Keri Childers - Thought Leader Connection
One of the great things about being in business and meeting other entrepreneurs in business is a common feeling of striving for growth. Of working on yourself and your business to contribute to the betterment of your business, society, you as a person, your employees, your clients and a huge push that there is always more than what you believe you can do.
I was reminded of this while chatting with Keri Childers. Keri started the Thought Leader Connection, to help authors and public speakers with topics around the leadership and business world to spread their knowledge and do a little something to make the world a better place.
Listen as Keri explains the process for authors and public speakers and the little nuggets of wisdom that she has gained from working with some brilliant minds alongside her own brilliant mind.
Enjoy!
Visit Keri at: https://kerichilders.com/
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You have found
Authentic Business Adventures,
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the business program that brings you
the struggle
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stories and triumphs and successes
of business owners across the land.
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Audio podcast episodes can be found
at the podcast link at drawincusmers.com. Of
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course, you can download those for free,
and free is a good price, right?
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We are locally underwritten
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.
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My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur,
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author, speaker, and helpful coach to
small business owners across the country.
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And today we're welcoming/preparing
to learn from Keri Childers,
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the founder and owner of I love this name,
Thought Leader Connection.
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So how cool is that?
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Keri, how are you doing today?
Great.
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How are you?
I'm doing very well.
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I'm excited,
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if for no other reason than
Thought Leader Connection is just about
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the coolest name of a business
I've ever heard.
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Also TLC, tender loving care.
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Was that intentional or
did that just happen?
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After we did that, somebody pointed it out
to me and I was like, wow,
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because that totally is how I intend
to do business, with tender love and care.
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So it kind of worked.
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All right, so what is
the Thought Leader Connection?
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Sure.
I work with authors and speakers.
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I help them with their book launch
campaigns and to formulate what they
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exactly talk about so that we can
communicate clearly to meeting planners
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what they're going to come
in and talk about.
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I do a lot of niche conversations,
so if there's a meeting planner that's not
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looking for a broad topic that everybody
speaks to, but something more niche
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for their audience, I'm a person that can
usually find that content for them.
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All right.
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So I take care of the speakers, and I take
care of the meeting planners on both sides.
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Interesting.
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All right,
tell me about the speakers because
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I guess that's a journey that I started
to go down, but then I had a kid.
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So that just changes
your speaking schedule.
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Yes.
It's a hard job if you've got little ones
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at home because you're on the road
if you're going to be successful.
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Yeah, I tried. I started to go down that road.
I always thought it'd be cool to be
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a stand up comic as well,
but I'm probably not that funny.
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I work with a stand up comedian also so. Do you really?
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I do. Paul Ollinger is his name.
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Trying to get him gigs or
how do you work with him?
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I only help him on the booking back end
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side, so I don't do any prospect
for him, but just help him.
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But he also does an incredibly niche
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keynote for his podcast is
called Crazy Money Podcast.
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I don't know if you've heard of it.
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He has some niche content for people who,
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when they get to I don't want to say
the end of their careers,
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but potentially at a point where they want
to bot sell out and leave what they're
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doing and capitalize on their
part ownership or what have you.
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Then how do you live a fulfilling life
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with all of the money that you've
just all of a sudden gotten?
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And how do you live a fulfilling life
when you're no longer going to work?
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Because we all want to live with purpose.
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We all enjoy working and providing
us give back to the community.
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So he talks to people about finding true
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happiness, which we all know
can't be found in money.
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And how do you do that on the other side
of a career once you've cashed out.
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Again, niche content.
Yeah.
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Niche content. This is from a comedian?
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And he also does comedy.
Yes.
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All right.
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So he incorporates that into his keynotes
and makes it just a lot of fun to hear.
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Oh, very cool.
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So how did you get in this business?
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Was this something that you just were
in the industry for a while and said,
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Screw this, so I can do
a better job or something?
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Just tell me your story.
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How do you get started here?
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So my husband made me do it,
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and I love to tell that story, but I
started back in 1999 with John Maxwell.
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I'm not sure if you're familiar
but he's a big speaker now.
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So worked with him with speaking
and book launch campaigns.
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And then, like you,
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I had some children and stepped
out of the career for a while.
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I came back when my youngest was three
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and was working underneath
a great friend of mine.
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We did a lot of New York Times bestseller
campaigns and had a lot of fun doing that.
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And then I had a little detour, actually,
and went to work at my kids school
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for seven years, which was
fantastic because as a mom.
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Yeah.
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Getting the break for Christmas
and Thanksgiving.
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That's a hard left out of what
you were doing, right?
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Yes, yes.
But, you know,
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I wanted to be with the kids,
and the book launch campaigns are a blast,
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but it was a good 50,
60 hours work week, for sure.
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All right, so the school schedule
was a lot better for a mom.
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And then we, five years ago,
moved to Midlothian, Virginia,
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and I was trying to think,
what am I going to do here?
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I didn't want to start all
the way over in a career.
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I was 43 at the time, and my husband said,
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go do the book launch campaigns
and work with the speakers.
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Just do it on your own.
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And I was scared to death
to start a business on my own.
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Definitely shaking in my boots.
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My kids got to see me crying one night,
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rejoicing the next night,
the whole journey of the entrepreneur.
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But it has been a blast,
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and I feel so thankful to work with these
just incredibly top shelf clients.
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I'm around leadership constantly,
so all of the folks I work with are always
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working to improve themselves,
help other people serve the community.
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So it's been a real joy,
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but definitely ups and downs, getting
the business up and off the ground.
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Nice.
You know, it's interesting you worked
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for John Maxwell because his name came up
a few times with some different guests.
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But I remember.
I wrote my book.
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The Bold Business Book.
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I think it was published in 2017.
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I remember going to a bookstore,
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looking in the business section just
to see what my competition was,
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and I'm pretty sure John Maxwell
had half that area.
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Absolutely.
Yeah.
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There you go.
Hundreds of books.
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It seemed like I don't know a lot.
Yeah.
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So he was doing that before
I got there in 1999.
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So the years and years of author.
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Nice.
Yeah.
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So you hung your shingle out and you're
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like, hey, I'm going
to help these authors.
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How do you get found by the authors?
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Because there's probably.
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Yeah, it's very interesting
because I do no marketing.
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So, again, I know it's crazy.
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Back to the TLC.
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My heart is that anytime I sit in front
of somebody, I'm going to do everything
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in my power to serve them
to the best of my abilities.
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I don't think about the money to be made.
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I think about what is the audience need
and who can I best connect them to,
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what is the author need
and how do I best serve them?
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And quite frankly,
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I feel like that business model has
just produced a long waiting list.
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I've never not had a waiting
list of people to work with.
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Why?
I do zero marketing.
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So it's all relationship based,
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trust based, and word of mouth, which has
been an incredible blessing, for sure.
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Yeah.
That's really incredible.
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No marketing at all.
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