Author to Authority

This episode of Author to Authority podcast dives into how to leverage LinkedIn Lead Generation for success. Hosts Kim Thompson-Pinder and Scott Aaron discussed the importance of having a professional profile picture, optimizing content, leveraging the LinkedIn Bell Notification, and providing value to potential customers. They also highlighted the importance of building relationships on the platform and leveraging video content. Moreover, they discussed how entrepreneurs, professionals, coaches, and speakers can use LinkedIn to generate leads and increase sales. All of these insights can direct authors on how to use books to build their authority and grow their business. 

(00:00:00) LinkedIn Lead Generation
(00:06:21) LinkedIn Networking Strategies
(00:11:48) Ring Your Bell on LinkedIn
(00:17:25) LinkedIn Bell Notification
(00:22:33) Building Relationships on LinkedIn
(00:27:31) Optimizing LinkedIn Sales
(00:32:27) Author to Authority

This episode of Author to Authority explored how to stand out from the competition by Thinking Differently and Differentiating Through Thinking. Kim Thompson-Pinder, host of the podcast, provided her audience with actionable advice on how to write and publish a book that will establish them as an authority in their field. She discussed the dedication and perseverance needed to write a book, as well as the potential rewards it could bring. With her advice, entrepreneurs, professionals, speakers, and coaches can make headway towards creating a book that will reach past their prospects' intellect and into their imagination.

(00:00:00) Thinking Differently to Sell
(00:05:37) Differentiating Yourself as a Coach
(00:10:18) Differentiating Through Thinking
(00:14:37) The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Publishing
(00:19:42) Writing a Book
(00:24:22) Writing a Book

This episode of the podcast highlights the power of referral marketing for businesses, emphasizing the importance of trust and relationships. Mike Garrison and Kim Thompson-Pinder explain how proper commercial sales training, risk mitigation, and the "Can I Borrow Your Car?" concept all help to build trust and secure more customers. Moreover, Christianity and referrals are intertwined in Mike's story, emphasizing the power of relationships and the importance of treating others with respect. This episode provides listeners with key strategies to help them succeed in referral marketing and grow their businesses. 

Episode Outline:

(00:00:00) Referrals and Christianity 

(00:06:40) Building Referral Networks 

(00:12:29) Can I Borrow Your Car? 

(00:17:14) Giving Referrals Mindset 

(00:23:07) Risk Mitigation in Referrals 

(00:28:39) Referral System Overview

Description:

Entrepreneur and online trainer, Mark Struczewski, known as Mr. Productivity, shares his expertise on how to gain control of time and take business to the next level. Struczewski explains that planning time intentionally, structuring daily time, and relaxation techniques are all important for achieving productivity and success. He offers live training sessions, a podcast, and coaching services to equip entrepreneurs with the necessary tools for personal development. Furthermore, Struczewski emphasizes the importance of reading for success and learning as an entrepreneur. His website, mrproductivity.com, provides five top productivity tips to boost performance. Applying these strategies can help entrepreneurs reach their optimum performance. 

 Episode Outline:

(00:00:00) Becoming Mr. Productivity

(00:06:16) Planning Time Intentionally 

(00:11:16) Structuring Daily Time

(00:16:17) Relaxation Techniques 

(00:21:37) Reading for Success 

(00:26:44) Learning as an Entrepreneur 

(00:32:08) Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurs

Description: 

This episode of the podcast offers entrepreneurs and professionals an opportunity to take their business to the next level by creating a digital product. From a one-off video master class to an array of modules, the episode breaks down how to monetize services, write digital products, and create a Value Ladder. It provides the tools and strategies to write a book quickly and outlines how to create a successful business model by creating a series of products or services that increase in value. With this podcast, entrepreneurs can gain the expertise and knowledge needed to launch their success.

 Episode Outline:

(00:00:00) Creating a Digital Product

(00:06:07) Getting Out of the Friend Zone

(00:11:08) Creating Digital Products 

(00:16:14) Writing a Digital Product

(00:20:57) Writing a Book Quickly

(00:25:40) Creating a Value Ladder

This episode of the Author to Authority podcast emphasizes the importance of having a clear purpose and taking action quickly to achieve desired results. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to focus on providing value to their customers, prioritize their efforts, and make meaningful connections. Additionally, the episode focuses on concepts such as Finding a Critical Number, Daily Minimums, Successful Business Systems, Building a Successful Business, and Creating a Book. These concepts emphasize the importance of understanding the numbers behind a business, setting daily minimums, creating a system to achieve desired results, taking risks to build a successful business, and dedicating time and effort to create a book. Finally, it encourages listeners to believe in themselves and take action quickly to achieve success.

Chris is typically thinking about building 3 things at any given moment: a life-long marriage, world impacting family and multi-million dollar businesses. The last three businesses Chris has started have done over $1 million each per year in revenue. In the last 10 years of being self-employed and employing others, he attributes Purpose Driven Prospecting as his key skill to solve problems and add value to others. Chris has thrived in B2B sales, B2C sales, and sales in numerous industries. He was recently featured in a new best seller in 9 different categories called 'Million Dollar Dads'. While business is growing, so is his family! Chris is a father of two boys and a new baby girl. Outside of business, Chris and his wife, Beth, competed on the hit TV Show American Ninja Warrior. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbaden-55/

www.flowchat.com

 

Episode Timestamps:

 

(00:00:02) Purpose Driven Prospecting

(00:07:04) Finding Critical Number

(00:13:20) Daily Minimums

(00:19:06) Successful Business Systems

(00:24:56) Building a Successful Business

(00:30:57) Creating a Book

(00:36:31) Creating Clarity in Business

Transcript

00:00:02 - Speaker A

You are an entrepreneur, a professional, a speaker, or a coach. And although you've come a long way, it's time for you to take it to the next level. We've got you. This is the author to authority podcast. We'll help you use authority and influencer marketing to build your business stronger and faster by publishing a book. You'll hear from guests that are thought leaders in sales, marketing, networking, communication, social media, promotion, and business leadership. Let's do it. This is the author to authority podcast. And now your host, the extraordinary word ninja, Kim Thompson Pender.

 00:00:55 - Speaker B

Welcome to the author to authority podcast. I'm your host, Kim Thompson Tinder, and I am so excited to announce that in August, we will be having the 400th episode of the Author to Authority Podcast. And in celebration of that, I have decided to do the top 25 episodes of The Author to Authority Podcast for the whole summer. And we will celebrate the fourth hundred about mid August. So there'll be a couple of episodes after that. And I chose these episodes because they were the ones that I just personally felt were the ones that gave tremendous amount of value, that were going to help you as an entrepreneur, professional, a speaker, a coach to move your business forward. These were value packed episodes that are just going to give you action steps that are just going to really propel you to the next level. So I'd love for you to sit back, relax, and enjoy this top 25 episode today. I am so excited to have Chris Baden back with us. And on the last episode, we covered so much that we actually didn't get to some of the things that we were supposed to cover. And Chris told his story, and he can touch on it a little bit today, just as a review. But we wanted to talk about purpose driven prospecting, and we did start to touch on that, but he never actually got a chance to share the main points that he wanted to. Plus, we didn't even get a chance to talk about his book. So we're going to continue the conversation today. So welcome back to the show, Chris.

00:02:59 - Speaker C

Kim, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to hang out and we'll get into some more of the tactical and the training and the tools that people can take in their world with them today, right now, and start seeing results. So I'm excited for that.

 00:03:15 - Speaker B

So Chris, why don't you just give us a brief introduction to yourself because maybe people didn't listen to the last episode.

 00:03:22 - Speaker C

Yeah, so I got thrown into commerce ten years ago and I've been commission only, employing myself and others for the last ten years of my life. And it has been fun and exciting and painful and scary and all this slew of emotion that I'm sure you listening or watching this right now have felt. Entrepreneurship is great, but it is also very challenging and very hard. And in the second month of my entrepreneurial journey, I'm working 70 plus hours a week for the whole month. And I made $800 for the whole month. And I learned an important lesson that shaped the rest of my journey so far. And that is I don't get paid to work. I get paid to produce results. And the way that I produce results is I have to get results for other people. I have to get results for the market that I serve. Business is just a systematic way of delivering a product or service. But the experience that you create in the business, but also the experience you create for your prospects and your customers, is the art. And that's the how. And so it's purpose driven prospecting. It's starting those conversations and it's leading into this experience that makes you stand out in the marketplace. But more importantly, it creates a culture and environment that you absolutely love. And so in the first two months of my journey, learning that I get paid to produce results and the way that I do that is produce results for others, it taught me a hard lesson, and it's very humbling. And you have to be very honest with yourself. Am I doing that or not? And if you're not, then you go back to work and figure it out and come back the next day when you're ready.

 00:05:15 - Speaker B

I loved what you said there and how you shifted your focus to not just selling a product or a service, but obtaining a result. And I think especially people who are in service based entrepreneurship, you have to get results for other people because that's your product.

 
00:05:43 - Speaker C

Yeah, and there might be some people listening. Wealth, health, and relationships are kind of the three main markets wealth, health, and relationships. If you throw any business at me, they will fall into at least one of those areas predominantly. And so even somebody that is in, say, the relationship market, it's like, well, how do you measure intangibles like love or more connection, and you can still tie it to certain patterns. What I'm saying here is don't let any mindset or thought take you out of what result you create, because that result will help you focus on why you're doing what you're doing, why you're sacrificing time from your family, why you're putting yourself out there and dealing with loads of rejection so it'll remind you what you're doing. It'll help your whole team focus on the actual right thing. So you'll dramatically reduce the sideways energy and frustration with team, and you'll also be able to market with full conviction on exactly what you're doing. Why does that matter? It matters because guess what? Nothing sells harder than the truth. People love hearing it. You don't need to convince anybody because it's true. They already know it to be true. And for you, it feels so much better. There's no resistance or anxiety that you have throughout your sales or marketing process, you have full peace in your heart inside, and therefore full conviction to go out and share that you're building and sharing and growing from a place of peace internally rather than complete utter chaos and turmoil. And it turns out people don't really want more of that in their life, so they don't want to buy from you when you're in that place. This all said, if you're in relationships, if it's marriage counseling specifically, hey, before I talked to this married couple, the last date night was six months ago. Now, they are consistently going on one date night per week, and they're saying I love you x amount times more. They're holding hands or kissing more throughout the day compared to what they were before. You might think I'm crazy or weird, and I'm not saying that's the best or right answer for marriage counseling or relationship, but I'm just saying that there's always going to be some type of outcome behavior or result shift because of the service or work that you're doing.

 00:08:21 - Speaker B

Yeah, there's something tangible. There's a tangible result. And by doing all of those things, they now have a stronger marriage. They now have a stronger relationship. They now feel more connected to each other. But the tangibles are holding hands, saying I love you, and going on date.

 00:08:42 - Speaker C

Nights like when we just got married or first started. Yeah, that's exactly the point. So anyone listening? I hope that if there's only one takeaway that you get so far, it's that, hey, some people will call those KPIs key performing indicators. It's your one critical number. And if you feel chaotic like, oh, there's too much going on. I got to do everything that's completely normal for any business owner entrepreneur. Know that you're not alone, and your saving grace will be that one critical number that gives you the permission to let those other things be set aside rather than you put them in the junk drawer or the junk room and you close the door and you try to pretend that it's not there. But meanwhile, in the back of your mind and emotionally, it's sucking all the energy from you by focusing on your one KPI, your one critical number. Hey, you know what? I closed x amount of deals, or we moved the company forward in the right direction. And when that happens, everything else is taken care of. You can give yourself mental, emotional, and physical time permission to not carry that negative or sideways energy. A great example to kind of close on this point is southwest. You know what Southwest's critical number is?

 00:10:02 - Speaker B

What's Southwest and what is their critical number?

 00:10:05 - Speaker C

Great question. Southwest airlines sorry, should have put the Southwest airlines very, very good company to evaluate. And their big number one critical number is they say it in a phrase wheels up. Wheels up, meaning if the wheels are up on a plane, that means that the plane is taking off and they're serving their customers. And for wheels to be up, you need to manage the pilots and the crew and the flight attendants. Maintenance team needs to be on point. So to make sure they're on time, it's the one thing that pulls everyone together. Hey, if we create this one result, hey, this is on fire. That's broken, someone's pissed about this, and that person needs to be fired, or this person just had a horrible life situation and now we got to fill. There's always going to be some type. This is a business, for crying out this is the giant project we're talking about. Of course things are going to be messy, but if you have that one thing happening, hey, you at least know that you're going to live and earn the right to keep playing this game of business for another day.

 00:11:12 - Speaker B

Sort of reminds me of Peretto's Principle, that 80% of your results come from 20% of your action. And so if you can determine what's that 20% that drives your business forward, that produces 80% of your results, you can get rid of the 80% of things that are dragging you down, wearing out your energy, and not producing much.

 00:11:43 - Speaker C

Yes, that's it. I think the lie is that we have to do it all. The lie is that we have to do everything, and the truth is we can't. No, but we live in between that lie and that truth, and it's gray and it's painful and it's emotional turmoil, and so it's just having somebody say, maybe that's just what someone needed to hear today is just, hey, you know what? Here's permission to reset. Focus on one number, assess how you serve the business, and to accomplish something greater than yourself, it takes more than yourself. John Maxwell says it great. Hey, if you can ask for help or you can give up on your vision. The reason that your vision is overwhelming you, because it's greater than you. And it's not meant for you to do alone. It's meant for you to welcome others into that picture. And that's part of you're given the canvas, and that's your one color, and there's more colors that will be needed to paint the business and the service that you're putting together. So plenty of analogies, right? We could do this all day. I think the promise here is where do we start? How do we apply some of this stuff? And while we can this is my opinion good, bad, right or wrong, the last ten years of life has humbled me and taught me that I cannot control a lot of things, and I also can't control results. I cannot control when somebody decides to buy and when they decide not to buy, for whatever reason. I can lead a horse to water, so to speak, but I can't make them drink. But there are ways we can give the horse some salt to make them thirsty, so maybe they're more likely to drink. And I got a lot of analogies for some reason today, but hopefully this is making sense with everyone listening, watching today. So let me give you some salt. While we can't control results, we can control activity. We can control activity. I don't get paid to work. I get paid to produce results. The way that I produce results is I produce results for others and I talk to as many freaking people as I can because I got to go find the best person that I can get results for, and that's my and or my company's responsibility. And so I boil that down into activity I can control. And write this word down, daily minimum.

 00:14:34 - Speaker B

I like that.

 00:14:35 - Speaker C

What is your daily minimum? Daily minimum is a standard. In other words, you do not go below the daily minimum or there's problems. Right. Do not go below the daily minimum. Now for me currently, that is 15 new outreaches per day, five days a week, 15 new people that fit a set of criteria every single day. And I started doing that myself.

 00:15:07 - Speaker B

Nice.

 00:15:08 - Speaker C

And then it led to follow up and a lot of conversations and then even more phone calls. And then now I'm trying to do all of it, but then also run a company and it was way too much. And so I started building team and system, and so now I have a team that does outreach of 15 new people per day. It's my daily minimum, right? Can't dip below that. Dip below that. Hey, what happened? What fell apart? I can track that activity and I can tell you how many new people I talk to and can tell you how many people will respond. I can tell you how many people will book a call. I can tell you how many people will show up and then how many people will buy. I have my sales process, and every business needs to have their own sales process. And you need to be able to see your KPIs, your key performing indicators, which are really your activity indicators. And when you simply look at these and I have it up, I can share, screen and show people a rough process that I go through. If that's easier for people watching, I'm a visual person, but if not, I can talk through it in a simple way too. What do you think would work best, Kim?

 

 

00:16:12 - Speaker B

Well, show it and talk through it because this is on video and podcast as well.

 

 

00:16:16 - Speaker C

I guess it's that early bird gets the worm if podcast listeners. Hey, if you come to the Facebook group, you get to see it first and also see.

 

 

00:16:25 - Speaker B

YouTube as well.

 

 

00:16:27 - Speaker C

And YouTube. Okay. I think those share buttons on your side just changing like the videos. There it is. Okay, so you can see we do a three day sales planning intensive with our high ticket clients. This is what we go through. So this is a tool that will be provided to you guys for free. So you guys can use this. And please, by all means, use this. Increase and track your activity, impact your life in a positive way with this, not just for you, but for your relationships that are around you, for your team, for your community, for your state, for your country. I know that might sound dramatic or intense, but come on. Life is about more than just us. And we do affect more people. And it starts with discipline focused, result oriented activity that we can control. So day one, we're going to focus on day three. But day one is a really powerful have do be exercise. What do I want to have? What do I want to do? And who do I want to be? And you write those things down and you write roughly how much they cost. Some people, this really surprises. Oh, my gosh. All the things I wanted aren't nearly as much as I wanted. Whoa. They're way more than I thought. I got to get to work. But it gives you that relativity and it calculates the year before. Then once you know that number, you would essentially go to day two or the second part. And I know this is kind of small, but it's okay. You'll be able to see this whole thing with the link that's provided. Now you know how much you need to generate to live the life that you want. You would simply say, well, I got to create a business that generates a net profit of that or more. And this process will say, hey, what are the products and services that I'm selling and what amount of quantity to hit that goal? Just simply put. And then that ultimately leads to, okay, well, to generate a business that creates that type of results, what type of activities do I need to create? And so this is just a generic pipeline that we can look at. So I can give you some ideas of what maybe your daily minimums need to be in order to accomplish what you'd like. So hopefully that's a very simple to follow, logical process. But I want to draw your attention to here. This is really important. How do you know if your daily minimums are working properly or the right way? Well, what I'm giving you here are ranges. So if you're converting at these particular ranges, let me zoom in a little bit so it's easier to see it's so small. There we go. This is much better. If you look here at the ten to 40%, if you look here at the 20% to 50%, in the second phase, 70 to 90, what these are, are the ranges of what conversion you should be creating at a certain point in your pipeline. So let's walk through this together. As an example, let's say that this month. You want another? How many clients do you want, Kim? A hundred thousand?

 

 

00:19:38 - Speaker B

Let's say six.

 

 

00:19:41 - Speaker C

Six clients. Okay, well, let's play with this and notice below the range. I just put a percentage that's right in the middle of the range. So let's say conversion is average for all of these, and we want six new clients. Let's type in 1000 leads, 1000 outreaches. Well, that gets you 14 clients. Okay, so not 1000. I guess it'd be roughly half, right? Let's try 608. Let's try 507. I went the wrong way. Okay, so 400. Yeah, six. So I went 100 above half. Anyway, I'm getting all spun up in numbers in my head, but we got it. So six clients. So we just need to do 400 outreaches. And so if there's 30 days in a month, we take 400 divided by 30, that's just 13 new outreaches. 13.3. So call it 14 outreaches per day. That's it. You just need to reach out to 14 new people per day. And with that rate, if 25% of them say, hey, you know what? I will give you some form of communication, they become a lead. I'll give you some form of communication to continue the relationship. They would be a lead. And if only 25% of them said yes, you would have 100. Currently, ours is converting about 38.7%. You can tell I'm a little nerdy with numbers, and he's knowing our KPIs and activity is so important. But if it's just 25, that's 100. Of the 100, let's say 35%, say, yes, I'm going to jump on a call with you, and they book a call on your booking link. And of those 35, let's say only 80 actually show up, right? It'd be great if none of us got ghosted, but it happens. So that means we actually complete 28 calls. And if we only closed approximately 20%, that'd give us about six clients. Wow, there's some rounding up here, right?

 

 

00:21:45 - Speaker B

Yeah, of course.

 

 

00:21:47 - Speaker C

Because 10% is 2.8, but it gets you close. Maybe you need to do 412, but 14 new outreaches per day would get you six clients. Now you know your sales process. Now, here's the fun part, Kim. Let's say man, our outreaches man, we're getting 40% of people, so it's a lot higher. And our book calls are happening, but no one's showing up.

 

 

00:22:20 - Speaker B

We know exactly where it's broken.

 

 

00:22:23 - Speaker C

We know exactly where to go. There's no guesswork, people. Business is a systematic way of delivering a product and service. There's not any guesswork. So if you've ever had any amount of emotional or mental overwhelm or stress of wondering how you're going to make it or how you're going to hit your revenue goals, if you know your numbers and simply apply this sales activity projection here, it'll solve all that. You'll know exactly what you need to focus on and what outcome you need to see. So it takes all the guesswork out, which really frees up a lot of mental and emotional energy capacity. And then you start sleeping better, and then you start performing better, and then you're like here's something that I asked myself, Kim, because any given moment, I'm thinking about one of three things. Building a lifelong marriage, world impacting, family. I've got three kids under five and multi million dollar businesses, and what the world tells me is, Chris, you can't have it all.

 

 

00:23:29 - Speaker B

Yes, you can.

 

 

00:23:30 - Speaker C

You can't have successful see, I agree with you, but as, like, young Chris a while ago, and I still hear it today, hey, Chris, you can't have successful, healthy relationships. You can't be a husband, father, and know, run, I'd say, small to mid sized companies, companies that do seven to eight figures a year and revenue, right? You can't do that, Chris. And I didn't know anybody at the time that had ever even done that. So the world tells us all kind of stories, but something inside me said, that just feels like BS. It doesn't make sense to me. You're telling me that there's nobody on planet earth out of 7 billion plus people that haven't had a lifelong marriage that is healthy and passionate, that also has functioning society, contributing kids, and also has a successful business, meaning they're a quality leader showing up in a powerful, impactful way for their team? And you're telling me there's not one person on planet Earth that is that? See, that's where I went. Go ahead, Rick. Question. Or you're saying, I know somebody, or.

 

 

00:24:44 - Speaker B

You are that person, married 30 years to the same man, and we have a great marriage. I've got two wonderful, responsible, adult children, and my business may not be quite that big yet, but I run a successful business with.

 

 

00:25:03 - Speaker C

Thing. Hopefully, other people hear. What I continue to remind myself is, there you go, Kim's, doing it. It's possible. We've been only married seven years so far. We've got three kids, and it's, you know, first marriage, and and again, the goal is lifelong, passionate, fulfilling marriage and then building companies. I've I've built three companies in the last five years in three different industries that have done at least seven figures or more in sales. Per impossible. It was impossible to me. I was like, that doesn't even make sense. I don't even know anyone that's done that. But something inside me said, but come on, there's got to be at least one person. There's got to be at least more than one Kim in the world. And you know what? It wasn't but, like, a year, year and a half later where I found myself in a room where everybody was that there's in between 30 and 40 of them. It was a mastermind, right? But I was like, Now, I wasn't that yet, but I just found a way to get in the room. I was the odball, right? And I was like, wow, look at this. And then I met more and more and more. My point is, just be careful of the stories that you're telling yourself around who you are and what you can do or what's even possible, because what we believe often will dictate our trajectory. It's not our fault that we maybe have never seen what seems impossible to us, but it is our fault if we buy into something less than that.

 

 

00:26:47 - Speaker B

So true. We've got a few minutes left. So I've got one question for you on this wonderful worksheet, and then we want to get to your my one question is because people have a hard time getting started, so they look at this and they say, great. But I can already hear people in my head going, chris, what do you consider an outreach?

 

 

00:27:11 - Speaker C

Yeah, great question. Great question. A new contact. So, for example, specifically, what we're doing and what we're finding to be the highest quality, the most personable, the best connection is just reaching out on social, specifically Facebook, saying hi. You can look at their profile. You can see if they're potentially a good fit for what you're doing. And here's the thing. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Approach other people the way you want to be approached. That solves about 99% of the problems. Well, it's scary, and I don't know what to say. That's okay. Those can be solved. All that can be solved. And you know what? It's free.

 

 

00:28:05 - Speaker B

Yeah.

 

 

00:28:06 - Speaker C

So when we bring a new product to market, service to market, that's exactly what we do, because the cold market is the most honest. They'll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. They'll tell you why they love it, and they'll tell you why they hate it. And so we like to do that. What we did is we started doing outreach. And in fact, if I scroll down here, our first campaign of doing that type of outreach, what we know, you get one type of contact information. We just invited them to a Facebook group, and then we built some relationship. We had multiple steps in between here, but eventually when things were warm and we qualified the person enough via profiling and convert chat, we had invite them to a call, and we actually had 88% of people show up to our calls. And so we ended up getting 17 people into our high ticket mastermind. So this took about a six week period. We wrote just over $100,000 in business. We had no webinar. We had no funnels, we had no marketing. We had a Google Doc. We had a clear problem we solved, and we just started outreaching to people, and we followed up, and we built relationship, and we listened. And, yeah, after about six weeks, we wrote over $100,000 in business. And since we've refined the process and increased price and it's worked out well, eventually we'll probably do paid ads and summits and challenges and other things that are very powerful, very good. If you enjoy those things, look, all of them are good. All of them can work. How do you want to grow your business? We like to start with the least amount, hear me closely, the least amount of effort. Not in trying to get away with anything. It's just we got to move quickly. If we don't get revenue into the business, we're out of business.

 

 

00:29:59 - Speaker B

Some entrepreneurs, too, who have very extremely small, like your small entrepreneurs, your solopreneurs, and that what you have just said is golden because it costs no money to create a Facebook group. It costs time, some time to create content. But I usually block out like maybe a two or three hour window a week to create content for my groups and my one page. And one of some of the things I'm doing can be recycled through. So I'm building out a 90 day cycle of content that will just continually repeat because people forget it anyway. And you can do it and all it costs you is some time. Make those connections and get it out there.

 

 

00:30:50 - Speaker C

The answer is time or money. You can use your time or you can use your money. It's going to take one or both of those to grow. And here's a phrase that people, they don't talk about, everyone hears. Hey, it takes money to make money. It's a true statement. It's fine, it's true, but they don't tell you. The second part of that is in the clarifying part of that, which is he didn't say it has to be your money to make money. True. So you can raise capital. It's one option. It's not my go to. And so it takes money to make money. Why? It should be the market's money. It should be the customer's money. You solve a problem. You're giving your time to solve a problem. You do it so well. In exchange for that, they give you money. Now you have money, and you can use that money to make money if you really want. But I would start there. Another part of that that's really powerful is guess what? We're talking about a conversation. It's just a conversation.

 

 

00:31:48 - Speaker B

Yes.

 

 

00:31:48 - Speaker C

The best copywriters are the ones that pay you, not the ones you hire. Hey, here's why I'm paying you. Like, they'll be honest with you. They'll just tell you they're giving you all the answers to the test. You're connected to your market. I know how to solve lead gen in a very free and efficient way, and I know how to scale and build sales teams because I'm talking to coaches and consultants and agency owners. I've talked to almost 500 in the last six months. I know what you're thinking. I know what you're feeling, and I am that person still. So it's just a very natural conversation and you will feel the same way. You Kim. Yes. But you listening and watching when. You're doing that type of work, there's no shortcuts, right? But this is the systematic and you can see our first campaign, man, we only had 17. You know why? It was ice cold. It was ice cold, but we were still above 10%. And now we've since got this up to 38%. This one's still around 37, 38%. This one's actually closer to, like, 82, 80% now because there's just more volume. And actually, we tripled prices. And then our close rate went to about 12% to 15%, which we're totally fine with because it still equals a lot more revenue, even though we're not closing as much, but we're making more money, and we're with just more quality clients as well, so it's a better combo for us anyway. I know we got to talk about the book. Please keep I know I talked too much. Kim, keep guiding me. Hopefully this is helpful for somebody listening, though.

 

 

00:33:30 - Speaker B

Well, we're over the 30 minutes mark. We usually go about 30 minutes. So I want to ask you one question, and then I want you to answer that quickly and then tell people how they can connect with you. So in a couple of sentences, tell me what was the good, bad, and ugly of creating that book, of that chapter, that book, what you had done and what it is.

 

 

00:33:54 - Speaker C

Okay, well, you said good, bad, and ugly, and we joked about this before, and you don't have to keep sharing screen if you don't. And Kim, I'll make sure I get you that link for everyone listening watching today. Okay, you say good, bad, ugly. We were joking about actually the experience was ugly, bad, and then the the ugly part was, oh, gosh, there's so many. I've got three kids. I'm building a business. It's like, where am I supposed to I already don't sleep enough. How am I supposed to do this? And so it was just ugly, it was uncomfortable, and I calendar blocked first. It's like, okay, the bad part was I have to write, and this is just being completely vulnerable. There's a good chance that I'm severely dyslexic. I haven't known this my entire life. Even if I find I might go get tested. I did like, this preliminary test. They're like, I'm 34. I did well at school. I hated school. I'm a very slow reader. There's a lot of insecurities around all that writing and just very difficult for me. I do audiobook for everything. The point is, how am I supposed to be an author? That was the bad part. And when somebody told me that ghostwriters exist also, I can just go for my morning walk and record my voice and my thoughts. And then there's smart people that know how to put that into words, aka editors. I was like, so from my experience and my process, it eventually landed on good because I have so many ideas. I got whiteboards, and I got notes everywhere. And every app that does all the notes, and it's this constant flow. It's really overwhelming a lot. To be honest. It was cool to see my thoughts crystallized into a tangible product that's valuable to other people rather than just living in my world and no one understanding what I'm solving and what experiences I'm having. And it's an experience I'd highly recommend everyone going through, even if you don't sell it and it's not for anyone else. Do it for you.

 

 

00:36:11 - Speaker B

Yes.

 

 

00:36:13 - Speaker C

I didn't realize how much of a mess my head was, and it was very kind of frustrating at points, but very helpful. I'm like, okay, this is a good point. I see where you're coming from, Chris, but this needs some work. And to be able to kind of third party experience that and then go through it, it really helped give me clarity on what I am solving and what I am offering and what I am doing. And outside of it, did become a bestseller in nine different categories. We had a great team that was marketing it again, all these nice achievements really don't come from me. They come from smarter people than me, just to be real. But even if I didn't have all that, it really helped. My messaging conversations I'm having, like, this marketing efforts shortened our sales cycle. There's other good benefits. So ugly. Bad good was my experience.

 

 

00:37:08 - Speaker B

Cool. So, Chris, how can people connect with you if they've been listening to these last two podcasts episodes and they're like, I need to talk to Chris about my business.

 

 

00:37:18 - Speaker C

How can they get a hold of Facebook? Just send me a message on Facebook. That is the best way. If you'd like to email me, it's Chris. [email protected]. And Ascenders is ascenders salescenders plural.com. You can email me. Messaging me on Facebook is ideal. Is great. We can just again, it's I want to create, with all this, my ethos, my mission is to create more human connection in the world. And I think that that just starts with the conversation.

 

 

00:38:00 - Speaker B

Thank you so much, Chris. This has been an amazing two episodes. So make sure if you missed the first one, you go back and listen to that as well. So this has been Kim Thompson Pinder and Chris Baden on the author to Authority podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you on the very next episode. Bye now.

 

 

00:38:22 - Speaker A

You've been listening to the Author to Authority podcast, the extraordinary Word Ninja. Kim Thompson Pender has helped over 200 entrepreneurs, professionals, speakers, and coaches write and publish their books that have become incredible marketing tools for their business. And many of those have gone on to become Amazon bestselling authors and have used their books to land high level clients and get on big stages. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to, like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, hit the website at www.authortoauthoritypodcast.com. See you next time.

 

 

Kim interviews David Fletcher as one of the top 25 episodes of the Author to Authority podcast. This episode focuses on the importance of understanding the value of being an entrepreneur and creating relationships with potential clients before asking for the sale. They discuss the need to create value by sharing expertise, showing data and numbers, and demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of the product or service. They also emphasize the need to go beyond the traditional sales conversation and to focus on how the service can change the prospect's life. They suggest having an opportunity cost conversation to get prospects excited about the service being provided and recommend Larry Levine's book, Selling from the Heart, as a great resource for sales professionals. Finally, they plan to review and come back soon to discuss the topic further.

 

Time stamp

(00:00:00) Launching Entrepreneurship

(00:05:58) Sales Time Management

(00:10:49) Creating Value in Sales

(00:15:40) Creating Value Before Engagement

(00:20:36) ROI Conversation

(00:25:30) Author Authority

Entrepreneurs Kim Thompson-Pinder and Dee Boswell-Buck discussed the importance of continuing to promote businesses during the current trying times on this top 25 episode of the Author to Authority podcast. Kim believes that entrepreneurs should not shrink back during these times, as they have something that a specific group of people need. Dee suggested using puns and funny wordplay to engage with followers, as well as tagging new friends and using stories to reach a wider audience. They also advised to create content that is relevant to the ideal client and to audit their presence on Google My Business and the website. Dee also suggested researching the platforms that the ideal client is on, investing in ads on social media, and auditing the website. Kim and Dee's conversation provides valuable advice for entrepreneurs looking to promote their business during these trying times.

Time Stamp

(00:00:00) Social Media During Trying Times

(00:06:55) Leveraging Social Media

(00:12:36) Researching Ideal Clients
 (00:24:50) Engaging with Facebook
 (00:30:06) Social Media Strategies
 
 

Are you an entrepreneur, coach, or speaker looking to take your business to the next level? Then you won't want to miss the Author to Authority Podcast with host Kim Thompson-Pinder. In this episode, Kim brings us the top 25 episodes of the show, and she's joined by guest Mia Torr to discuss the exciting topic of networking in the new online environment. 

Mia is an expert in helping sales teams and service professionals develop a strong local client base and convert casual conversations into business connections. She shares valuable tips on how to make connections and build relationships online that will benefit your business. Mia and her husband Andy started their own business network after feeling disrespected at other networking events. Their first event drew 50 people, but they quickly grew to 1,000 members within a year and now have 88 groups with 26,000 members.

Kim and Mia discuss the importance of making boring or dry subjects interesting and engaging to capture and maintain audience attention. They offer tips on how to make introductions more interesting, including having a unique title to create intrigue and focusing on the listener's interests rather than just talking about yourself. The key to successful networking is to drop the gatekeeper mentality and focus on having three to five meaningful conversations at each event. Mia recommends thinking beyond immediate sales opportunities and considering other ways people could serve your business. 

Don't miss out on this episode of the Author to Authority Podcast to discover how to grow your network and build genuine relationships with influencers, referral partners, and collaborators. Plus, learn about the Authentic Networkers community, which offers in-person and virtual networking events, training, and workshops to help you take your business to new heights. Check out the show notes for links to this exciting community and upcoming events. Tune in now to take your business to the next level!

Mia Torr specializes in helping sales teams and service professionals who want to develop a strong base of local clients and convert more casual conversations into business connections. My international business networking community, Authentic Networkers, has a growing membership of over 26,000 entrepreneurs and business owners, with satellite groups in 88 cities across five countries I have decades of combined experience in corporate communications, stakeholder relations, fundraising, organizational leadership and storytelling, public speaking, teaching, and curriculum design.  
 authenticnetworker.com

 Time Stamps

[00:00:02] Networking during COVID-19

[00:04:57] Online Relationship Building for Business Success

[00:08:25] Building genuine relationships in business networking

[00:11:47] Making Boring Topics Engaging

[00:15:35] Engaging Your Audience with an Interesting Pitch

[00:19:06] Mastering Networking Events

[00:22:35] Effective Networking for Business Growth

[00:26:07] The Power of Networking for Business Growth

[00:29:51] The Power of Authentic Networking

 

Are you an entrepreneur looking to grow your business? Tune in to the Author to Authority podcast hosted by the brilliant Kim Thompson-Pinder, where she shares valuable insights and actionable steps to help you transform into a leader and authority in your field. With their 400th episode fast approaching, Kim and her guests are taking a trip down memory lane to revisit their top 25 most popular episodes of the summer.

In this episode, Kim is joined by Carol Boston, the CEO of CB Accelerators and an award-winning speaker. Together, they dig deep into the concept of failing courageously and taking small steps that lead to massive growth. Carol shares her journey from getting fired to studying at Gorilla Business School in LA, and how it transformed her from an employee to an entrepreneur.

Using their own experiences, Kim and Carol discuss how to get out of your comfort zone, celebrate your successes, and tackle obstacles head-on. They even provide tips on how to improve your personal relationships and avoid complacency.

Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where they discuss empowering questions, tacking, and more. Don't miss out on Carol's 5 tips to crafting empowering questions, which she offers as a freebie for listeners who email her. So grab your earbuds and join Kim and Carol as they navigate the waters of success.

Carol Boston is an ex-collegiate & professional tennis player. She also had a highly successful 26-year career as a Sales Expert for Fortune 100 companies.
She is an Award-winning Speaker, an International Best-Selling Author & is known as The Queen of Reframe.   She has been hired multiple times to speak/teach at American Express as well as Nova Southeastern University, Ryder Logistics & Trucking and Keiser University to name a few. 
She was chosen one of the Top 10 Female Business Coaches to help you Scale in 2021 by Yahoo Finance and was on the holiday 2021 cover of Life Coaching Today Magazine.
Carol empowers women to rise up and become the Lioness Leaders they were created to be, multiplying their income and their profits. 



[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thecarolboston/ 

https://www.facebook.com/carol.boston.37 

Link to freebie: https://freebies.carolboston.com/confidence/ Carol's Courage Cocktail Recipe

 

Time Stamps

[00:00:02] Failing courageously: Entrepreneurship's small steps

[00:04:52] From Job Loss to Entrepreneurial Success

[00:08:22] Mindset shift for successful leadership

[00:12:09] Embracing Discomfort and Growth in Relationships

[00:15:51] Tackling obstacles for success

[00:19:21] Importance of Small Steps for Achieving Success

[00:22:39] Navigating obstacles in entrepreneurship and rip currents

[00:26:18] Benefits of Longer Showers for Creativity

[00:30:07] Podcast Section Summary Needed

0:00:02 - Speaker 1
You are an entrepreneur, a professional, a speaker or a coach And although you've come a long way, it's time for you to take it to the next level. We've got you. This is the Author to Authority Podcast. We'll help you use authority and influencer marketing to build your business stronger and faster by publishing a book. You'll hear from guests that are thought leaders in sales, marketing, networking, communication, social media promotion and business leadership. Let's do it. This is the Author to Authority Podcast And now your host, the extraordinary word, ninja Kim Thompson Pinder. 

0:00:54 - Speaker 2
Welcome to the Author to Authority Podcast. I'm your host, kim Thompson Pinder, and I'm so excited to announce that in August we will be having the 400th episode of the Author to Authority Podcast And in celebration of that, i have decided to do the top 25 episodes of the Author to Authority Podcast for the whole summer And we will celebrate the 400th about mid-August. So there'll be a couple of episodes after that, and I chose these episodes because they were the ones that I just personally felt were the ones that gave tremendous amount of value that we're going to help you as an entrepreneur, professional, a speaker, a coach, to move your business forward. These were value packed episodes that are just going to give you action steps that are just going to really propel you to the next level. So I'd love for you to sit back, relax and enjoy this top 25 episode. 

Welcome to the Author to Authority Podcast. And today I am so excited to have on the show Carol Boston, and over about the last six to eight weeks I have been making some incredible connections with some amazing people, and Carol is one of them, and I was so impressed by what she had shared with me that not only did I have her as a trainer on an online network and learn event that I was hosting. But she's going to be on for two episodes And she's going to train on failing courageously. But how do you feel courageously as an entrepreneur And how do you take that and take small steps that become big leaps that just exponentially grow your business? So I am so excited to help Carol on. 

Now she is the CEO of CB Accelerators. She's an ex-collegiate and professional tennis player. She's had 27 successful years in sales for companies like AT&T, sprint and Paychex. She's a business growth strategist and leadership coach. She's award-winning speaker And she's spoken at places like Kaiser University, nova Southeastern University. She's spoken at American Express, the women's executive club and many other places. So welcome to the show, carol, thank you. 

0:03:50 - Speaker 3
I'm happy to be here. 

0:03:52 - Speaker 2
So, carol, why don't you take a few minutes and introduce yourself to the audience and tell a little bit of your story? And don't worry everybody, she's going to get to the really good stuff in just a few minutes, but you've got to hear her story first. 

0:04:08 - Speaker 3
Thank you so much. You know, typically when I'm speaking in front of the audience, i always ask a question first. So I'm going to ask you, who are listening, a question Have you ever been in a situation where you put a lot of work in, you prepare for a meeting, prepare for a meeting, only to have it canceled at the last minute? And you're probably pretty ticked off like I wasted all my time. But then you look back in retrospect and you said, oh, that was a blessing in disguise. Right Yeah, at least the nickel says. Sometimes your greatest blessings come wrapped up in sandpaper. And I didn't know it. But back in 2014, i was about to get roughed up. You see, i thought I had it made. I had been doing sales for almost 27 years, very successfully, walked across the stages, got the awards, made the numbers. I could do this in my sleep. I thought I had it made until the day I didn't. Until day I got that call and they cut my territory by 80% And I'm like 80%. I've been working this territory for five and a half years. 

So you see, i thought they were setting me up to fail. And then a friend whispered in my ear about an opportunity with a small company. Now, i love big companies because I love structure. But I went on the interview and you know what? They hired me, they gave me a director title And they doubled my base pay plus commissions. I could just see the income possibilities, right Yeah. And I negotiated a vacation upfront because I'd already paid for it and it was in my contract. So there I was six weeks into the job on vacation, being a good employee, staying in touch with my boss, the CEO, and I got an email asking me for my opinion and I replied back. Now, normally he replies back right away and he didn't. 

And I waited and I waited. It was 12 hours later, nine o'clock at night. There goes my phone, ding Carol Boston, you've got mail And here's what it said. It said Carol comma, that's what you really think. And it had five question marks behind it. Ooh, don't bother coming in here on Monday, when your off, when your vacation is over, you're done here. Wow, yeah, i was tired. In an email for having an opinion that I was asked for, what that's crazy. What that's crazy It was, that's exactly what I thought. So I went back home to Florida and the very next day I had an interview and I interviewed all over this country. I was flown, i interviewed over and over and over, to the same result. 

Now I was depleting my 401k because I really wanted to get a job in corporate America, because that's where I was comfortable. And many months into this, as you get to know me, you'll know that faith is my foundation. In my prayer time I said to God God, yeah, i really did yell. I've done that too. I'm like you made me. You know, i'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur. I do not want to own my own business. You have got to help me find a good job Two weeks to the day from that prayer, i opened up my email and, out of the blue, this woman that I met one time for 30 minutes out of state at a conference literally gives me a $3,500 ticket to go to Los Angeles to study at Guerrilla Business School. 

Now, my God has a sense of humor, right? Because Guerrilla Business School is a foundational school for entrepreneurs. So I figured you know what I was doing wasn't working And I don't know what I don't know. So off I went to Los Angeles And the very first thing I learned is you can't read the label when you're inside the jar. That's a writer down there for you. 

0:07:30 - Speaker 2
That's a writer down there for you. You can't read the label when you're inside the jar. 

0:07:35 - Speaker 3
Now, every one of us is in a jar. That's why I believe we all need a coach, right? Somebody who can see what we can't see in us. I mean, oprah Winfrey has four coaches. When asked why, she said because nobody's an expert in all four quadrants of my life. And I want to know, right, yep, i want to live my life at the highest level in all areas, yes, yes. So, as I began learning and began transforming, i studied under some of the best right John Maxwell, michael Strasner, lisa Nichols, on and on I could go And I realized that I had to change my mindset. Yeah, this, this training, and what I was getting in this coaching and learning was that it gave me a different worldview and it gave me a different view on communication. Yes, yep, yep, yeah, different view on on communication. Now, i'm not going to say that I just adopted all this right away, because who would agree with me that sometimes change? 

0:08:36 - Speaker 2
change is hard, right, and sometimes that takes a while to get through the three pounds of gray matter between your ears. 

0:08:44 - Speaker 3
Absolutely. And let me tell you, i was in resistance. I was so comfortable in corporate America, it was so familiar to me that trying to change my mindset from that of an employee to that of an entrepreneur, a leader in leadership, entrepreneur, it took a lot of work And along the way I studied and developed some great tools and actually the first tool I'm going to introduce you to today I actually realized I was using it back in corporate America and didn't have anything. There you go. You see, i was working at Paychex and one year they tripled our quotas, like overnight. I couldn't even look at that number. It was so big, wow. 

So I came to my boss, we have a month, a Monday morning sales meeting, my my eight AM, my time And I said to her I can't look at that number, it's overwhelming. So what I need you to do for me is to take that week's number, just that week, and you would think I could have figured that out by myself. But I couldn't, because the way it worked is you had a different percentage of that annual quota every month, depending on the time of the year. Oh, okay, yep, she knew what those percentages were. So I said on a white piece of paper in big, bold red ink just give me my number for that week. And there I go, eight, 30 Monday morning, and I would tape it on my cubicle and I would look down and I go okay, what three things? what three things can I do to get me closer to my goal today? That's powerful. You want to think about that? Yep, you're not. You're not trying to make your quota in one day, but you want to get closer to your goal. 

Yes, and as as I did that, i would learn to celebrate every attempt, not every, not every thing that I did was perfect, but I learned from it And we're going to learn about the true art of celebration in our next podcast. Right, that's right. And I learned when I was in Los Angeles. One of the things that impressed me so much was hearing about empowering questions and I decided I had to master them. Amazing and powerful. So I have. I have spent these years doing that because, you see, it ties in, because empowering questions guess what they did? They help you get, they help you get out of that jar. 

0:10:51 - Speaker 2
Yes. 

0:10:53 - Speaker 3
We're going to learn. We're going to learn tomorrow on how to get out of that jar. And you know, one of the key things I've learned through that process that I actually also teach and talk on is that there's a huge difference in being committed and being convicted. You see, people commit every day, don't they? I am committed to this marriage until the day they're not committed to losing this 20 pounds. Well, maybe next Monday or next month, and that becomes next year. But when you're convicted, you don't rest until you get it done. You see, your comfort and your convenience and your conviction don't live on the same block. They're not even in the same zip code. That's right, right. So I had to learn to get convicted and get out of my comfort zone of familiarity, and I learned that the only way I grew was outside of my comfort zone. 

0:11:48 - Speaker 2
Well, it's funny you say that between committed and convicted, because next February my husband and I will be celebrating 30 years of marriage Congratulations. And you know we made more than a commitment. It was almost like a covenant with each other that divorce was not going to be an option in our marriage. Now, don't get me wrong. I think you know there are certain situations, you know, i think, in cases of abuse and different things. But I tend to think that people generally divorce way too quickly And one of these days. we've already come up with the title of our book. we just haven't had a chance to write it yet, but I'll share the title with you because I think you'll love it. So the title's going to be how we survive 29 plus years of marriage when divorce is not an option and murder is illegal. That's good. 

That's good Right. But we made that covenant you know that conviction right that we would make this marriage work. And you know the first 10 years were not good. You know neither one of us were really all that happy. But you know, after that first 10 years we started to deal with a lot of stuff and you know we were as opposite as opposite could be and we've had to learn to come to the middle ground in marriage. You know his world was black and white, mine was every color except black and white. 

0:13:20 - Speaker 3
That's good, because then the two of you covered the whole rainbow, and what I teach people is, especially when they're having issues in whether it's a business relationship or a personal relationship is is it if both of you are exactly the same? Yes, one of you is not necessary. Yeah, that's true, because him rubbing up against you in certain areas and you rubbing up against him, that's how you wear down the coal, if you will, to get to the diamond that's on the inside. 

0:13:47 - Speaker 2
Yep. 

0:13:48 - Speaker 3
Right, i mean, it's even biblical. I mean that God says, sometimes he uses a file, he's gonna file us down right. 

0:13:54 - Speaker 2
Well, it also says his iron sharpens iron does one man sharpen another, and I think that you know that applies in marriage too. So all right, well, i want to transition. I only have one more question for you before we transition into your expertise. Okay, where do people in Florida, the most private vacation state in the US, go for a vacation? 

0:14:17 - Speaker 3
I go where there's a change of seasons. I love to especially travel in the late fall I call it shoulder season before the all the heavy snow comes, but all the summer crowds are gone and it's cold and I have to have a wood burning fireplace. Upper North Carolina, at Tuxbury, outside of Boston. Up in that area Vermont, new Hampshire you can see the change of seasons and the leaves. I vacationed in Vale, colorado. Actually, the one time I was in Vale, i remember walking out of my little condo I was staying in. I went to the Vale Athletic Club And I work. I made my shorts and my t-shirt. It's a beautiful day. I come out and I'm talking to a friend on my cell phone and I'm like I'm getting pelted with sleet and snow. It wasn't like this 30 minutes ago when I went in, so I'm trying to jog and talk, trying to get back to my condo. I had my firewood, though, and my little bottle of wine, and I enjoyed my vacation. 

0:15:09 - Speaker 2
Oh, well, you're gonna have to come up to Canada in the fall. I think you would really enjoy that. 

0:15:14 - Speaker 3
I bet I would. I've only been to Vancouver one time. 

0:15:17 - Speaker 2
Yeah, come up into Ontario. You want to see fall. That's easy, fall in Ontario. I do Awesome, okay, so today. So the three things that we're gonna cover over the next these two episodes, is tacking, artist celebration and empowering questions, and you're probably thinking to yourself well, first of all, what's tacking? Well, carol's gonna explain that on this episode, but she's also gonna share how the three of them work together to exponentially grow your business. So I'm gonna let you lose Carol to talk about tacking. 

0:15:55 - Speaker 3
Awesome And I know you'll keep me in line on the time because I get excited. You know that right. 

0:15:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I got about 10-ish minutes. 

0:16:02 - Speaker 3
Okay. So I mentioned when I was at paychecks that I would go back to my desk and I would write down three easily bite-sized, digestible they're called micros. I had my macro at the end of the week and then I had my micros right. But it didn't mean that what I was doing always worked and I had to learn kind of how to pivot. And that's really where tacking comes in. 

When I'm in front of a live audience, often I will read the definition of tacking and then I'll say raise your hand if you understood that and nobody does, and neither did I when it gets a voting term and it's about sailing and boats and I don't understand it. So I'm gonna give you a layman's definition of tacking. You don't even need a captain's license to understand it. But tacking allows you to see success more quickly, celebrate it more often and pivot mid-course and make corrections on a dime when something isn't working. Oh, think about it. Whether you're listening and you're an entrepreneur, you're listening and you're in corporate America and you're trying to grow what you're doing in that piece of the business. This can absolutely help you, because so often what we do because we've all been taught right The fastest path between point A and point B is a straight line. Come on. 

Yep, that isn't always the case In my talks and teaching, as Kim can attest, as I taught them that is, it's rarely the case, because often what happens is we get our idea and our mind and we're bullheaded and we're going to go straight for that target no matter what, and we miss all of the elements. So I took that term tacking from a boating, because out on the open sea there's a lot of elements. Right, if you're in a sailboat, there's the wind, there's no wind. That's a big problem, right? Yes, there's cruise ships, there's hurricanes. So if I'm only looking at that dot on the horizon, if I only see that year they tripled my quota. 

Remember, folks write it down what I focus on expands. That's why I told my boss it was too big. I had to be able to take some little steps. And let me tell you, when you put this into practice, i made that annual quota, that triple annual quota, 10 months into the year Nice, 10 months into the year. And honestly, there were times when my boss would go oh, you hit your quarterly quota and I didn't even know it because I was just so focused on these little steps that were gaining me massive action. Does that make sense? 

0:18:20 - Speaker 2
Well, even think of it in terms of cruise ships. Cruise ships lot times, especially in some different countries, have to come into a very narrow area to be able to dock And when they're coming from the big ocean down into these smaller areas, there's markers of areas they can't go. They have extensive maps. There's usually a very narrow channel that they can actually come down And that channel might not be straight, but they have to follow that channel to ensure that they're not hitting rocks. Like probably about a month or so ago, i just happened to be watching this television show about cruise ships that crash And this one cruise ship didn't have the updated maps and they got off course by about one degree and they actually capsized the cruise ship because it went over rocks And it put hold like the Titanic. It put holes right across the bottom of the ship and it capsized. 

0:19:23 - Speaker 3
Oh, my God. 

0:19:24 - Speaker 2
Now, thankfully, i don't think anybody died. There were some injuries or maybe one person died, I'm not sure. But I mean, that's the thing. It was a one degree difference and they didn't have the map, the right map, and all these people were traumatized, some people were injured. Like I said, i can't remember if somebody died. If it did, it was like a small number of people, but that's still huge It is, and think about that. 

0:19:49 - Speaker 3
That's only one degree, exactly Right, and Kim had the benefit of seeing it. But I usually show a PowerPoint that has three different types of tacking on it. One is for the sailboat. Now the sailboat has the ability to tack more often right, because it's turning its sail into the wind, and the wind changes when you're out in the open sea. Another example, if you will, is a sail excuse me, a speedboat. 

How many of you have ever watched a speedboat race And they gun that thing and they take off and all of a sudden they hit that first wave, right, and what happens? They go up in the air and they hit really hard. Now that I'm even thinking they just wasted all this time in the air. Because what are they doing? They are hell bent on going in a straight line. Yes, then they hit the next wave and it's even higher and they waste more time. But if they would go even just a little slower like you said, kim, one degree maybe even and tack a little bit around those big waves, they would actually get to their destination sooner. 

0:20:40 - Speaker 2
Yeah, because when they're in the air, they're not moving forward. 

0:20:43 - Speaker 3
Exactly. And then when they hit, they actually have a pause moment before it takes off again. Yes, so there's three different pieces where they're actually losing time. Now one other tacking I'm going to give you today. It really involves the human element. It does involve the sea, being out to sea, but it's the human element. And I told Kim the other day. I said now if you could see me in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, you would know why they call me Casper. I'm not your ocean girl, right, i'm the white girl, but at least I'm the friendly ghost. There you go. Here's the thing. Here's the thing, even for those of us who don't go to the ocean. We hear on the news whether it's the regular news, the weather channel, whatever it is about riptides and rip currents. Yes, and there's warnings all the time. And if you get caught in a rip current and you decide I am swimming straight to shore, 99% of the time you will die. 

0:21:33 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you will die. You have to follow the current until it brings you back up again. 

0:21:37 - Speaker 3
Exactly, and that's a form of tacking. You swim parallel to the current, then you can go back to shore in a straight line. So that's just another example. Even in our human element, where we still believe that the fastest path between two points is always a straight line, we just showed you that sometimes it's the deadliest. 

0:21:53 - Speaker 2
Yes, yes, out where I am, georgia Bay, they have some pretty strong undercurrents. So when the kids were little I never swam with them. I life guarded, okay So now that they went out that far, but you just never knew where those currents were, sure, and so what I did was I just, you know, i was out in the water but I just stood guard Because there was some undercurrents in different things and you just know where they were. 

And I was like, yep, you know what, i'm not swimming with you guys, i'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna watch you. You know, go out in the water, have your fun, but you know, mom's, mom's guarding. 

0:22:33 - Speaker 3
And that's that's so key, because what you were doing is really a part of what's involved in tacking. You're looking for the elements, right? Yes, you're looking for the elements before they happen, and so often when I work with entrepreneurs not aware of that and they feel like they've been beaten down by the waves, if you will, sometimes I don't know if you've ever experienced this, kim, but they just want to quit. They're like, oh yeah, right. 

0:22:54 - Speaker 2
Well, it's like they're walking along, they're trying to do it on a straight line and they hit the first wall and Instead of going to the left or right and going around the wall, they're standing there looking at the wall, thinking I can't get through. 

0:23:06 - Speaker 3
Bang in their head on it. 

0:23:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and it's like, okay, you know you can go under it, maybe over it, around it, right. So yeah, it's never a straight line. 

0:23:16 - Speaker 3
And and the beauty of learning tacking. Think about this. Richard Branson, everybody knows Richard Branson, right? Virgin Airlines. He said don't confuse needing a nap with needing to quit. Sometimes all we need is a nap, and if you will learn how to tack, tacking allows you to rest, yeah, and get back on course. Yep, right. 

0:23:38 - Speaker 2
Yeah, sometimes your brain and your body just need to stop for a little bit. It's funny. I'll share something with you. I Wrote a book This is my fun book, okay, it's called 31 productivity hacks for the busy entrepreneur. 

I give these away at my courses and stuff. It's not even available on Amazon and One of the Suggestions is take longer showers or not. Okay, so if you were a creative person or in a creative industry, you know Where you have to think through solve problems, create things, anything like that. I suggest you take longer showers Because when you're in that shower your body relaxes, your brain relaxes. Half of my books were written in either showering or driving. Because why my brain kind of just goes into Relax mode, right Makes sense. 

I live out the country, so when I'm driving the back roads I know them like the back of my hand. I've been driving them for almost 30 years. You know I am watching for wildlife, but my brains just kind of in maintenance mode and all of a sudden all these ideas pop in my head. Sometimes I've had to pull over and write them down, the same in the shower. So you know a lot of times Unless I'm on, like these types of calls and recordings and that I won't shower until the afternoon Because I'm up at five o'clock in the morning, by one, two o'clock I've already gone eight hours. I'm tired, so I go. 

I have that shower where refreshes me, gets my creative brain going again, makes. Now if you're not in a creative or problem-solving or whatever like let's say you had a freelance job doing data entry You don't have to really think to data entry. Taking longer showers is a waste of time because if you add 10 minutes on to your shower every day, that's an hour less work time in a week and 52 hours in a year. But again, it depends on your situation. For me that shower Rejuvenates and revives me so I can continue working. But if you're not in an industry where that's needed, then that longer shower is a waste of time. That's that's Eating up your income. 

0:25:50 - Speaker 3
Yep, I Agree. that's a great example. 

0:25:54 - Speaker 2
Yeah, well, we. I think we've had an amazing time here today, carol, what do you think? 

0:26:02 - Speaker 3
Absolutely. I've enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to next time and tying all this together me too. 

0:26:08 - Speaker 2
So what I want you to do, carol. And then there to we have left. How can people connect with you if they've heard what you've said today and they're like, oh, i've really got to learn more from Carol. How can people find you? 

0:26:21 - Speaker 3
The best way right now is to email me at Carol at carolbostoncom. That's the easiest way. I am in the process of in between old website and new website. The best way is to send me an email and we'll set up a quick call and take it from there. I'm happy to get on the phone and just see if we're a good fit. if there's something I can do for you, reach out to me, but right now, or you can call me. I'm happy to chat. 954-616-9024. I live in Florida. I'm on the Eastern time zone, so if you call me at eight or nine o'clock at night I'm not gonna answer, but if you called me at six o'clock in the morning I would answer. I'm a morning girl. 

0:27:04 - Speaker 2
So that's Carol K-A-R-C-A-R, sorry, c-a-r-o-l-b-o-s-t-o-n. So, carol, at carolbostoncom, you can also give her a call. Now, i know when you did our training, you had a free gift, wasn't it? There was a guide that you were giving away. 

0:27:22 - Speaker 3
I did and soon I'll be able to send you straight to my website to get it. But yes, be happy to send me an email and say I want those five tips for crafting and empowering questions. We're gonna talk a little bit about that tomorrow so that you understand it, but there is a freebie. If you only hear today and you wanna hear how empowering questions can help you in your tacking, then definitely reach out to me for that as well. Five tips towards crafting and empowering questions Awesome. 

0:27:49 - Speaker 2
Now. the episode won't be tomorrow because our episodes are Monday, wednesdays and Fridays, so, depending where it lands, it will be the very next episode, though, that we will continue this conversation. So, carol, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been Carol Boston and Kim Thompson Pinder on the Author to Authority podcast. Thank you for joining us and we will see you on the very next episode. Bye now. 

0:28:16 - Speaker 1
You've been listening to the Author to Authority podcast, the extraordinary word. Ninja Kim Thompson Pinder has helped over 200 entrepreneurs, professionals, speakers and coaches write and publish their books that have become incredible marketing tools for their business, and many of those have gone on to become Amazon bestselling authors and have used their books to land high level clients and get on big stages. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review and we'll be back soon, but in the meantime, hit the website at www.authortoauthoritypodcast.com. See you next time.