Caterina Rando: Karen, you and I are friends. We’ve known each other for a while. We love to hang out and be together. What I love about you is that you are such an uplifting person and that you help women entrepreneurs with a challenge area, which is addressing their trauma.

And I feel this is a very important topic for women entrepreneurs. Because, sometimes when we haven’t healed or we haven’t addressed certain things that have taken place in our life, it holds us back, it has [00:02:00] us be more in our fear than in our freedom.

Why do you feel this is important for us to talk about today?

Karen Robinson: Yeah, a really important question. What I know about trauma, is that women are exposed to it over and over and over during the course of their whole lifetime. And my specialty is exactly that. I specialize in complex trauma healing.

In complex trauma, what that means is that your trauma may have started in childhood. It could be from being bullied in school. It could be that your family wasn’t safe or there was a lot of chaos in your family. Maybe there was domestic violence between your parents or substance abuse of any kind. Complex trauma starts at childhood and then it could be a sexual assault later, you know, it could be a really unhealthy or toxic [00:03:00] relationship where there’s emotional abuse, financial abuse. And then it could be sexual harassment in the workplace.

When I worked for the Department of Defense, I had to file 22 EEO complaints. And it took an act of Congress to remove someone that was sexually harassing me. You know?

Wow.

I should be able to go to work in peace. Right?

Caterina Rando: Right. Every woman should be able to go to work without the threat of harassment. And my friend, I’m sure that’s why some gals have started their own business, so they didn’t have to.

That’s just gonna say that. Exactly. Let’s talk about this, if we may.

You have your own business. You do amazing summits for women to heal from trauma. You work with people one-on-one. You lead groups, you lead retreats, and I am wanting to talk to you about what you [00:04:00] see with women entrepreneurs as some of the things that have come up that we wanna shine the spotlight on today.

Karen Robinson: Yeah. How trauma can show up in your workplace is when you may not feel confident, or I shouldn’t say your workplace, ’cause again, a lot of women when they’ve dealt with harassment… and a lot of women too, have problems with authority in general because they feel like they’ve been under someone’s thumb in some way or another.

So the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is you get to decide when you’re gonna work, what projects you’re gonna do, you get to decide a lot of different avenues, and that is very freeing for any survivor of any type of oppression.

Caterina Rando: And also we get to decide if somebody gives us the creeps or somebody is inappropriate with us in the initial contact with them, we don’t have to take them on as a client, which is [00:05:00] great. That is some of the freedom.

And I know that women with J-O-Bs unfortunately don’t always have that freedom to stay away from the ones that, intuitively, we know are not safe, or we have a whiff of not safe.

What I wanna ask is, for women that have had, as you say, complex trauma or they’ve had experiences in the past, how does that impact us as we are wanting to do business today?

Karen Robinson: Mm-hmm. The, the biggest words that come up for me in that is self-sabotage. I am someone that’s struggled with that a lot as well, and I recognize that in many, many of my clients and how that looks like, ’cause you mentioned, you know, that, my intelligence.

A lot of the women or most of the women are really [00:06:00] creative and brilliant at what they do.

But marketing and, and as you know, the sales piece, there’s a lack of confidence, or they’ll make brilliant plans to do X, Y, and Z, and then they allow anything and everything to get in the way.

Like I could come up with some very creative excuses for just about anything. And so it sets us back when we allow that to happen.

We also struggle with taking care of ourselves, our self- care. We put other people before ourselves. We put all our clients and our customers, and then we wonder why we’re, we’re feeling a little haggard, right?

So those are a couple of things is the self-sabotage, which isn’t always conscious by the way. It’s a subconscious or an unconscious process that goes on because of unhealthy beliefs you may have about yourself that are deeper within us.

Caterina Rando: Let’s talk about that. You said [00:07:00] unhealthy, unconscious beliefs we might have about ourself. Oh my gosh. How do we combat that? Because Karen, as you say, I meet a lot of women, super smart, very talented at what they do.

Oh my gosh, I can’t get them to focus on inviting people to talk to them, to be their client. They want to, they want to grow their business, but they’re so afraid. Maybe it’s unconscious of rejection that they, and maybe rejection equals not feeling safe, and so they’re not discussing the possibility of offering someone their services, they’re not pursuing opportunities. What are your thoughts?

Karen Robinson: Well, I am at times that woman, right? So I do have a lot of thoughts about this.

[00:08:00] And I think it comes to doing the things that help you feel confident. You know, that’s the superficial level, I would say, and maybe the easiest thing to do.

So it could be doing some energy. Like our friend Elaine, like when I did some public speaking, she would help prep me by doing the woman warrior poses and stuff like that help pump you up and they work, right? So those things can be really helpful.

It might be just putting on a lipstick that you love. It might be, you know, wearing your favorite color. So just having those little things that can help with your confidence. That’s a quick fix.

A deeper fix is really working on your belief system and you know, doing some detective work on figuring out how you got them in the first place.

Sometimes it’s easy to find out, like if, if you were in second grade and your teacher [00:09:00] said, “Well, that was stupid of you. Of course three plus three is six. Like, what’s wrong with you?” That might have really just kind of hit your heart and you never let go of it. And so even though you might have gotten a PhD in X, Y, and Z, that “I am stupid” belief may be in the background playing right?

It never went away. So you doubt yourself, you become uncertain.

So I work with a lot of women on looking at their belief system, where the injury came from and then learning how to heal that. I use some analytical tools and a type of therapy that that’s called is cognitive behavioral therapy.

And some of the analytical tools I use is a like deep dive questions on

if that belief is true, why is that so upsetting?

Is this belief useful to you? Like how is this belief helping your life be better?

Are you able to achieve your goals with this belief?[00:10:00]

Are you getting along with others well because of this belief?

Are you feeling good about yourself because of this belief?

And if you’re not, that’s a sure sign, like, okay, if this belief is useful, could you be ready to let it go?

So sometimes we do visuals like I’ll, I’ll have them put that belief in the wheelbarrow and we wheel it to the dump. We dump it out. But what works even better is to have a substitute healthy belief.

So if your deep seated belief is, ” I’m stupid,” and maybe you have a learning disability, so we don’t wanna be too Pollyanna and say, “oh, now I’m Einstein.” We want something believable and healthy. Like “I’m capable of learning, you know, I’ve accomplished a lot. I am accomplishing things every day.”

You know, something more healthy and believing. And then I have women practice that belief, that affirmation, that counter over and over and over.[00:11:00]

I get them to put it on index cards and decorate them. I ask them to look at it the first thing, the first thing, when you open your eyes in the morning, look at your card, read it out loud, feel the card. This is kinesthetic learning. You know, ground your feet in the ground, look in the mirror. And then hear with your voice, your affirmation.

And you do the same process before you go to bed, and you also do it throughout the day.

It takes no time to do your affirmation. It takes a few seconds, so over and over and over, and I promise one day you’ll wake up believing what you’ve been practicing, but it’s not overnight. It really does take time.

Caterina Rando: What you’re talking about, Karen, is part of our mindset and our self-talk, and that is so important for women in business for us to master our self-talk and pay attention to those things [00:12:00] that come out of our mind, or even thoughts that we have that are not serving us, and to do as you’re suggesting, and give them replacement beliefs that do support us. Essential.

Karen, I wanna ask you, because you’re such a kind, sweet, loving person who’s so wonderful to be around, how did you decide that trauma and helping women with trauma was gonna be your entrepreneurial focus?

Karen Robinson: I love this question because if you think about it, it’s really not the most uplifting career to have, right? To be, but working with trauma survivors. But I feel like it’s my purpose. I feel like I’ve been called to do this work. I am also a complex trauma survivor.

I had a really, really difficult childhood, and that [00:13:00] childhood to this day can still impact me. I’ve done a lot of healing work. I’m continuing to work on my healing journey.

But how I decided to really make this my career is because I’m just simply good at it, you know?

When I work with women and a few good men, I like to say because I, I do take men individually as clients as well. The, the feedback I often get from them is that they feel heard. They really, truly feel heard. And that engagement, that relationship is the most important piece of working with someone in their healing.

But also now I also get it personally and now as a professional, with 25 years in the field, I have gotten all the certifications in trauma. Like it’s hard to find someone that’s more than an expert than I am. They are out there, but they’re the ones that are writing the big research books and stuff. And that’s not what I decided to do.

But I, I’ve taken [00:14:00] all the trainings and done all the things, and so I know a lot about how to heal trauma holistically. It doesn’t mean I’m everybody’s best fit. Right? Like if you want EMDR, I’ve been trained, I just don’t like it. I don’t like the finger, the waving. So I do the things I like as I help heal people.

Caterina Rando: Well, that’s what we want, right? It’s your business. You get to do the stuff that you like, my friend.

Karen Robinson: That’s right.

Caterina Rando: Lemme, lemme ask you this. What makes, even though you’re in the trauma business, what makes you bliss in your business?

Karen Robinson: Mm-hmm. Seeing people get better. I see people heal almost daily. You know, it’s a journey, right? And we celebrate little wins.

We work on the small “Ts”, the little traumas first, so people can learn to trust me and trust themselves with the healing journey. And then we go on to the bigger “Ts” when they feel like they can really regulate themselves and not be too distressed as they work through it. So [00:15:00] seeing people heal is what’s rewarding.

Caterina Rando: That’s a great strategy. Start with a little “Ts”. Karen, let me ask you this, because some of our listeners, i’m sure they’re thinking of their lives as we’re having this discussion. And of course we know that women encounter all kinds of trauma, not just from their family of origin, sexual trauma, et cetera, but there may be women who have said, “Hey, I haven’t had that experience that I fortunately didn’t have a family where there was substance abuse, or I didn’t have a sexual assault,” but they probably had some trauma too. Would you agree my friend?

Let’s talk a little bit about the small Ts that some of us have encountered.

Karen Robinson: Yes. So one of the things I will say, as someone who’s had a lot of small T’s and Big T’s, I don’t really like [00:16:00] the statement “we’ve all had trauma.” Because it lumps us all together and it maybe discounts to the women who’ve had significant trauma. Right?

But I also do agree that most of us have small Ts from some point. You know, and it’s also perspective and what happens. It also, your culture, your financial status.

Like COVID is an example where that was a big T for some people and a little T for some people.

And then there’s other people who completely thrived. You know, they were able to pivot and they were okay. A lot of people were completely derailed, like if you lost a few family members. And I, I consider grief part of that trauma too.

So when you look at the whole scope of trauma, you know, did you have a surgery that went wrong, like a medical trauma? Were you part of a National disaster where you felt unsafe? Were you in a major car accident where you [00:17:00] had a concussion? Well, that’s trauma.

So there are multiple, multiple ways to have a traumatic incident.

I think some people just, it’s too painful to talk about or think about, so they kind of stuff it down. And they stuff it down by overworking, over drinking, overeating, overshopping.

You know, there’s lots of different ways where we kind of cope. And of course some of those are a little healthier than others.

But what I would recommend is to really cope in a healthy way by doing deeper self-care practices like meditation, prayer, journaling, reading healthy, positive content like some devotionals. Things that will lift you up, you know, motivational chats on YouTube. Do the things that will really be healing and soothing, instead of those unhealthy things that will help [00:18:00] you get better too.

Caterina Rando: I’m gonna tell you my comfort tv, Karen, is I watch Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote, and that always makes me feel good, even though there’s a murder involved.

At least one, if not two. But at the end she’s always laughing at the end of the episode. That always makes me happy, and she’s super smart and very fun.

I think it is good for us to find healthier ways to cope and you know, I am with you in our Thriving Women in Business Community and I would say that community I think is a very important part.

And I know you have your own community, being in a community of amazing women, either all working together on something or even simply being together is very healing. What are your thoughts on [00:19:00] women and community as it relates to healing?

Karen Robinson: Well, research proves that it’s way more effective.

And what I am now seeing about healing and community, ’cause I’m doing a lot of energy work right now as well, is that healing in community is taking your healing on a quantum leap.

Think about it, when we do something on our own, that’s one brain. And you can be really smart, but you’re only gonna go so far with your one brain.

But when you’re in a collective of women with the same goal or the same healing journey, we have all those collective brains, right?

So you have the coach or the the therapist, the leader with their wisdom. Every woman in the room has been on a journey and there’s a lot of wisdom there. They come from different backgrounds, different experiences, different families, even different education.

Like in my membership, there’s lawyers, teachers, [00:20:00] musicians. There’s homemakers. I have two other therapists in my community. You know? It’s, and it’s just beautiful to see how we all help each other.

Caterina Rando: And uplift each other. Yes. A rising woman lifts all the women around her. Bing, bing, bing.

Amen.

And that’s definitely you. Karen, I know that you have a gift for our listeners. Do you wanna take a moment, tell ’em about that?

Karen Robinson: Yes. So my gift is really thick. It’s a digital download. It’s called The Healing Planner. What’s really unique about it is it has checklists on different symptoms you can have, there’s habit trackers. And there’s also more than a hundred journaling prompts. There’s self-care ideas. So it’s a really robust product that I usually charge for in my boutique. But for anyone listening to us we wanna gift you this today, you know, for being a customer of Caterina’s or a [00:21:00] follower of Caterina’s. I just wanna bless you with this gift.

Caterina Rando: Thank you, Karen. What we’ve done today in our time together is we’ve explored everyone listening to begin to think about what has interfered, perhaps, with them blissing and thriving in their business. My friends, I wanna encourage you to go to the show notes on our podcast page and you can download Karen’s free gift for you.

It’s at www.healththrivedream.com/healing-planner. You’re gonna wanna get that. Karen also has summits for women that you can attend to support you on your healing journey. Please connect with her. She’s an amazing woman who will uplift your life.

Karen, I’m blissing to have you with us today on the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Everyone, [00:22:00] I wanna encourage you to put attention on healing so you can thrive even more. This is Caterina Rando encouraging you to join us again for another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Bing, bing, bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Connect with Caterina

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Episode #158:
Being a Loud and Proud Speaker:
Strategies to Boost Your Visibility and Bookings

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Listen to "Being a Loud and Proud Speaker: Strategies to Boost Your Visibility and Bookings" on Spreaker.

In this episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast, Caterina discusses the importance of being “loud and proud” about your role as a speaker to book more speaking opportunities. Drawing from her own extensive 30-year speaking career, Caterina provides actionable super tips and practical advice such as leveraging social media to celebrate bookings and the significance of having strategic partnerships with fellow speakers. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for any entrepreneur, or “speakerprenuer” as Caterina like to call them, looking to use speaking as a tool to expand their influence, client base, and business bliss!

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Join us on an Alaskan Adventure!  

AMP UP ADVENTURE: Alaska 2026

A Mastermind Cruise for Women Business Leaders to Connect, Collaborate, and Catapult!

Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

Register for FREE: 

Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #158 Transcript

Being a Loud and Proud Speaker:
Strategies to Boost Your Visibility and Bookings

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Caterina Rando: This is Caterina Rando and I am blissing to be back with you for another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Today we are gonna talk about a very important, very hot topic. In fact, I sat down to prepare for my podcast with you today and I started to work on a completely different topic.

And when I got to this section, I said, “you know what? This needs to be [00:01:00] its own episode because there is so much to explore here.”

And let me tell you what that hot topic is. Our hot topic today is being loud and proud that you are a speaker. Loud and proud that you are a speaker, not only to get you more bookings, being loud and proud that you are a speaker, to bring more opportunities to you, to increase your visibility and your authority, and to create more magic, more memories, more amazingness in your business.

I have been doing my thing for 30 years, more than 30 years now. One of my best memories ever of life is going [00:02:00] 26 years ago to Venice, Italy, speaking at the International Congress of Business and Professional women. Meeting women from 87 countries.

I took my dad with me. He had the time of his life. We went to the gala. He was the only guy there besides the waiters and the women in all their costumes from their countries of origin. He had the best time of his life. I had the best time of my life.

Speaking. Brought that to me. I got myself booked for that speaking engagement.

Speaking brought me to New Zealand. I spoke at the National Convention of the New Zealand Speakers Association. Met amazing speakers. Met speakers who had impacted me. It was books I had read who I was so [00:03:00] excited to be in the same room with.

And of course, speaking has brought to me literally hundreds if not thousands of amazing clients.

The only way to get booked, to get people at your events, to have speaking opportunities come to you is when you are loud and proud that you are a speaker.

Now, before we dive into our ways that I wanna make sure you are using, I wanna let you know that in my work and in our time together, i’m not trying to make you a motivational razzle-dazzle speaker. I’m looking at this from the perspective of what I call a “speakerpreneur.”[00:04:00]

A speakerpreneur is an entrepreneur who sees the value and uses speaking to get in front of new people to invite to be your clients, to get in front of new people to serve. Who uses speaking to build revenue with retreats and group programs and workshops and seminars. If that’s you, you wanna listen here.

Right now I am gonna give you my loud and proud speaker challenge. Here it is.

If you are loud and proud speaker, you have speaker on your business card. If you don’t have business cards anymore, you have a speaker in your email signature. You have speaker in your digital [00:05:00] business card. You have speaker in your profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook and instagram. On your Facebook business page.

Why? Because it’s searchable. Why on LinkedIn? Because it’s searchable.

If someone searches for “wellness speaker,” if you are a health professional, guess what? You’re gonna come up. But if you just have their wellness coach or health coach, sorry for you. Your speaking opportunity will go to someone else.

Pause this podcast right now. Go and check. Do you have speaker on your instagram, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, any other socials that you’re on?

Does it say speaker? If not, add it immediately. That’s a easy thing that you can do.

Next. Your website. [00:06:00] Do you have a page on your website for speaking? That says, “Sheila, whatever your name is, Sheila is an amazing speaker who brings massive value to her audiences. Here are her most requested speaking topics.”

Now my friend, I know you’re super smart, you could talk about 25 different things. However, remember I’m talking to you as a speakerpreneur.

I want you to talk about what matches what you sell.

For example, many years ago I used to teach proactive dating strategies because I like dating. I thought it was fun and I wanted to help other people do it. I had a great workshop. I still have a great workshop on proactive dating strategies. I had so much fun giving my talk, but then after a while I realized I’m putting a lot of time out for [00:07:00] something that is not giving me any ROI.

I was not a dating coach. I did not have dating products. I was just doing it for fun. Well, fun is fine. When you’re running a business, you have to look at what do you talk about that matches what you sell.

Because here’s the other thing. If you talk about topics that don’t match what you sell, it dilutes your audience understanding of what you do.

For example, I could absolutely give a talk on style and how to look great all the time, and I’ve got all my super amazing style resources that I’ve put together. Love it.

But then I’m confusing the marketplace… is Caterina now a style coach? No, I am not a style coach. I’m a style enthusiast, which is why I will [00:08:00] smatter some style tips and smatter some style resources in a talk every now and then, but I’m not giving speeches on it. Because that would confuse my audience. Are you with me?

I speak on selling. I speak on speaking. I speak on strategy to expand your Fempire. And sometimes I talk on how to create your own retreats. Because as you know, I love to do retreats.

Three topics is what I for sure want to see on your website, not 10. Two is fine, one is fine. Three is the ideal number.

Here’s the other thing. I want you to maximize your time. I don’t want you to take time to put together 10 talks when you’re not selling 10 things. You probably have one or two or three [00:09:00] areas that are really all under one umbrella, like health and wellness or marketing or technology or finance. There’s three topics under there. Not 30.

If I go to your website right now, is it gonna be easy for me to see the topics you talk about? Is there gonna be a little description? Is there gonna be a little bio? Is there gonna be a list of places you’ve already presented at? Is there gonna be a couple of pictures of you presenting? Is there gonna be maybe a video of you presenting?

Even if it’s a Zoom video of you presenting, that’s fine, my friend, because you know what? A lot of your speaking is gonna be virtual.

I love virtual speaking. I love live and in person speaking too. Live and in person is better. However, it takes 10 to 30 times more time. Last month I did 16 speeches in one month, [00:10:00] only one of them was live and in person. This month I’m doing four live and in person and nine speeches, including virtual.

I’m hoping that you are really focused on both live and in person and virtual presenting.

For your website, don’t hesitate to put a clip on there of you presenting in a virtual room, but make sure that your the big smile on the screen and not one of several little boxes.

Okay. Pause this episode right now to go and check your website, see what’s there. Maybe say, “oh yeah, I thought I had a speaker page.” Well maybe you haven’t looked at it in a while. Let’s make sure it’s current on your current hot topics.

And if you don’t have anything there yet, my friend, pause this podcast, write up your [00:11:00] three topics, and let’s be very clear, done is better than perfect. That’s the beauty of a website. You can change it whenever you want.

What are your three topics or one or two? And make sure your title focuses on the benefit. For example, if somebody asks me what I talk on, I usually say “how to gain insta clients with speaking or how to achieve sales bliss.”

Sales is the topic. Achieving sales bliss includes the benefit, right? Speaking is the topic. Gaining insta -clients when you speak shares the benefit. Make sure your titles are benefit focused.

Then simply share, and you could even do bullet points, three things the audience is gonna learn when they’re with you. Again, benefit focused.

My friend. Do not overthink this. Get something up [00:12:00] there. The sooner you have something up there, the sooner you can be louder and prouder that you are a speaker and you can get more bookings. And that’s what we’re talking about today. Bing, bing, bing.

Next, are you using your social media to be loud and proud that you’re a speaker? Here’s some ways I’d like you to use it, and I’d like you to make these ways SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures.

When you get booked for a speech, celebrate the booking. Post “hey, my friends, I’m Blissing. I just got booked to speak at X, Y, Z Group, X, Y, Z location, X, Y, Z organization on the topic of X, Y, Z.” Whatever your topic is.

Very important for you to share your topic. Don’t make the assumption everybody knows what you talk about. They don’t. In fact, most of your social followers and [00:13:00] friends and connections probably don’t even know you’re a speaker, which is all the more reason why you wanna be loud and proud about it.

You share this place, you’re speaking, you share the topic, and then you say, “I’m looking for more groups of X, Y, Z.” Whoever your ideal audiences are- moms, professionals, women over 50, whatever it is.

Be loud and proud about the topic, about the audiences you’re looking for, and then you say, “what groups can you refer me to?”

Make sure, of course, that you include a picture of you and the person who just booked you, if that’s possible. Bing, bing, bing. Okay. That is an SOP to do a post when you get the booking.

Then of course you do a post of you after the event, raving about the event, [00:14:00] raving about the audience, how amazing they were, raving again about the organization. And again, sharing the topic and again, asking for other places that your connections, followers, friends, know where you can get booked. This is SOP.

By the way, make sure this is on your checklist for post events and speeches. And this is both virtual and live and in person. Take a picture of the screen and post it. I know it’s not as exciting as some other places you talk. But still it gets the point across.

What’s our topic today? Being loud and proud that you are a speaker for more bookings.

 And let me tell you something. When I teach how to get booked in our Speaker Mastermind program, we always take time for booking, focusing on getting booked. We do what we call a “insta booking [00:15:00] blitz” where people do posts about speaking.

I have had gals in my program get as many as six, my friend, no exaggeration, “insta bookings” within 30 minutes when we’re doing a booking blitz.

Are you being loud and proud in this way? If not, please make it SOP, Standard Operating Procedure.

Now, I have also had gals tell me, “Caterina. You made me do that post, I asked people to refer me. Nobody referred nothing. I was not happy with you. And then two weeks later I got a booking and they in fact wanted to even pay me to talk.” This is what I’ve heard.

Let’s be very clear. When we’re talking about hosting emails, calls, reach outs, all these things we do in our business.

All the time gals are saying to me, I, I did all [00:16:00] those reach outs. I got nothing, my friend. It’s not that you got nothing, you simply didn’t get any “insta” something. We’re always looking for the “insta” something. Not all our results are “insta.”

Being loud and proud gets you some results hopefully now. Hopefully down the road too. Which is why we wanna be consistently loud and proud that you are my friend, a speaker.

Here is another important one I wanna make sure you’re doing twice a year. Again, this is what loud and proud speakers do.

Have you sent a dedicated email to your list that says pretty much what it says on your speaker website? Where it says, “my friends, you may or may not know that in addition to the amazing service I [00:17:00] provide, I also frequently speak. These are my most requested topics. What groups can you connect me with where I can present?” And share, of course the audiences you present to, the types of audiences. Put your contact information.

You can even say “anyone that refers me and the next month is gonna get an extra special something.” Especially women. We love gifts. We love special somethings. A swag bag, a bonus session, whatever it is. This is all part of being loud and proud and incentivizing your contacts can only result in more bookings. Bing, bing, bing.

Right now, pause the podcast. Go schedule. When are you gonna do a dedicated email to your list about your speaking? Now, [00:18:00] hopefully this is gonna be after your speaker page is on your site and in your profiles per our discussion.

Next, go to your schedule and put on your calendar. When you are gonna write that dedicated email or when you’re gonna talk to whoever’s gonna write it for you.

Be a woman of action. Don’t overthink this. Done is better than perfect.

 Next, when you are speaking, make sure your audience knows that you’re looking for more bookings.

One of the things I do is if I’m giving a talk on speaking, I make sure I tell my audience that I also speak on sales and strategy and retreats.

If I’m speaking on how to do retreats, I make sure my audience knows I also speak on speaking and sales and [00:19:00] strategy. Are you doing that as a standard operating procedure every time you’re giving a talk? I’m hoping the answer is yes. If not, put that on your pre and during speech checklist.

The other thing is I’m sure you’re already on top of sending out emails after your talk to your audience, inviting them to your next thing, inviting them to talk to you, giving them additional resources. Does it say on there as standard operating post speech email template, does it say, “Hey, my friends, I’m looking for more talks. These are the most requested topics?”

Now I know you told them that in your talk. But remember, people need to hear things a few times. And now when they’re back at their desk and they’re looking at your email, they can open a browser. Open their contact list. [00:20:00] And send you some referrals.

 And incentivize that audience as well. Meaning the people that were in your audience that are gonna read that post email, incentivize them to give you some referrals. Very, very exciting.

Why is all this important to be loud and proud that you’re a speaker? Because we wanna keep you as booked as you wanna be.

If you want to speak four times a month, great. If you wanna speak five times, six, whatever it is. I will tell you. My goal, it was five speeches a month. For whatever reason, we now seem to be much higher. We’re having a lot more requests, and I’ll go as high as my schedule will allow, knowing that a lot of that is virtual.

But the thing is, I’m only speaking to groups where my ideal clients are [00:21:00] gathered.

And even though virtual is so great, it doesn’t take as much time. I really wanna encourage you to be strategic. Because if you’re gonna take my advice here and you’re gonna do all these things to get booked for more speaking, you’re also probably gonna get some requests that are not the right match for you.

Make sure you have your criteria: you’re only speaking to audiences where your ideal clients are gathered.

Now if you wanna go speak to the high school, if you wanna go speak, uh, sometimes I would get asked to speak to people that were, were between jobs. Job seekers, of course, are not my audience. If a client asked me, I would always be a yes. That’s what we call community service.

My friend. Fine, do a little community service. But please do not fill your calendar with community service.

What is community service? When you’re talking to audiences that are not your ideal clients, that is community [00:22:00] service. Unless they’re writing you a big check, then that is professional speaking, and that of course is okay. It is in fact welcome. Very welcome.

 I wanna check your attitude about speaking now. Nobody is doing you a favor by booking you to speak.

You are an amazing speaker with massive value to bring. You are gonna make that organization, that group, look good. You are gonna have the people in that room leave more uplifted than when they showed up. They’re probably gonna get new members that day because of your amazing talk.

I have another podcast episode on how to be a good speaker partner, which I encourage you to listen to. I have another podcast episode on how to get booked for speaking, which discusses some of this and other things. [00:23:00] Be sure to listen to both of those.

Let’s be clear, nobody’s doing you a favor booking you. People say to me all the time, “Caterina, I wanna get paid to speak.”

Well, let me tell you something. I’ve been paid to speak many, many times and it’s always nice to give a talk and get a big check.

But I’m also very happy… in fact, I am blissing, to go talk to audiences where my ideal clients are gathered. Because some of those speeches have paid me for years. When I say 10 years, I’m not exaggerating.

Most of my clients, 95% at least of my clients come from speaking.

One amazing gal I ran into a little while ago, we’ve reconnected. Hopefully she’s gonna join us for some more excitement. Met her about seven years ago at a luncheon [00:24:00] speech. There was maybe 25 gals in the room. Went, gave my talk, came home. She became a client. She was a client for five years, going to retreats, joining programs, was with us through the pandemic, uplifted her life, uplifted her business. And of course that was a big investment she made with me as a result of one free talk.

So please, if you’re doing it right, your free talks are massively monetizable. If you’re not massively monetizing your free talks, my friend, come talk to me because this is what I teach my clients is how to massively monetize your speaking.

That’s what I want for you. Okay? But before we could massively monetize, we gotta be loud and proud we are a speaker and that’s what we are back to here.

 The other thing is, do you have speaker, friends or other [00:25:00] speakerpreneurs that talk on other topics?

For example, professional organizer, a style consultant, a health coach. These are all topics that, while I’m an enthusiast in all these areas, I do not give speeches on. When I go give a speech to a group and they say, “thank you so much.” I can say to them “what other types of speakers are you looking for? What topics are you looking for?”

And I can refer all my friends for getting booked for speaking. And guess what? That has them remember me when they go speak.

A couple years ago, one of my clients was hosting a virtual event. She wanted to have 10 speakers for the day. It was a wonderful conference. She said to me, “Caterina, who do you know that [00:26:00] could speak?”

I referred her 19 of my clients, and I said, “these are all amazing speakers.” And guess what? Every single one of the speakers, except for one who was her friend, were on that roster that day as speakers. That’s what you want.

You wanna be a great speaker partner, not just to the people booking you. You wanna be a great speaker partner to your other speaker friends. And refer speaking opportunities back and forth.

Because all the groups that love you that you’ve spoken at, guess what? They’re not gonna have you more. Then twice a year. We’ll get to that next. And they need speakers for the other months, or the other conferences, or the other events, or the other trainings. And that’s why you want to refer your friends. And they will now refer you more and that is them being loud and proud about you and that is [00:27:00] awesome.

As I mentioned. I wanna make sure you also go listen to our episode on How to be a Great Speaker Partner, that you listen to our episode of How to Get Booked for Speaking, where we’ll cover other things we’re not covering here.

The last thing that I wanna touch on with you today, being loud and proud that you are a speaker, is always ask for the “insta rebook.”

When I get booked for speaking and I go speak, and they say to me at the end of my talk, “Caterina, that was awesome.” I say, “great. When would you like to have me back? In six months or a year? I’m happy to talk on this topic or another topic.”

And here’s the strategic thing that I do, that I wanna make sure you are doing.

I say to them, “your [00:28:00] group meets on the second Tuesday of the month in six months. This is the second Tuesday, whatever the date is. Do you have a speaker for that day?” If not, they usually say no. I say, “Bing, bing. I am available that day.”

Here’s the strategy. Before I go give that talk, I have looked at my calendar. I have seen, am I available in six months on that day? Am I available in a year? Whenever their meetings usually are? And sometimes I even say, “okay, I probably wanna come a month earlier” for whatever reason. Maybe because it’s better for my strategy of speaking before an event or a retreat or something that I’m wanting to fill.

I go with the dates ready. Knowing that I am available. Often before I leave the venue or I leave the meeting virtually, I’ve gotten a insta rebook. And that’s what I want for [00:29:00] you.

The more you can get insta rebooks, the more your calendar will be full. I wanna tell you, I wish I’d been doing this for 25 plus years. I’ve only been asking for the insta rebook for a couple of years, and it’s awesome.

Now, here’s another thing I want you to do. If you have been speaking already, I want you to look at the last 12 months and I want you to look at every place you talked, and I want you to go back and ask for a rebook. Again, being loud and proud that you’re looking for the rebook.

Because not everybody’s walking around thinking about, “Hey, how can they book you?” Even the people that book you.

By the way, here’s another very important thing we didn’t touch on here. I mentioned about the dedicated email to your list.

Your clients, your active clients- ask them what groups they belong to. Ask them [00:30:00] what conferences and associations they go to. Because you know what? They all go places where their speakers, and you could be presenting.

I have many clients who are in charge of booking speakers for many groups. And you know what? They don’t ask me. ‘Cause they’re not walking around every day thinking about how they could book me.

I ask them. And that’s okay because I’m not too BIG, to ask them. I just reach out to them, usually through direct Messenger on Facebook, and I say, “Hey, my friend, I think you’re in charge of booking the speakers for X, Y, Z group. Do you have all your speakers for the year? If not, I would love to speak. What months are you looking to book?”

Simple. And guess what? This gets me insta bookings.

Again, loud and proud that you are a speaker, [00:31:00] is not just about being loud and proud to the masses, like in your dedicated email or on your profiles or on your website.

It’s also being loud and proud that you’re a speaker to the individual Mary, Jane and Sheila that can book you for speaking.

My friend. I hope that you have gotten massive value from our time together today. I hope that you are gonna take some immediate action to get you booked for a lot more speaking. Today, again, is about being loud and proud.

Oh, by the way, here’s another super tip. When you introduce yourself at networking events, in meetings, wherever you’re introducing yourself, say that you’re a speaker.

Again, not everybody knows. This is one I personally forget. I gotta do it more myself. And you know what? The reason I’m gonna do it more myself is I have clients that have gotten insta bookings [00:32:00] simply from saying “I’m a speaker” when they introduce themselves at a meeting, that’s what I want for you.

It can be that easy. It is easy to get as many bookings as you would like.

My friend, remember, you got massive, massive, massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve. Be louder and prouder that you are a speaker. Implement all of these things that we’ve discussed today.

And by the way, I hope that we are already friends on Facebook. I hope that we are already connected on LinkedIn. I hope you’re already following me on Insta. Follow me. I will follow you back.

I look forward to being connected to you on social, and I would love to see your smile on the screen at one of my upcoming free workshops, virtual workshops we do every month.

And if you’re in the San Francisco Bay area, please connect with me. [00:33:00] Because you know what? Now that we’re living post Pandemic Lifestyle, I am hosting events at our center, both social events and business development events, and I would love to get to know you and invite you into our amazing Thriving Women in Business Community.

Go be loud and proud that you’re a speaker. Bring your massive value. And uplift the world. Bing, bing, bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #157:
Seven Tips to Act Authentically and Attract More Clients

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "Seven Tips to Act Authentically and Attract More Clients" on Spreaker.

In this info-packed episode, Caterina shares seven guiding principles to help you show up authentically in your business. She reminds us that business is supposed to feel good, and when we act in alignment with our values, the more the clients that resonate with us will step forward.  You might be dimming your light and not even be aware of it! Listen to this important episode to be your authentic self!

Ready for more business-building super tips?

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #157 Transcript

Seven Tips to Act Authentically and Attract More Clients

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Caterina Rando: I’m so excited to be with you today. Today we are gonna talk about amplifying your authenticity to bliss in your business more, and also attract more clients. I was giving a talk this last week to some wonderful women in business, as I enjoyed doing several times a month, both virtually and live and in person.

I said to the gals, one of the things I love about having my own business is I get to 100% be myself , I get to wear my big tassel earrings when I want. I get to send fun gift packs to my gals that I custom curate. I get to put hearts on a Zoom screen 50 times in an hour, and I get to say, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing anytime I want.

I don’t have a boss other than myself. That allows me to be myself and to work with people and attract clients and opportunities that resonate with who I am, that resonate with my mission, which is to uplift women through entrepreneurial success and that includes massive monetization.

In our time together today, we are gonna talk about some ways that you can amplify your authenticity in your business to be more alluring to the potential clients that are a great match for you. And also the people that are not resonating with you.

That’s okay.

Because as I like to say, there is enough pie for everybody. By you being yourself, you are going to attract a lot more people who are going to want to be served by you.

 Now you might be thinking, Caterina, I’ve been in business a long time. Of course, I’m totally myself in business. Great. Remember that we’re always moving more towards mastery.

Caterina Rando: You might be very great at [00:03:00] being your authentic self, and we’re gonna look at some opportunities for you to be even more authentic.

Now, some of you may not really feel that you’ve mastered the art of being yourself, and I’m gonna tell you why. Because if you started your career in a corporate environment, in an institutional environment, in an academic environment, every professional environment has its own culture. And sometimes women tell me, they were told, “don’t be so loud.” They were told, “don’t, don’t laugh so loud.” They were told “keep it down” when they’re in their cubicle.” Women have told me, they were told, “don’t be emotional. Oh my gosh. Never cry at work. Don’t get too personal to your clients and oh my gosh, never hug [00:04:00] your clients.”

Now let me start right here and pause and say, you get to make your own set of business guidelines. You get to run your business any way you want. That is your prerogative as the queen of your Fempire and as the master of your destiny.

This is also so important because you might be doing your thing. You might be dimming your light and not even be aware of it as residual of what you were told in your twenties or thirties or even forties before you became the queen of your Fempire, the entrepreneur you are today.

And here’s what I also wanna say, the more we’re our authentic selves in our business, [00:05:00] the more our people are drawn to us, the more the clients that resonate with us will step forward.

Again, we’re not for everybody. My mom used to say that’s why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors. We are not everybody’s flavor. That’s okay. The more, though we can amplify who we are, the more our gals will step forward.

And by the way, sidebar, aside from authenticity, confidence is alluring. I call it certainty. Certainty that you have massive value to bring. Certainty that there’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Certainty that your work matters, that your mission matters. Certainty, that you have the solution [00:06:00] for your ideal clients. Certainty is highly alluring.

Okay, we’ll have to save that topic for another day ’cause today we’re talking about authenticity.

Number one, know your values. This might seem obvious. Sometimes we pick up guiding principles and values that other people told us mattered and that were important. And now you get to decide if that matters for you.

For example, I value accessibility.

What does that mean? That means I value my clients being able to reach out to me whenever they wanna talk to me. They can text me, they can call me, they can Facebook me. I tell them, don’t email me. That’s the [00:07:00] lowest communication method on my totem pole.

I’m available for my clients. Now, other people, “Hey, don’t call me after five o’clock. Hey, don’t call me on the weekends.” Let me tell you something. These days we have anywhere between 75 and a hundred clients at any given time in our variety of programs. Speaker Mastermind, our retreat programs, our Amp Up Adventure, our Thrive Sales Program and our Expand your Fempire mentorship program.

This is my policy. I’m accessible. I never, ever, ever feel like anyone is taking advantage of me or taking advantage of my time. Now, I’ll be very clear. If I’m on a cruise ship or I am away from the [00:08:00] office, or I am in my yoga class, no, I’m not answering my phone. This works for me.

I’m not saying you have to have this as a top value for you, but it works for me. You get to set up your business any way you want, and what are the values that matter to you?

I remember when I was a greener entrepreneur and I had questions and I wasn’t sure what to do or a difficult situation came up, I always super valued when my coach made themselves available to assist me. And I know that feeling of needing answers and not wanting to wait till next week or not being able to wait till next week or the week after, or the week after for a scheduled time or to book a call.

You get to decide, my friend, what works [00:09:00] for you. I do wanna make a few suggestions. Okay?

Integrity. I’m hoping that you’re operating your business with massive integrity and what does that look like for you in your business? Keeping your agreements, of course, doing what you said you’re gonna do. And there’s other things that you hopefully are modeling in your business.

And by the way, I wanna be also very clear talking about values: your personal values, and your business values. They’re the same.  You’re not yourself one way at work and a different way in your personal life. Now you can have a personal life. You can keep your personal life as private as you want, but my point is you are the same person and trying to be a different person in certain parts of your life, that’s tough and that’s definitely not blissing.[00:10:00]

Take a minute, reflect on the values that matter to you. I got one more though. I just thought of it. I wanna make sure.

Under promise and over deliver, especially for those of you that are doing coaching programs and retreats, group programs, classes, all of this. Never promise something that’s not delivered.

I remember the first program I took with a big time coach. This coach said, “Hey, we’re gonna give you this. We’re gonna give you this. We’re gonna give you all these templates. We’re gonna give you worksheets.” All the things a young coach would be so happy to get. Never got them, never got them, reached out, didn’t get ’em, reached out, had ’em.

I heard them say, “oh, did I promise that?” Yeah, you did. [00:11:00] doesn’t feel good. And why? Because when we underdeliver, even if someone got massive value, they’re not gonna reinvest with us simply because it doesn’t feel good.

Generosity looks good on you, it looks good on your business, and may be one of the values you wanna amplify. Only though if it’s authentically you.

Number two, be honest and transparent. Tell the truth if you forgot to send that email. If you, if you got distracted and there was some challenges du jour, and you’re not able to meet a deadline, tell the truth.

It’s okay. Perfection’s not required. This is something, you know, I talk about a lot. Perfection is a flaw. Nobody wants to work with perfect people. It’s okay. Be your amazing self [00:12:00] and you’re human.

Let your clients know about challenges to whatever degree you want. Of course you’re not gonna be giving ’em the full report, telling ’em everything. But if you’re going through something in your personal lives, when you love is having an illness or there’s a, a situation that needs your attention, tell them, “Hey, I gotta reschedule. I got X, Y, Z going on.” That is fine.

The more you’re transparent and honest, guess what? The more that builds trust and has people lean in, because trust means they’re gonna keep coming back to be served by you.

I was sharing with the gals in my Thrive with Women’s Retreats class I was teaching last week about how early in my business when we had live and [00:13:00] in-person events, we would have sponsors, big sponsors, big dollar sponsors.

I found, that when I did that, not only was I working on filling my room with participants that were great for our community and great for being clients, people that I knew we would really do a great job of serving, but I found that I was also trying to put derrieres in chairs to fulfill my agreement with my sponsors.

That didn’t feel good, so we stopped doing it because you know what? My highest priority is always to my clients. Now I’m looking at sponsors for potentially something in the future, and I’m gonna make sure we do it very different, because the way we did it before didn’t feel good.

You [00:14:00] know you’re being your authentic self in business, when what you’re saying, what you’re doing, the way your business looks, how you’re interacting with your clients, when it all feels good. Feeling good is a great indicator that you are being your authentic self.

Not feeling good is a great indicator that something needs to shift. When something’s not feeling good, ask yourself, “how come this isn’t feeling good?” Take a moment to reflect. Sometimes you might have a client that’s not really the right match for you. Sometimes you agree to try something that others have said is awesome, but it’s not resonating for you.

Feeling good is how your business is supposed to feel. The more authentic you are, the more you will be blissing [00:15:00] in your business.

Number four, share your stories. You’ve lived a lot of life. You’ve got a lot of stories. The ones I really want you to write down and consider sharing are the ones that will be lessons and inspiration for your clients and your potential clients.

I recently did a virtual zoom get together. I had a guest speaker and we had breakout sessions. I had Marla Sofer as our guest speaker. You may have heard a podcast interview with her. If you haven’t, you’re gonna wanna listen to it. She’s the founder of “Knomee” which is an app for women around personal finance, to help them get clear on their [00:16:00] values.

I invited her to speak because I wanted her to talk about women and money and… because the biggest challenge I’ve seen with women over my many years that has them not bliss in their business, is financial stress.

And I’m always wanting to build women’s money confidence, and help them to shine the spotlight on their numbers more so that they can massively monetize and be thriving financially.

Well her speech and everything that people shared, it made me think about my personal money story, and I’ve talked about it in other podcasts. It’s about when I was married, my husband inserted himself in my business finances, and I had that be okay because I really wanted to [00:17:00] have my business with my partner.

Unfortunately, my partner wasn’t good with money and he mismanaged everything and all the money went away. I still don’t know where it went. Not only in my business, but in my stock account and my personal account.

Today, I’ve totally recovered. I have surplus. This is the short version I’m giving you. And I talked about it with my my VIP clients. And I got many comments and many notes from clients after saying how much they appreciated my authenticity and my transparency, and that they were inspired by my story.

You have a lot of stories and you know what? We don’t have to be the Shero in all our stories. We can be the one that wasn’t winning. Then we can talk about the lesson that we learned and that will inspire [00:18:00] others. Don’t worry about looking great all the time in your stories.

Again, vulnerability and imperfection and lessons learned along the way are a big part of the authentic you, and we wanna share that with our clients and potential clients.

Right now, think about what might be a story that you know would be of service to others that you haven’t been telling. It’s time to start to tell it.

Next. Number five stay true to your brand. There are so many opportunities every day for trying new things and going different ways. And it’s okay to explore new possibilities, of course, all the time. But just [00:19:00] because Mary, Jane, and Sheila are doing something in their business or in their life, doesn’t mean you gotta do it too.

What feels authentic to you? That’s what you wanna do. For example, I have colleagues that they use robocalls to leave messages. Haven’t tried that yet, but I’m not quite sure if it’s on brand for me, because you know what? I’m all about high tech and high touch, so I’d probably rather hire someone to make some real voicemail calls to each individual person. Now, certainly not as efficient, but it’s definitely more on brand.

Stay true to your brand and think about when you do something or you’re gonna post something, is this on brand for me? And again, what is brand? It [00:20:00] is the reflection of your values through your appearance, your behavior, and your communication, and that of your business.

Okay, my friend. I got two more for you.

Number six, cultivate community and engage with your community. I remember once I went to this seminar, then I signed up for this group program with these very successful folks, and every time I wanted to ask a question of the person at the break or have them stay after for a few minutes to chat about whatever challenge I was having, could never find them.

It was like they operated on stage. There was [00:21:00] never an opportunity to speak with them privately or even for a moment. It did not feel good.

When I do my calls, 95% of the time, I always say I’m gonna stay after for any questions. I stay after five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, doesn’t matter.

I put time in my schedule to hang out after any classes to answer questions. We have time to get together for sales blitzes and getting booked for speaking blitzes and just getting together to be co-working together. With the gals that come on My Bliss Retreat, we meet every month on a Zoom call and we’re in community ’cause they’re all over the country.

I love to get the ladies together and I like to create social opportunities for gals to get together. Because you know what? Community is one of the most [00:22:00] hugest gifts of our life. And when you’re in a community through your business and when your clients are in community with you through your business, and they get to be with other amazing gals up to something similar like them, it makes them bliss and it uplifts their whole life, not just their business.

Let me encourage you. Don’t be the celebrity coach or consultant or leader, be the community leader. Lead an amazing community. And also look for how you can shine the spotlight on others in your community, so that they can engage with the community and be visible and showcased even more.

Number seven. Show appreciation. Be loud and proud and authentic [00:23:00] in your appreciation of your clients, your vendors, your team members. You do that with words. You do that with gifts or bonuses. You do that with quality time. You do that with extra consideration when they need it. Show appreciation.

And guess what? Showing appreciation feels great. And remember, your whole business is supposed to feel great all the time.

Take these super tips I’ve shared with you today. Reflect on them. Take some of them as guiding principles for you and your business so that you can amplify your authenticity more, to bliss more, to thrive more, and to uplift the lives of others through your authenticity and your amazing business.

My friends, this is Caterina Rando. I am always blissing [00:24:00] to be with you. Please join me for an upcoming free virtual info- packed workshop. Every month I do them. Make sure you have connected with me on Facebook, that you’re in our Facebook group.

And please listen to some of the other info-packed podcast episodes at Caterinarando.com. Click on podcast to see all our episodes. And by the way, you can also get a link to many other free resources.

Remember my friend, you have massive value to bring. Go bring it even more.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #156:
How Boundaries Can Help You Bliss in Your Business
with Elisabeth Stitt

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Listen to "How Boundaries Can Help You Bliss in Your Business with Elisabeth Stitt" on Spreaker.

Do you struggle with setting and maintaining boundaries in your business or your life? Whether you are a parent or not, you do not want to miss this empowering episode with parenting coach and boundaries expert, Elisabeth Stitt! The two longtime friends sit down this week to talk all things boundaries – what they are, how to uphold them, and how they can help you bliss more in your business!

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #156 Transcript

How Boundaries Can Help You Bliss in Your Business

with Elisabeth Stitt

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00]Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you. Today, we have one of my very good friends, Elisabeth Stitt, who is the founder of Joyful Parenting Coaching. She is a great mom, a former teacher, she supports people to bliss and thrive more in their families.

And we’re gonna talk with [00:01:00] her today about blissing through better boundaries. Elisabeth, Bing, Bing. I’m so happy to have you with us today.

Elisabeth Stitt: Bing, bing, bing, bing. So happy to be here.

Caterina Rando: Elisabeth, before we talk about boundaries, I wanna hear a little bit about you. I I mentioned that you are a former teacher. How did you decide to become an entrepreneur? Just give us a little info about your entrepreneurial journey.

Elisabeth Stitt: Yeah, absolutely. Having taught 25 years, I began to see big changes in first my students and then in my parents. And then the last three years I was teaching, I had a split role, part-time in the classroom, part-time, something called outreach teacher, which allowed me to spend a lot more time talking to parents more in depth.

And what became very clear is how overwhelmed, anxiety-ridden [00:02:00] and guilty parents today are feeling about their kids. The fact of the matter is, is that parenting is a social skill that we used to learn organically as kids and as young teenagers and adults in multi-aged groups.

And so all along the while we were getting trained in how to be parents. And then when we were parents, we had a wide group of multi-aged mentors, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, friends. And I began to realize parents don’t have that anymore. And I just thought, “what could I do about it?”

And then about the same time I met a life coach who said the golden words, which is that coaching is unregulated. And I thought, okay, there’s a vehicle. I can go do this.

Caterina Rando: Wonderful. And you’ve been doing your parenting coaching for how long now?

Elisabeth Stitt: 10 [00:03:00] years.

Caterina Rando: 10 years. Bing, bing, Bing. And I know you also do Joyful Family Camp and you have Joyful Adventure Days with families. And before we get into boundaries again, my friend, take a moment and share a little bit about Joyful Family Camp and Joyful Adventure Days ’cause I think this is so exciting.

Elisabeth Stitt: It is so exciting because it gives parents and kids, and I’m targeting the, those tweens, early teens, 10 to 14 year olds. And adventure Day is the one day experience. Camp is the three- day experience. They both have the aim of bringing parents and their kids together for fun and enjoyment and relaxation, but it’s all carefully crafted to be deepening connection, to be improving communication, and to help parents and kids come to some agreements about how they wanna treat each other as a family, [00:04:00] who they wanna be as a family.

And that’s really upper level work. Like that is, it is not just getting by. it’s not just, you know, get through this week, through this month, through this school year. That’s really saying we have this opportunity now, as parents, to build something very deliberately and we can go to camp and have fun and get the skills that we need to do that building.

Caterina Rando: I love that. Elisabeth, you mentioned the families come together and they make agreements about how they’re gonna treat each other. Well, that brings us to our hot topic for today, which is blissing through better boundaries. And is that what boundaries are, agreements for how we’re gonna treat each other?

Elisabeth Stitt: Well, yes and no.

So I’ll define what they aren’t. They’re not an agreement between two people because an agreement between two people requires two people. A boundary is really [00:05:00] your agreement with yourself of what am I going to, what am I going to tolerate?

A boundary is the line that I draw in the sand, and it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve agreed to that line.

The second part of it is what action am I going to take if you cross that line? It’s not a threat. It has to be something that I am going to do. It can’t be something you are gonna do because I can’t make you do anything.

Caterina Rando: Can you share what are some real life examples of this kind of thing?

Elisabeth Stitt: Yeah, a hundred percent, absolutely. This is a kind of, kind of a heavy one, but it’s the one that popped into my mind.

I used to have a little room between my classroom and my neighbor’s classroom where the middle school teachers would often come and eat lunch. And we had a new science teacher [00:06:00] who would come to eat lunch and he would tell racist and sexist jokes.

And so I sat ’em down and I said, “you are welcome to come and eat lunch, but not if you tell racist and sexist jokes.” Now, because it was between my classroom and the other teacher’s classroom, it was our space to designate. I could make that, it wasn’t like saying the teacher’s room.

And so, you know, I just said to him, it’s inappropriate. It’s offensive. “Oh, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to get you upset.” Doesn’t matter what you intended. I’m letting you know it was inappropriate and offensive. And if you do it again, you’re just not gonna be welcome back to have your lunch here.

And, you know, he didn’t cross the boundary. He didn’t, he didn’t ever try to tell more sexist or racist jokes. He got the message and we were able to enjoy the parts of him that were enjoyable without [00:07:00] being offended or feeling like this is totally inappropriate.

So, had it been in the staff room where I don’t have any authority over the staff room, I would’ve had to have a different kind of boundary. And probably that boundary would’ve been if you tell racist or sexist jokes, I’m gonna get up and I’m gonna take my lunch and eat it somewhere else.

So I can still give the message, I can still let somebody know that they’re appropriate. I have a line, I don’t want it crossed. But the fact of the matter is, is that the only action I can take, when that boundary gets crossed, in that case was to remove myself.

Caterina Rando: And sometimes do you think in business, Elisabeth, that we make decisions based on our boundaries, but we might not even think of it as a boundary. As I’m listening to you share about this lunchroom, and then you would remove yourself. Like, [00:08:00] I don’t go places where I don’t feel good. If I go someplace, I don’t feel good, I don’t go back. If I go to a meeting and I leave more depresso than when I showed up, I don’t go back to the meeting. So is that a, I don’t really think of that as a boundary.

Elisabeth Stitt: 100%. Those are boundaries.

Caterina Rando: Okay. Beautiful. Bing. Bing.

Elisabeth Stitt: And you have boundaries that you are super clear about, about what women you allow into your community? And you know. I mean, you’ve told us that you have asked women to leave and you have given money back. Because somebody has crossed a line in terms of being too negativo.

Caterina Rando: Oh,

Elisabeth Stitt: Or something else.

Or being out of integrity and not paying people for the services rendered.

That would be a big one.

Caterina Rando: Right, right.

Elisabeth Stitt: Again, you are the one who had to take the action right? So just threatening to say, ” I don’t like that I’m gonna make you leave the community.” You back just that [00:09:00] up a hundred percent by getting people their money back. Mm-hmm. I feel like I am not getting into any conversation about this. Like we’re done. Right?

Whereas if you didn’t give them money back, it could have gotten messy. You could have had lawyers, you could have…

Caterina Rando: Well, you know, one of my guiding principles is if you can throw a little money and make a problem, go away throw a little money at something and make the problem go away.

And of course I know you have to have the money to throw at it, but at the same time. Another boundary is, you know, if something causes me stress, I don’t wanna keep that in my life. So if I can make a choice to leave or I can make a choice to throw some money at it to make it go away, then that’s taking care of myself.

Elisabeth Stitt: Yeah. Right. And, and let’s be really clear that boundaries are a hundred percent personal. They’re not a right or wrong.

For instance, you and I have different boundaries around people being [00:10:00] late or people you know, people missing things. That you are much more flexible on that and you are much more flexible about saying, “okay, we’ll catch you the next time.”

Caterina Rando: Right.

Elisabeth Stitt: You know, you’re gonna cancel on me? We’ll, we will find a way to keep you the next time. That is so indicative of your lovely, gracious generosity. Thank you. And at the same time for me, I know that holding the boundary, cause I’m a parenting coach and because parents struggle with boundaries and limits with their kids, I am super clear and part of the reason I’m super clear and then I follow through with them is so that they experience the clarity of being followed through with.

So if I, if I’m wishy-washy and I go, “oh, well, okay. Yeah. All right. I mean, yeah, my po my policy is that I need 24 hours notice, but I get it. You get busy, so we’ll, [00:11:00] we’ll, we’ll, we’ll just discount this one if I do that.”

It’s really not any different than telling your kid. “Okay, fine. Because I still have dishes to wash, you can watch one more show.”

Caterina Rando: Okay. But then next time they’re pushing the boundary and they’re trying to get away with more because you’re not holding the boundary. Yes.

Elisabeth Stitt: You’re not holding the boundary. Where then I hold the boundary for them and they have to quote, unquote, pay the penalty of having it count in the session.

Then, what I’ve found, and this is the really marvelous part, is that they are more attentive. They’ve done more homework. They’re like, boom. Well, they are like ready to work when they show up.

I think there’s something in them that’s going like maybe two things. One is like, “oh, we have to make up that last session, so we have to be super efficient and really focused.”

And I think the other part is like, “wow, Elisabeth, really, she’s really serious about this.”

Caterina Rando: I see. Well, you [00:12:00] know, I think what that speaks to Elisabeth is that we teach people how to treat us. You know? And I have found, and, and like for, give you an example from my business over the last 30 ish years now I have clients that they have a certain number of coaching sessions and I’m, of course if they need to reschedule, I’m happy to reschedule.

But then there’s other programs where there’s no coaching sessions. They don’t get any coaching sessions because they’re in a group program. At the same time, I say to my clients, if you wanna talk to me about something, you’re welcome to talk to me anytime. And I do talk to gals. A gal messaged me yesterday really stressing about something. And I sent her a lovely note and that was enough in that case.

Another gal, she’s like, “Hey, can I have 15 minutes?” Yes, you can have 15 minutes. I’m happy to talk to you.

And at the same time, [00:13:00] having, I think, we might have 80 clients right now, and the most we’ve had is a hundred ish in a year. When I say that to everybody, all those gals, I say, “Hey, my friend, if you need anything, call me, Facebook me, let’s talk. I’ll give you some time.”

Only once that I can think of, so it has to be in recent history. Have I had a client who I felt was taking advantage of that and, and messaging and calling all the time. At the same time, that client was having a very difficult year. And now she’s blissing in her business. You know, she doesn’t call me. Like she’s there when we have group session, but she’s not needing the extra support. And she has been my client for like six years.

So from my perspective, every so often there might be some additional something needed. [00:14:00] And for me that’s okay. But of course I’m an adult. I’m not a kid.

But the problem arises for women that this is a pattern that they teach people that they can always push the boundaries and they can always show up late or they can always make changes or take forever to pay their bills, which of course is a boundary that I do hold my friend.

My clients have to pay their bills for sure, but one of the things I love about a cruise ship is nobody can come late. Nobody can leave early.

And you are so great, you’re a part of our entrepreneurial women community. What have you seen as some of the boundaries where women can use some support?

Elisabeth Stitt: Well, let’s just talk about saying no because that’s a big one. Of course, I always have moms in mind, and I know that a lot of our ladies in TWIBC are [00:15:00] parents have grown and flown kids or, or even grandkids. They’re not necessarily part of their everyday life. And of course, part of the reason we are entrepreneurs is because we want to have the freedom to say yes.

You know, mom, can you watch the kids this afternoon? Yes. Mom, can you drive to such and such? Yes. Mom, can you take the dog while we go on vacation? Yes. And that’s part of the reason that we say it.

And at the same time, the truth is, is that when we say no, the people that we say no to, kindly and firmly, they’ll go find a different solution.

And so, how do we know where to put the boundary is a really good question.

And for me, if you are checking in with how you feel about things, then when you’re feeling annoyed, like when you say yes, and then you call your girlfriend to complain? Okay, that was you not holding a [00:16:00] boundary.

You needed to have held a boundary, even if it was with your beloved child, your beloved adult child.

Or, you know, even a beloved client. If you’re gonna immediately complain about it then that’s a really great sign to go like, “oh, we might have all been better served if I had kindly and firmly said, I’m so sorry, that won’t work for me this time.”

Caterina Rando: Right, right. Elisabeth, I always say that a complaint is an unstated request. It sounds like a complaint can also be a boundary that’s been crossed.

Elisabeth Stitt: Yes. Mm-hmm.

And when can we be flexible? If we feel really good about it? Be flexible, right? Because people are people, they’re in process. Life is messy. Stuff comes up. And any of us who are doing this solo entrepreneurship, we are mostly in the service industry in some way or another. And so [00:17:00] we want to serve people and we want ’em to be happy and we wanna make things work, right?

Caterina Rando: And perfection’s not required.

Elisabeth Stitt: And perfection’s not required.

But that’s my point, is that if the boundary gets crossed… either because they’ve actually crossed it or because we didn’t know we needed it, like there was no line and we needed to have put a line… it doesn’t serve in the long run.

I think it builds up like like a sticky residue between you and the person. And that is, it’s not the other person’s fault.

And let’s say that again, if you either don’t have a boundary or you allow your boundary to be crossed, and then that creates this sticky resentment, probably unspoken, unarticulated between you and another person that’s on you. It’s not on them.

Caterina Rando: Right? Because we can’t expect people to read our minds. Everybody’s [00:18:00] different. You know, if, if I’m meeting a gal for coffee and she’s 10, 15 minutes late, I’m probably catching up on my Facebook messages and I got no problem with that. But of course there might be another time where I have a tighter schedule and it doesn’t work you know? Would be great to know if she was gonna be late so that we can reschedule.

Which means we have to communicate what works for us and what doesn’t work for us.

Yes, and I would say that that there’s something called withholds. It’s like we’re withholding communication. So that’s, I think, Elisabeth, what creates that sticky residue that you’re talking about in relationship?

The more we say what works for us, ask for what we want, communicate how we’re feeling, the more we are gonna be, I hope, creating intimacy and authenticity in our relationship.

Elisabeth Stitt: Yes. And a stronger connection. A [00:19:00] hundred percent.

And the first step to that is listening to yourself and knowing yourself. Because if you don’t, then you don’t create the boundary in the first place.

And you know, a lot of these things are they’re in flux. It’s not like there’s a concrete rule. So I’ll, I’ll share the story of the fact that the third time’s a charm, right? It took us three times to reschedule this time so that you and I could be talking together. And what did I say was gonna happen? What was my boundary if, if we didn’t?

Caterina Rando: Chocolate. You wanted chocolate?

That’s fine. That’s fine. And my friend. I’m more than happy to give you some chocolates if we didn’t.

Elisabeth Stitt: You are anyway. It’s not a, a perfect boundary because it requires you to take action. And so if, if I weren’t so familiar with your chocolate sources I might be afraid that you wouldn’t take action.

But what that did was it said to me, it’s like, “okay, I get it, that Caterina’s busy.

I get it that her life is complex.”

Caterina Rando: But here’s the other thing. It’s like, it’s okay to ask for what we want. You know, [00:20:00] like last time I was just a week out of hip surgery and I just didn’t have the vitality to do it. And so I believe it’s my job to ask, you know?

 And if you had said, “my friend, I really have to do this,” then we would’ve done it for sure. And I love that you said, you know, box of chocolates because getting a box of chocolates is a good thing.

And here’s the other thing. I do agree that when you go the extra mile for someone or you go out of the way for someone that it is really nice when that is acknowledged and that’s what that box of chocolates would have done.

Exactly.

And I’m very glad that we did this today because I’m wanting to talk about boundaries a lot because I do feel that women don’t often create the boundary or recognize the boundary, or more importantly, communicate the boundary.[00:21:00]

‘Cause I’m over here on the other side talking to tons of gals all the time about their businesses and what I’m hearing are the complaints about so and so did this and so and so did that, or they didn’t do this.

And I’m saying, did you communicate to them that that doesn’t work for you? Because we can’t complain about something we didn’t set the bound, I mean, we can complain about it, but all you gotta do is ask for what you want.

I remember many, many years ago, I had a vendor, phenomenal vendor, brilliant vendor, loved this vendor, vibed with her, great gal.

The thing is, it would take her like a week to get back to me. And at some point I said to her, in a loving, kind way, I said, “when you take a week to get back to me, that pushes my projects out, which means the revenue is pushed out. I love working with you, [00:22:00] and if you cannot respond within 24 hours, please let me know because that is what I require for someone who’s my vendor in this area.”

And 20 plus years later, we’re still working together because she got the message. And the other thing is it didn’t create conflict or a discourse. Right. And I think that maybe that’s why we avoid it is we don’t want the conflict or the discourse, but it doesn’t always have to result in that.

Elisabeth Stitt: No, it really doesn’t.

And “no, thank you. I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for me. Another time, I’d be happy to do that. Not this time.” Right? Those are all perfectly kind, loving, polite ways to say no to something.

And again, when we articulate what we need and we do it in a non pushy way, we are sending a [00:23:00] clear message of self-respect. I think that when we talk about authenticity, that comes through. And that invites other people to use that same kind of language and to offer themselves and you that same kind of respect.

Caterina Rando: Elisabeth, thank you so much for exploring how we’re gonna bliss through more boundaries with me today. I know you do workshops, you do all kinds of great things. You have massive value. You’re a great educator, you’re fun to be with. Elisabeth has come on some of our cruises. She’s been to our speaker mastermind. She’s a master twirler. She likes to twirl around. She’s a great gal to hang out with.

Elisabeth, tell everyone how they can connect with you and, and what are some of the things that you’re up to that they may wanna be a part of?

Elisabeth Stitt: Okay. If you are a parent of zero to 18, I offer [00:24:00] free webinars every couple months. Those are always a great place to get to know me.

I also send out a blog every Friday, and those are thematic. And they’re thematic so that it applies to the 3-year-old, the 13-year-old, and the 23-year-old. Something like boundaries. Right. Which really applies across the ages.

If you are the parent of a 10 to 14-year-old, you may have a middle schooler.

You can find my “Middle School Moms” Facebook group, that’s what it’s called, “Middle School Moms.” It’s not hard. Fabulous community. Women posting all the time issues that are going on in their household and really very lovingly and friendly other people jumping in to say “What has our experience been? What can we do? What might you do? What might you consider?” Or just to say like, “I’m with you there, sister, and I’m sending you a big hug.”

If you are a California mom and you’ve got tweens [00:25:00] and teens, then do consider the Adventure Day or the Joyful family camp that we were talking about. Right now they’re scheduled in Monterrey, central California coast, but I’m always looking for new places to do it. So if that’s something which sounds fun to you, let’s have a conversation about that. And I can have camp anywhere. So…

Caterina Rando: Bing, Bing, Bing! Absolutely. Elisabeth, thank you so much for being with us today on Expand Your Fempire podcast.

This is one of many, many episodes that we have. Please go to caterinarando.com and listen to them. You can get more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.

Please join us for our upcoming events. I have free workshops every month. We have virtual summits. We do all kinds of exciting things. Our mission here at the Expand Your Fempire Podcast to support you to bliss [00:26:00] and thrive more in your business.

And after today, shine the spotlight on your boundaries. Hopefully you’ll make some upgrades so you can bliss even more. Bing, bing, bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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Episode #156:
Five Ways to Amplify Your Leadership Skills, Revisited

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Listen to "Five Ways to Amplify Your Leadership Skills, Revisited" on Spreaker.

Many businesswomen struggle with the idea of calling themselves “leaders.” This thought-provoking episode will remind you that you are already an empowered leader, and you deserve a seat at any table of leaders with whom you want to associate. Plus, you have the power to start your own table at any time! Caterina’s five guiding principles for amplifying your leadership will help you uplift your mindset, uplift your business, and uplift more lives. Do not keep your massive value a secret, be a louder and prouder leader and share your value with the world!

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #156 Transcript

Amplify Your Leadership, Revisited

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I’m your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today because our hot topic for discussion is amplifying your leadership to uplift yourself, uplift your business, increase your impact, and uplift more lives with your amazing self.

Empowered women empower women. You, my friend [00:01:00] are an empowered woman, and let’s amplify your leadership so you can empower even more.

I want to let you know about two of my favorite gals from history that you probably don’t know about: Harriet Hemingway and Mina Hall. In 1896, in Boston, Harriet reads an article that talks about all the birds that are being killed for their colorful feathers to put in hats. And some hats don’t just have the feathers. They actually have the birds in the design of the hat. In fact, there’s one hat with twelve blackbirds going all the way around the brim of the hat.

Now this article that Harriet is reading actually has lots of drawings of all these birds in all these hats, and Harriet is outraged. Now she had seen women walking [00:02:00] down the street with birds on their hats, but she didn’t know that it was happening to the great extent that this article shared. She grabs the article, she grabs her hat from the hallway and puts it on –now, of course, no birds on her hat– and she decides that she is going to walk across the street to her cousin Mina’s house, because she’s got to tell Mina about it, and they’ve got to talk about it, and they’ve got to figure out something they’re gonna do. She walks across the street. Mina can see that she’s distressed. They have the conversation. She shows her the article. Mina doesn’t like this idea of lots of dead birds either. And they say “okay, let’s do something about it”.

So you know what they do? They decide they’re going to host an afternoon tea. I love this because I love the idea of women changing everything over afternoon tea. Especially if there’s little [00:03:00] finger sandwiches involved, They host some teas. They get all the women in Boston Society to sign a petition. And by the way, if somebody didn’t want to sign the petition, you know what? They embraced some peer pressure to have them sign the petition. They get 900 women in Boston to not only sign the petition, to also agree that they’re going to boycott any milliners that manufacturer or sell any hats with birds on the hats or feathers of birds on the hats.

Now, this is beautiful because not only do they get all these women in Boston, women of means, women who are the ones that buy the fancy hats, to agree to this, they also now start the Massachusetts [00:04:00] Audubon Society, the purpose of which is to protect birds and eventually other wildlife. And they also are the first Audubon Society in the country. Now, every state has Audubon society and all of this is because these gals got together with some other gals and had afternoon tea.

Of course you can see the leadership of Harriet and Mina in this story, but what I want to let you know though is that before Harriet and Mina got together for tea with these ladies to make all this happen, they were suffragists.

Now they’re not the names that you hear when you hear about suffragists. They were probably not the top suffragists because if they were, we would have heard their [00:05:00] names along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone, of course Susan B. Anthony, don’t forget Sojourner Truth. Now these are some of the names you know that were suffragists.

I point out that Harriet and Mina were suffragists because they were not the big leaders. It is though through their exposure, their participation, that they realized they could use their voices, they could use their skills for good and massive change.

And I start our conversation today with my favorite story of Harriet and Mina changing the world over afternoon tea, because so many women, and I’m hoping this is not you my friend, so many women, and if it is then I’m glad we’re having this conversation, do not see how much [00:06:00] leadership skills they already have. And today we’re going to talk about some of those.

As we begin this, I want you to ask yourself, do you see yourself as a leader? I hope you do.

Right now, I want you to answer some questions I’m going to ask you. Okay?

Do you make sure everyone present in a situation is included in the conversation or discussion? Do you authentically acknowledge other people? Do you find ways to include anybody who’s interested in a project or a task? Guess what? If you answered yes to these you’re a leader.

Do you see the best in people until they give you a reason to doubt them? Do you tell the truth? Do you keep your agreements and operate with integrity? If so, my friend, guess [00:07:00] what? You’re a leader. When you see something needs to be done, do you make things happen? Do you get it done? Or do you wait for other people to step up and take care of it? If you make things happen and you get things done that you see need to be done, guess what sweetheart, you’re a leader.

Do you have a large network of people and resources that think well of you that you could call on that you could even ask to help you out and they would be an insta-yes for you? That’s a leader. Do you speak in public or run meetings or host gatherings? Leaders do that. Do you offer help when people need help? That’s what leaders do. That’s what servant leaders do.

Because leadership is about being of service. And if you feel the same way, then let’s amplify your leadership [00:08:00] skills, and let’s amplify your voice, and let’s amplify your self- perception of you as a leader. Okay if you’re saying “okay, Caterina, this sounds good,” then we’re going to talk about some things that are going to help you do that.

For some years now I’ve considered myself to be a leader. I lead a community. I lead my team in business. I’ve held leadership in a variety of roles. I was on the board of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce for six years, four years on the executive committee, which was a wonderful experience. Most of the people on the board at the time were VPs of the big companies and the smaller companies and some of the CEOs of different companies. It was an amazing experience.

And at the same time I did a program called Leadership San Francisco. In your city, [00:09:00] there’s probably a leadership program just like that for where you live. I know because I’ve spoken at some of the different leadership programs in different cities in California. That was a place where I definitely felt intimidated as a young gal, being with all these top business leaders.

You know what though? The more I did it, the less intimidated I felt, the more I felt like I belonged to be at the big table. And I hope you do too. If there’s no room for you at the table, you know what? You pull up a chair and you tell people to squish more together to make room for you. You deserve a chair at any table of leaders that you want to associate with, where you know you can make a contribution.

There’ve been certain times in my life where I didn’t necessarily feel like a [00:10:00] leader when I was called on to be a leader. I remember Women’s Wire, which was one of the first sites for women on the internet. They asked me to moderate one of their groups. At the time it wasn’t like it is now, where it was so interactive with videos and live events, it was more like a chat and a feed. But you know, I hardly ever put my voice into this group that I was supposed to be in charge of, because I just didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t feel like I could say anything because I wasn’t sure what would be okay to say.

I laugh now because now I don’t care. Now I put my voice out there because I know there’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. My people will resonate with me. Your people will resonate with you. Don’t worry about [00:11:00] what every Mary, Jane, and Sheila thinks -it doesn’t matter. What matters is your people will find you when you amplify your voice.

When the pandemic started, I didn’t think about what people might think of me when I was thinking of getting my client community together to host meetings for them to talk about thriving through a pandemic. Not that I had any expertise at that, but you know what? I stepped up. We had monthly community meetings. We had extra Zoom get togethers. Why? Because it was a challenge we were all going through together, and we supported each other through that challenge, and that made it bearable, especially in the beginning during lockdown.

I’m sharing this with you because you’ve probably heard me say perfection is not required or encouraged. It is very much true [00:12:00] when it comes to stepping up for leadership. The pandemic is a perfect example of where people were looking for support, looking for leaders. You didn’t have to be polished or perfect or anything. You just had to step up to be of support.

I’m so happy that I was able to do that at this time when it was very much needed. And because I couldn’t do it way back when, when the internet first started, I recognize how far I’ve come. And I hope that you are seeing that however far you’ve come, there’s more to come for you as a leader. Because leadership is something we start to do, and the more we do it, the better we get. And pretty soon we begin to feel like a leader, and we begin to amplify our voice more. And that’s what I want for you.

Okay. So right now I’m going to talk with you about five things [00:13:00] that you want to think about, put in place, cultivate, to support you to be a leader, a great leader, a leader that makes a difference in the lives of others.

First thing, my friend, you need a mission. You need a clear mission. What is your mission? My mission, as example, is to uplift women economically around the world, through entrepreneurship. Now around the world, we do that with our philanthropy and our giving. Domestically, and in the U S and Canada, I do it with my programs, my trainings, my retreats, my workshops. People don’t have to be my client to be uplifted by me. That’s why I do free workshops every month. Because I’ve got massive value to bring, you’ve got massive value to bring. You want to bring it to people that can’t afford to hire you for your massive value you deliver through your [00:14:00] business.

Are there ways though, that you can uplift people that doesn’t cost you much, like doing a workshop, like helping speak in different places to inspire young lives and the lives of people that are older too? Women and girls need support., Everybody needs support. And be an inspirational leadership voice in different places, even when they can’t write you a check. Of course, you have to decide how much of that you’re going to do, because you can’t do it every day, all day long, without getting paid.

Do, though, make a conscious choice that giving, meaning philanthropy where you’re making contribution, giving of your money and giving of your time is part of what you do as a leader. And the other thing that you can do is you can use your leadership voice to support causes you [00:15:00] care about, and your voice can help raise money for a variety of people.

One of my clients today was telling me that she’s going to be doing a walk for Alzheimer’s. Well, of course, I’m going to write her a check, but I’m also going to make sure she has an opportunity to share in our community about what she’s doing so that other people can step up to support her as well.

As a leader, you can facilitate more giving, more support, for the causes you care about, for the people you care about and their causes.

Back to your mission. What is your mission? Be able to clearly articulate it, and be able to use it as your guiding principle in your decision-making for “is this on mission or is this off mission?” Because you will have a lifetime supply of opportunities that will be put in front of you. And every [00:16:00] time you have to ask yourself “does this solidify my mission or does this dilute my mission?”

Often we talk about as women, bright shiny object syndrome. Well, you don’t have bright shiny object syndrome, meaning you’re having so many opportunities and things coming at you you don’t know what to do. You don’t have that when you have clarity on your mission, because you just ask yourself “is this solidifying my mission, supporting my mission, moving my mission forward? Or is this diluting my mission, taking me off course?”

Bing bing, okay. That’s the first thing: a mission.

Second thing : a message. You want to have a message, a message that goes along with your mission.

I’ll tell you mine. My message is: every woman matters, every woman has massive value to bring, and I want her to know it. That’s my message for my [00:17:00] life.

Message for my business: speak authentically, sell authentically, strategize, so you can use your business for good and uplift more lives. Now you can have a few messages, you can have a message that changes. Your message will evolve over time. Life is dynamic, business is dynamic, of course it will. And you know what? You could 360 and totally change what you want to focus on.

Because your mission, your message, better make you bliss. And if it’s not, then it’s time to take a look at what matters to you, what you want to dedicate your life and your time to, and it’s okay to make a change.

I remember many, many years ago, going way back, sitting in my therapist’s office, by the way, this is before I fired my therapist and hired my first coach, because I was sitting there listening to [00:18:00] myself complain about my life and I thought “I shouldn’t be complaining about my life”. Or just felt like I wasn’t doing what was serving me. I wanted to be talking about my goals and how to get there and all of that, and that’s what I did when I hired my first coach, who was Laura Whitworth, who was the founder of the Coaches Training Institute. She’s the one who thought I would make a good coach.

But before that, one day I’m sitting in my therapist’s office and I said to her “I love having my cafe. I want to have my cafe forever. I see running my cafe for the next 50 years”. Well, of course, at some point I changed my mission, I changed my message, I changed my life, because something else was more alluring than running a cafe. To me it was uplifting the lives of women through business coaching and speaking and training.

[00:19:00] I’m sharing this with you because you can change at any point. It’s okay for you to do what brings you joy and makes you bliss in your life. And if your business or whatever, you’ve got your attention on these days, or even your marriage, or your volunteer position, or some commitment you have, if it’s not blissing you, you can make a change. I want you to hear that. I’m not sure if that message was for you personally. I know it’s for somebody that’s listening.

You’ve got a mission. You’ve got a message. The next thing you need, is you need a platform. You need a place to amplify your voice, to get the word out, because if nobody knows how amazing you are, they can not be impacted by you. Did you hear that? If nobody knows how amazing you are, they cannot be impacted by you. Do not keep your massive value a [00:20:00] secret, be loud and proud about it.

Now, where are you going to be loud and proud? You can have a podcast. You can be a guest on other people’s podcasts. You can do reels. You can do Facebook live and LinkedIn live. You can host workshops. You can host live events. You can be like Harriet and Mina and get the gals together for afternoon tea and talk. You need a platform.

And not only do you need a platform, I’m going to encourage you to have a consistent platform. Meaning if you put video on YouTube, don’t just do it once every blue moon, do it consistently. Because once people find you, they’re going to want more. This is why we want people to get on our email list so that we can touch them regularly. Now you might be anti-email, guess what though? It’s a great way to let people know what other platforms you’re on.

Once you have your mission and your message and you figured out what platform you’re going to use, and [00:21:00] that might be multiple platforms like many of us, next thing you need is a plan. A plan. A plan for when you’re sharing your message, what’s next? What else you got? Because people listening to you once is going to let them know you have massive value to bring. It’s not necessarily going to create massive change for the people that you’re touching.

If you want to have real impact, you want to provide ongoing support for those people, ongoing guidance, a structure, like a community or a program or a regular meeting, could be even a regular clubhouse room once a week. Ongoing that has them be focused, that builds momentum, that supports them in being in action. And you know, what else? Encouragement.

And the next thing that comes after plan, is a [00:22:00] community. Those are the things that people need to create massive change or make a difference in their lives. For you to impact people, you want to provide these things, and you want to have a plan to do it.

And of course, how are you going to monetize all of this? If we’re talking about doing something for raising money for causes you care about, what’s your plan to do that, if we’re talking outside of your business? Any mission, any plan, any platform that you’re going to work on a consistent basis, that’s going to require some revenue to keep things moving.

Leader super-tip alert, leader super-tip alert: you can’t be doing everything. It’s your voice that you want to be focused on, getting your voice out there, having support with some of the behind the scene things so that you can keep bringing your voice… what’s your plan? By the way, [00:23:00] if you want support with all of that, let’s have a conversation. This is what I do: I help women create their plans to have their massive impact. I do this individually with women, I do this with groups of women leaders, just like you.

You’ve got a mission. You’ve got a message. You’ve got a platform. You’ve got a plan. The next thing I mentioned already, a community. We have done an episode here on this podcast on cultivating community. This is a skill. I want you to listen to that episode, want you to put attention on cultivating community, because this is an important skill that will support you to not only thrive as a leader, thrive in your business, but here’s the best part. A community means that everybody is helping everybody.

I talked to one of my clients today. She was telling me that another client [00:24:00] is her client. And I talked to another client today and she said that somebody referred her for speaking engagement, another person in our community. I was talking to another client and she told me she just hired another one of my clients to help her with a project. Another client told me that another client referred her to her VA because she needs some VA support. When everybody in your community has a community to call on for whatever needs they have, for whatever resources they are looking for, for clients, for opinions, for access to some group, you say “Hey, does anybody know anybody who works over there?” Or “does anybody know anybody that has tried this and if it’s any good?” This is powerful. Make sure that cultivating a community of like-minded like-hearted people, just like [00:25:00] you is part of your plan as a leader. Everybody needs more community.

When I started my trainings that we do now, hosting my own group programs, hosting my own retreats, really I started because I wanted to do the teaching part. I wanted to have impact through teaching, and that was great. Well then after some of the ladies that were my clients had been to the speaker program and they’d been to the business program, they said to me “Caterina, what’s next?” And in that moment, I realized yes, they were getting value from the trainings, but what they really loved was to keep coming back and meeting more amazing women, and connecting, and getting uplifted through each other. This is what a community does.

And I’m hoping that you’re a part of some communities that you think are absolutely [00:26:00] fabulous, because they’re modeling what amazing community is. And if you’re not part of lots of amazing communities, you can start your own.

Before you do that, come and hang out with me and my amazing community, because we are a good model, a great model, of what community looks like. Now, how do I know this? Because ladies tell me every day, all day long. Nothing warms my heart more than watching women thrive in community.

My friend. I hope you’re taking our discussion today- you’re going to listen to it again. You’re going to get your mission, your message, your platform, your plan, and your community together.

Now it’s not gonna all happen at once. It’s not going to happen overnight. I want you to be in action, though, around this. Because I want you to develop mastery as a leader. I want you to become masterful at cultivating community, because this is going to uplift lots of [00:27:00] lives.

And by the way, I’m here to support you. I’d love to be your guide. My community is here to support you. Please join us in our Thriving Women in Business group on Facebook. And join me for one of my free workshops. Let’s connect.

Let me find out about you and your business, how myself and my community can support you to amplify your voice, amplify your leadership. Because you, my friend, have massive value to bring. There is absolutely a lifetime supply of people to be served by you.

Amplify your voice, create your plan, get clarity on these things we’ve discussed. I want to watch you thrive, expand your Fempire and most importantly, uplift more lives.

Can’t wait to be with you again on another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Bing bing bing. Until next time.  [00:28:00]

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #155:
How to be an "Insta-Yes" in Life and Business

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "How to be an "Insta-Yes" in Life and Business" on Spreaker.

After an unexpected, whirlwind adventure to Paris for the 2024 Paralympics, Caterina sits down and shares the three areas in her business that allow her to be an “insta-yes” in both life and in her business! If living a life of “yes!” and adventure is important to you and your business, you’re not going to want to miss this episode!

Ready for more business-building super tips?

Join us on an Alaskan Adventure!  

AMP UP ADVENTURE: Alaska 2026

A Mastermind Cruise for Women Business Leaders to Connect, Collaborate, and Catapult!

Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

Register for FREE: 

Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #155 Transcript

How to be an “Insta-Yes” in Life and Business

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today, perhaps more than usual.

 A few months back when I was leading a training at our thriving women in business center.

Caterina Rando: We’re just about to get the party started, and I get a text from one of my clients who also has been a lifelong friend for many years.

She’s taking my [00:01:00] Thrive at Sales class and we’ve been messaging and texting over the last few weeks, talking about her business, taking about her sales, her offerings. She sends me a text and says, “Caterina I need to talk with you urgently.”

i’m thinking she wants to talk to me about a proposal or a conversation she has coming up for business. I give her a quick call because I figure it’s going to be quick before my event starts.

She says to me, “Caterina, would you like to go to Paris in four days? I have a ticket. My friend was supposed to come with me. She’s not able to come. Would you like to come?” I was an Insta yes. I asked myself in my head, “do I want to go to Paris?” The answer of course was yes. And then I said yes.

And then the [00:02:00] next thing I thought to myself was, “I have a business. I have to figure out how I can be away for a week unexpectedly at the last minute.”

The trip was amazing. It was a trip of a lifetime. We went to the Dorsey Museum. We went to the L’Orange Museum. We took a river cruise down the Seine. It was quite beautiful.

I want to tell you why I’m talking about this- because your business is supposed to be your bliss.

There are things that were already in place that allowed me to be a yes for this adventure. I want to talk with you about some of those things that you want to have in place. Yes, of course, if you get an unexpected invitation to Paris, [00:03:00] or if you decide you want to join me at the last minute for one of our cruise retreats.

Other things happen, though, too. Last minute, you might get called out of town to be with a loved one. Last minute, you might unfortunately fall ill and not able to work right in your business, even just for a few days.

Do you have things in place to support you so that your business is going to continue to run like clockwork, even when you’re not there? I’m hoping so.

The first reason I was able to be an “Insta Yes” for this unexpected getaway is because I know my numbers.

In my business, we produce something we call the Monday Report. My team runs the reports, and here are some things that we put on our Monday Report. This is every Monday.

[00:04:00] How much revenue has come in the door so far this month?

How much revenue is expected or projected to come in for the rest of the month?

How much new products or services have been sold so far this month?

And what are the projected revenues for the next 6 months in business?

At a glance, I can look at all of these numbers. And all of these numbers, in this case, told me that we are well above our minimum amount that needs to come in every month to pay our bills, to pay everyone on our team, and also to put a little money in the bank for surplus.

I’m hoping that you are running a Monday report [00:05:00] or report every two weeks on your business. Not every month and not really even every two weeks, every week is important. And here’s why…

You cannot earn more money last month. You cannot track down and put attention on people that are behind in their payments last month. You can do it this month. By the way, that’s something else we look at on the Monday report is whose payments did not go through.

Please make sure that you’re on top of this, that, you know, every, every week you’re looking at. Did everything we expected to come in, come in and that, you know, that number of what your minimum amount in the door is to pay yourself, pay your team, pay all your bills and put some money in surplus.

Do you know that number? If [00:06:00] not, please, please, please figure that out. And of course, I hope that you’re paying yourself a good amount every month. And I also hope that you are not mixing your personal expenses with your business expenses, or that you have only one account. You want two separate credit cards. You want two separate accounts for personal and business, and I know you’re super smart and you know that already, but there may be a gal listening that that is an important message for her.

 The next reason why I was able to be a yes for this unexpected getaway is because I have a great team. I have a great team, and I’ve had a team for many, many years, and I’m going to tell you something. I am not the queen of managing a team. But my team Are all phenomenal at what they do, and we have had other podcast episodes [00:07:00] on having a great team. Please look for those. You can do a search on our podcast page at our website.

Caterina Rando: A great team has clarity on what their jobs are, their responsibilities, their roles. They have clarity on when they’re going to be doing what. They have clarity on what I would call the daily success practices, meaning tasks they do every day and their weekly success practices, things they do every week related to their day.

Let me tell you a little bit about my team that may give you some insight into where you can use an upgrade for your team. Angela is in charge of marketing. She Does everything marketing or she delegates everything marketing to the other marketing assistant we have right now. Amy helps with our event calendar. You can go [00:08:00] to TWIBC. com and see our event listings for many events that we are offering from the fabulous women in our community, a lot of free virtual events there to support you in your business and in your personal life.

And every two weeks we release a calendar via email so if you’re not receiving that email, you can opt in at CaterinaRando. com. We have a great open rate on that email. Amy is responsible for putting all that together.

We also have a client portal where we have all of our events listed. This is not really under marketing. It’s more under client care. And by the way, you need help on your team for that. And of course we do our workshop promotion. Angela is in charge of that. She has help from Amy.

Marketing is a big job and [00:09:00] it’s not your job. You want support with your marketing tasks from a great team member or team members to help you with that.

Julie helps me with AMP up, which is our mastermind cruise for women’s speakers, podcasters, and business leaders. Julie helps me with that. She also helps me with booking my appointments, helps me with reminders for appointments, and other tasks. And then Ebony is really great at helping us with everything in our system that we use, our CRM. And there’s a lot of emails to go out. Ebony is in charge of that. She helps me with everything to do with payments related to clients, client care, she does our onboarding calls for our clients and much more.

By the way, are you doing onboarding [00:10:00] calls for your clients or is someone on your team doing that?

I really want to encourage you to look at that as well.

Now I’ve given you a quick overview of some things my team helps me with.

What I want you to get is that the idea is that you’re doing your jobs:

speaking, in the broad sense of the word, which means you’re the one who’s guesting on podcasts. You’re the one who’s doing the workshops. You’re the one who’s going out to other groups to speak. You might be doing the Facebook lives. You’re the spokesperson of your business. That’s your job.

Then of course, unless you have a sales team, you’re in charge of the selling for your business.

And of course you’re in charge of serving your clients. You might have help with that. You’re in charge of who’s going to be served and how they’re going to be served.

And then your next job is strategy. You set the goals for your [00:11:00] business, you set the pricing, you decide when you’re going to do what.

And the last of your five jobs, and these are, of course, the five pillars to expand your FEMPIRE, is self care.

You need time for self care.

Now, why did I just remind you of your five jobs? Because I want you to get all the things that are not under those five things are not your job. The bookkeeping, updating your websites, I forgot to say Angela does all the security for our business as well. Every small business need support with their security as well, these days.

Are you having a great team that is helping you?

Now, if you’re newer in business, you might be thinking, “well, Caterina, I don’t, you know, I can’t afford this that are the other thing to have someone help me yet.” And people often ask me, where do you start?

 I often recommend start with a [00:12:00] virtual assistant, even 10 hours a month in the beginning to get some of those tasks that you do over and over that are more admin or client care or email marketing related. Get some support with those first.

Caterina Rando: Then a bookkeeper is very important for your business. You want to be on top of your numbers and bookkeeping can take up a lot of your time, which means you’re not selling. Remember you got five jobs. Speaking, selling, serving your clients, strategy, and self care.

Again, you’re going to be able to be a yes when an exciting opportunity comes your way and it could be something for business. Somebody could say, “Hey, I need a speaker in Arizona next week. Can you fill in for me?” You want to be an Insta- yes, because you have a great team and because you know your numbers.

The third reason [00:13:00] I was able to be an Insta- yes for my very exciting European adventure is because I have great relationship with other trusted professionals, that I can call on to fill in for me.

Now, I was fortunate that I did not have a lot of classes this week. It was a gap week between when my Thrive at Sales class ended and the next Thrive at Sales class started. And we weren’t starting a couple of other classes for a couple of weeks.

So it was a great week, but I was doing one very important thing. I was scheduled to host a virtual retreat for one of our retreat programs. I had sent out these really fun packets to the gals in the mail with stickers that said don’t open until our virtual retreat, and I was really looking forward to it. I knew, though, I could have [00:14:00] someone that the ladies would enjoy just as much who was a part of the retreat program to run the virtual event.

And I called on my friend, my colleague, my VIP client to fill in for me. And because she’s filled in for me before I knew she would do a great job.

Do you have other professionals that you can call on to fill in for you?

If you can’t deliver a speech at the last minute. If you have an unexpected trip. If you get booked for a big important speech and you have a class scheduled at that time.

I have a few amazing women that I can bring in to teach for me at any time and I know that my clients are going to get massive value from my guest presenters.

Other [00:15:00] trusted professionals who can fill in for you is a great asset for your business.

As entrepreneurs, when we start our businesses, we often think, “Hey, now I’m going to have time freedom.” Well, I hope that you do have time freedom and that you can work when you want to work, not work when you don’t want to work.

The thing is, even when you have a great team, In my experience, you never get through your to- do list. There’s always more to do.

The thing that I want you to recognize, though, is that it’s very important that you schedule in time to be with your family. You schedule in time to be with your business girlfriends. You schedule time for rejuvenation.

These things that we’ve discussed here: knowing your numbers, Having a great team, and having other trusted professionals you can call on to fill in for you on occasion [00:16:00] is going to support you to do that.

Let me take a minute to remind you that getting away is great for your business. You have a change of environment. You get away from all the daily to- do’s. You usually have new experiences or at least you get to rest and have Relaxation or have fun. And all of these things allow you to come back to your business refreshed, renewed, Revitalized. This is why you know, I love to lead women’s retreats. I love to go on women’s retreats. As soon as I got back from Paris, the next day, I went on one of my client’s fabulous retreats for three days.

Fortunately, it was in the area, I didn’t have to jump on another airplane. And that was very revitalizing.

I’m hoping that retreats are part of your overall business success plan, because the best [00:17:00] investment you can make is in yourself.

And one of the ways I want to encourage you to invest in yourself is invest in women’s trips, women’s retreats, with other business women. Because you need great business girlfriends. You don’t even have to be talking business. But when of course you go away, you will be supporting each other and you will be talking business. Getaways with great women in business is great for your business.

You’re not spoiling yourself. You’re not being indulgent.

It’s good, smart strategy. Did you hear that? It’s a good, smart strategy. Because remember, my fabulous friend, your business is supposed to be your bliss. [00:18:00]

And if you’re not blissing in business, I want you to look at these 3 very important areas that we’ve discussed here so that you can be set up to be more proactive versus reactive in your business when opportunities present themselves.

And I’m absolutely hoping that you are including some retreats or some women business getaways in your overall plan, so that every quarter or at the very furthest every six months, you’re getting refreshed, rejuvenated, revitalized. Coming home with a new fresh perspective. And you’re going to be blissing more in your business moving forward.

This is Caterina Rando reminding you, you have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve.

I’m hoping that you are out there, you are being loud and [00:19:00] proud about your massive value. You are speaking. You are inviting people to talk to you to see if you’re a good match for them so that you can serve them. That you are having great girlfriends and you’re getting away with them. Because all of these things will support you to sell more, serve more, and uplift more lives.

 Again, this is Caterina Rando. Please join me for one of my upcoming free workshops. Go to my myriad of free gifts at caterinarando.com/links Connect with me on Facebook or LinkedIn. And please join our Facebook group.

I’m here to support you. My amazing community is here to support you to bliss, thrive, and uplift more people with who you are.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #154:
The Power of Connecting with Women Entrepreneurs
with Carol Dockum

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Listen to "The Power of Connecting with Women Entrepreneurs with Carol Dockum" on Spreaker.

In this episode, Caterina is joined by the founder of Beautiful Faces Going Places, Carol Dockum, to share her top guiding principles for having a successful women in business community. Carol shares how powerful getting started was in hosting her first retreat and why community is so vital for female empowerment within the entrepreneurial space.

Connect with Carol

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Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #154 Transcript

 

The Power of Connecting with Women Entrepreneurs
with Carol Dockum

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today.

Caterina Rando: We are with one of my favorite people, Carol Dockum. Carol Dockum is the founder of Beautiful Faces Going Places. This is an amazing women’s community, both live and in person and virtual. Carol, thank you so much for being with us.

Carol Dockum: Thank you so much, Caterina, for having me here today. It is such an honor. [00:01:00]

Caterina Rando: I am so happy to be with you. And Carol, you know, you and I have known each other, I guess we’re going on a couple of years now, and you have an amazing women’s community.

I want to talk about all that. The thing is, though, how did you get to the place where you decided that you wanted to found this amazing group, Beautiful Faces Going Places?

Carol Dockum: Well, you know I am a former chamber of commerce, executive director president of a chamber of commerce. And that was several years ago and really, you know, creating programming, right, and membership value and supporting entrepreneurs, small business owners in my local community. And I had this crazy idea of creating an online chamber of commerce to support women in business. Having lived internationally London, Moscow, Rome, I truly missed traveling. I missed hanging with women and and I just really felt that there was a need.

There was a niche or a niche to serve women in business and women entrepreneurs.

Caterina Rando: Well, I love that, you know, and I want to get into all this. I do want to say I was on the board of my chamber of commerce in San Francisco for six years. I won a couple of the membership drives. I won a trip where we went to Italy. I love, I loved, I loved winning the sales contests.

Not everybody has an amazing chamber in their city. I do think everyone should check out the chamber in their city because Many chambers are fabulous in many places. And I also feel like I learned a lot about business and I gained a lot of business acumen from being involved in my chamber.

Of course, that was before I got involved in women’s groups, which are also extremely valuable.

But my friend, the other thing, which I did not know about you, Is that you lived in Rome. I used to live in Rome. I lived in Rome for [00:03:00] a year. We’re going to have to blah, blah, blah. A little bit about that.

 What were you doing there and how did you end up there?

Carol Dockum: Well, my husband at the time worked for Ford Motor Company, so Okay. You know, it, I was a, a trailing spouse, an expat supporting a corporate husband at the time. And and that’s what took us to Italy.

Caterina Rando: Oh my gosh, we’re going to have to blah blah blah about that a lot, because I love, Rome is my favorite city in the world, and I definitely have a big place in my heart for Rome. Fabulous. Okay, but we have to save that for another day, because we want to dive in and give our listeners Some super tips on you have this amazing women community.

Now everybody knows I’m very pro community. I’m very pro women’s community. I know you started before, but one of the beautiful things coming out of the pandemic is it seems to be a surge in virtual women’s communities, which is great. I want to ask you. What do you feel [00:04:00] are one, two, three of the things that you feel are really smart strategies you’re using to have a thriving women business community?

Carol Dockum: You know, I think the main thing, my main focus has always been creating this platform. And my vision around eight years ago when I was running a very successful chamber of commerce was to leverage technology and create this online virtual community to connect women entrepreneurs and then bring in the women entrepreneurs that are speakers, trainers, coaches, and experts that have that expertise to empower really to, you know, help women entrepreneurs, right?

I always like to think Of success as a puzzle, you know, there are all these different pieces of that success puzzle that we have to snap into place and come [00:05:00] together.

And, and many a times we are small business owners. We’re women entrepreneurs, many solopreneurs. We don’t have all the answers. So my concept and vision was to create this online chamber of commerce to support women in business, bringing in the experts to talk about subjects such as marketing or social media. Now the hot topic is AI, right? Financing and business strategy and all of those different pieces of the success puzzle so that so that we all can be successful, right?

Caterina Rando: You know, I want to say that one of the things Carol that I feel about you is that as a leader, my perception of you as a community leader is you’re very warm, you’re very personable, you’re very approachable, you’re very accessible.

One of the things that I’m a big advocate for is having a [00:06:00] Community culture and not a celebrity culture, meaning that there’s this one person who’s like the head and it’s all about them. I feel you’ve done a great job of creating a community culture where you have so many businesswomen that are shining and being showcased and featured.

These are some of the things that I feel have made you a successful leader. What would you identify, something that I haven’t mentioned that you feel is one of the reasons why you are a successful women community leader.

Carol Dockum: You know, I love, I love that, Caterina. Thank you so much for your kind words and for recognizing that.

I have never really thought about it or articulated what you just, how you described me as a leader. And you’re absolutely right. I am heart centered, right? And I think one of the things that really kind of sets the organization apart or our community apart is is I like to [00:07:00] refer to us as “more than just a once a month lunch club.”

And, and when I was running a chamber of commerce, you know, you had you know, your, your monthly lunch and learn or your monthly, you know, and then you kind of waited 30 days for the next opportunity. And you collect a bunch of business cards. And then you wait another 30 days for the next, you know, lunch and so I love to refer to us as more than just a once a month a lunch club.

There are so many different ways to plug in virtually and in person through events and programming. And I also like to refer to us as high vibers. Professional women entrepreneurs that are high vibers. I mean, we are vibing on a very high empowering level. I mean, I can feel it right now. Like I got goosebumps.

And and, and what the crazy thing is, is now we are attracting women entrepreneurs that are also high vibing, that are so positive and, and approachable. So I love that [00:08:00] positivity.

Caterina Rando: Well, I definitely, having been to some of your events, having had the privilege to speak at your events, I definitely would say that you are heart centered and that you do vibe at a high level and positivity is really an important part, I think, of being a leader.

One of the things that I seek to do, this is one of my guiding principles, Carol, for leadership, is my desire is every time somebody is in a Zoom room with me having an event, that everybody leaves more uplifted than when they showed up.

And especially for those gals that you know are working from home, many of them also living alone at home and, you know, we’re working our business. We’re not necessarily out and about every day and that our time together in a Zoom room is really the time [00:09:00] for us to be together, have community, and support each other.

And then when everybody leaves more uplifted than when they showed up, they’re going to keep showing up. Which is very important.

And as you know, you run a great meeting, Carol. Also, and let’s hang out there a little bit because, you know, when I’m in a zoom room, I take a screenshot and hopefully everybody’s doing that. They’re taking a screenshot so that I can connect with any of the gals I want to connect with.

And so a lot of times they stay on my desktop for a lot longer than they really should. But my point is, I don’t even want to count how many Zoom rooms I’ve been in. And some of the Zoom rooms, you’re blissing to go and be in that Zoom room.

You’re like, “yeah, I’m going to go be with Carol. I know we’re going to have a great time.” And then there’s some places where, you know, oh my God, I want to go in that Zoom room. Those meetings are so boring, right? Because the leader, maybe however they’re doing it, [00:10:00] it’s not necessarily uplifting.

What do you do to make sure that people are excited to come to your virtual and I know you have live and in person too, but they’re excited to come to your virtual events so that they keep coming back and they get massive value?

Carol Dockum: You know, I think the biggest thing is to smile, you know, you can smile with your eyes, you can smile with your mouth right.

 And just show your, your excitement and that excitement and energy really just exudes through the camera lens.

And I think people can feel that in person and online. And I know Caterina, you are an expert of, of coaching women entrepreneurs and how to exude that confidence, that excitement, that passion that they have, so that, you know, they’re engaging everyone, and everyone wants more, right?

Right.

So I feel like that is, that is the key. If you’re excited, and you’re happy, and [00:11:00] people feel that presence, they, they feel that energy, that presence, it just shines through the camera. Not only in in person events, but online as well.

And then I always like to make sure that everyone in the room, whether it’s an in person or in a zoom room has an opportunity to express themselves or value. They not only be seen, be heard, be found, but they want to feel like they they’re contributing and not just being talked to.

Caterina Rando: Right. And that’s a very good point. And let’s underscore that. Even when I did mostly all live and in person events because you know, been at this for quite a while. One of my intentions always was as soon as the gals get in the room, even if it’s, it’s a 60 gals or 75 gals want to make sure everybody gets their voice in the room right away.

And when you have a large event, you can’t have everybody necessarily stand up and introduce themselves, but you can have them talk to the people at their table [00:12:00] or talk to a partner or something like that. And, and that intention of getting everybody’s voice in the room right away is very, very important.

And now when we do virtual meetings, the same thing. Again, if you have 75 gals in a virtual room, you can’t necessarily take an intro from everybody, but you can put them in breakout rooms. And as a result, They’re connecting, they’re sharing, they’re getting their voice in the room. And that is a lot of value.

And you know, it’s important for us to point out that value is not just get some super tips from the speaker. Value is the connecting, value is, as you say, feeling seen, heard, welcomed, and you have a big heart and you definitely do that. And that is very, very important that everyone feels welcomed and included.

Carol Dockum: You nailed it. It is all about inclusiveness, right? Everyone wants to feel like they’re, they’re included. And, and they’re welcomed and [00:13:00] they feel like they’re part of something special, right, an experience.

Caterina Rando: Yes. Yes. Now, Carol, I wanna make sure we talk about.

You recently did your, I think it was your first retreat. Was it your first retreat or? Yes. Yeah. So you recently did your first retreat. I want to chat a little bit about that because you know, of course, you know me, I’m Ms. Retreat. I love doing retreats. I have a program on how to thrive with retreats. I love also cruise retreats.

You know that? Yes. What I want to ask you, what did you learn in doing your own retreat that you want to share with our listeners?

Carol Dockum: Well, the first thing I want to say, if anyone out there is listening and you’re interested in hosting your own retreat, don’t wait, you know don’t wait for everything to be perfect.

 It’s progress over perfection. It doesn’t have to be perfect, right?

I think that’s what holds many of us back. We’re waiting for everything to be just perfect. [00:14:00] And I think that’s my biggest takeaway. You know, I, I just said date, time, place. Great. Date, time, place. Right? Come up with your, your, your alluring heading or what, what does it capture your ideal clients?

Right. And attention to make them want to sign up. You know, and then you just create the agenda and what all is included and always keep in mind, what experience can you provide your attendees who raised their hand?

I think one of the biggest things that I learned from hosting our first retreat was women just want to come together.

Yes. They just want to be in the presence with other empowering, amazing women. They want that connectivity through community and, and that special experience and time together, whether it’s a three day, five day retreat. And I think that was my biggest takeaway.

Caterina Rando: I love that, Carol. I want to underscore this a little bit because you said exactly what I [00:15:00] tell the ladies.

All you need to do is pick a date, pick a time, pick a price, pick a topic, or as you said, your alluring theme, and start talking to gals, and then gals will sign up. That we don’t need to figure every little thing out. What are we going to do every minute before we start enrolling the people to come.

And I used to feel when I had events live and in person a lot more, I felt like, you know what? All I got to do is greet the ladies at the door. And then when it’s time to go open the doors and greet them on the way or say, thank you on the way out. And they going to tell me what a great time they had because the real reason Is and big part of the value, as we’ve said, is the connection with other amazing women just like them.

I love that you said, don’t wait, get started, because a lot of women are getting ready to get ready, and they’re pushing off their retreats, and they’re [00:16:00] not doing them year after year. And I want to, first of all, commend you for doing it. I saw all the pictures. I saw your video. I saw what a great time you and all the women had.

And the first, and the first one, our job is just to do it, right? Right. And prove to ourself that, oh my gosh, this is really wonderful. I love that, Carol. I love that.

And what did you take away from your first one that you’re going to do something different with your next one?

Carol Dockum: Well, I think the main thing I’m going to do differently is get a bigger venue. I think what I have noticed is like you said, you just have to get started, create your first one and stop self doubting yourself and questioning, questioning yourself. And I think what I’ve learned from that is now, you know, once you do something, it’s almost like riding a bike.

You’re confident, you’re comfortable. Okay, I can do this. Now it’s rinse and repeat. And then you learn from, you know, there might be a few things that you can tweak. And, and now we’ve got a [00:17:00] waiting list for other ladies that are ready to go to the next one because they saw the pictures, right.

And, and say pictures are worth a thousand words. And I think we were able to capture the energy and the excitement and the wonderful time that we all spent together. I know I had a lady reach out to me and she just said, you know, I wish I had signed up and please put me down for the next one.

And she goes, you know what, you guys are going to form a special bond. Yes, lifetime friendships. And I think that is one of the things that, that I learned and gained from this experience of my first retreat was the, the friendships, the, the bond that forms through that experience, you know, at that special time together.

Caterina Rando: Yes. And Carol, I want to underscore that I did my bliss retreat last year. January and over a year [00:18:00] later, the ladies are talking still every single day in the Facebook chat. We meet once a month on zoom. This is not part of the program. They came up with it on their own. They’re traveling together. They’re going to see each other in the different cities. They have in fact done, as you’ve said, and created these lifelong friendships. And that’s what happens when you go away with amazing women. And I do want to encourage everyone who’s listening. If you are not being a participant in retreats, you absolutely want to include that as part of your not just business strategy, but self care.

I am going on two retreats that my clients are hosting as a participant. I can’t wait. I’m speaking on somebody else’s retreat. Also, I’m hosting my own retreats.

And I got to say something, you know, Carol, they will in fact create lifelong friendships, but [00:19:00] also there is so much brain power and experience among your participants that they will lift up each other.

This is a great thing to be aware of that we don’t have to have it all figured out. We just got to get the ladies together.

Carol Dockum: That’s right, caterina, I absolutely love that. I mean, it’s just amazing what happens when you, you know, fill a room with brilliance.

I always say, surround yourself with brilliance. Yes, I do. And I know you do as well, Caterina, and it’s just so magical. And I want to say it’s priceless.

Caterina Rando: It is. It really is priceless. Carol, so many things for us to talk about. My friend, you’re gonna have to come hang out with me at one of my retreats and you put me on that list for your next retreat too, okay?

And when you have the dates, you let me know because I would love to come. And the other thing is I’m going to tell you, you know, it’s, it’s a good business strategy to go to retreats because you will create [00:20:00] relationships with people.

I’ve had many gals say to me, Caterina, I did more business this week at this retreat than if I was home at my office. Very important for women to recognize. The power for business of retreats. We got a lifetime supply of stuff to talk about. We could blah, blah, blah all day.

Let me have you share with our listeners. What is one thing we haven’t touched on that you would say is one of your keys to success that you want to share with our listeners?

Carol Dockum: Yeah I always love to say spark conversations, make new connections and create opportunities for yourself and for others. And how do you do that? Through networking. And I know some people may cringe at the word network or networking right?

But, you know, if you look at it in a different light and you spin it, it truly creates opportunities for yourself, you know. So for me, I think it’s [00:21:00] a build out your network. And participate in your local chamber of commerce or in professional women’s organizations such as the one that you, you have yourself right?

And, you just never know who you’re going to meet and consider it part of your, your marketing strategy. You know, I always say you can’t, you’re not going to build a business sitting at home, eating bonbons, watching TV or Netflix, right? You need to get up, dress up, show up and, and contribute, participate.

And through the power of your presence and your excitement of what you do and what you have to offer and the problems you solve. You know, you forge these friendships, that know, like and trust factor. Somebody needs what you have to offer, you know, you, you come first to mind.

So I feel like that is under valued and under emphasized and it doesn’t have to be so “network-y.” Do you know what I mean? It’s, it’s just a way of being.

Caterina Rando: Well, I love it. And, you know, I just think it’s making [00:22:00] friends really. And, and, and, you know, you and Carol, you and I are, are over 50. And I think that a lot of women over 50 have this belief that, okay, well, we can’t make friends anymore because they, you know, I haven’t known him for 20 years.

And I want to say that it’s never too late to make new friends and networking really does allow us to meet new people all the time. And of course, you know, I want everybody to be the speaker, not just at the event. I want them to be the speaker too, because that builds Insta influence. And to pick those networks, like your community, where you vibe with the members.

But I’m going to also say, Carol, I joined your network because I vibe with you. And the leadership or the founder of any community really does infuse that community with their values, with their leadership style. And that’s [00:23:00] part of the reason why your group is so successful because of your values and your Warmth and who you are.

Okay, everybody you have been with us today on the expand your fempire podcast. Carol Dockum of Beautiful Faces Going Places has been our guest. You’re going to want to look in the show notes. You’ll see, you can connect with Carol. You can go to one of her events, virtual or on the ground to check out her amazing community.

 I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together with Carol today. Don’t just say, “Hey, that was good super tips and insights.” Pick something that you’re going to take action on so you can bliss more in your business and expand your fempire.

This is Caterina Rando. Be with you again next time. Go be yourself, do your thing, serve your people, and of course, massively monetize your mastery. [00:24:00]

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Connect with Caterina

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #153:
A Self-Love Plan to Be the Queen of Your Fempire, Revisited

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "A Self-Love Plan to Be the Queen of Your Fempire, Revisited" on Spreaker.

You have heard of the popular “Five Love Languages” to help you with your personal and business relationships. Have you ever thought about them as a tool to help you master self-love? In this episode, Caterina shares a major breakthrough she recently had, that will help you embrace and practice more self-love in your business. This will also support you to bliss more with yourself. You’ll leave this valuable episode with a list of action steps to take to help you be the true Queen of your Fempire!

Ready for more business-building super tips?

Join us on an Alaskan Adventure!  

AMP UP ADVENTURE: Alaska 2026

A Mastermind Cruise for Women Business Leaders to Connect, Collaborate, and Catapult!

Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

Register for FREE: 

Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #153 Transcript

A Self-Love Plan to Be the Queen of Your Fempire, Revisited

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] My friend, I am blissing to be with you today because I have decided that I’m going to share with you something that I feel is essential for having not only a thriving business, a life, and a business that is bringing you fulfillment.

[00:00:47] I’m going to share with you a little bit about my recent personal journey that I am hoping will inspire you. I am recording this in July- a month I have chosen to have a very light schedule. I went last week to the Silverado Spa for three days. I went because we’re doing an event there in January. I also went for the relaxation and the get-a-way.

[00:01:19]I’m taking a lot of time this month for thinking and planning. I’m not doing any teaching. I’m not doing any speaking. Because every year you need time, I need time, for relaxation, rejuvenation, reflection, revitalization.

[00:01:39] I want you to ask yourself, have you been taking time?

[00:01:45] Now also we have all been through a trauma: living during a pandemic. Even if your financial situation is fine, the uncertainty has taken a toll on all of us.

[00:02:00] Next year I’m doing the same thing, even more time not working. Why? Because you cannot give to the extent that you want to give if your cup is empty. You want your cup to be full, overflowing, and you give from surplus.

Because you cannot give to the extent that you want to give if your cup is empty. You want your cup to be full, overflowing, and you give from surplus. -Caterina Rando

[00:02:22] When I was at the spa last week, I met the most amazing massage therapist ever. After my best massage of life, we decided that she would come to my room for the next two days and give me another massage. Best self-care decision I’ve made in a long time.

[00:02:44] On the third day, I am waiting for Angela to come, I’m not quite sure exactly when she’s arriving. I go on Facebook to check my messages. A notification pops up about one of my amazing clients who’s hosting her second ever workshop.

[00:03:03] I love to go to my ladies’ workshops. I love to support them when they’re doing their thing. I think to myself, “Okay. I’ll register because it was happening right then. And if I have to leave early, that’s fine. I will let her know.” I go to the workshop. I, fortunately, am able to stay for the whole thing before Angela, the massage therapist arrived. And I had a major breakthrough in this one-hour workshop that I want to tell you about.

[00:03:33] Maritza Levy, who is one of my VIP clients, who is a self-care and self-love advocate for women hosting her second-ever virtual workshop, as I mentioned, was fabulous and amazing.

[00:03:50] And I’m telling you this because you might be getting ready to get ready to begin to think about getting going on your virtual thing. And I want you to know that it’s in the doing that you get good at it, and the more you do it, the better you’re going to get.

[00:04:06] In this workshop, Maritza starts to talk about the five love languages. Now I’m listening attentively because I love The Five Love Languages, the book by Gary Chapman, which is all about your significant relationship and how to show love and feel loved. Love that book.

[00:04:28] I talk about the five love languages all the time as it relates to business, that you want to be a polyglot. You want to speak all five love languages with your clients. You can call them the five languages of client appreciation.

[00:04:44] Maritza, though, she has a different spin. She says, guess what? These five love languages? They’re about self-love. This was my breakthrough.

[00:04:58] Because since I was a young woman, I have heard people say a thousand times, “Love yourself, love yourself.” And I think to myself, “I do love myself.” What I love about the five love languages is you get to take action to love yourself.

[00:05:18] Now, this was a breakthrough for me, and I’m hoping it’s a breakthrough for you. And even if you already are good at this, and you know, this, let’s upgrade it in our time together today.

[00:05:28] Because the more you fill your own cup, the more you will be available to be amazing in your business. The more you will be full to enjoy your business. The more you will be full to be even more generous in your business because your cup is overflowing.

Because the more you fill your own cup, the more you will be available to be amazing in your business. The more you will be full to enjoy your business. The more you will be full to be even more generous in your business because your cup is overflowing. -Caterina Rando

[00:05:57] This realization in this zoom room was significant for me because, my friend, I have been to the wilderness workshop. I have done (don’t tell anyone) three naked workshops. I have been to all kinds of personal growth situations and nobody ever quite made it so simple.

[00:06:20] But we’re going to talk about this right now. We’re going to go through the five love languages as it relates to you and your self-love and I’m going to add in a couple of other additional things that I think are essential for self-love for the woman entrepreneur.

[00:06:40] Because I do want you to be the beloved queen of your Fempire. And that love starts with you. Because guess what, my friend?

[00:06:54] Nobody is ever going to love us better than we love ourselves. And even if you say to me, “well, Caterina, that’s not true because I have a great boyfriend or I have a great husband or my kids love me.” Guess what? That is great. And I am blissing for you. AND we’re the one who’s going to be with ourselves 24/7 from this day until the day we go underground. And I don’t mean an underground cave. I mean, the day we pass from this world. And I’m hoping you do have so many loving people in your life, my desire is that we amplify your self-love even more. I’m hoping that sounds good to you.

[00:07:43] Let’s look at these each and every one. First thing is your words of appreciation. Do you say things to yourself every day that lift you up?

[00:07:57] When I’m in bed in the morning, before I get out of bed, I say to myself, “I choose bliss today. I choose productivity today. I choose love and kindness and generosity.”

[00:08:12] Now sometimes I don’t say all that, sometimes I just say, “I choose bliss.” The point is I consciously set my intention for the day with myself in a loving way before I even get out of bed.

[00:08:27]I want you to do that. By the way, sidebar here, we know that successful people have AM routines and PM routines that support them. Your self-care, your vitamins, your water, your exercise, your prayer, your meditation, taking time for thinking and planning, reviewing your goals. These are all great AM routine activities. I invite you to think about, “What’s my ideal AM routine?” to embrace that because that will support you to have an amazing day.

[00:09:05] Let’s talk about your self-talk. Are you the kind of person that speaks to yourself lovingly and kindly? Or do you put yourself down? Do you put yourself down in conversations with others? Are you telling yourself “you’re lazy, you’re stupid, what are you doing, this is not going to work.”

[00:09:27] Or do you tell yourself, “Sweetheart, you are amazing! You can figure this out, whatever the challenge is. This will pass. Let’s look at how we can make it better.”

[00:09:40] Are you on your side all day long or are you on your back? Are you riding yourself? Are you pushing yourself so that you’re not enjoying the day? Take a look, words of appreciation, and I like to say, and acknowledgment every day, all day. Because you’re the one who’s talking with yourself all day long. That’s the first one, words of appreciation and acknowledgment.

[00:10:15] Second love language: gifts! I love gifts. Gifts are awesome. You know, it’s really awesome when you give a gift and people get it right. That is wonderful. I love getting gifts that are right on. Are you giving yourself gifts? Back when I was married, my husband would often come home with red roses for the home and give them to me.

[00:10:44] This made me very, very happy. Now that I’m not married anymore, I buy myself roses every week or every two weeks. I order them and I have them delivered. Every week I order two dozen orange roses. I have yet to get two dozen orange roses. This week, I got red, orange and pink. Last week I got pink and white, the week before I got all yellow. It’s always a surprise every week what roses they send. This is now a standard operating procedure in my life -to give myself roses.

[00:11:32] What gifts would you like to be standard operating procedure in your life?

[00:11:40]This is also a place for us to look at you investing in yourself. Because, my friend, you are the best thing that you could ever invest in. Investing in programs that support you, investing in a team that supports you, investing in something that is fun for you, investing in a retreat with other women so that you get away and get rejuvenated. This is why I love to host retreats, because it is a great opportunity for women to fill their cup.

[00:12:26] Now, when an opportunity comes your way, do you think of it as indulgent, or do you think of it as a loving thing you can do for yourself? And this is why we’re talking about this today, because I want to shift your perspective from being indulgent or being spoiling or being extravagant to being loving towards yourself when you invest in yourself.

…I want to shift your perspective from being indulgent or being spoiling or being extravagant to being loving towards yourself when you invest in yourself. -Caterina Rando

[00:12:59] I want you to remember as a guiding principle for your whole life: investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. And investing in yourself over and over and over as a standard operating procedure for your business and your life.

[00:13:23] Right now, ask yourself, what’s a gift you would like to give yourself? Ask yourself, what would you like to bring in on a consistent basis? Because this is not just about the bottom line, although I do want you to have financial surplus. This is you adjusting the way you consistently behave with yourself.

[00:13:49] We’ve talked about gifts. We’ve talked about words of appreciation and acknowledgment. Let’s talk about quality time.

[00:13:58] What quality time are you spending with yourself to nurture yourself, to fill your cup? I just started taking baths with Epsom salts two or three or four times a week. For me, this is definitely quality time because I’m actually enjoying it. Plus it’s getting all the toxins and all the stuff out of the body. I’ve never done that. I’ve probably had three baths in the last 30 years because I just couldn’t enjoy sitting there in the water. Now I love it because part of it is I see it as a quality time nurturing act.

[00:14:50] Also, if there is a favorite show that you like, don’t get down on yourself that you’re watching TV. See it as a little quality time with yourself. And, you know what’s overdoing it and what’s not overdoing it. A good book. Audible, I love audible. That is quality time with yourself.

[00:15:13] Right now, I want you to think about, “What can I do to have more quality time with myself, to make the time when I’m with myself more quality?”

[00:15:29] By the way I’m going to tell you one of my favorite quality time things: making sure I get a good night’s sleep. I believe that a good night’s sleep is the elixir to a good life.

[00:15:42] What do you know quality time is for you that maybe you haven’t been getting consistently that we want to bring in? The idea here is that you are consciously creating the best days for you. Being loving to yourself. Being kind to yourself. Being compassionate with yourself. Because you’re the one who is with yourself all the time.

[00:16:12] I’m hoping right now that you’ve written some things down that you know are quality time you’d like to spend with yourself. Think about, what are things that you like to do that you haven’t done in a while?

[00:16:27] Do you know that I like to play bocce ball? I like to play bocce ball. I’m not any good at bocce ball just like I’m not any good at pool. Guess what? I enjoy it. I like to go to belly dancing class, virtually. I want to make sure I get these activities in because that is quality time.

[00:16:49] Words of appreciation, gifts, quality time. Next one: acts of service. What are those things that you know when you do them for yourself, everything is better? Last week, I got my first mani-pedi, post-pandemic. I got to tell you, it looks great. Every time I look at my gold glitter nails and my gold glitter toes, it makes me happy. That’s an act of service.

[00:17:29] Taking yourself for a walk. Anything that involves moving your body. Taking yourself to yoga class. Drinking all the water, you know you’re supposed to drink. That’s an act of service.

[00:17:44] All these self-care things that we talk about, don’t see them as “shoulds.” Shift your perspective to see them as acts of service to the beloved queen, who is you.

All these self-care things that we talk about, don’t see them as “shoulds.” Shift your perspective to see them as acts of service to the beloved queen, who is you. -Caterina Rando

[00:18:01] Now this is a place where I really want you to think about a queen in the stereotypical sense of the word. A queen has somebody that prepares her bath, keeps track of her wardrobe, prepares her wardrobe, helps her get dressed, helps her get ready for bed. Now all of those things, I’m not saying you have to do yourself.

[00:18:30] What I’m saying though, is I want you to look- where can you use more support in your life? Getting more support is an act of service you can do for yourself.

[00:18:47] Let me tell you something. I have the most fabulous on-the-ground assistant. You have heard me, I’m sure, rave about her before. She does all kinds of things for me that I request that she does that are uplifting my life, adding more ease, allowing me to put my attention on what’s the highest and best use of my time. Gas in my car, calling the utilities company when we’re not sure what’s happening with the bill. All of these things that take time, get some support for yourself in your life.

[00:19:31] Now you’ve heard the idea of staying in your zone of genius in terms of what you’re doing in your business. I like to say focus on those things that you seek to master. Your five pillars, right, of your Fempire: speaking, selling, serving, strategy and self-care. We have another podcast on this topic.

[00:19:53] The thing is, though, that all those to do’s that are not the highest and best use of your time take brainpower. And when you can get them off of your brain and on someone else’s brain, that is significantly serving and supporting yourself.

[00:20:16] Ask yourself right now, where can you use more support in your life? And wouldn’t it be a wonderful act of service for you to bring some support into your life?

[00:20:35] By the way, create a criteria for the kind of people that you want to be supporting you. I am looking for people that are genuinely supportive, they are naturally supportive. They are naturally caretakers and kind, and they operate with integrity and they are blissing to support you. That’s the kind of support you want in your life. This is very important. Do not tolerate support from somebody that thinks they’re doing you a favor. You want to have people supporting you that are blissing while they’re doing it.

[00:21:16] And as women, this is a place where we often have challenges, creating support. I want you to think about that queen. She has all kinds of support. Therefore, her brain is freed up to do her reigning. And that’s what I want for you.

[00:21:36] We’ve talked about gifts. We’ve talked about words of appreciation and acknowledgment. We’ve talked about quality time. We’ve talked about acts of service. Physical touch. How many hugs did you get today?

[00:21:50] Let me tell you something, I’m single. I live alone, not a lot of touching during the pandemic. Very important to have massages, to hug people. If you have a significant other to make a lot of time for intimacy. If you don’t, that’s what massages are for. Self-love in whatever form, physical touch is important. Get more physical touch in your life.

[00:22:22] It is an act of self-love. Again, this is where women say, “Oh, it’s too indulgent for me to go get a massage once or twice a month. My friend, self-love. See it as self-love. Ask yourself right now, what can you do to bring more physical touch in your life? By the way, self-massage is something everybody can do.

[00:22:49] Let’s take a deep breath. Now we have discussed these traditional five love languages. I want you to see them and bring them in to be practicing self-love every day in your life.

[00:23:09] There are a couple of more things I want to encourage you to do for self-love. The next one is to create financial ease and financial surplus for yourself.

[00:23:23] I do not want you to have a business where you cannot pay your bills. I want you to have a business where you can pay your bills, you can pay yourself, you can invest in charities that you care about, for causes you care about, and you have surplus money in the bank. You have savings. Maybe you have investments. You have plenty of surplus.

[00:23:53] Why? Because one of the most kind things you can do for yourself is take away financial stress from your life.

[00:24:06] I am speaking to you as someone who, before my marriage, I always paid my bills on time. I had an excellent credit score. I had no debt, 99% of the time. Financial ease, financial ease, financial ease. No financial stress.

[00:24:27] When I went to the store to buy a dress, or whatever it was, half the time I didn’t even look at the price tag. Why? Because I had surplus. If it was $40 or $80 or $120, if it was the right dress, I was happy. This is what I want to tell you.

Financial ease is a huge gift, is a huge act of self-love. -Caterina Rando

[00:24:45] Financial ease is a huge gift, is a huge act of self-love. Then, during the latter part of my marriage and after my marriage, financial struggle, financial stress. A lot of financial stress. Not how you want to live your life. Because it dictates everything you do. It is overshadowing every decision, even little things.

[00:25:15] Somebody invites you out to dinner, you’re stressing because what if the bill is more than $20? You’re stressing. No, my friend, I’m saying you, I’m speaking from my own experience. I don’t want that for you. I want you to be able to bliss every day in your life because you have financial ease.

[00:25:39] I want you right now to ask yourself, what do you need to do to create financial ease and surplus in your life if you want to? I want you to see it, though, as a huge act of self-love.

[00:25:54]Now you may not be able to do it overnight. You may have to rebuild your credit. You may have to consolidate or negotiate your debt. You may have to pick up the phone and get more sales. You may need a mentor or a coach. Hello, right here, to support you to move towards mastery in growing your business.

[00:26:18] By the way, let’s sidebar here. This idea that you are supposed to do it on your own is ridiculous. A lady calls me yesterday, I’ve never met her before. She’s crying on the phone telling me about her business situation wrapped up with other situations and she’s telling me, “I’ve got to figure this out” and I’m thinking to myself, “no, you don’t, sweetheart. That’s what myself and other people are here to support you with. We’re here to support you to figure it out.”

[00:26:54] Yes, of course, ultimately you are the one that has to take the action and decide what course is best for you. Going through things over and over and over in your head by yourself is creating more stress. I want you to look at, where can you get some advice, support from a trusted source, asterisk on a trusted source, to help you move through it. Whatever it is, whatever your challenge du jour is.

[00:27:30] Because the most loving thing you can do is give yourself peace of mind. And for many women entrepreneurs, the peace of mind will come with financial ease and financial surplus. My friend right now, ask yourself, what can you do to create more of that? Let’s take a deep breath again.

[00:28:00] Last one that I want to add to this list of love languages for self-love. Make sure that everyone in your life is kind and loving and genuinely wants good for you. Do not tolerate relationships that are volatile. Do not tolerate relationships that are bringing you down.

Make sure that everyone in your life is kind and loving and genuinely wants good for you. Do not tolerate relationships that are volatile. Do not tolerate relationships that are bringing you down. -Caterina Rando

[00:28:32] When the phone rings, you know if that conversation is going to be uplifting or depressing. Filling your cup or emptying your cup. And start to pay attention when you see that somebody’s reaching out to you. And how do you instantly feel about that person?

[00:28:53] This is a key to you blissing in your life and a key to you being more loving to yourself. One of the biggest acts of self-love is to not be in relationships with people that are abusing you, that are creating trauma for you, that are not appreciating you, that have envy or jealousy towards you. This is not what you want in your life.

[00:29:29] I want you to have people in your life that you are blissing to be with, that lift you up, that fill your cup. Because, my friend, you are the queen of your Fempire. Treat yourself like the queen of your Fempire. Do not let anybody treat you with disrespect.

[00:29:48] I’m sending you some love. I hope that you will amplify your self-love in lots of different ways that we’ve discussed today. Listen to this a few times. Take action based on our discussions. And this will support you to thrive more in your business, to be more of service, to give from a full cup so that you not only have a thriving business, that you have a blissing life.

[00:30:17] I hope that you and I will get to meet live and in-person or virtually. Come hang out with me and the other gals in our community on Clubhouse. Join our Facebook group, download our amazing Expand Your Fempire app. Consider joining me for one of our free upcoming workshops. Come on an amazing retreat with us.

[00:30:42] Myself and my community have a lifetime supply of value to bring you. Love yourself by getting more support and taking action based on our discussion today.

[00:30:56] Love to you. This is Caterina Rando, and I cannot wait to hear how this episode has supported you and to be with you again.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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Episode #152:
The Importance of Intentional Marketing Strategy
with Haley Gray

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "The Importance of Intentional Marketing Strategy with Haley Gray" on Spreaker.

Caterina is joined this week by engineer, business strategist, marketing expert and Women’s Entrepreneur Network founder, Haley Gray, MBA. Haley shares her thoughts on topics including the “bad” advice experts sometimes give women in business, how she’s grown her community Facebook group to over 77 thousand members, and why intentional marketing is vital to increasing brand awareness. Don’t miss this insightful conversation to learn the importance of spending your marketing time in the right places, so that you can cultivate not just clients, but long-term and lifelong clients!

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #152 Transcript

 

The Importance of Intentional Marketing Strategy with Haley Gray

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Bing, bing, bing. This is Caterina Rando. Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I am blissing because today we have the phenomenal Haley Gray as our guest expert. Haley, you may or may not know, is the founder of women’s entrepreneur network. This is a group on Facebook with over 75, 000 members.

[00:00:57] She is also a marketing master, a marketing maven, and author of Fearless Marketing, Your Eight Figure Business Blueprint. Haley, thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:01:14] Haley Gray: Thank you for having me. Yay. This is exciting.

[00:01:17] Caterina Rando: It is exciting. Now, Haley, you and I have been friends for a few years now. We have spoken for each other on our stages.

[00:01:26] You came on the bliss retreat. I’ve been in your programs. I can’t wait to go on your branding cruise coming up . And you and I have chatted a lot about marketing. And one of the things that I want to talk with you about today is what are some of the things that you feel all of the experts tell women in business, women with service businesses that really get them in trouble?

[00:01:55] Haley Gray: One of the things that a lot of women want or think they want is they want to become a best- selling author on Amazon. So they drop five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars into this book project. And they get it published, it goes to Amazon International Best Seller, and there’s a reason I’m doing the air quotes, and then nothing happens.

[00:02:27] Caterina Rando: Yes! And Haley, as you know, I’m organizing my office, getting my upstairs office downstairs. And so I have this stack of books from clients and some of them I’ve read and some of them I haven’t gotten to yet, but there’s this one that’s on the top of my pile. It’s this beautiful book. This woman put two years of her life into it and she’s not in business anymore. And of course she was not my, she was not my client.

[00:02:58] She did not take my advice. When I said a book is not a business. And it’s not the first thing you do. The first thing you do is get clients.

[00:03:07] I love that you’ve said this, say a little bit more. What are your other thoughts on this?

[00:03:13] Haley Gray: Well, I, I think that the reality for a book is that it, like so many of the other things that are kind of waved up into the sky is like, “Oh my God, this is going to be amazing for your business. This is going to generate passive income for you.” Or you think it’s going to.

[00:03:31] Unless you are Consistently and intentionally and methodically marketing that book, you’re not going to make any sales of the book. And the reality for a lot of people is that the book doesn’t dovetail completely into your business and it’s not designed as part of your sales funnel.

[00:03:53] So you, you create this thing and you spend all this time creating and I can’t tell you how many people come to me and they’re like, Haley, I have all this content and I’m like, “I see that. And are you getting any sales?”

[00:04:09] And at the end of the day, they’re not focusing on the client acquiring activities.

[00:04:18] They’re focusing on the book, the course, the things, the pretty stuff, the gorgeous website, the eighth redo of the logo.

[00:04:28] Caterina Rando: You know, Haley, two things I want to say. One, what you said is, people think it’s all about visibility. “The more visibility I have, The more clients I’m going to get.” Well, visibility helps, but you still got to talk to people, right? And you still got to focus on your sales.

[00:04:45] The other thing I want to say is you mentioned about sometimes the book is a little aside from their business. I remember once I was at an author event. This lady’s sitting next to me and she says to me, “Oh, I have a book and I’m so excited about my book.”

[00:05:02] And she was in the real estate business. So her business was real estate. And she pulled out her book and I’m thinking it’s going to be, you know, in how to have investment property, first time home buyer, something. And it was, about stories my mom told me for a better life.

[00:05:22] And now lovely topic. I’m sure it was a great book, but it super did not make her an expert in her field. And some people can effectively do two things, but really that’s the hardest path. I said, I said way harder. Yes. I said to someone yesterday, you cannot have two masters. You can only have one -meaning your business.

[00:05:48] Haley Gray: And I think there’s this illusion you know, multiple revenue streams. Two that I heard touted a bunch in the online world because I’ve been in the online world a long time. Passive income, another lie horrible lie, that people are told. Passive income… Is rarely truly passive without investing massive amounts of money up front.

[00:06:14] So a real estate investment trust Where somebody is actively managing the portfolio and managing and doing all that stuff. There’s still work being done there, right? It is not truly passive. Oh, I’m going to sell an e- course and people are just going to fall out of the trees and buy it.

[00:06:32] Caterina Rando: We’re going to hang out at the e course because here’s, here’s what I tell gals over and over. I say, “Look, you might sell a lot of your e course. If somebody buys your E-course and they don’t finish your E-course, they’re never gonna give you another dollar.” And this is the thing that I want women to get.

[00:06:59] It’s not about client acquisition, it’s about acquiring long-term and lifelong clients. And Haley, I know that’s the way you roll. That’s the way I roll.

[00:07:10] And this is another thing, courses, online courses, and just like the book, they have to be marketed, marketed, marketed. And then those don’t convert to long term clients.

[00:07:23] Cause most people never finished their course, even when you have great email sequences and adult learning embraced in your course.

[00:07:35] Haley Gray: Absolutely. And the other thing too is that, you know, if you think about online courses, the finish rate is only somewhere in the two to 3 percent range. The statistics are horrible for finishing an online course.

[00:07:51] I only use online courses and online modules in my business as additional collateral. “Oh, you’re doing this thing with me. Oh, by the way, here’s this other online course.” Because the reality for online course marketing is that the cost of marketing a course and getting people into that course is so incredibly high that it is just not worth it.

[00:08:19] And I mean, I know people are going to look at me and they’re like, but “Haley, you have hundreds of thousands of followers.” And I’m like, and yes, and I can choose. Where I’m trying to get people. Do I want people into that course that it is, 497 and 997 and they’re only going to ever give me money once.

[00:08:42] Or am I going to be looking at someone who is a one on one person consulting client that is paying me thousands of dollars or “done for you” client that’s thousands of dollars Where am I going to spend my time and my money? I don’t have infinite resources. Nobody does.

[00:09:02] Which clients are you going to spend your time and your resources going after? Do you want that one time one off that you made an actual profit of 23 on? Or do you want somebody over here that you’re making a much better profit margin on?

[00:09:20] Caterina Rando: Haley I love this because this speaks to strategy. And of course, you also know, I love group programs and group programs help keep people engaged. I’m suggesting you deliver that course in the form of a group program, because then your clients will keep coming back.

[00:09:39] I love what you said about, you know, “do I want to put my attention on selling this course? That’s going to give me low profit margin and they’re going to only buy once or long term clients that will make a much more substantial investment.”

[00:09:54] For me, you know, I have my center in San Francisco that we rent to women if they want to do their workshops, all my clients get to use it. I don’t put any attention on renting it because why do I want to put attention on renting something for one day? Maybe profit of 400, because it takes just as many sales conversations as it does to enroll someone in a big course.

[00:10:18] I bought a skirt yesterday from a direct seller gal. I had two phone calls and three Facebook communications with her and all I was buying was a skirt.

[00:10:32] So my point is that You have to be strategic about what you’re putting your attention on. And is that going to turn into long term and lifelong clients?

[00:10:42] Okay, good. So Haley, now, you know what, my friend, I cannot have you here and not talk with you about how does somebody build a thriving Facebook group? And really you’re great at the Facebook building of getting all the members, but you’re also great at cultivating engagement in your group.

[00:11:07] Can you talk to either of those a little bit about your thoughts?

[00:11:12] Let’s start with the first one. How do you get so many people in your group? And then let’s talk about how you keep them engaged.

[00:11:20] Haley Gray: So when I was first starting my group the first few years, I did a number of different things.

[00:11:27] And here’s one of the reasons I don’t really push so hard on necessarily building a great big Facebook group as being hugely profitable because most people would either not be willing or not be able to do some of the things I did.

[00:11:44] I did workshops every single week in my group. Every week for a year and then when we had the ability finally to do Facebook live, I used to do Facebook lives in my group and trainings in my group every single day at 10 p. m. Eastern for years.

[00:12:10] Now, I do it a little bit differently because I don’t have the same amount of time or energy. And I put shorts and reels and other things in my group and I occasionally do longer trainings.

[00:12:25] And I spend a lot of time and effort and energy engaging the group. So, asking questions, starting conversations, having conversations with people. And, I will tell you that having a group with good SEO in the name, so search engine optimization, so you know what you’re getting when you join the group.

[00:12:48] It’s Women’s Entrepreneur Network. It’s not the most exotic name, but people know what they’re getting there.

[00:12:57] And because I have at this point engagement in the group, Facebook also recommends the group to grow it. So it’s one of those things where I haven’t had to put as much effort and energy into the group. Once I got past the 1500 to 2000 member mark, it grows itself because I’m always putting content and making a point of engaging people in the group.

[00:13:22] And in fact, right now I’m actually redoing a ton of graphics. You probably heard me confessing last night that I wanted to poke my eyes out because I’m literally generating thousands of graphics. My team and I are scheduling thousands of posts for engagement purposes on our social media.

[00:13:44] Caterina Rando: You are so impressive. Okay, now notice everyone Haley said, her and her team. One of the things that I know is that Haley has a great team and she has attention on team. Because as for all of you listening, The highest and best use of her time is strategy, selling, talking to her clients, et cetera, because those are things that only she, my friend can do.

[00:14:19] Okay. So first of all, that’s a lot of heavy lifting to have your group thrive. I know I cannot do all of that myself. You’re motivating me though to do more. You’re motivating me to do more.

[00:14:32] And let’s talk a little bit about, you have a great community of women with your women entrepreneur network. A lot of great gals. Tell me how do you keep them engaged? Say a little bit about all of that?

[00:14:49] Haley Gray: So we do a lot of different things. It’s not any one thing. So, you know, at a bare minimum, what I see a lot of people who have Facebook groups fail at is not starting conversations intentionally with their community.

[00:15:10] So we do polls, we do quizzes, we do questions, we post many times a day. Anywhere between 5 and 15, 20 times a day depending on what we’re doing.

[00:15:22] So when I say thousands of graphics, there’s a reason for thousands of graphics. The other thing is that we are doing challenges and networking opportunities.

[00:15:33] And I actually partner with people to offer more services thanI could easily provide alone in my group. So I’ve partnered with Caterina on some things. I’ve partnered with Pam Meister on providing a co working space, a virtual co working space called “the zone” and being one of the experts in that community. So i’m joining the two communities.

[00:15:57] I’ve partnered with a number of people to provide additional services, you know networking, All kinds of stuff, online business listings the ability to go live in the group that lots of things that we do That either we provide or one of our partners provides.

[00:16:13] So it’s thoughtful and intentional and making a point of doing things for our members.

[00:16:21] Caterina Rando: That’s wonderful. You’re providing massive value. You’re providing more than that what they would expect from a group when you say networking and co working time. You also have done many virtual events with multiple speakers to get more engagement. I love all of this. You are so brilliant at the marketing and the engagement.

[00:16:42] My friend, You know we have to talk about your branding cruise coming up. Now I want to hear a little bit about it, but really, you know, me, I love cruising, I love retreats and, and trainings on cruise ships because nobody can come late, nobody can leave early, and they tend to be stuck together with their own group.

[00:17:06] Why did you decide to do your branding cruise?

[00:17:12] Haley Gray: I would like to think that most people are joining a program because they want some of the value at least out of the program and One of the things that we’re doing with this cruise in september.

[00:17:25] It’s a brand strategy cruise. So this whole year we’re working on elevating particular aspects of your brand and your strategy in your business And then on the cruise, we’re actually bringing a photographer and a videographer and we are doing photo shoots in a variety of different scenarios to make sure that you’ve got the photos that you need for your social media or, you know, all of the stuff that you do for your branding, for your website, for your branding, for all of the things, and then doing branding.

[00:18:00] A speaker reel for each person because one of the things I have found is that it is really, really hard to get a recording of yourself speaking on a stage in front of an audience and just try getting a video of yourself speaking anywhere that you’ve done paid or unpaid speaking and doing your speech.

[00:18:23] So. We’re going to be talking about exactly what that speaker reel should be so that it fits in your brand strategy. Because, like, the whole book thing earlier, it’s great to have a video of yourself speaking, but if it doesn’t speak to your audience and what you’re trying to do and where you’re trying to go, what’s the point?

[00:18:42] Caterina Rando: My friend, I love this because, you know, having been around for a long time with speaking, I remember one day I hired the videographer to come video my speech. And it was a great group and a great speech. And, and there was this fly that kept right all over, right in front of me the whole time. It was very distracting. Well, it wasn’t only distracting. It was obvious, could not use the video.

[00:19:06] And I remember another time I hired a guy, I had a big audience, had 300 people. I flew the guy in so that I could get myself speaking for the big audience. This place looked like a church basement. There was pillars all over. They had crate paper. It looked like it was the most unappealing venue situation. And, and he couldn’t get anywhere near me, so he’s shooting me from the side.

[00:19:35] It was terrible. Lot of money down the drain. So I am blissing that we are going to get a speaker reel on your upcoming cruise.

[00:19:46] Bing, bing, bing!

[00:19:48] Haley Gray: Well, and the cool thing is we can retake that video as many times as we need to to get what we need because the videographer is going to be there on the cruise.

[00:19:58] So, doing this, we can copy paste if we have to, or we can start over again if we have to. So we’ve got great opportunities.

[00:20:06] Caterina Rando: I am super looking forward to it. You know, Haley, the other thing I want to say related to this. People really don’t recognize this, part of the value that we deliver when we have retreats, when we have your branding strategy cruise, is the opportunity to get together with other phenomenal entrepreneurs and talk about stuff.

[00:20:34] me when we did our Thrive with Retreats retreat earlier in the year. And as you know, I scheduled 90 minutes for mastermind time and we were there seven and a half hours later. Because all the ladies, that’s what they, all they want to do.

[00:20:52] Haley Gray: You could not get us out of your room.

[00:20:55] Caterina Rando: It was so fun. I loved it. The whole bed was full of plates from room service because we didn’t even go to dinner that night because we’re having so much fun. Masterminding and sharing ideas.

[00:21:07] By the way, let me say this is masterminding is something I’m not hearing a lot about these days. Of course it, it comes and goes, but my point is whatever programming somebody is offering listener, I’m talking to you, whatever program you’re offering, make sure you have some mastermind time in there.

[00:21:27] Haley, we got a lifetime supply of things to talk about. I look forward to all the time we have together this year to do all that talking about different things. You are such a a wise person, a great marketing strategist, a resource. Let’s tell our listeners how they can connect with you.

[00:21:51] Haley Gray: Sure. My name is Haley Lynn Gray. So you can find me by Googling me and you can also find women’sentrepreneurnetwork.Org is the website for the Facebook group. My business website is in2itivebiz.com. And we, you know, really just focus on helping people. You can cyberstalk me on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on whatever platform you want. And see who I am as a person. You can look at my YouTube videos for women’s entrepreneur network or myself.

[00:22:29] And, get to kind of know me, you know, find out if I’m actually a real person or not.

[00:22:35] Caterina Rando: My friend, you are such a real person. I know this because we have gone to afternoon tea on a cruise ship with butterfly headgear together and had a great time amongst many other amazing adventures we’ve had.

[00:22:51] And I know there’s many more to come.

[00:22:52] Haley Gray: Hang around me for a little while and I’ll get you into all sorts of stuff.

[00:22:55] Caterina Rando: Yes, I look forward to it.

[00:22:57] My friends, Haley has given you so much to think about today. I want you not only to say, hey, that was Some interesting ideas. I want you to take some action. I want you to join her women entrepreneur network Facebook group so you can see how she does her thing and you can take some of those ideas for you. And Hey, you may want to join Haley and myself for one of our monthly free virtual interactive workshops.

[00:23:28] Bing, bing, bing! Love to you all. Remember, you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. By the way, if you have not checked out Thriving Women in Business Facebook group please do. This is Caterina Rando telling you, go, be yourself, do your thing, serve your people, and Massively monetize your mastery so you can build your fempire.

[00:23:52] Bing, bing, bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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Episode #151:
Insights to Achieve Mindset Mastery in Business & Life, Revisited

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Listen to "Insights to Achieve Mindset Mastery in Business & Life, Revisited" on Spreaker.

Mastering your mindset is an essential, crucial part of thriving and blissing in your business. This week we revisit Caterina’s popular, unique two-part series where she shares her top 10 tips to achieve mindset mastery. From learning to lighten your mental load to eliminating negative self-talk, the more you master your mindset, the more it will support you in all situations in business and life. Be sure to listen to both episodes of this series and download the accompanying mindset super tip sheet to help you THRIVE and BLISS in all that you do! 

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Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #151 Transcript

 

Insights to Achieve Mindset Mastery in Business & Life, Part 1 & 2

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:24] Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. This is your host Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today.

[00:00:38] Extra excited about our discussion today, because this episode is part one of our two-part discussion on mastering your mindset. This topic is so important that we’re taking extra time to focus on you mastering your mindset. Come back next week for part two. But first of course, listen to this episode.

[00:01:09] I want you to master your mindset so that you can bliss and thrive more in your business and in your life.

[00:01:20] Now, what is your mindset? I’ve read many different definitions of mindset and more or less, it comes down to a set of beliefs or ideas or assumptions that we have about everything- about ourselves, about life, about our culture, about our community.

[00:01:45] Mindset also relates to your natural disposition with your attitude. Are you positive? Are you sarcastic? Are you a realist? Are you negative? All of these things in your general attitude, disposition impacts your mindset as well.

[00:02:07] For example, someone might have a belief that everybody’s out to get them. Well, of course, this is going to impact how they think, every experience that they have. Someone could come up to them and say “hello,” and they could think, “oh, that’s so nice that someone’s at a low,” or they could think, “well, what do they want?” or “what’s their agenda?” Because their mindset is that somebody is always out to get them.

[00:02:37] Hopefully that’s not your mindset. Hopefully, you feel like there’s lots of good in the world and that people are for the most part good. And that everybody that comes in contact with you wants to shine some of their light on you.

[00:02:54] In our time together today, I’m going to discuss with you many things that will support you in impacting your mindset to the degree that this can make a huge difference in your life, in your beliefs, in your actions, in your behaviors, because you are focused on mastering your mindset. And that is what I’m hoping you’re going to do after our time together.

[00:03:27] My first request of you is that you be committed to mastering your mindset. That you say, “okay, Caterina, that sounds good. I want to become a master of my mindset.”

[00:03:42] Because as you know, life is dynamic. Your mental state is dynamic. It’s always changing and I want it to change for good. I want that for you. I want that for everybody.

[00:03:57] I’m going to discuss with you right now, a series of things. And some of them might be reminders for you to shine the spotlight if you’re being consistent with them. And some of them might be things that you have had no attention on. And if you feel it would be of benefit to you, let’s go ahead and bring these things in.

[00:04:18] First one, be committed to mastering your mindset. Be committed to getting better and better at having your mind and your mindset work for you. Because your thinking, your mindset, your overall attitude and disposition is one of the most important tools you have for your business success.

Because your thinking, your mindset, your overall attitude and disposition is one of the most important tools you have for your business success.  -Caterina Rando

[00:04:46] Your ability to think solve problems, be focused on solutions, come up with more brilliant ideas… all of this is going to support you to thrive in bliss in your business and your life.

[00:05:01] Number two, perfection is not required. This is a guiding principle for my business and my life I want to invite you to embrace. Because when we’re pursuing perfection or even excellence the first time we’re doing something, what we’re doing is we’re putting too much pressure on ourselves.

[00:05:32] And do you know what happens when you put too much pressure on yourself? You get short with people, you start to snap at people. People that are prone to anger and outbursts of rage, sometimes it’s because they’re pursuing perfection that they get discouraged, disappointed, frustrated with themselves.

[00:05:55] I want you to check in on this with yourself. Because if you’re pursuing perfection, what’s going to happen? You’re going to get ready to get ready. You’re never going to get going. Because how can you be perfect when you’ve never done something before? Or it’s the first time? Or you haven’t mastered it yet?

[00:06:14] Be more committed to action and doing a good job; let’s leave perfection to the side.

[00:06:23] Related to this is another guiding principle that I embrace, that I want to invite you to embrace. And it’s a little bit quirky maybe, but here it is.

[00:06:37] In life, there are going to be breaks. There are going to be spills. You know, you’re going to break a dish. You’re going to spill the milk or the tea or the coffee. There’s going to be stuff in your pantry that is expired. There’s going to be deliveries that come late. There’s going to be people that come late or early. There is going to be orders when you go to a restaurant that are not going to be quite right.

[00:07:08] This is all part of life. And I’m sharing this with you because why don’t you make a decision once, like right now, that you’re not going to get upset for the rest of your life, about any of this stuff?

[00:07:25] Just today, I was coming up the stairs. I had my computer. I had my beverage. I was carrying five other things and you know what? My beverage fell all over the stairs. For a moment I was upset and then I reminded myself, “Caterina, spills are part of life.”

[00:07:48] And guess what? That immediately took away any upset or frustration. Because these things… imperfections… that’s part of life. Let’s have you decide right now for the next 50, 60, 80 years -you’re not going to let any of this upset you. Bing, bing, bing! This is going to support you in mastering your mindset.

[00:08:16] Okay. Let’s take a deep breath. Ah.

[00:08:21] Number three, master yourself talk. Here’s the thing, your supposed to be on your side. Not on your back. You’re supposed to be lifting yourself up, having positive self-talk. Not negative self-talk.

[00:08:43] And it’s very interesting because you may know that the average person has 70% negative or worrying thoughts every day. Did you know that?

[00:08:56] Here’s the beautiful thing about that though. When you simply set an intention that you are going to have more positive self-talk, that you’re not going to worry as much, you can take that 70%, all the way down to 40%. That’s with one action.

[00:09:16] Imagine if you had a standard operating procedure in your life that you did not talk negatively about yourself. And by the way, I want you to notice, how are you reacting right now as I say that? No negative self-talk. If you’re having a reaction right now, like, “This is impossible,” then it’s all the more reason for you to shine the spotlight on this.

[00:09:45] I remember years, years, years ago, probably 20 + years ago, I would say to my friend, Mary, I would say “Mary, no negative self-talk” when I would hear her talk down about herself.

[00:10:00] Do you know, she told her daughter, she told her husband, “no negative self-talk.” She started to monitor her self-talk. If she was with me and I ever said anything negative, she would tell me, “Caterina, no negative self-talk.” she would send me texts, “no negative self-talk.” It became a part of not only our relationship, her life.

[00:10:23] And eventually my negative self-talk totally diminished. Now, I’m not going to tell you I am a hundred percent no negative self-talk. I’m telling you, it is a skill that you can master. You can get that negative self-talk way down.

[00:10:43] Because remember you’re supposed to be your own best success coach. You’re supposed to be the one that lifts you up, because you’re the one who’s with yourself 24- 7.

[00:10:56] Make sure that you’re lifting yourself up. That you are saying positive things to yourself. And if you catch yourself, and I do encourage you to catch yourself if you’re talking negatively to yourself, then replace that with some positive statements to remind yourself that you’re awesome. This is a key, key piece, not only to mindset mastering to life blissing.

[00:11:26] Okay, we have talked about being committed to mastering your mindset. To remembering that perfection is not required. To committing yourself to mastering yourself talk, being your own best success coach, being on your side.

[00:11:44] Number four, use inquiry questions to find solutions and lighten your load.

[00:11:50] What is an inquiry question? And inquiry question is a question that you ask yourself over and over until the solution or ideas, variety of ideas even reveal themselves.

[00:12:09] Now, I want to pause here to tell you that the questions you ask yourself are very powerful. You could say to yourself, “why am I so lacking?” And guess what? Your brain, your fabulous mind will give you some answers.

[00:12:26] Or you could ask your mind, ” how can I be more awesome?” and your mind will come up with solutions for that.

[00:12:34] Instead of saying to yourself, “can I do this, or can I do that?” You want to say to yourself, “how can I?”

[00:12:45] Let’s say you have a big sales goal and you have no idea how you’re going to. Don’t say to yourself, “will I get there or I won’t get there?” Well, that’s not helpful. Say to yourself, “how can I get there?” And keep asking yourself that question.

[00:13:06] Put a post-it note on your computer or your mirror in the bathroom. “How can I get my goal? How can I, whatever it is?” And you will see that ideas will start to come to you.

[00:13:24] Let’s take it one step further and use your fabulous, beautiful, wonderful super-smart subconscious to work on your inquiry question for you. How do you do that? You simply say to yourself before you go to bed, “Okay subconscious. Okay, mind, work on this question.”

[00:13:53] And I will tell you most of the time you will wake up with the answer being revealed to you. I remember way back when, when I was writing tons of articles and had deadlines all the time, sometimes I had no idea what I was going to write about. Or I knew what I was going to write about, but I didn’t know what to say about it.

[00:14:16] And I would say to myself before I went to bed, “Okay, subconscious. Start working on my article for tomorrow. Bring me some amazing, brilliant ideas about whatever my topic was.” And as a result, I would always sit down to write and would have a lot more ease getting everything out.

[00:14:40] Use your beautiful subconscious. This is why you want to review your goals at night, before you go to bed. This is why you want to reflect and even say out loud, your compelling vision before you go to bed so that your subconscious can get working on it for you. Number four, use your inquiry questions to find solutions and lighten your load.

[00:15:05] When we say lighten your load, what I mean is the mental weight on you. The mental load that you’re carrying. All these things weighing on your mind. That’s what I want to talk to you about in number five.

[00:15:20] Here’s another super tip to master your mindset, and it is to always do what you can to reduce what is weighing on your mind. We have just discussed a big solution for this in number four with your inquiry questions.

[00:15:42] I want to discuss with you now some other ways that I want to invite you to consistently be lightening what’s weighing on your mind.

[00:15:54] The first thing, which I’m making the assumption if you’re listening to this, this is you anyway. I’m going to remind you though, make sure you’re always operating with integrity everywhere in your business. Always operate with integrity.

[00:16:11] Now, this is where you do what’s right even if you don’t like it. You do what’s right, even if it costs you money. You do what’s right, even when you have to apologize. You do what’s right.

[00:16:24] You operate with integrity. And the more you operate with integrity, the more, you can sleep with ease. And the more you can bliss in your business.

[00:16:33] Next thing to reduce what’s weighing on your mind, easier said than done I know, create financial surplus for yourself. Having been somebody who’s had no surplus to having good amount of surplus makes a huge difference.

[00:16:53] When I say it makes a huge difference, what I’m saying to you is that when you are having a challenge, paying your bills, when you’re having a challenge and are concerned about paying all the people helping you, when you’re concerned about paying yourself, when you’re concerned about what if next month is not a stellar month or the month after that, or the month after that?

[00:17:16] This results in you usually working way too hard. Results in you not mastering your self-care, letting some of your self-care go. And it also results in you being reactive versus proactive.

[00:17:33] Now I get it’s easy for me to say, “Hey, build a lot of financial surplus in your business.”

[00:17:39] What I do want to say to you though, is have this absolutely be an objective for your company this year ASAP. Why? Because it is often money issues that weigh on you mentally, your mental wellbeing is what we’re talking about here. And that’s why I want to encourage you to put your attention on this.

[00:18:09] I remember a day many, many years ago, I was in my thirties I think. And I got this bill, my credit card bill at the end of the month. And it was a $10,000 bill. And I remember feeling, “oh my gosh, how am I ever going to pay this bill? I’m so stressed out about it.” Well, the bill got paid.

[00:18:32] Now these days I don’t actually use credit cards. I only use debit cards because I don’t like to get that big bill at the end of the month. There’s a lot less strain on my mental state because I’m on top of my money. I review my accounts on an almost daily basis. I make sure I know everything that’s gone going out, everything that’s coming in.

[00:18:59] Of course, I have a bookkeeper that does her job. I have an accountant that does his job. And my level of financial confidence is a thousand times higher than it was before when I was having challenges.

[00:19:17] And part of the challenges were created because I was not feeling confident about my finances and my money so I wasn’t giving that aspect of my business, the attention it deserves and merits. I just wanted it to keep focusing on generating more revenue, which is more fun. At the same time, we’ve got to run our business like a business, right? And that means that we are paying good attention to our finances on a consistent basis. And this will reduce the mental weight on you when you know what the state of your business is.

[00:20:00] Now we’re discussing here, how to reduce what weighs on your mind. Well, the third thing is related to the second thing that we just discussed, having financial surplus, and that is never hesitate to invest money. Or I even like to say, throw money at a problem if you could make it go away.

[00:20:23] Rather than trying to fix everything and do everything yourself, throw a little money at the problem. Invest a little money. Get an expert to help you. So that you can continue to focus on what’s the best use of your time, but also they’re going to do it faster, better, more efficiently without the stress that it’s going to create you because you’re trying to save a buck.

[00:20:47] Very, very important. Again, this is running your business like a business. Use money to solve problems.

[00:20:58] This episode is part one of our two-part discussion on mastering your mindset. I want you to know I have many more insights and super tips for you because mastering your mindset is an essential, crucial part of thriving and blissing in your business. Remember to come back next week for more super tips on this important topic.

——————————————

Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. This is your host Catarina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you because our episode today is part two of our mastering your mindset conversation. Really we could take 10 episodes for this very important topic. We have broke it down into two parts.

[00:00:58] If you did not listen to last week part one of mastering your mindset, I want to invite you to go and do that now. You can listen to it before or after, it will work either way.

[00:01:12] What I want you to know is I have many more insights and super tips for you. Because mastering your mindset is an essential, crucial part of thriving and blissing in your business.

[00:01:30] Next one number six, choose what is. Let me tell you what I mean by this. In life, there are oftentimes where we have to make a choice.

[00:01:44] For example, you get together with friends, you’re trying to decide what type of restaurant you go to. You want to go to Indian food. Your friends want to go to Italian food. You agree, you go to Italian food. That’s fine. A lot of good pasta dishes there.

[00:02:04] When you’re there though, are you enjoying your experience with your friends over a good plate of penne arrabiata? Or are you wishing you are having some delicious curry at the Indian restaurant?

[00:02:25] Choose what is. Choose where you are. Choose what you’re doing. Choose the current state of affairs.

[00:02:36] For example, I am currently single. I would love, love, love to find the love of my life and be enjoying a loving, committed relationship. Well guess what? On any given evening, that’s not the case in my life right now. Am I lamenting, sorry for me I don’t have a boyfriend? Or am I blissing that hey, I’m here on my own. I get to do my thing. I get to leave dishes in the sink. If I want, I get to eat early, eat late. I got nobody with their feet on my dining room table, watching hours and hours of sports. I got no heartache at this time. No relationship drama.

[00:03:33] Now, of course I hope that none of those things happen in my next relationship. The point is that right now, I got it good. And I’m choosing to be blissing with what is.

[00:03:50] I want you to look in your life. I want you to look in your business. Of course, we’re always upgrading. Of course, we want to make plans to create what we want. At the same time, do you choose what is? And I’m hoping that you do choose what is. You do choose to be where you are.

[00:04:14] Like right now, pandemic lifestyle. Yes, there are many downsides to living the pandemic lifestyle. At the same time, you may have made new virtual friends. You may have reduced your expenses because you’re not driving as many places. You may have gotten new clients like myself and many of my clients have gotten, because we now are networking and running classes and giving seminars all over the country without leaving our dining room or our office.

[00:04:55] This is a big one, my friend. I want you to look, do you choose what is, or do you lament about what is not that you have no control over that you cannot change in this moment? Bing, bing. Big one, big one, big one.

[00:05:12] Here’s what I also want to tell you. We go 20, 25, 30 minutes on these podcasts. I got a lifetime supply of things to shine the spotlight on with you to master your mindset. We are not going to have time to discuss all of these things.

[00:05:35] You may not even know that my first book was called Learn to Power Think from Chronicle books. Published in several languages. Released in many countries. If you do not have a copy of learned power, think you can probably get an old copy on Amazon. A few years ago, the same book was released in paperback under the title, Learn to Think Differently. I’m sharing this with you because I want you to know that I have many insights for you on mastering your mindset.

[00:06:11] I am going to therefore make a quick tip sheet for you to print out, to stick on your wall, to remind you of all the things we’re discussing in our time together today and some very strong, super tips that we’re not going to have time for.

[00:06:34] Because I really want you to get that mastering your mind is one of the essential keys to you, thriving in your business and blissing in your life.

[00:06:49] To get my tip sheet that goes along with this episode, go to my free gifts page, CaterinaRando.com/links. And you will see there the master your mindset quick tip sheet listed.

[00:07:14] And by the way, while you are there, see my upcoming workshops. I always have a free zoom workshop coming up. You’re invited as my VIP guest. We have workshops. We have amazing programs to support you to thrive, catapult your business. We have our amazing retreats.

[00:07:36] If you have not stepped into the Thriving Women in Business community, I want to invite you to do that. Also, please come and join us friday nights, five o’clock Pacific in our Thriving Women in Biz club room, on Clubhouse. Follow me, come network. You share about your business. You share what’s coming up. We have inquiry questions that we ask that we get everyone to answer. And as a result, you will absolutely leave that room more uplifted than when you showed up. You’ll probably make some new friends. You will definitely get some super tips and insights to support you on your entrepreneurial journey.

[00:08:20] Let’s continue with our guiding principles to master your mindset to bliss and thrive more in business and life.

[00:08:32] Number seven, have ongoing, consistent support in your life. Where did this idea come from that we’re supposed to do stuff ourself? That we’re supposed to do it on our own? That we’re supposed to quote unquote “man up.” I don’t know what the equivalent is for women. The point being that we’re supposed to figure it out all by ourself.

[00:09:05] I’m going to tell you right now the pandemic lifestyle has taken its toll on everybody on the planet. Even if you’re still blissing and thriving, it’s still taking a toll. Why? Because of uncertainty. What are you doing consistently to support your mental health and your wellbeing?

[00:09:30] I have been having a counselor since the pandemic. Counselor, coach, mentor, therapist… I’m not quite sure. She actually is all those things. Pamela Meyer, who I am so grateful for her support. The pandemic started six weeks after my ex-husband passed away unexpectedly. Even though he was my ex, I still loved him. It still is a lot to deal with.

[00:10:03] Not to mention supporting all the ladies in my community. And I will say I stepped right up to support them any way I could with our all- community meetings, with looking for additional ways for them to connect virtually, with being extra available.

[00:10:23] All of that has been my bliss. And when you are running a business and running a team and holding a community, wanting to support everyone to thrive, and spending way too much time alone, talking about my pandemic lifestyle, of course support is needed.

[00:10:47] Now you might be thinking over there where you’re sitting right now. ” Well, Caterina that’s fine for you, but you know, I’ve got a great husband and I’ve got great kids.

[00:10:57] Sweetheart, you need support, too. You need support from people that do not have.a perspective and self-interest in mind as your loved ones do. I want you to have support from someone outside of your life, outside of your circle because they’re going to have different insights for you.

[00:11:27] I’m not saying you got to have a coach, you got to have a counselor, you got to have a therapist. I’m saying you got to have something. Of course, I want you to have a business coach. I’m talking right now about your mental well- being. What do you got that is supporting you consistently?

[00:11:48] Because I have the privilege of having several ladies in my community and several of them hire other ladies in my community, I start to see the results that women are getting when they’re in Carla’s walking group, when they’re in Seema’s meditation and health and wellness group, when they’re working with Rhonda on their wellbeing or going to one of her retreats. I see all of this. I see the impact that happens when you have support.

[00:12:26] And then I talk to my ladies sometimes and they’re a little bit down and I asked them, “what kind of support are you having? Guess what? They’re not usually having any.

[00:12:41] This is all preventative because even though I may not know you personally, my friend, I know you. You’re working your business. You got people depending on you. Even if you’re not having a spouse or kids or a significant other, I know your friends consider you a resource when they want to be uplifted, right?

[00:13:07] Who’s lifting you up? That’s what I want you to make sure that you are having in your life.

[00:13:16] You know, I like to say a rising woman lifts all the women around her. Well, you cannot be a rising woman, lifting up others, when you’re feeling down.

[00:13:30] Get support, get support, get support.

[00:13:33] Number eight, super tip, guiding principle alert. Here’s what I want you to get. When you start to get discouraged or depresso, I want you to go back to being your own best success coach. I want you to do a little self- assessment.

[00:13:55] This is good because this is going to get you out of your emotions and back into your head. And you’re going to ask yourself these questions:

[00:14:04] Did you get a good nights sleep? My friend, you know, sleep is the elixir of a good life. If you didn’t get a good night’s sleep, you’re more likely to have your mental well-being impacted.

[00:14:18] Did you move your fanny in the last 24 hours? Movement, exercise, yoga, stretching, taking a walk, whatever it is. That is essential for your mental wellbeing and emotional wellbeing.

[00:14:38] Next question. Again, this is your self-assessment.

[00:14:42] Did you have fun? Did you get together and have some comradery in the last 24 hours? Or even since the start of the day? If not, that is going to support you and your wellbeing.

[00:15:01] Next one. Not as easy to evaluate, perhaps maybe takes a little more digging.

[00:15:08] Is there a communication that you have been withholding? That means something you want to say that you’re not saying. Or something you want to ask for that you’re not asking for. This can get at you and bring you down even on an unconscious level.

[00:15:28] Number five in our self-assessment: is there a criteria that needs to change?

[00:15:39] If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you know that I’m very big on criteria. Create a criteria for your team, for your clients, for your vendors, for your friends. Create a criteria for being a yes for things. It’s gotta be fun. It’s gotta be easy. It’s gotta be profitable. Whatever your criteria is. Create a criteria before you’re a yes.

[00:16:07] Sometimes when we’re feeling down, gritty, irritated uneasy, it’s because something needs to change. And that’s another place for you to look in your self-assessment.

[00:16:25] Next one. My friend, have you been consuming too much caffeine, sugar, alcohol? All of these things can impact your mental and emotional wellbeing and therefore your mindset.

[00:16:40] Oh, and by the way, like my mother would tell, are you drinking plenty of water? Because dehydration can also impact your emotional wellbeing. Did you know that? Drink plenty of water. That’s outside our self-assessment. It goes here though. It’s another important guiding principle.

[00:17:02] Next question to ask yourself in your self-assessment.

[00:17:07] When was the last time you did some self-care? Some self-love stuff? Foot, bath, massage, regular bath, you went to the museum or the bookstore. You sat in a cafe with a cafe latte. You had some afternoon tea and crumpets. You sat on your couch with a good book and indulged. When was the last time?

[00:17:32] If none of that’s happened within 24 hours, make some time. You have to be your own best success coach, mental health coach, mindset coach, as we’ve discussed.

[00:17:49] These questions that we’ve just run through, number one through seven, these are your self-assessment. I want you to look at when you’re feeling less than magnificent. Let’s get you out of not feeling good. And let’s get you to take a good objective look at what’s been going on with you the last 24 hours that you can impact.

[00:18:18] Oh, my gosh, I got so many more for you. I’m going to give you a couple more. Don’t forget to go to CaterinaRando.com/links to get my quick tip sheet on everything we’ve discussed. Therefore, you can review it every day and there’s going to be even more guiding principles or quick tips on there to support you in mastering your mindset.

[00:18:43] Number nine. Make disappointment your fuel for more determination. My friend let’s talk truth. There are going to be disappointments du jour. There’s always going to be discouraging situations.

[00:19:07] You make some calls, people book, appointments, they don’t show up. They say they’re going to get back to you. They don’t. They say they’re going to sign up. They vanish.

[00:19:18] In business and life there are going to be disappointments and discouragement. du jour. That’s okay. What is going to happen is going to happen. The question is what are you doing when it happens?

[00:19:35] In fact, let me tell you. Friday, I had several conversations scheduled to talk to people about what programs they’re interested in. I’ve already talked to them once. These were second calls with current clients. I was expecting that we would move forward. They would be signing up for some things. What’s that? That’s new revenue in the door. That’s new clients I get to serve. And guess what? I don’t know what it was on Friday. Maybe there was something with the planets, because 80% of my calls had to cancel or reschedule.

[00:20:20] Now, you know, I’m expecting success. I’m expecting everyone is going to get on board. We’re going to have new revenue in the door. Bing, bing. We’re going to get some new clients started or clients re-upping. Bing, bing. And nothing because everybody for whatever reason is no longer available on that day.

[00:20:41] And at the end of the day it was very interesting, because I noticed I was not discouraged. I was not depresso. I was not disappointed. I was fine. Did you hear that? I was fine.

[00:21:00] You know why? Because I did these three things that I’m telling you right now.

[00:21:08] I asked myself, I reminded myself, “Caterina, do you have massive value to bring?” Yes, I do. I’m a hundred percent sure of that.

[00:21:19] Then I asked myself, “Caterina, is there a lifetime supply of people to serve? If these people vanish are there more?” Yeah, I’m pretty confident and sure about that too.

[00:21:35] And then as I glanced at the substantial number of bright, colorful thank you and greeting cards that I have displayed in my living room from clients, I asked myself, “have I gotten great results for my clients?” And that is surely a yes.

[00:22:00] This is what I want you to do. This is very big for your mindset and your wellbeing. Because there is going to be disappointment du jour.

[00:22:09] When you notice some disappointment. When you notice some professional depresso setting in. When you are momentarily discouraged. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to ask yourself those three important questions.

[00:22:27] Do you have massive value to bring? Answer hopefully is yes. I’m sure it’s yes. Make sure you know it’s yes. Number two. Is there a lifetime supply of people to serve? Yes, there is. Number three. Have you gotten great results and solutions for your clients? Yes, you have. There you go. Bing, bing, bing.

[00:22:52] Take any disappointment, any discouragement, put it through those three questions and turn it into determination.

[00:23:03] Let me tell you something. It is through discouragement and disappointment and things not going your way and things that happen that get you down, that you get your determination.

[00:23:22] I can talk to you today 1000% sure that I have the determination to create what I want for myself and my life and my business. And you know why? Because of days like I’m going to tell you right now.

[00:23:41] One day I’m on a cruise ship. I got 26 ladies on a cruise ship. We’re out to sea. Due to unforeseen circumstances, my confirmed or what I thought was confirmed meeting room for where I’m going to meet with these 26 ladies for the next 10 days… I am told does not exist. There are too many groups on the ship. They have no record of my meeting room and I’m thinking to myself, where am I going to meet with these gals? I certainly don’t have room in my cabin.

[00:24:21] I say to my team, go figure it out. They come back, they got nothing. They talked to this person, they talked to the meeting person, they talked to the banquet person. They got nothing.

[00:24:33] I go, I talked to the liaison for the groups. I talked to someone I knew from the last time I was on that ship who had been previously helpful. And what do I get? Nothing. Nothing. No, no, no. I said to myself, “I am determined to solve this problem. I am determined to find a place to meet with my ladies and give them the retreat that they are expecting and deserve.”

[00:25:03] I asked myself, this is back to our discussion earlier about inquiry question. I said to myself, “Hmm, what can I do to solve this problem? How can I get support to solve this problem?”

[00:25:19] Just in that moment, I reflect who else do I know on the ship? I go and I see the manager of the dining room. Whose name of course I remembered from the last time. Who I was very gracious to the last time I brought a group on that ship.

[00:25:39] Long story short, he let me meet with my group in his beautiful dining hall after breakfast, before the people came for lunch and in the afternoon when it was not in use. And it was on that day that I learned, I do have determination and I can meet any challenge. That’s one small example. There are others.

[00:26:09] My point is you build determination, not just by deciding to be determined. You build determination by overcoming challenges that your business and your life will throw at you.

[00:26:27] Your business and your life is your school, your academy, your graduate studies, in personal growth and transformation. I’m hoping that you know that.

[00:26:41] My friend, I got a few more, but number 10, we’re going to leave it on today for this discussion. Go to CaterinaRando.com/links. Grab your quick tip sheet on mastering your mindset.

[00:26:54] Here’s number 10, be in community. Be in two or three communities with people that see you and value you. That is the criteria. They see you and they value you. Any groups or communities that you’re involved with that are bringing you down rather than lifting you up where you’re leaving depresso rather than inspired and uplifted… my friend, get a new community.

[00:27:29] There’s also a lifetime supply of amazing places for you to connect with like-minded, like-hearted people. Consider joining our community if you are a woman on a mission with massive value to bring who has integrity, generosity and a big heart. This is another way that you get support, that you fill your cup, that you ensure your mental wellbeing and the mastering of your mindset.

[00:28:04] We have discussed many things in our time together last week and today . Let me give you a quick recap.

[00:28:12] Number one, be committed to mastering your mindset.

[00:28:18] Number two, perfection is not required. That just puts pressure on you.

[00:28:24] Also, we discussed, decide breaks, spills, late deliveries, people being late, mistakes in your order at a restaurant, make a decision right now. You’re not going to let any of that stuff bother you for the next 50 years. Why bother? That impacts your mindset and your mental wellbeing.

[00:28:48] Number three, master your self-talk. Be on your side, not on your back.

[00:28:54] Number four, use inquiry questions to find solutions. Remember use your subconscious, ask inquiry questions before you go to bed. “How can I” is a great start to any inquiry question.

[00:29:11] Number five, do what you can do to reduce what might be weighing on your mind. This is where we talked about operating with integrity, creating financial surplus, not hesitating to throw money at a challenge to reduce stress and solve problems.

[00:29:29] Number six, choose what is. Remember, this is where we discussed the Italian food versus the Indian food.

[00:29:39] Number seven, have an ongoing, consistent support structure in your life. Coach, a counselor, therapist.

[00:29:51] Number eight, when you start to get discouraged or depresso, do your self assessment that we discussed. Ask yourself those seven key questions. Did you get enough sleep? Did you move your body? Did you have some fun? Is there a communication that you have been withholding or something you want to ask for? Is there a criteria that needs to change? Also take a moment to reflect on your consumption too much coffee, too much sugar, too much alcohol, not enough water. All those are going to impact your wellbeing.

[00:30:29] Number seven, when’s the last time you did some self-care some self-love? Hopefully in the last 24 hours.

[00:30:38] If not, do that. That is number eight.

[00:30:44] Number nine, make disappointment your fuel for more determination.

[00:30:52] Number ten, be in community with like-minded like-hearted people that lift you up, see you and value you.

[00:31:05] My friend, you know, I have a lifetime supply of more for you. We’re going to leave it there.

[00:31:10] I hope you’ve identified one of these that you’re going to super shine the spotlight on because the more you focus on mastering your mindset, your wellbeing, your mental and emotional wellbeing, will be uplifted and steady. And the more you will thrive and bliss in your business and your life.

[00:31:36] Remember you have massive value. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve. Go master your mindset so that you can sell more, serve more, and uplift more lives.

[00:31:53] This is Caterina Rando. I cannot wait to be with you again here or seeing your smile on the screen at a Zoom workshop. Or if I’m really lucky on one of our amazing live and in-person retreats.

[00:32:11] Go. Thrive. Prosper. I look forward to being with you again very soon.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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Episode #150:
How to Cultivate Happy Clients with Retreats

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Listen to "How to Cultivate Happy Clients with Retreats with Caterina Rando" on Spreaker.

In this week’s episode, Caterina celebrates the 150th episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. Focusing on a topic near and dear to her heart, Caterina shares her guiding principles for hosting successful and transformational retreats for women. Regardless of the type of business you own, Caterina knows that retreats are a great way to bring your clients together to connect and mastermind. Retreats keep your clients coming back for more and build community. Caterina has hosted over 18 retreats  – don’t miss her expert super tips for making women’s retreats a part of your business!

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #150 Transcript

 

How to Cultivate Happy Clients with Retreats

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:24] Caterina Rando: This is Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you for a very important episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast.

[00:00:37] Today, we are releasing our hundred and fiftieth episode. It has been quite a journey from Episode 1 to Episode 150. I hope you, as I, have learned so much along the way.

[00:00:57] Today we are talking about thriving with women’s retreats. Regardless of what your business is, if it is business to business, if it is business to consumer, retreats are something I encourage you to embrace. Even for business to business, bring your clients in for a mastermind for an afternoon or a weekend. You can have retreats on speaking, on AI, on whatever services you offer, to move your clients and potential clients more towards mastery.

[00:01:39] And, of course, those of you that are in the women empowerment business, which is probably you who’s listening right now. Recognize retreats are a great way to have your clients keep coming back and build community.

[00:01:56] This episode is part of a live workshop that I hosted on this topic. You get to listen in as if you were in the virtual room. You may want to listen to this episode two or three times because I promise you it is info packed.

[00:02:18] We have done other episodes on retreats, filling your retreats. And by the way, if you’re doing events. Or group programs, not retreats. Note that what we’re discussing here is very much applicable to all of that as well.

[00:02:38] Listen, enjoy, listen to more of our 150 podcast episodes. Because I am here to support you to sell, to serve, to soar, and uplift more lives with your amazingness.

[00:02:56] Caterina Rando: Hi, my friends. Happy to be with you. Caterina Rando, serving women on a mission just like you to be yourself, do your thing, serve who you feel called to serve, and also massively monetize your mastery in the process. How does that sound?

[00:03:14] My friends, I have been doing my thing for a very long time. We’re celebrating 31 years this year. I’ve done at least 18 retreats. I’ve done them in Napa Valley. I’ve done them in Hawaii. I’ve done a lot on cruise ships, and some of you may or may not be aware that in San Francisco, I have my own space. It’s called the Thriving Women in Business Center. And there I host my speaker mastermind retreats, and we also do events for women.

[00:03:48] There are so many reasons why we want to do retreats.  I’m going to tell you why retreats are a great idea for your business.

[00:03:57] Women love to get together. Did everybody hear that? Women love to get together. Not only do we love to get together. We love to connect. We love to share ideas. We love to be girlfriends and sisters and support to each other. And I want to encourage you to consider the benefits of this for your business.

[00:04:28] I’ve got clients come year after year after year to our retreats. I’ve got one gal every year since 2014, she has come to at least one, if not two, retreats with me. So these are what we call long term and lifelong clients.

[00:04:48] Is that good for your business? Is that good for your bottom line? Yes. And you know what else it’s good for? It’s great for your heart. Because you get to meet and see women flourish under your guidance. Isn’t that wonderful?

[00:05:04] And they become your friends and they become your greatest fans and they become referral sources for you.

[00:05:15] What else happens? When women get together… okay, write this down… this is important. When we have women at our retreat, We have a few things that we want to make sure we’re doing.

[00:05:28] We want to make sure everyone in our retreat feels seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included. They get that they matter and that their voice matters and that they have massive value to bring.

[00:05:50] And there’s one other thing that we want to make sure we’re doing is we want to make sure that every woman feels safe in the room. That we create a container where she can be witnessed where she can not be judged. She can be accepted and supported. Are you with me, my friends?

[00:06:16] And part of how this relates to the planning, the producing and the profiting of women’s retreats is I want to make sure that you run your retreats with a few guiding principles and we’ll touch on some of them today.

[00:06:34] When women sign up to come on your retreat, my friends, They are, of course, signing up for a retreat, but they’re signing up to be with you, with you personally. They trust you, otherwise they would not be coming on your retreat.

[00:06:53] And I remember once I was doing a retreat at the Fairmont Keolani in Maui, Hawaii. We did three retreats there. Great place for a retreat. And a gal comes up to me and she says to me, “Caterina, I came on this retreat because I wanted to learn from you and you have all these other gals speaking.”

[00:07:20] Now, I do love to have other gals and other speakers and other activities and facilitators at my event. But what I realized when she said this, that I was doing it too much.

[00:07:34] I want to make sure if you’re doing your retreat that you are the majority in the front of the room as not necessarily speaking, but facilitating and holding the space. With me on this?

[00:07:50] And here’s the other thing you’re not doing, you’re not in charge of the venue. You’re not in charge of the lunch. You’re not in charge of setting up the room or getting the handouts or stuffing the tote bags.

[00:08:06] Your job is to be with the ladies. Did everybody hear that? Your job is cento per cento, as we say in Italian, 100%, to be with the ladies, to be available for the ladies.

[00:08:21] And it’s very important that your team gets that that’s your job.

[00:08:27] Oh, I used the word team. You mean you don’t do it all yourself? No, my friends. You don’t do it all yourself because your job is to have a great time and be 100 percent present with your ladies.

[00:08:41] And let me tell you something else. When you’re hosting a retreat for women, what do women love to do? We love to help, right? We want to help out. And I tell my team, “don’t let the ladies help out.” They’re not here to work. They are here to retreat. And I also tell my team, “don’t look like you’re working.”

[00:09:08] I remember one day we’re on a cruise ship, we’re doing a retreat. One of my gals, she’s running down the hall. She’s huffing and puffing. She’s looking schlumpadinka, which means she’s looking not pulled together. Like she’d been working all night. And I said to her, “my friend, this is not how we present ourselves.” In fact, I say to my team, “if something happens and I got to have somebody run the retreat, you can step in and go to the front of the room and you look like the retreat leader.”

[00:09:44] Are you with me, my friends? Okay, very important that you have support and that your support recognizes that it’s all about this guiding principle: happy ladies.

[00:09:58] Any challenge that happens, no participants know about it unless you as the leader choose to talk to them about it. That there’s no complaino from your team, because why? The ladies are there for a retreat. And the more they’re getting a retreat, the more they’re feeling seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included, safe, the more they’re going to keep coming back. And you know what else happens? Even when you don’t have it on the agenda? Transformation.

[00:10:33] What’s the difference between results and transformation? I’m gonna tell you right now. Results are things we can see. More sales, your numbers go down or up. Those are results.

[00:10:49] Transformation is when the women at your retreat see themselves differently. They see that they are enough. They see that they are full of massive value. They leave your retreat feeling more powerful than when they showed up.

[00:11:12] That’s transformation. And whether or not that’s in your sales copy- that’s your goal.

[00:11:23] We did our last Bliss Retreat for Women Leaders on a Mission. It was last April. The women signed up to come on this retreat, my friends, before the pandemic started. We had to push this retreat out 3 years. And instead of Alaska, we went to Mexico.

[00:11:45] On the ship there were a few times when women stopped everything and they chose to take time to share something that they had never shared with anybody. And be witnessed and accepted in sharing what they chose to share. Later a gal said to me, “Caterina, did you plan for this to happen?” And I said, “you know what? I didn’t plan for it. I knew it would happen, and I know how to be present with it when it does happen.”

[00:12:24] And that’s the difference, my friends, from just doing a retreat, like, let’s do these activities. Let’s get all our, our stuff together and you as the facilitator being present because you’re not running around. Being present to create a container where everyone feels valued supported and safe.

[00:12:49] The other thing is these women that were on that ship last year, every month we have a meeting just for us. They talk every single day this morning before I got here. There was already 10 messages in the, we call it the “bliss sisters” chat.

[00:13:06] What I’m saying to you, is that You are helping these women with your retreats, create long time and lifelong supportive friendships. And it’s not only great to uplift their lives, but it’s great for your business. Because the more they feel seen, heard, welcomed, included, and valued by you, the more they’re going to thrive.

[00:13:31]  So let’s jump in to some key questions that you want to answer before you do your retreat. And I’m also going to talk to you about some big mistakes that I’ve seen. Does that sound good? Okay.

[00:13:46] The first thing is that here’s what you need to get started. You need a date. You need the times. You need a price. And you need a location, right? Date, time, price, location. But there’s one more thing you need is a theme or a focus.

[00:14:06] And here’s what I also want to say is a big mistake. You only want to do a retreat for your ideal clients. Did everybody hear that? For example, we did a retreat in Napa Valley one year. Great retreat. We went grape stomping, by the way, sidebar, when you can do an excursion that people would not necessarily do themselves like grape stomping is a great example, that makes your retreat extra memorable. Because you’re giving them something that they wouldn’t normally get. And be sure to include surprises and unexpected activities in your retreat.

[00:14:50] So we’re doing this retreat in Napa and one of my gals says to me, “caterina, my friend, Sheila would like to come but she’s not an entrepreneur. She has a JOB.” And I said, “fine, you know, all women need retreats, right?”

[00:15:05] Wouldn’t you agree with that? My friends, all women could use a retreat. Here’s the thing though. Sheila came, she had an amazing time, transformational, but you know what? I had nothing else for Sheila. She doesn’t need my sales class. She doesn’t need my speaker class to grow your business. All she did was come to the retreat.

[00:15:29] If you’re looking for long term and lifelong clients, which you are, okay, by the way, alert, and you are. Then you want somebody that comes to your retreat. And now they loved being with you. They loved the massive value and the experience. And now they’re open to what’s next. Are you following me? But if you are only having the retreat for them, there’s no next. Everybody got that?:

[00:15:59] And by the way, here’s a guiding principle: at the thing, you always offer the next thing. Did you hear that? At the thing, the retreat, you always offer the next thing. It might be a retreat. It might be a mastermind program. It might be coaching or consulting.

[00:16:20] At the thing, you always offer the next thing. Now that might seem obvious, but let me say this. What I see is gals are so busy getting their retreat together that they don’t have attention on the next thing.

[00:16:35] My first retreat I did, we did in Yountville, California at a place called the Villagio. Great place. They include afternoon tea. This is probably where my afternoon tea enthusiast At retreats came from, because they have afternoon tea included every day for their hotel guests.

[00:16:57] We did this retreat. My first one. I had 11 gals there. I did everything I could to fill my retreat. One gal bought a coaching package she never used. I put her in my retreat. Another gal, she wanted some consulting. She didn’t want as much consulting as the retreat was, but I said, “you know what? Come to the retreat for whatever that fee was.” I want to do everything to fill my room.

[00:17:23] On the retreat, I broke even with my enrollment and my investment. The upsell though at the retreat selling the next thing, which in this case was a year long mastermind, I made the most I had ever made in one sales day, which was $75, 000.

[00:17:50] Now, my friends, that wasn’t going to be paid all in that one day that was paid over the course of the next year. But my point is that I would have had just a break even retreat if I didn’t have my next thing available. Are you following me?

[00:18:07] And you want to offer it. While they’re in that positive space and positive energy and positive experience before they go home. Very, very important.

[00:18:19] And by the way, when we talk about sales, a lot of people think about the conversation. What we’re talking about right now Is sales strategy and this is essential.

[00:18:32] I was on a retreat in February. I was on someone else’s cruise retreat and I’m talking to her. We’re having lunch and she says, “well, you know, Caterina, I don’t know. I don’t want to do a cruise next year. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ll figure it out in a few months.” I said, “no, no, my friend. You’re going to figure it out before we get off this ship, because your gals are here now. They’re having a great time.”

[00:19:00] So what she did was she decided they were going to have a beach retreat next year in Cabo, which, which is where we were because all the gals enjoyed it. She said, the pricing is going to be very similar. And she said, you’re going to get the best price to the gals that were on the ship. When you make a deposit before we get off the ship. So she didn’t even have all the money part figured out, but she got great signups because she made the invitation before her retreat was over.

[00:19:34] She didn’t have a sales page. She didn’t even have the final price. She had the dates, the location, the topic, which was renewal. And she let everyone know they would get the best price and the discount price when they made a deposit.

[00:19:51] Caterina Rando: So I want you to hear that because another challenge women entrepreneurs have is having to have everything figured out before taking the first step. Did I just ring anybody’s bell? My friends.

[00:20:05] So let’s go back to those questions. Date, time, price, location, topic or theme. And then who is your retreat for? And we’ve already answered that, right? Your ideal clients.

[00:20:20] And by the way, one of the reasons why women that are on a retreat are such great. Yes’s for the next thing. Here’s the reason behind that. The more time people spend with us, the more they are open to investing with us and the more dollars they’re open to investing with us.

[00:20:44] So be aware of this. This is why I do a free workshop 1 or 2 and one of my clients was saying to me earlier this week that she did a free workshop and she made an offer. The offer was higher than I would have recommended. So I wanted to ask her how many people were insta yes for that? And she said one, but the gal that was insta yes, already knew her and had already been spending time with her.

[00:21:11] So one of the reasons why retreats are great is because people spend a lot of time with you. And so they’re very open to the next investment. Everybody hearing me on this.

[00:21:22] Who is your retreat for? Your ideal clients.

[00:21:26] So one of the things you have to answer is the dates, right? Okay, big mistake I see is women are starting with a destination retreat when they have not done a retreat in their area. And I have two clients right now that did not take my advice. And they scheduled actually 3 clients, they scheduled cruise retreats because I guess I make it look easy. They scheduled cruise retreats, a week destination when they had never even done a virtual retreat or a 1 day or 2 day or 3 day.

[00:22:02] So, people love you, but they don’t necessarily want to go to Timbuktu to spend a week with you when they haven’t spent a day or 2 with you without jumping on a plane. Are you following me my friends?

[00:22:16] Okay. So please, please recognize this. Yes, it would be really exciting to do a retreat in Italy, but you know what? I’m going to go on somebody else’s retreat. I’m not doing my own retreat. When I say this, because anybody that’s doing a retreat across the world, that’s going to be a big investment that, that you don’t get a piece of right? Because they have a huge airfare.

[00:22:42] Next year, I’m going to Thailand. One of my clients is doing a yoga retreat in Thailand. I’m going, but you know what my big concern was? Well, I’ve never been to Thailand. How much does it cost to fly there? Is it a thousand, two thousand, three thousand, ? Got no idea. So that’s another hurdle on top of her retreat that she had to address before I could even be a yes.

[00:23:07] Now she lives in the Pacific Northwest. If she said, “hey, Caterina you want to come to my 3 day yoga retreat?” Whatever the price was, I would have been insta yes.

[00:23:17] Why? Because I know that’s not going to be a lot of additional expense, but also the time commitment would be much less and that supports the insta yes. And the quick answer to be a yes. Because a week away is a lot of time for people to negotiate.

[00:23:37] Now, last time we did a retreat, our last retreat was 10 days. But I’m starting to invite people 16 months out. Did you hear that, my friends? 16 months out. And this is the other challenge that I see with gals wanting to schedule their seven day retreat across the world or across the country. They’re starting six months before the retreat. That’s not enough time.

[00:24:04] So start small, start in your area. Like I said, I started in Napa Valley and the first one was 5 days. It wasn’t 7 days. Because people are investing not just with their money, they’re investing with their time. But do they know they want to spend 5 days with you or 3 days? 3 days is an easier yes.

[00:24:26] Now here’s the other reason why we start early. Giving the ladies plenty of time to make their investment. Did you hear that? Plenty of time to make their investment.

[00:24:39] Because your retreat is probably not in their budget. It’s probably not in their budget, right? To have it be something that is an easy yes for them financially, You want to give them a lot of months to pay for it.

[00:24:54] Now, there’s something else I’m gonna tell you. The first time we did a retreat on a cruise ship, I wasn’t sure, because I had never done it before, I wasn’t sure if it’s gonna fly. So what I did was I did what I called pre publication. This is before the sales copy, before the fancy webpage, before the branding for the event.

[00:25:23] I put together a Word document. I reached out, I made a list of gals that I thought might be interested. By the way, they came from my current client base. Your current clients are going to be most likely to be insta-yes for your retreat. And I said to them, ” in 6 weeks I’m going to announce this retreat. Because you’re already in our community, I want to make this not introductory price… even before the introductory price is what I call the pre publication price. Pre publication. So this price is even better than the early bird or the introductory price.”

[00:26:04] “And that’s why the branding’s not done and there’s no fancy web page. This is just me and you having a conversation, me giving you a word doc that says these are the dates, the times, here’s what we’re going to cover, here’s the regular price, here’s the early bird price, and here’s your a little bit extra discount price.”

[00:26:25] You got that my friends? Now here’s the thing. When you get 10 gals to sign up at the pre publication, that gives you confidence to move forward and invest in getting everything ready for the big marketing and sales push.

[00:26:44] Somebody asked a question. Is four months too short to plan a local retreat? I would say if it’s going to be like three nights or two nights probably would be fine. But the challenge with doing it very soon is that you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to fill it fast.

[00:27:10] The first thing I do, whenever we launch a new retreat is I fill the retreat. That’s my first job. Why? Because you need gals to come and you want to get their payment plans started as early as possible so that you have more yeses. And the closer the retreat gets in, the more you run into people who are already booked at that time. Especially women, women’s lives are full. Do you know any women who don’t have they don’t have a full life. No, they got full lives. So, as a result, we need time for them to get it on the calendar.

[00:27:51] Some years ago, I’m teaching my class actually in Napa Valley on how to do women’s retreats. It was not this short class was one day seminar. And at the break, one of my clients comes to me and she says, “Caterina, I love this idea of a retreat. You know what? I got a nice house. I’m gonna do one day retreat. In my living room and I’m going to invite 10 gals. We’re going to do yoga. We’re going to do meditation. So I’m going to do it in 6 months.” I said, “no, my friend, you’re going to do it in 6 weeks.”

[00:28:24] Now, she did it in 6 weeks and here’s why by the time 6 months had rolled around, she had already done 6 retreats. So she had 6 times more revenue and she had 6 times more mastery. So if you’re not going to pursue perfection, and you’re going to be okay. With maybe 6 gals instead of 12 gals or 20 gals, then I’m going to say, do it. But do recognize you’re going to have to get other stuff off your plate. So that you can do the enrollment.

[00:29:04] When we think of retreats, we think about all the exciting things we’re going to do. And all of my retreats, we do afternoon tea with fascinators. We’ve got this thing I do called the Accelerated Jewelry Exchange. We always have some fun excursion that we come up with based on what we’re, where we’re going. We’ve done snorkeling. Last time we were in San Diego, we had the guys drive Us around on the mini cabs, the ladies had so much fun. They were spinning all around. It’s so much fun.

[00:29:34] Oh, last night. I was looking at tote bags. Cause I always do a beautiful tote bag for my ladies. And I’m looking for tote bags for amp up. I want red and gold tote bags. I spent two hours looking at tote bags last night. That makes me bliss. And I’m sure you like that stuff to the creative part, right? But nothing happens until you’ve got smiles on the screen if it’s virtual, or derrieres in chairs if it’s live and in person.

[00:30:06] And so the enrollment is where I want you to think about putting your attention before a lot of the creative activities. Y you do have to plan what you’re going to do at the retreat, but you don’t have to have every minute planned out.

[00:30:21] Yes. I want you to do your first one ASAP. Your first one is not going to be the best one. But it’s that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be amazing. And transformational. It is in the doing that we figure it out and we learn how to be very effective at it.

[00:30:41] Super tip alert, every single day, as you start the day, get everybody’s voice in the room. First thing in the morning. I call it a check in.

[00:30:56] We have a morning check in, we have an after lunch check in, we have an end of day check in.

[00:31:01] Why? Because I want them to have an opportunity to get their voice in the room to share how they’re doing. Now, if you have a big group, you can have them do this in small groups with a partner or a triad. But everybody’s voice in the room consistently is an important part of a woman’s retreat.

[00:31:22] I’m going to tell you one of the things I do, which has been very transformational. This is one of my fun activities. And the great thing about doing retreats, it’s really a great place to try stuff and practice stuff and continue to upgrade stuff. As long as you’re not attached to perfection. I told you about our accelerated jewelry exchange. We did it about four times until I figured out how to do it so it was really fun. And not only did the ladies get some new jewelry, but they blissed during the whole time we were doing it. They enjoyed it the first few times, but it was only after I’d done it a few times and kept upgrading it, that really worked.

[00:32:06] Here’s another thing I do. It’s called “say it to my face.” And what happens is when women come, I give them a name tag sticker. But they put what they would like people to say to their face. Not behind their back, to their face. Donna, you’re an amazing leader with massive value to bring. Sierra, your enthusiasm lights up the room. Everyone is going to want to work with you. What would you like people to say to your face? Put it on the name tag, and you walk around the room, and everybody says to your face exactly what you want them to say to your face. And then you say, thank you. There’s no more conversation.

[00:32:55]  By the way, managing the chatting at a retreat, this is a skill you have to develop. Okay, this one exercise, I’ve done it every single day of a retreat. I’ve done it once or twice at a retreat. It is transformational for the participants, and I encourage you to either do it this way, or come up with your own version of it, and it will support your women and feeling seen, heard, welcomed, valued, included.

[00:33:32] Even though a woman is coming on a retreat and she might think it’s a regular business event or getaway, I’m going to treat her super VIP. That means my team is going to treat her super VIP. We are going to have a gift for her every day. If I have to spend extra money on something, I’m going to do it.

[00:33:57] Here’s my budget strategy because you don’t necessarily know if you haven’t done it before what everything’s going to cost. You want to do your best to figure that out. And then on top of that, if it’s a. 1 day retreat, we add another 10%. If it’s a 2 day retreat, we add another 20%. If it’s a 3 day retreat, we add another 30% to our costs.

[00:34:21] And here’s why there’s always unexpected expenses. When we went to Hawaii for retreats, I would get cars for airport transfers. Well, what happens we got these sarongs, beautiful sarongs for all the ladies. When we went to Hawaii, I had everything shipped directly to the hotel. Open the box. There are four sarongs short. Well, instead of costing me $4 a sarong, now I got to spend $20 a sarong to go to Hilo Hatties to get some more sarongs, right? So recognize there’s always going to be unexpected expenses. And you want to include that in your budget.

[00:35:00] Here’s the other thing. If your retreat starts on Sunday, don’t get there on Saturday, get there on Friday. Why? Because you want to have a lot of time for preparation and getting set up for success. But also, you don’t want to be pressured and rushed and stressed because then your creativity can continue to flow.

[00:35:26] People ask about sponsors. There’s 3 kinds of sponsors. There’s a money sponsor. There’s a in kind sponsor and there’s a media sponsor. A money sponsor, they’re going to write you a check for some promotional consideration. An in kind sponsor is when they give you things otherwise, you would have to pay for. And a media sponsor is where they give you marketing, promotion, advertising about your retreat in exchange for something.

[00:36:03] One of the things we’ve done some years is in kind sponsorships. There’s a company, they make these great socks for women that say, you’re awesome, and you’re beautiful, and other affirmation socks. And I love these socks. I reached out to the company. I said, “hey company, I have 100, 000 followers on Facebook, 5, 000 friends at the time. I think 14, 000 on our list. I said, hey, and if you will give us socks for all the ladies, We will give you promotional consideration. We’ll put it in our social media. We’ll put it here. We’ll put it there.” You have to write down everything you’re going to do for them. We did that for the sock people. We did that for chocolates. You know, the, Barkthins. Barkthins, they gave me Barkthin packages for everybody.

[00:36:55] Here’s what I realized. Yes, it’s fun, and I always love to give gifts, but it would have been better for me to just spend the $500 or the $200 on the products because then I have my attention on making sure we’re doing everything to fulfill the sponsorship agreement.

[00:37:18] And so, especially in the beginning, I I’m not interested in sponsors. I’m interested in happy clients that want to keep coming back. After you’ve done it for a bit, If you want to add in a sponsor for some revenue, that is absolutely an option, but don’t start that way and recognize a sponsorship is like a client. Because you want to fulfill the agreement of that sponsorship.

[00:37:50] Also, are there other alliances that you can create to help support your event? So, for example, Julie has a podcasting party, and she helps women launch their podcasts. And so Julie is one of our partners for AMP UP, helping get the word out about AMP UP. And any of her friends that she refers, she gets a commission on their participation.

[00:38:17] And we’ve got about 15 women that are AMP UP partners who want to help spread the word because they’re coming, they’re excited about it. And so look at who can be a partner for you and partners can be great for spreading the word and getting enrollment.

[00:38:37] Here’s what I also want to say. With 18 retreats. How many times do you think somebody signed up from an email? Or from a website, or a post. Once. Everybody wants to have a conversation with you before they’re going to go on your retreat. Okay? So, yes, we’ve got to do the marketing. We do the marketing. We have 32 gals so far registered for AMPUP, which will be next April. April 27th through May 4th. Let me just take a moment to tell you about it.

[00:39:14] Amp up. April 27th, May 4th round trip, San Francisco. We’re going to Seattle, Washington, Astoria, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. I have made this very affordable. We’re on a Princess cruise ship where everybody can get their own cabin. 32 gals are signed up for amp up. How many of them do you think signed up without talking to me? None. Why? Because they, they are going to have questions. They want to see if they vibe with you.

[00:39:50] So what does that mean? Now we’re now we’re back to sales class. Here’s the, numbers I use. It’s what I call four by four by four. If I want 60 women on my ship, I’ve got to have four times that 240 conversations, four times that number.

[00:40:15] Now that might seem like a ridiculous number to you, but recognize I’ve been talking to gals since February. So February, March, April, May, June, and we’re about halfway done. It’s going to take a lot of conversations because here’s the other thing. Sometimes you’re going to have four conversations with the same gal, especially if they don’t know you yet.

[00:40:39] I have got people coming on this AMP UP adventure who’ve not come on anything with me before, who have not been in any programs with me. So that is going to take more time. Okay? The other thing is it’s a week away. It’s getting on flights for some of them. That is going to take more time.

[00:41:00] So this is why I’m saying start in your neighborhood with a shorter retreat. Okay, everybody with me on this?

[00:41:09] By the way, here’s another thing for making sure you have time for on your retreat. Last year in October, we had about 10 gals on a cruise ship, and we were doing a retreat on how to do women’s retreats. I love doing a retreat on how to do retreats. And we had activities and educational sessions and then I said to the gals one afternoon, “hey, my friends come to my mini suite.” I always get a mini suite because then I have a place for everybody to sit together. “Come to my mini suite and we’re going to mastermind for 90 minutes after lunch. And then we’re going to go to dinner.” the ladies said, “great.”

[00:41:51] They came to my cabin. And they were there for seven and a half hours, seven and a half hours. They loved the masterminding part. They loved the visiting, the connecting, the sharing ideas, asking each other’s opinions.

[00:42:09] And at the end of their retreat, when I said to them, what did you like best? All those sessions I painstakingly put together? Our fun activities? You know what they said? The mastermind.

[00:42:24] And that’s why we’re doing the amp up. Because we’re going to get together and share ideas. We’ll have activities too. But it’ll be extra super fun. Make sure you have some masterminding time in your retreat. This is something that they absolutely love.

[00:42:42] You want to have a great retreat that’s profitable. And I would love to support you to do your own retreat so that you can bliss and thrive so much more in your business, because you have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of women to serve.

[00:43:02] I want to encourage you to have retreats as part of your client offerings and you will find, by the way, that these will create some of the richest most fulfilling, blissful memories and experiences for you and for your clients.

[00:43:22] And let me say this cause we didn’t really talk about in our session. I do retreats as part of a program. So when somebody comes on a speaker mastermind retreat, they’re also getting training calls. They’re getting mastermind calls. They’re included in all our other community things. And for the gals that are coming on AMP up, we have pre calls. They get to thrive with retreats, masterclass series as a bonus. They’re invited to our summits.

[00:43:50] So as soon as somebody signs up for my friends, see, this can be a challenge with your retreats that are far out. You want to look, “how am I engaging these people right away?” So even though we’re not going till next April in July, they start with the master class series. Then they have the summit in August. Then in November, they have the other summit. We invite them to our July client appreciation event.

[00:44:17] So, you’re looking at all the ways to start engaging them now and building rapport with them, getting to know them, having them connect with each other before everybody goes on the retreat together.

[00:44:28] And that’s a big part of the retreat being so awesome when they’ve already started to cultivate relationships with each other in advance of getting together live and in person. That is a big super tip I want to make sure everybody got.

[00:44:43] I want to also support you with your sales and with using speaking to grow your business. And if you haven’t Been on a cruise retreat, come on ours. It’s going to be amazing. It will also be a great, incredible model for doing your own retreats. We’ll do masterminding, workshops, great activities. Oh, and by the way, your business gets to pay for it because it’s a business expense.

[00:45:07] . Bing, bing, bing. I know you have gotten massive value from our time together today. Please explore our many other episodes on lots of hot topics to support you to thrive and bliss more in your business. Also be sure to check out my website, CaterinaRando. com. There you can find out about my upcoming free workshops, about our programs, and I also invite you to join our thriving women in business community with Caterina to stay even more connected plus, if we’re not Facebook friends, let’s be friends.

[00:45:51] Caterina Rando: We have so much massive value here to support you and our thriving women in business community. I look forward to getting to know you and your business better, supporting you to sell more, serve more, bliss more in your business and uplift more lives. Can’t wait to be with you again on the Expand Your Fempire podcast.

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Episode #149:
Refresh and Reboot Your Business, Mid-Year Review Live Session

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Every year, Caterina gets together with her Thriving Women in Business VIP Community for a Mid-Year Review session. In this episode, Caterina gives listeners an inside view of this live session as she discusses her top Guiding Principles to help her VIP Community refresh, reboot, check-in, and check-up on their businesses as they prepare for a successful second half of the year!

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Expand Your Fempire Podcast #149 Transcript

 

Refresh and Reboot Your Business, Mid-Year Review Live Session

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: This is Caterina Rando. Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m blissing to be with you today. We are covering in this episode a very important topic. Every year I meet with my clients in the middle of the year and we do a mid year refresh, reboot, check- in, check- up, with a checklist. That is what this episode is on today.

[00:01:03] Before we dive in to some live segments from that session… a while back, I was in Sedona, Arizona. Beautiful place. Red rock. Cactus. Some people say the energy there is one of the best places in the world. It’s beautiful. Beautiful.

[00:01:24] I’m in my hotel room. It’s early in the morning. I’m getting ready to go to an event. I open the glass door. I’m on the ground floor to look at the beautiful red rock and let in some fresh air. I go about getting ready, walking around my room in my bare feet, and I notice across the room a little black spot on the carpet.

[00:01:54] I think, hey, maybe It’s a hair clip I dropped, or maybe it’s something garbage to pick up. I go over and just about as I’m leaning down to grab whatever it is, I notice that it’s a black scorpion. Ah! Well, you know what? I’m a woman of action, like you. I walk over to the bar, I grab a glass, I walk back towards the scorpion, just as I’m about to put the glass over the scorpion, this little voice in my head says, “Caterina, are you an expert at catching scorpions?”

[00:02:40] “Well, no,” I thought to myself. Then I thought, “okay, well, Caterina, have you ever caught a scorpion?” The answer was an emphatic no. Then I said to myself a very important thing. I said to myself, “Maybe we should get some help. Maybe I should get some help.”

[00:03:11] I called the front desk. The gentleman in his engineer work suit came. He was very experienced at capturing scorpions. He had done it many times. He scooped up the scorpion. He put it outside in the red rock. I thanked him profusely. He went on his day and I went on with my day.

[00:03:41] I tell you this because one of the things I want you to look at as we have our discussion today on your mid- year review is I want you to also be thinking, where can you use help? And what’s not your job?

[00:04:01] Because I don’t want you, my friend, to be wrangling scorpions, if that is outside your purview as the queen of your fempire. Listen here, in on our discussion, and think about what upgrades you can make. Because one of the guiding principles I’m hoping you’re embracing in your business is to always be upgrading.

[00:04:30] So this is our mid- year check- in, checklist, check- up, because what is one of the guiding principles for our business? We are always upgrading. Did everybody hear that? We are always upgrading. This year I am celebrating 31 years in this business. And you know what? It is a steady stream of upgrading every day, every week, every month, and every year.

[00:04:58] Like, one of the things you’ve heard me say, my friends, probably, is when you give a talk, you ask for the Insta Rebook. You know, do they want to book you again? Okay? And guess what? I’ve only been doing that for a couple years. What was I doing the first 29 years?

[00:05:15] And the whole thing about when you’re on the call, make sure you book the next call. That’s, that’s a newer thing too. Right? So all we’re always upgrading. We can always be more effective and efficient.

[00:05:28] One of the things I want to start with is as we look at our business in the middle of the year, there may have been some things that you didn’t do In the beginning of the year.

[00:05:40] Now, if you did them great, if you didn’t do them, let’s do them now.

[00:05:44] First thing is You have the list of values by which you run your business. And I’m hoping you have a list of values by which you run your business, which is somewhere where you see it all the time. Now, I’m going to ask you to look at that list right now if you have it, or if you don’t, whip one up right now.

[00:06:09] I’m going to tell you a few of mine, and then I’m going to tell you one that often gets missed that I want you to add. As you know, I run my business with integrity, with generosity, positivity, and another way I say that is an attitude of uplift. That is how I run my business. That is how I operate my business.

[00:06:30] Community is a value for me. These are some examples of values by which I run my business. Now, you get to choose how you want to run your business. Because guess what? It’s your business. You get to do it any way you want. Adventure is a value, by the way. Fun is a value. Play is a value. Okay, you get to decide.

[00:06:58] Now, we can have a whole five sessions on this, but I want you to take this time right now to review or create. What are the values by which you run your business?

[00:07:09] Because values inform decisions. Are you with me my friends?

[00:07:15] Innovation is a value. Risk taking is a value. Upgrading is a value.

[00:07:23] So take a moment to think about the values by which you run your business. And is there anything missing? Is there anything that you said, you know what? This is not important to me anymore. Joy is a value. Bliss, pursuing bliss, goes right along with that. That you know I like, right?

[00:07:42] Values by which you run your business. They inform your decisions. Here’s the value I want to make sure is on your list. Some years ago I’m at a conference And I’m hearing a speaker and the speaker, she’s my girlfriend.

[00:08:00] I’ve known her for years and she’s talking about values. And she says this and this and this and this, and she operates her life with integrity. But she did not have integrity on her list. Sometimes we are so much something that we don’t even remember. We don’t even think about it.

[00:08:22] Now, your business may not be family centric, but your life is family centric, so guess what? Your business values and your life values, when you have your own business, same same, okay, same same. No distinction with how we run our life and how we run our business. Everybody vibing?

[00:08:43] So I said, my friend, you’re missing a very important value. And we had her add integrity to the list. But she had a value on there that I did not even think about. Oh, by the way, profit and massive monetization values. Hello. Do you have profit on your list of values, my friends or massive monetization? Cause if not, let’s add that one. But here’s the one that she had that I was like, why did I not think of that?

[00:09:17] And I’m talking about it to all of you because many of you are so creative that you probably are not on top of this one. Some of you have what I have, which is what we call brilliant idea syndrome. What is brilliant idea syndrome? You got more ideas than you got time to implement. Now, is that just me or does anyone else suffer from this malady?

[00:09:40] Hello, my friends. Okay, last night I was with my friend Michelle, my friend Allegra, Cynthia, Varkavister was there too. We had a Polkadot powerhouse happy hour for our San Francisco chapter. And they heard about my, I’ll call it my scheme of the week. Which is that in July I had just met with another dot from another chapter.

[00:10:06] We’re gonna have a plus size clothing and accessory exchange at my center. By the way, if any of you would like to come, you’re invited. You do have to self identify as plus size and my, my other friends, save you for another opportunity. I put in my AI thing yesterday, give me some names and here’s the one I liked.

[00:10:30] “Summer style swap and soiree.” That’s what it’s going to be. Okay. Now this is my latest brilliant idea. And by the way, we’re going to still make it monetizable, 20 for charity. Okay. Here’s why I’m talking to you about this, me and my brilliant ideas every five minutes is not efficient for my business.

[00:10:56] Are you vibing with me on this? Now it’s summer, we’re going to have some social fun, I’m making an exception, but my point is efficiency is a value I want to make sure you’re embracing in your business. Is everybody hearing me on this?

[00:11:11] And so as we talk about your business, I want you to add that to your list, efficiency, and I want you to hold it As a value that you consistently look at.

[00:11:24] And you say, yes, I want to do this new brilliant idea. Does that support the efficiency of my business?

[00:11:33] And by the way, efficiency and profitability, do they go together? My friends. Yes. They go together. Would you agree? So we want to always be looking. How can I be more efficient? Because you know what? I do want to go hang out with the ladies. I don’t want to be in my business or my office all the time.

[00:11:55] And the more efficient, the more time you have for travel, which I would put under the adventure value.

[00:12:04]  So let’s take a moment and let’s look at this section here on efficiency. Is your sales process efficient?

[00:12:13] So what does that mean? Do you have your SOPs? For when you give a speech. Six speeches this week. Very exciting. But guess what? Gotta make sure I’m getting that follow up in after each one, right? What are the SOPs? Take a screenshot in the meeting. Save the chat. Go look up the gals on social.

[00:12:38] Send them a direct message on LinkedIn or Facebook. “Thank you for being with me at the XYZ. Here’s a link to my next workshops. Would you like to schedule a time to connect?”

[00:12:51] Now that’s not for every Mary Jane and Sheila, that’s only for the ones that I would like to follow up with.

[00:12:58] These are SOPs. Then I take those gals that we just did a DM, and they go on my prospect list.

[00:13:06] And then it says where they were that we found them. We track what we did. And then I put three days later, circle back. Okay,

[00:13:17] I had six speeches this week. I still got another one tomorrow. How am I going to do all that follow up without anything falling through the cracks? Well, not easy with other stuff to do. So creating support helps you be more efficient. And some of you are still getting ready to get ready to be thinking about getting going with your support.

[00:13:38] Let’s start with a few hours a month of support. And before and after your workshops is a great Time for support. Okay. But then are you having your CRM? Are you having your onboarding client checklist?

[00:13:52] So that anytime a client comes in, we don’t just want to have a client. We want to have long term and lifelong clients. Yes, my friends? Long- term life long. So with long- term life long, we want to make sure they get integrated and they’re taking full advantage of whatever it is they signed up for. Nothing worse than when somebody says, “Oh, I got that. Oh, I’m supposed to get that. Oh, I’m supposed to get that?” And they’re, they’re not taking full advantage.

[00:14:20] So now it’s time to renew. And they didn’t take full advantage and then what does that mean? Now they’re not going to be lifelong client. Okay, this is what we want. Long- term and lifelong clients. Bing, bing, bing.

[00:14:33] All right, next one. How’s your client care? Are you insta responsive when a client has a question? If not, let’s make an upgrade.

[00:14:42] Do you have systems and checklists everywhere in your business? If not, where can you use some systems, some checklists? Okay. Do you have the CRM? Do you have the accounting software? Are you stressing about your books? Cause you’re not getting support with that. All of these things.

[00:15:03] By the way, how are you doing with your calendar? Does everything go on your calendar? Are you loving your schedule link? Are you using your schedule link? Is it working for you? Okay.

[00:15:16] And by the way, are you taking time every month for thinking and planning? So if I was to look at your calendar right now for the rest of the year, am I going to see sales time on there for every week?

[00:15:31] Am I going to see after every speech or every networking or after any social event, am I going to see follow up time on there? Am I going to see time scheduled for getting booked for speaking? If I look at your speeches and your workshops, am I going to see time to fill them and post after time for follow up?

[00:15:58] If not, these are part of your efficiency. Because we can’t make more money last month or last week, or we can’t do more sales calls last week.

[00:16:10] And by the way, are you tracking? Do you know how many calls did you do last month? Do you know? Because if you know, then you know, okay, I did this many calls. I got this many new clients.

[00:16:25] Was that enough new clients? If not, let me increase my number of calls.

[00:16:31] How many speeches did you do? Are you tracking it on a monthly basis? If not, let’s get tracking. Bing, bing, bing.

[00:16:40] Oh, by the way, here’s another thing that’s very exciting that we know about productivity.

[00:16:45] If you do the same thing at the same time every day, you become more efficient at it. If you do the same thing every time, every week, you become more efficient at it. Did you hear that?

[00:17:03] So you want to look at what do I got to do every week? And can I do it at the same time every week? Because you’re going to get more and more efficient.

[00:17:11] Your subconscious goes to work for you. If your subconscious knows, okay, friday mornings, we’re going to do some reach outs. Your subconscious is getting busy because they know it’s coming. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.

[00:17:26] My friends, sometimes I’m in a meeting with gals, and I’m sure you’re having this experience, and there is a lot of Story and there is a lot of extra words and we do want to look for how to be efficient.

[00:17:41] Like when the, when you call people, I’m hoping that they think, okay, they don’t look at this, look at your calling them and think it’s going to be an hour conversation. Okay. It is important to look at being efficient with your, with your emails, with your messages.

[00:18:00] So look at being efficient with your communication.

[00:18:04] This is really important because sometimes for women People are like, I don’t want to talk to her because I love her, but she talks so much.

[00:18:13] Okay, my friends, next thing we’re going to talk about. We are going to talk about sales. Because this is the middle of the year. How are your sales? Are they where you want them for the middle of the year? If not, where is there an opportunity for an upgrade? Because you might have to make up in the next six months what you didn’t do in the first six months.

[00:18:41] So let’s look at a few things.

[00:18:43] My friends, what you focus on improves.

[00:18:46] Are you on top of your sales numbers? Are you on top of, we talked about how many people you’re talking to? Do you know how this May compares to last May. Do you know how Q1 of this year compares to last year? Do you know what worked for you in Q1 and the first six months of the year that you want to amplify and do more of?

[00:19:11] Have you evaluated what didn’t work so well? Have you seen where there’s an opportunity for upgrade? One of the things this year, I’ve done a ton of speaking this year, but you know what? I didn’t get in front of enough new groups. So I want to get in front of more new groups in the second half of the year. So now I’m shining the spotlight on that.

[00:19:35] Okay. So we want to evaluate so then we can upgrade for the rest of the year.

[00:19:40] Sales. I see when I look at the numbers, the more weeks I talk to the more ladies, the more new clients I got.

[00:19:47] How about for you? And what’s the average number of gals you’re talking to every week? Potential clients. Do you want to raise that?

[00:19:57] Do you consistently have sales activity on your calendar? How can you use your sales support more efficiently? These are all things for you to look at.

[00:20:07] So right now I want you to take a moment and I want you to think about What are some couple of to dos or a couple upgrades that you can make in this area?

[00:20:19] Is your prospect list up to date? Is your follow- up up to date? Are your circlebacks up to date? Like I said earlier, do you have that time on your calendar for all of this?

[00:20:31] And one of the things I didn’t mention before that I’m going to mention right now that relates to sales, that relates to efficiency is time every week for thinking and planning.

[00:20:43] This morning at 9. 30 to 10. 30 was our, one of our three sales blitzes for the month for all community. We had a good hour session and I love Friday mornings for reach outs to book appointments. I love Friday mornings for thinking and planning. I love Friday mornings for wrapping up all those little to do’s I didn’t get done for the week.

[00:21:09] And guess what? Next year we are going to do blitzes , they’re going to be Friday mornings. Why? Because it’s a great time for thinking and planning. And again, what did I say earlier? When you do something the same time every week, you get more and more efficient at it.

[00:21:25] In your business, when is it good for you? And here’s the other exciting thing. In business, when we’re doing things at the same time, that’s like we make a decision once and it’s good for the whole year, if not the next 25 years.

[00:21:41] Like I told you, I have all my hair appointments for the year. They’re on Mondays. Mondays are a big day for me. Then it’s like, take a quick break, go see Monica, get my hair done. Efficiency. Make a decision once, serves you the whole year.

[00:21:57] If you want something in your life or your business, you got to have a plan for it. And what does a plan require? Decisions. Goals are decisions that have been made.

[00:22:10] So if you’re looking at the rest of the year and you’re seeing you don’t have any sales goals and you don’t have any decisions about how many sales calls you want to have every week, then guess what, my friend, you simply haven’t made a decision.

[00:22:25] And one of the things we know about high achieving women, Okay, I’m gonna tell you, high achieving women make decisions quickly. Successful women make decisions quickly. So if you’ve been looking at, “Hey, what am I going to do my workshops?” And you’re still in the question, make a decision.

[00:22:45] Are they scheduled for the rest of the year? Make a decision.

[00:22:49] Where do you need to make a decision? That’s a good question for efficiency. Where do you need to make a decision?

[00:22:57] All right, so my friends, you are the queen of your fempire. What does that mean? You’re the boss. You get to run your fempire any way you want.

[00:23:10] And we want to take this mid- year opportunity to look at, are you blissing in your business, my friend? How do you want to be different?

[00:23:20] I want to be blissing even more. I want to be more vital. I want to be more out there. How do you want to be different?

[00:23:35] So take a moment, take a deep breath and just do a little brainstorm with yourself. Answer this question for me. How do you want to be different?

[00:23:46] How do you want to be different?

[00:23:52] Last week I had a conversation with Stephanie Flanders Martin. She’s hosting a yoga retreat in Thailand next year. Thailand is not even on my list of top 10 places I want to go to. You know what? She asked and I was an insta-yes  You know why?

[00:24:12] Because adventure is a value. Because I get to be abundant in my life. I get to bliss in my business. I get to have adventure through my business.

[00:24:24] So how do you want to be different in your business and your life? Because your business is your ticket to however you want to be different.

[00:24:38] My friends, I spoke at the New Zealand national speakers convention many years ago.

[00:24:46] Highlight of my life. I spoke in Venice, Italy to women from 87 countries, highlight of my life. Your business is your business. And your speaking is your passport to whatever you want, as long as you can make those decisions and you can get efficient and you can get profitable. And that’s what I want for you based on our conversation today.

[00:25:14] So think about how do you want to be different? Now related to that  is how are you not only being in your business right now, but what are you doing? Are you keeping it to your five pillars? Speaking, selling, serving, strategy, self care, or are you in the weeds? Doing your bookkeeping and your photo editing and your video editing and your podcast editing and your admin and upgrading your websites?

[00:25:48] Now, if that’s your business, like Kaylee, okay, you can, you can do it. If it’s your business and you’re monetizing it, but if you’re not monetizing it, meaning it’s, people are paying you for it. What are you doing it for okay?

[00:26:02] So ask yourself, what are you doing that you don’t want to master? What are you doing that is taking you away from mastery? Because all those things that you are doing that are outside of your five pillars are pushing off mastery in your five pillars.

[00:26:24] Because these are not just your jobs, speaking, selling, serving, strategy, self care. These are jobs that you have to master so that you can bliss in your business and thrive financially.

[00:26:36] Okay, so look at those five things. Which one of them needs more attention? And if it’s sales or it’s self care, you know what?

[00:26:47] You probably need more support in your business and or your life. I got a friend here helping me today. Helping me get my center ready for next Tuesday when we’re going to have a speaker spin off. Gals are going to come, we’re going to network, we’re going to upgrade their speaking. We’re going to have so much fun.

[00:27:08] Somebody else is getting the center ready. Who’s helping me with admin today? Not me, someone else. So I can be here with you. Where can you get more support in your business or your life? Because your job is those five things.

[00:27:28] Now I’m going to ask you a big question. How can you increase your personal fulfillment in your business and your life?

[00:27:39] And you know what the answer is for some of you? Sell something!

[00:27:43] Because having been around the block a few hundred times, not just my own business, but with all of the beautiful women I’ve had the privilege to support and serve, You know what the biggest challenge is? Financial insecurity. I want you to have surplus.

[00:28:07] I want you to have mountains of surplus. What is mountains of surplus? One month, two months, three months, four months of covering all your operating expenses.

[00:28:18] Right now, I’m signing gals up for, as many of you know, our Amp Up Adventure. We’re at 32 gals for amp up. We’re going to have 60 gals. And you know what?

[00:28:29] Because my operating expenses, meaning my nut and little extra is covered for the whole year. When I’m working out gals payment plans, they can be super extendo. They can go into next year because this year’s covered. Are you following me? That is bliss, my friends.

[00:28:51] And by the way, if you don’t feel masterful at selling, let’s put some attention there for you. So you could bliss more in your business. Where do you need more support?

[00:29:00] Okay. So answer that question right now, grab a pen, take a deep breath. An answer this very important question. What would bring me more fulfillment in my business?

[00:29:15] Awesome. Bing, bing, blissing. I’m sure you’ve gotten some great ideas in our time together today on how to make some upgrades in your business. I want to encourage you, take it further and go to CaterinaRando. com slash links where you can download your checkup checklist for the mid year. There you will have more ideas that we didn’t even get to today to make upgrades in your business. Because as we’ve already said, we are always upgrading.

[00:29:56] On that page, CaterinaRando. com slash links, you will also find several other free resources to benefit you in your business. You will also there have information on my upcoming free workshops.

[00:30:13] I am here, and my community is here, to support you to bliss and thrive more in your business. The more you’re thriving, the more your business is serving others. Bing Bing Bing! Cannot wait to be with you again. And remember, my friend, you have massive value to bring. There is a lifetime supply of people to serve. Continue to upgrade your business so that you can sell more, you can serve more, and you can uplift more lives with your amazingness.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Episode #148:
Turning Your Ideas Into Income with Shelby Jo Long

Subscribe to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast online:

Listen to "Turning Your Ideas Into Income with Shelby Jo Long" on Spreaker.

In this episode, Caterina is joined by brand specialist, professional speaker, international speaking coach, and four-time international best-selling author, Shelby Jo Long. The entrepreneurs discuss Shelby’s top guiding principles for getting into massive action so that you can take your ideas and turn them into income. Shelby also highlights the importance of taking steps to get started, the introspection behind creating your brand, and why trying to tackle too much at once can actually hinder your income stream!

Connect with Shelby

Ready for more business-building super tips?

Join us on an Alaskan Adventure!  

AMP UP ADVENTURE: Alaska 2026

A Mastermind Cruise for Women Business Leaders to Connect, Collaborate, and Catapult!

Our Alaska adventure is Aug. 29th – Sept. 5th, 2026, roundtrip from Seattle on the Holland America Eurodam!

Register for FREE: 

Workshop: Savvy Steps to Scale 

Coaches and Consultants: It is time to raise the roof on your revenue ceiling! Join women’s business mentor and speaker extraordinaire, Caterina Rando for an incredible opportunity to upgrade your mindset, your systems, and your actions to catapult your revenue with speaking and workshops.

Expand Your Fempire Podcast #148 Transcript

 

Turning Your Ideas Into Income with Shelby Jo Long

 

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today. We have an amazing, super smart, super insightful guest, Shelby Jo Long. She is a brand strategist and author of “I See Your Genius, Transform your idea to income.” Hi, Shelby. So happy to have you here.

[00:00:57] Shelby Jo Long: Hi, thank you for having me on the podcast today. I’m thrilled to be here.

[00:01:01] Caterina Rando: Shelby, we got so many things we’re going to talk about before we get into the monetization and taking the ideas and transforming them. Before we get into that, you are a woman entrepreneur. You live in Montana. You are having a full, amazing entrepreneurial life. How did you go from young gal to thriving entrepreneur?

[00:01:26] Shelby Jo Long: Well, yeah, young gal was quite a long time ago. So I’ll give you the abbreviated version though. The entrepreneur part is Actually a little newer in my life than the other pieces. I’ve been a college professor for the past 17 years.

[00:01:41] I teach business communication, public speaking, small group communication. I also am in the college debate space. I was a college debate competitor and a coach for many, many years. And I started my entrepreneurial journey probably about five years ago, doing some on and off consulting with organizations about their organizational climate and culture and communication strategies. And then I really formalized that into a business in the past couple of years.

[00:02:10] And since then I have accumulated some businesses along the way. I am CEO of three different businesses and I am president of another, and it’s been a really exciting journey. How that kind of happened, I do very similar things in all of these spaces, which is all around the brand strategy space.

[00:02:33] It’s all about communication. It’s all about who you are and what messages you send to your ideal clients. And that exists in just about any business, whether you are in publishing or whether you’re in a small business that wants to expand, whatever that is, or you’re in a business partnership, any of those things, it’s all about how you communicate it.

[00:02:52] So that’s kind of the, the very short version of the entrepreneurial journey. But I really took my expertise and I transformed that into an income stream.

[00:03:04] Caterina Rando: Now, Shelby, I’m very excited to talk to you about the idea of taking our idea, transforming it to income, because I have what many entrepreneurs have.

[00:03:16] This is a malady that can be very debilitating in your life. It’s what I call “brilliant idea syndrome.” Not to be confused with bright, shiny object syndrome, which is outside of yourself. So many great ideas coming your way.

[00:03:33] Brilliant idea syndrome is when you have so many great ideas in your own head that you want to see in the world.

[00:03:39] Now, I know a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from this. So my first question before we even talk about how to take the idea and transform it to income is how do you decide with all your brilliant ideas which ideas are monetizable?

[00:03:56] Shelby Jo Long: I think there’s two answers to that question. First of all, it’s an internal introspection and it should be either the thing that you are most passionate about or the transformation that you want to make or the cause that you want to connect to.

[00:04:11] What are you most passionate about? Cause you are going to be Most passionate about building that business that might not be the easiest path to build a business, but it is the one you’re going to be excited about it. You’re going to be focused on it.

[00:04:23] I call that your genius zone. When we’re working in our genius zone, we operate at a much higher efficiency. We get things done faster. We’re passionate about it. We want to do it. And then when it comes to fruition, other things always emerge.

[00:04:38] However, I do recognize that having all those ideas in your head, maybe you’re passionate about a lot of things.

[00:04:43] There is a way to put all of those together into an overall strategy.

[00:04:47] Caterina Rando: So if I have lots of brilliant ideas. What do I do with all those brilliant ideas before I make a decision?

[00:04:56] Shelby Jo Long: Write them all down. Figure out which one you’re most passionate about, go through each one of them, talk about the possibilities of monetization, talk about what sphere you already have, what access of network you already have, to be able to make those ideas come into fruition.

[00:05:13] And think about what strategically is going to be the best place to start.

[00:05:17] It’s what you’re most passionate about. It’s where you have the most resources. And it’s where you can begin earning money right away. And then your other things can come later.

[00:05:26] Because it’s got to be about revenue. Because there’s a lot of great ideas out there. And we build businesses out of great ideas. But if you don’t have revenue attached to it, they’re not going to go very far.

[00:05:36] So you’ve got to think, What is the fastest way to revenue first? I would say that and this is a method I teach is that put them all on a piece of paper, have it all visually in front of you when you write them down, they become more of a reality and then you can actually see it and you can write things out and and discover the possibilities there.

[00:05:58] That’s what I say.

[00:05:59] Caterina Rando: Okay, that’s good because I always tell gals “your brain is not a filing cabinet.” take it everything out. Don’t say it’s in your head. Put it down on paper. I love it. I love that Shelby.

[00:06:11] And the other thing is that yes, we want to look at what is the fastest path to cash.

[00:06:19] Beautiful. So Shelby, let’s say our listeners have made a decision of what the idea is that they are going to pursue. Okay, now how do they go? What are the steps for them to go from idea to income?

[00:06:37] Shelby Jo Long: Well, that’s what my whole thing is about. That’s what my book is about. That’s what my program is about. It comes down to four major things.

[00:06:45] So who you are, who you serve, what’s your idea, what’s your message?

[00:06:49] Your idea, and the steps of your idea. When we are experts and we have a genius idea, there’s a difference between the idea and teaching that idea to somebody else. So you’ve got to articulate the steps in the process so you can teach that idea to somebody else. So you can make sure that their client journey is articulated so we know how to present it.

[00:07:13] So brand, idea, and the implementation strategy, you’ve got to think about how to position yourself as an expert in that field so people will pay you for that expertise or pay you for that idea, and it has a lot to do with positioning and has a lot to do with your network.

[00:07:32] So you’ve got to think about the implementation strategies.

[00:07:34] And then finally, it’s building a community and building a community around a transformation is something that, especially in thought leadership areas, or even, even any business. A business transaction is about some sort of transformation in your life or transformation in your lifestyle.

[00:07:54] So once that is articulated and you can walk other people through that process, people will see the value or very simple steps, but there’s a lot involved with them.

[00:08:04] Caterina Rando: Let’s hang out there a little bit because I’m a big fan of building community. What are some of the things you see, Shelby, that are the things that work great? A couple things that work great for building community and a couple things that don’t work so great for building community.

[00:08:22] Shelby Jo Long: Sure. Well, first of all, you got to have a space. So it can be a Facebook community. It can be a LinkedIn community. It can be a Slack community. It can be whatever community you want.

[00:08:31] But you have to have a space. That’s first and foremost.

[00:08:35] And you can really exceed if you have a space and where you can have these conversations and create that community because the people in the community are going to support other people in the community and your ideas and they’re going to feed into the transformation.

[00:08:51] That’s very important.

[00:08:53] The place where I see people failing at this is having a community and not engaging the community enough. And being active in that community and making sure that you’re engaging other people in that community.

[00:09:07] If you’re just feeding a bunch of information and just trying to sell to the community all the time, that’s not a way to create a connection.

[00:09:13] Way to create a connection is providing value and relationships and developing strategic partnerships in that community. There are many ways to strategically engage a community, and that’s not just creating a community you can sell to.

[00:09:27] I don’t think it matters where you host it, where you have it, whether it’s a private group on Facebook or, or it’s in a Slack group or whatever, just make sure that you are engaging.

[00:09:37] Caterina Rando: And Shelby, what you’re talking about here is online community. Do you do things on zoom with your community?

[00:09:45] Shelby Jo Long: Absolutely. Zoom is a vehicle that you can use to engage the community, but you’ve got to feed your community somewhere. So yes, Zoom, it absolutely is.

[00:09:55] Caterina Rando: Wonderful. Okay, Shelby. So we’re building the community. We’re getting going with our idea. What are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve seen when somebody is trying to go from idea to income or monetization?

[00:10:10] Shelby Jo Long: Trying to tackle too much.

[00:10:12] I mean, I think the biggest problem that people have is that we put out proposals and we put out ideas and we try to, you know, change the world. And we try to tackle way too much with one transaction.

[00:10:24] The more focused you keep it, when you focus on a transformation and not 15 transformations, you have to accomplish one before you can get to the longer term commitment.

[00:10:36] So focus on one, have success there, and then build your higher ticket program from there.

[00:10:42] Trying to tackle too much from the very beginning. You’ve gotta build your credibility. You’ve got to have some engagement. You’ve got to have some of that going on before you get to, you know, doctors don’t become doctors overnight.

[00:10:55] You don’t also become an expert in your area overnight, even though you might be. But you’ve got to convince your community that and your potential clients that you are that.

[00:11:05] Caterina Rando: That’s a really good thing for everyone to have attention on. So let me ask you this question, Shelby, having worked with many people, what have you found has made the superstars? What have you found has really worked for people to go from idea to income?

[00:11:28] Shelby Jo Long: Focus on the brand. The brand is, is who you are, who you serve, and what transformation you offer. But your brand comes with a package, it comes in a story. It comes in a transformation offer that you have, and the people that have really put thought into that and develop that into their storylines. And telling the story and creating that genuine connection is what helps that authenticity come through and helps you create the biggest impact in the space that you want to.

[00:11:58] Because there’s a lot of coaches out there. There’s a lot of people out there that are trying to transform their idea into income. The instant consultant post COVID, right?

[00:12:07] So it’s a, there’s a lot out there and what differentiates you is the story you tell and the differentiating factors that you have within your brand.

[00:12:17] Caterina Rando: Okay, great. So Shelby, let’s say some one of our listeners or some of our listeners here today. They’re saying, “okay, Shelby, that sounds good. I want to focus on my brand. I want to elevate my brand. I want to be my authentic self so people will connect with my brand.” How do we do that? How do we amplify our brand in a way that will have our people, meaning our ideal clients be drawn to us?

[00:12:45] Shelby Jo Long: I think there’s an introspection piece of it, but I also think it’s important to work with people that have done it and the work for the people that do it.

[00:12:53] And many of us are solo entrepreneurs, but it’s hard to stay in our genius space when we’re solo entrepreneurs. But if you recognize that, “Hey, I can partner with somebody or I can, I can make sure that I can have somebody else build my website so I’m not agonizing over it” or what have you. Stay in the zone where you are performing at your highest capacity and highest efficiency.

[00:13:20] Find someone else that has done it for you. I have worked with hundreds of genius entrepreneurs to be able to transform their ideas into income. I don’t do everything. Neither should you.

[00:13:33] You should stay in that zone where you are operating at your highest efficiency and talk to people who have has successful marketing campaigns. Talk to other people about website development. You can manage that.

[00:13:46] I think partnerships is key and that includes you just have to trust yourself and then trust others to help you. So that would be the short answer to that.

[00:13:56] Caterina Rando: Okay, good. So Shelby, what you’re saying then is the way I would say it is do what’s the highest and best use of your time, which is staying in your genius zone.

[00:14:04] And then Have all those other people that do their genius. Like you said, the web person, the marketing implementer person all those things, graphic design. I always makes me laugh when people are telling me they’re spending hours on Canva. Yeah, it’s easy to use, but it’s not the highest and best use of your time if you’re not a graphic designer.

[00:14:28] Okay, good. This is important for anybody in any business to keep looking at this, how to stay in your genius zone. Okay, good. We’re doing that.

[00:14:37] Shelby, we’re thriving. What are some things that you have seen that you wish, like you wish you knew before that, you know, now.  You’ve been doing your thing for quite a while. It’s like, I wish I knew when I started this and now I have more attention on this and I want my clients to have more attention on this. What might that be?

[00:15:01] Shelby Jo Long: I would say and this is inspired. I I’m getting into the PR space and the branding, like elevate your brand be in front of more people space.

[00:15:11] I am a speaker. I’m a communication professional. That’s what I do. I’ve been teaching it forever.

[00:15:15] I would say that I wish I would have been on the professional speaking circuit a lot earlier. Because video and speaking, that’s where you can actually connect with people and let your authentic genius come out in front of people and people will seek you for those solutions.

[00:15:32] I wish I would have done that earlier. And that’s why I put this authentic genius program together to be able to help people do that in a much reduced time commitment to it.

[00:15:46] So get out and do speaking, do your TEDx, do your keynote, make sure you have your video reels, make sure that you have your credible publications.

[00:15:55] Do you have a book that you can add credibility to? Are you co author of a book? Are you in magazine articles?

[00:16:02] Those things I piece together along the way and I’ve refined that into a program that where we can bring all of those assets and resources to people. And I would say, start video sooner and start building that content much sooner.

[00:16:18] Caterina Rando: So Shelby, that means don’t wait until you feel like you’re the super expert. Start today wherever you are. Beautiful. I love that.

[00:16:28] Shelby Jo Long: And once you’re in this space where you’re actually working, you won’t have time to build the content. So build it now.

[00:16:34] Caterina Rando: That’s true. That’s true. Also, Shelby, I 1000 percent agree. Speak, speak, and speak some more. If you don’t think you’re good, that’s because you haven’t done it enough. And the more you do it, the better you’re going to get.

[00:16:46]  Speaking is an amazing solution to grow your business and create more visibility for your brand.

[00:16:52] Shelby, so much exciting things we’ve discussed today. So much thought provoking information that you have shared. Shelby, tell everyone how they can connect with you.

[00:17:02] Shelby Jo Long: Yes, connect with me. My website is shelbyjolong. com. I also have a program, “my authentic genius program,” “my genius entrepreneur program” is on there. Please follow me on LinkedIn and Facebook. I am active in those spaces. It’s a very important to build your credibility through your social media.

[00:17:21] So I definitely have done that in many spaces so please follow me, Shelby Jo Long, just find me on social media, connect with me. And I’d love to set you in the right direction for your brand strategy.

[00:17:33] Caterina Rando: Shelby, thank you. Before we wrap up, any final words of wisdom for our listeners?

[00:17:40] Shelby Jo Long: Just do it. Just get out and start.

[00:17:43] If you have an idea you’re gonna introduce it into the marketplace and it’s gonna change. And your methods will change, your idea will be malleable and adapt to the market, but you don’t know it until you actually introduce it to the audience. So just do it.

[00:17:59] Caterina Rando: Love it Shelby. My favorite quote of all time is “action is the antidote to despair” from Joan Baez, American folk singer who I believe is now 82 and just released an album. Bing, bing, bing.

[00:18:15] My friends, you heard it from Shelby: get in massive action so that you can take your ideas and turn them into income.

[00:18:23] Remember, you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Go out there, speak, start your community. Engage with your community so you can sell more, serve more, and most importantly, uplift more lives with your amazing self. Shelby, thanks for being with us today. We will be with you again very soon on the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Listen to our over 150 other episodes. So that you can expand your fempire more. Thanks everybody!

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.

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