Your Dream Business

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I hope you are well. This week. It's a solo one and it's a bit of a conversation this week. I wanna talk about the reasons behind me closing the lower level of the Club. Because I think it's super important to be honest about this stuff. I think. I don't know about you, but we watch a lot of people online.

We see a lot of people on Instagram and a lot of other people's businesses, and sometimes we can look at them and think, why is it all just so perfect for them? And isn't working out that way for me. Because let's face it. There is not a single person in business that has not had some failure or something go wrong or something not go as planned or, you know, not be perfect all the time. That just isn't business. That isn't true.

And I think the problem is when we don't see that people are honest about stuff, we start to think that we are the only ones. So, and I'm not saying that, you know, what I'm talking about today was a failure, but it certainly was a learning thing for me. And I certainly learned some lessons and I made a change.

So that's the first reason I wanna talk about, cause I want you to know that it isn't all sweetness and light and perfect and amazing and beautiful in business cuz it's so isn't. The other reason I wanna talk about it is I want to give you the knowledge and to empower you to know that if something's not right, you can change it.

It's up to you. It's your business. Don't care what anybody else thinks. Why anybody else might say if something changes or the fact that you think, "Well, I'll look a failure or I'll feel this or whatever." who cares? It's your business, your life. And if something isn't fitting for you and I've got some great examples of other people, who've done things.

If it's not fitting for you. Then don't do it. You shouldn't do it. So let me talk about the club and I talk about the club a lot, and this week as I record this, there's an open house in the club. So if you are listening to this on Monday and you wanna join the open house, you can still do that. Please come and see what we're all about.

I'd love it. It's called an insider experience, but I keep calling it an open house because I feel like you'll know what I'm talking about by an open house and our cool name of insider experience, although it's cool. And it is what it is. I think, you know what I mean by open house. Anyway. So the club had three levels.

So initially the club started as the academy had one level, and then I started to see that there were certain people within the membership who needed more and were maybe getting, not frustrated. But maybe we're asking questions that were a bit further on than the majority of the people. And I was getting concerned that if I didn't provide something for them, and I certainly could, because I am more than knowledgeable in the area of scaling and growing and all this.

And if I didn't provide something for them, that they would go and look to get it somewhere else. Where I knew I could exactly do what they needed to do. So I think quite some time ago, I introduced Executive Club. So Executive Club is the higher level of the membership. And this is for people who are ready to take things seriously, are ready to put in the work and are ready to show up for themselves and for their business.

And. The thing about executive club is it's not extra training. It's not extra courses. It's not 10 more downloads. It's not anything like that. It's my time. So what they get in Executive Club is they get more coaching calls with me. They get more hands on time with me and they get, uh, co-working with me and like half a day planning session each quarter. They get an extra day SOAR, which is the SOAR that is my club only online event in December. And they get discounts to anything else that I might, you know, put out there that needs to be paid for. But basically the thing is I understand their businesses inside and out.

I know them, I know their families. I know their partner's names. I know their kids' names. I know what's important to them. I know what drives them. I know when they need a carrot, I know when they need a stick, it's about me really understanding them so I can serve them better. So I introduce Exec Club and I love it.

And it's great. And it really, really benefited the people who I chose to go in it. And I handpick them to begin with. Now anybody can join Exec Club. You can go and join like anybody else but often it comes through referral. It comes through a conversation with me. Because I need to make sure it's the right fit.

But it's a great group of people. It's a very close knit group of people who really support each other. And it's awesome. So we introduced that and the club at this point was just moving from $59 a month to $97 a month, which I a hundred percent stand by the value that I give people, even in the main club.

I know most people and their businesses and their lives. I might not know their partners or children's names, but I know who they are and I know what they do. And I follow them and I invest my time in them. So I am 100% confident in my pricing strategy of $97 a month. It is worth that and more. Things like the mindset hour, the content hour, the coaching call, the fact that you get to pick my brain as, and when you need it,

I know that money is more than valuable. I've been in membership that cost considerably more than that one I'm in at the moment. And they don't give half as much as what we give it in my membership or as I give it in my membership. So, but the problem I kept having was everybody kept saying, I can't afford it.

I wanna join. I wanna be in your world. I can't afford it. I wanna join. I wanna be in your world. I can't afford it. And I was thinking, I really like serving everybody and I love helping people who are just getting started. And I don't mind answering the stupid questions. There are some people out there who hate the stupid questions.

Personally. I don't I'll answer any, I love them all. So for me, I was like, how can I get those people more in my world? How can I support them? So they can develop and grow to get to the point where they could afford the higher level club. Where their businesses is thriving, because paying out anything like this is about priorities.

It's about where we put the value. And as long as I can show people there's value, then they would decide whether it's for them or not. So I wanted to introduce a lower level like said for, for those reasons one, so that I had a more entry point into my world from a business strategy, point of view. If I had a lower level.

Okay. It wouldn't bring me the money in, but it would bring me them into my world. And I'm more likely in a future date to show them the value of the main club. But mainly so that I could offer something to people who couldn't afford it. And mainly I could support them in a way. But obviously I had to differentiate the one level to the other level because I couldn't have people coming in at $19 when people were paying $97 to be in the club. So I looked at what I offered and I pulled out some things and I said, okay, at each level, this is what you get. And it really made sense to me. And what I offered at the lower level instead of a coaching call, which obviously is huge value. I offered a Q and A. So I would do a Q and A once a month in the club, in the Facebook group.

And they could post their questions and I would answer their questions. And I felt that this is a good compromise. It was a good compromise to me being able to answer their questions, but not giving away the stuff I give on a coaching call, which obviously the beauty of coaching call. And like I said, if you join, if you, if you are joining or will join the open house, the insider experience, you'll get to see how I do a coaching call.

But the reason how I do a coaching call is I ask questions back. I understand who they are in their business. Because if someone says to me, should I put my prices up? Most people be like, yes. Most experts like, yes. Well, I don't know, because I need to know what are you charging at the moment? Who are your customers?

What's, you know, what does your thing look like? How much time and effort you put into it. So. I couldn't do that because like I said, I had to do it for that level, but they did get things like the content hours and they also got the mindset calls. And the mindset calls are with me on zoom, where I have conversations with you.

But of course my conversations are around that mindset exercise. So even though I could have a touch point with them, it wasn't the same as me understanding their business as well as I could have done on a coaching call. So I introduced this lower level and my expectations were that we would get lots of people joining the lower level, because I would been told a million times over.

I really wanna join. I really wanna be in your world. I can't afford it. And the truth of the matter was I didn't, I didn't get people joining. I got a handful of people, like, I don't know, initially about 15 people join. And that was it. And I was just like. To begin with I wasn't blown away. To begin with I was like, no, that's cool.

The whole idea of this is the club is just opened. It's now open permanently. People can join wherever they want. And my hope is that at this level they can join. And they kind of didn't. I had a few people filtering through, but it wasn't what I thought. And I didn't set hugely high expectations. However, it just didn't meet the expectations I set.

So I had to start looking at what I was doing and how much time I was putting in and the number of people we were bringing through the door. That was one consideration. But the thing that actually was the hardest bit for me is I am so passionate about my superpower being that I understand people and I get to understand them and I get to tailor my advice to them and their business so that I'm not this, everyone should do this.

Cuz I totally hate that. This cookie cookie cutter type scenario, that's not me. And the truth was I couldn't do that as well as I liked with those people because of the fact of, I didn't have that touchpoint with them. And I couldn't have that touchpoint with them because one, I would've given them way too much for the price that I was charging them, but, and two I'd have upset and rightly so, my other members.

And I didn't like it. I didn't like that I had people in my membership that I didn't understand, or I didn't know very well. And this might sound really odd because I've been in memberships where I've been one of thousands and I'm not like my membership is not huge. And I think there's a really good reason for that.

And I think it's because I want to get to know people and I totally want to serve them. And I don't know how I could do that if my membership was thousands. I would do my best to, but I don't know how I could. So for me, that level didn't fit for two reasons. One, I didn't feel like I was serving them as well as I could have done, even though I was offering it at such a low price. But two, it didn't do the thing I was expecting it to do it.

Didn't bring in all those people, which I was half expecting it to bring in. So I had a conversation with a coach and she said to me, this is, this is someone that I go to occasionally with. Well, I say a coach, she's, she's a coach. She's amazing. And we often go to each other when we need something, but just to happen this time, I went to her and I was like, actually, I'm struggling a bit in terms of like, how am I getting people in this level?

And why aren't they joining it's $19 a month. It's 15 pounds. Like. What do you spend 15 pounds on in a month? And what if you spent that 15 pounds and it actually helped increase your business two or threefold, which is what I've done with other members. I just couldn't understand it. And I spoke to them and she didn't know I had a $19 level and she was like, "What? You have what?"

And I was like, "Yeah." And I said, I don't wanna be sleazy. I don't wanna be slang. I don't wanna be like, charge what you're worth just to put your prices up. I said, And I don't feel like that when it comes to the, the club, because actually the value that's in there is huge. And for me, I know the work I've done with my members.

They have some of 3, 4, 5 times what they used to earn because of the stuff they've learned and the work they've done in the club. So I felt so confident about that, but I wanted to offer that level and she was like, "So there's nothing else anybody can do if they can't afford 97." I was like, "Well, no, I have my open house."

I have. You know, challenges I run, I obviously have my podcast. I go live once a week on Instagram. Now where anybody asks a question, I will answer that question. And we talked over and she's like, I don't think you should have it. I don't think you should have it for a few reasons. One, it hasn't done the thing you expected it to.

Two, you don't like it because you can't get to know these people. And therefore you feel like you are not serving them. And three, like, and she's so very sweet, but she was like, You've been in this industry for a long time. Your value is huge. There's nothing you should be selling at that price.

And, and that was a really nice thing to hear and a really confident thing to hear helped my confidence in terms of, you know, cuz obviously it does not your confidence when you put something out there in it and people don't buy. You're like, what am I doing wrong? What on earth is going on with this? So I had this big discussion and I decided that she's right and I'm right.

And actually this isn't sitting with me. I'm not getting them the, the growth that I can get the rest of the members because of the fact that I can't get to know them as well as I can. So I made this decision to, to close the club level. So we have club, club plus, and executive club. So the club level club level, I speak English, um, at $19 I closed.

So the first thing I did was took it off the sales page. So no one could actually rejoin. The second thing I did was got in contact with every single member of the club level and asked to have a one-to-one call with them, gave them my calendar link and say, can you book in, I really wanna talk to you about something there's some changes coming.

And before I ignite those changes, I want to speak to you. And I gave them all a link and I booked them in on calls. And I sat and did a load of calls with these members and it was ACE. I loved it. And I realized more than ever that's where my joy comes from and where my superpower comes from is when I sat and talked to them and understood who they were and what their businesses were.

I just enjoyed it so, so much. So that was the next thing I did, but it also enlightened me in other ways. So, what was so helpful about doing these calls was I was getting on and talking to these people and understanding them and their businesses. But I also got to understand what their thought was about that level of the membership and what their thought was coming in.

And it turned out that all of them thought that there wouldn't be half as much of the stuff that was in there in that. They actually said that one of my, the, two of the people in that level had already previously been members and they had had to leave. And then they came back at the lower level thinking, brilliant.

You know, that's a great cost. And because they'd already been members. They joined just to be in my world, which was so very kind of them, but they didn't actually expect there to be half the amount of stuff in there that was in there and they were blown away. And I think that was such an interesting point because is that the reason people didn't buy because they looked at it and thought, well, there'll be nothing in there because that's how much it costs and there's so much the normal costs.

When actually that's not the case at all. There was, there was more than their money's worth in there considerably more. I just think the whole exercise was really, really interesting. And I went through and like I said, I spoke to them individually. I had conversations.

You know, did they wanna join the, the main club, uh, tried to look at ways in which I could help them to join the main club. And if they didn't then absolutely fine. And they are staying in until the open house finishes and then we will remove them, but it was so useful having that conversation, but it was also great for.

I guess for my I, not that I ever felt like I'd failed at it or that I felt guilty or that I had messed up. It wasn't any of that. I didn't feel that which was really good and reassuring. And I think that's because I talked over someone, I talked over with them, I had conversations and I had really good, strong, practical reasons why it wasn't going to work.

But I think at that point, if I hadn't have had those thoughts, I would've been thinking, okay, Like I failed at this. I can't change it, or I might have thought I'm gonna have to stick with it, even though it's not working. And that's just the worst thing. You. To do something that is not fulfilling you or your audience in a way that you want.

And yes, it was fulfilling the people that were in there, but it wasn't the amount of people I thought it was...

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. So as if I planned it this way, which I can assure you, I am not that organized. I was just back recording and I've just recorded the last week's episode. And this next week's episode, this next week's, as in today's episode fits really, really well, which I didn't intend it to do that.

How odd that it has, but how perfect. So last week we were talking all about values and why you need to know your values. We talked about heart centered businesses and coming from what makes you happy and your passion and your purpose and making sure you have a business around not making sure you have a business around that or how you have a business around it.

And this week I've got an interview with Emily K Thomas, who is a, I'm just gonna pick her like her proper bio and read what it says. She's an energetic advisor, podcaster, blogger, educator. And basically she helps people to be more in line with themselves and to her mission is to help you remember your soul's calling and my heart center.

I'm a girl who loves deep soul work of energetics and healing people to live an aligned life, especially creative entrepreneurs. And. I just thought this was really interesting because actually some of this is really going to fit with what I said last week. But what I find most fascinating about this kind of accidental matchup is last week, we talked very practically about how to find out what your values are, looking at, how your values fit in with what you do as a business.

And this week we're pushing the woo boundary a little bit. So, you know, I am, I love a bit of the woo. Really do. I'm also very conscious of how much of that we share on here, because I know that's not everyone's bag. And I like to come at it from a place of almost devil's advocate. I almost like to bring it along because I like it.

But at the same time, I question it and I question it for those of you who aren't keen, or this isn't necessarily your bag. So I really encourage you to listen to this, even if you're thinking, mm, like talking about energies and alignment and soul's purpose, all this sort of thing might not be your thing. I'd still really like you to give it a go.

Because like I said, there are some questions where I go, but really. And do you think, and how is that true? And so I do try and question it for my own sake, but like I said, also for the sakes of, of those of you who are not as, you know, not feeling it as much as maybe I do on occasions. And there's still a huge skeptic in me in certain things.

But then there's other things that I just think, well, what's the harm, you know, if it doesn't hurt anybody, what's the harm. So like I said, I've got lovely Emily on it was a really lovely conversation. She has a beautiful voice. She's also stunning, you know, one of these people that you think you've just got everything, you've literally got everything.

She, her Instagram is like, Just picture perfect life. I'm positive her life is not that perfect all the time. I can only hope that that's the case, cuz it really does look Instagram perfect. She's beautiful. Her husband's gorgeous. Her kids are stunning and she's just a really nice person. So I think you're really gonna like her.

And it's a really interesting conversation. So I will let you take a listen to the lovely Emily and I can't wait to hear what you think.

So I am really excited today to welcome to the podcast Emily Thomas. Emily, how are you doing?

Emily: I'm doing so well. It's so great to connect with you finally. And we've tried to make this work a couple of times and I'm just so, so honored to be here and to share this work with your community. It's so exciting.

Teresa: Oh, I am. I am very excited and it like, we've had to rearrange mostly my fault a couple of times I feel dreadful about. But it. You know, it happened and that's the main thing. So, and you are here and you're talking to my audience, which I love. So Emily, we always start the same way in terms of you telling my audience who you are and what you do and how you kind of got into doing what you do.

Emily: Yeah. And, oh my gosh, that's a loaded question, cuz I could go in so many different angles, but I'll just keep it brief because I like to imagine that I'm talking to a, my daughter, right? My, my three and a half year old daughter, when I'm explaining what I do so that it makes most sense. So basically what I do is I read energy.

I help people understand where their current vibration is and where they need to go. And then I help them shift vibrationally through different patterns of choice. OK. So what does that mean?

Teresa: Yep.

Emily: Well, to me, I. Have you ever met that person in business that is like doing it all that has, has created the funnel that has created the, the email sequences and is, you know, appearing to be very successful.

And they might very well might be successful, but they haven't reached, like, let's say their goal is a million dollar mark and they just are so frustrated because they feel really capped out because they've hit a plateau. Well, that was me. I've built a couple businesses and I've been extremely successful and I always wanted to get a little bit more successful though.

I wanted to have those million dollar years and beyond, and I just couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. And. I had to take a, a few, a few months of introspection to really connect the dots and figure out how I actually allowed my life to become so abundant in so many different areas. For instance, with my marriage, with my children, with my, my houses around the world.

Like all of these different areas and the common thread was energy. When I managed my energy and understood how I was embodying the energy of what I wanted to create in those areas of my life. It started to come, come to fruition. So I decided, "Hey, how can I actually apply this methodology in my business? So that it creates that financial freedom and also the sense of freedom that I've been craving for."

So I applied it to my business and things just looked a lot different than it did to the, you know, the marketing course that I was taking the mastermind group that I was in, it all started to look different than what I was taught, but I embraced it. And when I started embracing that, what happened was, is I started saying yes to my energetic DNA and we'll go into what that is.

And that's when things started clicking into place. And not only was I working less and activating the sense of freedom and joy. True, true freedom and joy. And what that feels like for me, I started to make a lot more money. It started to actually start pouring in, in terms of my, you know, to people who would reach out to me for speaking in summits for, you know, can I, can I work with you on this project?

Would you like to join this retreat? Would you like to be a speaker here? Would you love to, you know, speak in my mastermind? Like all of these opportunities just started showing up when I showed up differently in my business. So that's what I help people do today is I help them really identify what that looks like for them.

And really what's the energetic component that they're trying to achieve in their life. Is it safety? Is it, is it support? Is it freedom? Like my own. Is it, is it abundance or is it maybe just feeling extremely healthy right. Or vibrant, you know? So like I help them understand what that looks like for them and why they really want it.

So like, I always refer back to like, Simon's Ted talk, you know, you're probably aware of that Why. The why we do things. And if any of your listeners or viewers are, you know, haven't seen that one, just go check that out because it's really powerful. I think it probably has like millions and millions of views at this point.

And I've contributed to that many times. I love his work, but really it is about beyond the why it's the energetic component of what it is that you're doing. Like what is the energy that you want to create in your life? And so that's really where it started. And my business started taking off and I stopped looking at the end result and comparing my values and my metrics as much as really embodying and using my feelings and my emotions as a metric and a marker for how successful as far is being. And it feels so different than how we're trained in this world. We're trained, you know, to be very masculine driven and on a linear scale where we're always excelling and always growing and moving up and up and up and up the latter. And sometimes it's really important.

And I'm not saying that it's not important to always keep moving but I think it's equally as important to recognize and start questioning that system. And that framework to really identify is this working for me or is that program and that illusion of, of what's good or bad actually playing into how I believe success looks or I believe my impact on the world looks right.

Teresa: Such a good point. I, I literally have this conversation with someone earlier on, in terms of, in the entrepreneurial space, in the, the business space, in the online business space, we are almost fed a line of what we believe is successful or what we believe we should want.

And we were talking about going online and, and he was talking about the fact of, you know, we know someone mutually that has a, you know, a business that isn't an online business, but almost has been brainwashed into the fact of, "Oh, no, you must have an online business." And it's like, well, if who says, that's gonna work for them, who says that that's what lights them up, who says that, you know, and I said to him, "What people forget when you have an online business like me is I have to show up. I have to create the content. I have to turn up every day. I have to be the person who's on. I have to do the interviews. I have to stand on the stage. I said, but I love that stuff like it lights me up."

So that makes sense for me. But if someone's just trying to chase the, the money or the accolade or the, whatever it is, but that's not what lights them up then. That's gonna be a completely fruitless exercise. Isn't it?

Emily: Right.

Teresa: So, so when you talk about like, I'm sat here listening to what you were saying, thinking yeah, I need that. Yeah, no, I'd like that. Yeah. How do I do that? So it sounds like, you know, I just got in line with what I wanted and boom, there, it was. So explain more about that process.

Explain more about how. Had you always dealt with energy? Had you always worked with? Was a thing? Like how, how has it all come about?

Emily: That's such a good question. Thank you for asking that. Actually I was the skeptic. I was the one in the back of the room, like, oh yeah. All this energy stuff, which is bullshit.

Because I, I was raised in a very, I was raised in an environment where that conform and that construct of, of, of how success looks was so prominent. And so anything that was out of that frame of you go to college, you get a job, you, you know, you study science, this is good. This is bad. Like it was very black and white in my life.

And so anything that was outside of that box was, you know, not allowed. Right. So I actually was in the medical industry for over 10 years and that kind of paid into that belief. Because, and, and don't, don't get me wrong. I loved that part of my life because I was working with very highly intellectual people.

I was, you know, helping people in very critical situations. And so that part of it was really powered by like my, my love for people and supporting other people through part of the hardest times of their life when they're in the ICU. But. That backed my belief, that medicine is the only reason are the only thing that's true.

Right? So that belief really closed me into this system where nothing else was real. Right. So I didn't allow my senses to really evolve. I didn't allow my intuition to be free. Now, back when I was a child, I was always told, you know, you're very intuitive. You have these abilities, like, that's so crazy.

Like how did you know that? And that was really dialed down by what I was told was true. And what was not true. Right. So I was in the medical industry, I was raised an athlete and I was very told, I was told, like, you know, you don't quit. You never give up. So I persevered through everything, everything in, in my career, everything through, you know, my relationships, all this stuff.

And, and even what that meant to me. And that's not a bad, that's not a bad skillset, but it becomes actually problematic when you aren't paying attention to the intense and also the subtle signs of what's happening around you and what's happening within my body. So it was 2016 and I was actually, it required a very, very.

A couple of different, I call it the perfect storm of events orchestrated by the universe to really force me to pay attention. You know, it was a mixture of my, my personal health, my sleeping patterns, my relationship at the time, my direct manager at the time, a lot of these things that came together that really kind of shocked my system and said, pay the F attention.

And. And I couldn't deny it. I couldn't deny it. So at that point, I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have the language or the wherewithal to understand that all of this stuff meant I was so deeply misaligned. So I, the, all I knew how to do was say, oh, I'm done. So I threw in the towel and I just took a leave of absence.

I didn't even quit my job at the time because I was just like, I need to just breathe. I need to breathe and figure out what this means. So when I did that, I actually booked a one way ticket to Bali and when I did that, I, I know it sounds so, you know, you pray love, but it was, I didn't even read the book.

I didn't watch the movie or any of that. It was just my own path. And that was the first time in my life. And so uncharacteristic to go without a plan. It was the first time in my life that I actually started to say yes to Emily and question everything. And when I got there, it wasn't a vacation. It was absolutely the, the complete opposite, because I went deep into the darkness.

I went deep into that shadow and I did so much inner work. I went on 10 day silent retreats. I did energetic healing. So I basically went all in on all this stuff that I was told that was not real. And I had to fully experience it myself to actually start to believe in it. And, and sometimes some people don't need that to actually feel it and really believe it.

But for me, like I had this belief that none of it was real, so I had to actually experience it firsthand. And when I did it was incredible to see what results started to show up in my life. The relationships I started to cultivate. The experiences and opportunities. I built a, a swimwear business just based off of divine love of creation and the people that came together to make that dream a reality.

It was just like you couldn't, you couldn't plan that. And the biggest thing that happened was that I met my husband and on our, on our wedding day, I got pregnant with my, with my, do my first daughter and it was just, I mean, I, and, and now retrospectively, now that I've done a lot of research and a lot of experience with this work, I, I know that.

In order for me to actually meet my husband and create this business. It required me to vibrate at a different frequency to create a different reality, a different circumstance in my life required a different vibrational patterning. And everything in life is energy. So let's take it back to the science and the, you know, academic hat that I was in.

Let's go back to that stage of where that was my full reality. So now, today I've really created a business that really is...

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the devil are you? I hope you're good. I hope you've had a great summer and I'm back. I'm back after doing the replay ones. I had some great feedback from them. It's just really nice to hear some of like the old episodes.

Some of the people I've interviewed before. I think probably the one I got the most feedback was Michael Hyatt's. So if you haven't been there, listen to that. You definitely, definitely want to, because it's a great episode. So before we get started today, I want to talk about something that's happening in The Club.

And actually it's, it's really relevant to today's subject. Because I am doing an open house in The Club from the 12th of September through to the 16th. And basically we're calling it the Insider Experience where you can come and see what it's like to be inside the Club for free with all the Club members.

So I am opening up everything in the Club that you can do. And we have got so many good things going on that week. And you can see it as like either a pick a mix. You come in and do the bits you want, or you attend as many as you can. But really the idea is. I get lots of people asking me questions. I get people joining the Club to see if it really is the way I say it is.

And if I'm the way I say I am, because I don't know about you, but I've been a member of other memberships and other groups where I've been swayed by the person who's the face of it. And then I've got in there and I'm not gonna name who they are, but I've got in there and that person has never ever been present.

In fact, the only time they were present was to sell. And I just felt like that just sucks, like completely and utterly sucks. That to me is morally wrong. Like you bring someone on because of the fact that you are, you know, they are liking you. You listen to this podcast because you like me, which is so very kind of you.

And I appreciate that greatly. So if I decided I didn't wanna do the podcast anymore and I got someone else to host well, you wouldn't listen to it. Would you? So it's the same with memberships. So I actually had someone, um, I was talking to one of my members who was fairly new and she'd only been in a couple of months.

And she said, I joined because I wanted to see if it was like you say it is. And also like, you know, the marketing quick sand, she said, you hear all these people going, "Oh, it's this and that and the other and you know, come and I do this and I do that." She goes, "And I wanted to see whether you were real." And thank goodness she said "You are. And you're not like maybe some of the others that I've seen." So that was so reassuring and so very lovely. So, yeah, so I'm having this open house. So we have got things like, we've got two lots of training, one by me and one by a guest trainer who just happens to be a member. We have got. So lemme tell you about my training.

Actually, my training is focused around how I stay organized in my business. So I'm gonna be showing you my Trello boards. I'm gonna be showing you how we manage stuff, how we manage the team, some of the systems we use and how you can use things like Trello in order to get organized and how basically the internals of my business work.

So you can take some advice from that. We're gonna be doing a coaching call. So I have a full two hours booked in to come and do a coaching call. You can just come along and watch. You don't need your camera if you don't want. I know some people find this stuff intimidating, but to be honest, the group are so lovely and it's so relaxed and casual and no one has got egos in there.

So it's not like there's ever a stupid question and everyone is so encouraging. But if you wanna come on and just watch, that is more than fine. If you have a question, then you can ask it so you can pick my brain for free. Then we are doing, uh, content hours. The amazing Becci McEvoy will do her content hour that she does in the club normally.

I'm gonna be doing a mindset session. So you hear me wit on about mindset sessions all the time, and you can come and sit and do one with me and with the other club members. And basically it's just an opportunity to, for you to see what it's like on the inside. We're gonna let you into our Facebook group.

I mean, just can I say that there's a lot of admin involved in that but I decided that I didn't wanna open up another Facebook group because that's not where the club members hang out. And also, I didn't wanna not let you see the Facebook group because it's so encouraging and they're so lovely. So I'm opening up the Facebook group, so you can have a go and see what it's like in there.

And it just means we're gonna have to let a load of people in and then remove a load of people if they don't join. And that's absolutely fine. Because I really want to give people a full experience. So. That's what's happening. You'll find a link in a show note. If you go to my site, if you go to my Instagram, you go anywhere.

You're going to find details on the open house. Because at this moment in time, I can't remember the URL, which I should. It's on a Trello board somewhere. But yeah, you will find it. So I really, really want you to come along and see what it's like and hang out with my people. They're amazing. The other reason why I'm doing the open house.

And one of the other things that we're introducing is very much to do with today's episode. And it's about networking. And I know you might have grown when I said that, believe me, I would've been with you a hundred percent. But I think the world has changed a lot. And I think we need to be considering our network and our people that we surround ourselves with as a key strategy of our business. And this is something that I have done myself fairly recently.

Now let me just start off by saying I hated networking. Now I love meeting people and I love talking, but most of the networking I did when I started my business 8 years ago was I would go, I get up very early.

Normally like 6:00 AM and you would drive to some rubbish place and there would be rubbish bacon sandwiches. And horrible coffee. And let's be honest. A lot of middle-aged white men in suits. I didn't fit in. Like I would go and I would be smiley and laughy and nice to heaven and like, I used to be quite corporate cause I worked in corporate, but like by this point I was coming outta corporate.

I wouldn't wanna dress in a suit. I wouldn't wanna dress like in a dress. I, I wear jeans and tops. Like, that's what I wear and that's what I would wanna wear. And I didn't feel like I could. So I felt like I didn't kind of fit in. And also, and I did it, whether it was just my experience. I'd be interested to hear if you are the same, but like they were patronizing.

Like I was smart. I knew marketing. I'd worked in marketing for over 10 years and I'd worked for some big, big companies and they were really patronizing because I was young and I was a woman. And I just think, I just think it was the people I was networking with. So I, I really didn't like it. So I avoided it. The minute I didn't have to network, I avoided it.

And my networking came in the form of me being invited to speak somewhere. So I would rock up. I would speak, I'd meet a load of people. I would have the best opportunity of most people, because I would be on stage for an hour. Whereas in networking, you are doing like 10 minutes. If that introduction. And you'd only meet like one or two.

You'd do like a 60 second this is who I am. This is what I do. Buy my stuff, which again, I hate. And like some people have taglines. I'm. Not against a tagline, but just, just got a bit much. Anyway. Uh, I got all these horrible visions now. And so, yeah. So I, I did it in the form of speaking and I was really privileged.

Like I was super, super lucky that that was the way that I could network, however, COVID happened and the world changed. And although I continued to speak online, obviously it's not the same thing. Like nowhere near the same thing as standing on a stage and being in a room with someone. I basically then didn't network and I started to find myself and, oh, and the other thing was that when I used to go to events and obviously I've been to a lot of conferences. I've traveled a huge amount.

I've been to the States many, many, many, many times, and hung out with people over there. And that's how, again, I built up my network. And it was great, but it got to the point about, I don't know, the beginning of this year where I was like, I'm not meeting anybody else new. And. And some of the people who I've been within the past actually are not resonating with me anymore.

And the way that they're selling or their values or their business is not aligning with me. So then I kind of got to the position of, well, how am I going to build this network? How am I going to get these new people with, with speaking events in person, still being really hard to get. It hasn't ever quite come back to what it was.

And a lot of them. , you know, that was foreign that I used to do in other countries. They're not, we're not doing that at all. Now. Nothing is coming through on that front, which is gutting. I am very sad about that. Cuz as you know, if you follow me for a while, I love traveling. So I decided a little while back.

One of my members, Nat, who, excuse me, has been a member since day one. She was in fact, my first ever member. She is a member of the exec club and she is the queen of networking. And I had a call with her and Nat happens to live very close to me. And I, we, she came around my house and we had a conversation.

I was like, how am I gonna do this Nat? How do I network? Cuz I don't know how to network. Now I'm not even gonna sit here and say, I still know how to network, cuz I'm still trying. But like also I'd been taught from the online world that you don't speak to people like you only speak to people when you go to events, how egotistical is this?

Like someone can't get on a call with you. You're not gonna go into a room and network with other people because you are an online business. It's absolute rubbish. And I'm having to unlearn a lot of the stuff that I was taught. And I see my job as helping my members unlearning stuff that's they've been taught that is either giving them a business that they don't love or is holding them back.

So anyway, had a chat with Nat and I decided to join a membership that was very much aimed at women's networking. It's, uh, over in the States. And I got on and I did my first networking and it wasn't from the fact of, I wanted to sell to people. It was from the fact of, I need new people in my world. Like I need some new influences.

I need some new conversations and new opinions and new thoughts. And how am I gonna get that? So obviously it's online because it's over in the States and I'm in the UK. But. It's great. It's been so, so good that it's something we're gonna introduce into the club. So once a month, we are gonna have a networking get together where our members get to connect with other members.

And the reason this is so powerful, I know you might be start thinking, God, this is so old school. Do I really have to do this? And, but you know what happens? I did a podcast interview yesterday. Someone interviewed me. And she was talking about something else I'm involved with and she's like, do you think that'd be any good for me?

And I was like, who's your customer? And I was like, no, I don't think so. And I was like, but who's your, you know, once I understood who her customer was, there were two people in my world that I know that deal with her customers. And I was like, would you like me to do an introduction to this and this, like these two people?

And she's like, that would be amazing. And that's where I see. And I think maybe the word networking has given a wrong view, but that's where I see this sort of thing being so powerful. The fact that I know so many people and you know, what was ACE as well, the other day, I'm gonna go off from tangent. I, oh, I need to do a podcast about this and I am gonna do a podcast about it, about the I've closed the lower level of my club.

And I will explain why and go through the details. And as you know, I'm very open and honest, but one of the things I did is anybody that was in that level. I got on a call with them personally, and I had a conversation with them to say, this is what's happening. I'm so sorry. And, and had a big chat, big chat about it.

So anyway, I spoke to one of these members who I just happened to know, cause she used to be a member before then she left and then she joined the lower level. And as we were talking away, I was like, "Oh my goodness. Do you know so and so." Someone else in the club. And she's like, "Yes. I met them on one of the calls and we're now best friends."

And I, and it was so funny cuz I was, as I was talking to her, I was like, oh you and her, you would get on like a house on fire. Your values are the same. You're the, you know what you like. And, and it was so ACE that she had now gained a friend in them. And they're both coming to my in-person event, which is happening on the 9th of September.

And I am so excited that they get to meet each other. That is so cool. Yeah, I, this is what I'm thinking, networking isn't the case of go and sell someone. Networking is about A, expanding your network, expanding the people that, you know, in your world. And I don't think I keep my friend group very tight.

Like I don't have many what I would call like really, really close friends, just because I don't know. I don't have those really close friends, but yeah. I like have a handful of very close friends, but my, my network and my group of people is huge. And I love that. I love that I can go and have a conversation with someone about one thing and go and talk to someone else and go and connect with this person and that person.

And I think there's even when you keep a friendship group tight, I think it's really worthwhile having a large group of network community. People that you can talk to and lean on and, and learn from. So I've been doing a lot of this, which is why this is coming into the membership and why I think you should look at it.

So there's a couple of things I wanna say about networking. It's not about going in and selling. It's not about getting on a call and thinking, "Who can I sell to?" Not at all. You, I think the people who go in with that, they don't last very long because one, you don't get sales that quickly. And two, that's not the point of it.

The point is finding people who you have something in common with, or they complement your business or that you have a connection with, like, I have met some amazing people that I just adore since joining this membership that I've been in like some really cool people and I am so glad they're in my world.

And I'm so grateful to them because one of them is gonna come and speak at the event in December that we do for our members, our members only event. One of them is coming on the podcast. One of them is putting me on their podcast. Like, that's the thing, what you are looking for in this network. The reason why you want to build your network is you're looking for reciprocity.

You're looking for, how can I help you? And how can you help me. Not, how can I sell to you? How can I make money? So. The other beauty of this is again, just so happens this morning. I was listening to a podcast of one of my amazing members, Wendy. She has a podcast called Fab Female Nutrition, and one of my other members, Kim is a positivity coach and she just happened to be interviewed on Wendy's podcast because they met through the club.

And she's a great fit for Wendy's podcast because she deals with Wendy's nutrition, looks around perimenopause and the menopause. And Kim's coaching is often around the menopause and perimenopause. So that connection happened. They met each other through the club and now Kim's been put on Wendy's podcast.

So that means Kim has been put in front of Wendy's audience. So rather than thinking, how can Kim get Wendy as a client? Kim has been put on Wendy's podcast, which has then put them in front of Wendy's audience, which is great for Kim's profile. And the same with the kind of networking I'm doing, that I can invite people online.

I can get speakers from my event, which you know, is sometimes difficult finding new and interesting...

Hello, and welcome to the last in my summer series of replays. So this summer we've been doing a few replays because I have done a lot of episodes. In fact, on the last episode, I actually said that I would check when I started my podcast and I did. It was the 5th of February, 2018.

Like what? That is crazy. I can't believe it's been going that long. Like, yeah, that I just can't, it's crazy. But I love it. And I get to interview the most amazing humans and hear the most wonderful stories and get the most amazing advice. So that's why I'm doing this replay for you. I'm picking my most favorite and the best episodes that I've done.

And I'm sharing them again with you because even if you've listened to them the first time, these are so good to listen back. I dunno about you, but I've been listening back to lots of books that I've listened to previously and podcast episodes, because often when we're in it and we're listening to, we're like, yeah, yeah, that's brilliant.

That's brilliant. And then you kind of move away from it and your focus changes. So it's really good to revisit some of these things. Now this interview today, is the one I did with Mike Stelzner. And the reason I picked this interview to come up in these replays is because it's actually one of my most popular episodes from download point of view.

So if it's obviously one that really attracts people and people really wanna listen to. So I wanted to include it in this, and again, like the others I've gone back and rewatch the podcast. And what's lovely about the fact that I get to watch it is Mike and I have so much fun doing this and like we're both smiling all the way through the podcast, which is brilliant. It, and it was great.

And he gives some great advice and we'd tell some great stories. I really enjoyed chatting with him. And I remember being a little bit nervous to chat to him cuz it was Mike Stelzner and he heads up social media marketing world. And at the time, not at the time of the interview, actually previous to the interview, I really wanted to speak there as it is.

I now realize why I could never have spoken them because I'm not a specialist and they have specialists. So, you know, I'd need to be an all out Instagram expert or an all out Facebook ads expert. And obviously I am, I was gonna say a Jack of all trades, but that would, you know, lead me to say master of none.

And, and I think I do all right. I think I'd know a lot of stuff. So anyway, so wanted to include Mike's episode. It's a really good one, lots of good practical advice. And like I said, some really cool stories. Here is the last in the replay season. We are back next week for a solo with me, but I hope you enjoy. Here's Mike.

It gives me so much pleasure to welcome today. The variable, medieval and wonderful Mike Stelzner. Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Mike: Teresa. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be joining you today.

Teresa: I am super excited. So Mike, I've already done an intro about you, but let me just reiterate and explain that social media marketing world was the one thing I had on my kind of vision board when I started the business. So I had I'd started my own marketing consultancy. I'd worked in marketing for like 15 years and I started my own consultancy, was doing social media and I saw this event and I watched the video and I was like, I've gotta go there.

But it was in San Diego. It's like five and a half thousand miles away from where I am. And I remember thinking one day, one day, I'm gonna go there. One day I'm gonna be sat in that room with all those amazing people and all those amazing speakers. And I remember seeing it for the first year and the, the next year it came out and I just booked my ticket and I had no idea.

In the early days of running my business, how I was gonna afford the flights, how I was actually gonna manage, go to San Diego, cuz I hadn't done anything like that on my own before and how it was all gonna work out. But I just knew I had to be there. I just knew I had to be in that room with everybody else.

And for me, especially in the UK, I had to raise myself above everybody else and go look, this is how serious I'm taking it. I'm going all the way to San Diego to sit in a room with these amazing experts. And it blew me away. It was honestly, and still to this day, one of the best events I've ever been to, and to be in that room and meet those people was just phenomenal. So thank you.

Mike: Thank you. Thank you for making the investment. That is so cool.

Teresa: And honestly, for me, it was like, how do I stand out? That's how I stand out. I go and sit in a room with those people. So, and you are like there which is great. But anyway, I've jumped straight into that. So if my audience haven't heard from you which I'm absolutely adamant they have, because I share a lot of social media examiner stuff.

I talk about social marketing world, but just let my audience know who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today.

Mike: Well, first of all, I'm a marketer. And secondly, we just turned 10 years old, literally about two weeks ago. Well, actually, no about a month ago after this recording and I started social media examiner back in October of 2009, and it was an experiment as all great things often start as right. And I didn't know what it would become. It was a blog and I figured, oh, this social media thing maybe has a shelf life for three years. So let's just get on that train, starting to get out of the station. And man was I wrong? I mean, that thing just exploded. And you know, as we started in the early days, just writing article.

It turns out that that was the kind of stuff that the social that went viral on social. So little, did I know back then, you could write something about how to do social media on social media and it would, it would get shared thousands of times on Twitter. It would go crazy viral on Facebook. And these were the easy days for things to spread.

This is when Facebook only had, I don't know, maybe 300 million people, which still sounds like a lot, but it was really small back then. And, uh, things grew. I eventually started a podcast and eventually started getting into video. And now we, we have two podcasts. We have a live show, we publish articles almost every day. We have our videos on our YouTube channel that we're publishing multiple times a week. And millions of people are consuming our stuff every year. It's pretty crazy.

Teresa: I mean, that is crazy. And for me, you are the, the pinnacle of it. You are the, if, if I ever speak to anybody or train anybody back to social media, and I say, this is the direction you need to go in on, this is the site you need to look at, it's your site.

And, and it is amazing. And how you maintain that, you know, in this crazy busy, huge world that we're in now, how you still maintain that today is amazing.

Mike: Thank you. Is that a question or statement?

Teresa: Those really. You don't answer it. That's fine.

Mike: Yeah. No. How do I maintain it? Is the question. Right? So first of all, it's it's being aware of the challenges that are faced by our core audience, which is marketers, right? So the, the main audience that we're attracting is a marketer, typically, whose job is marketing in a small business, typically less than a hundred employees. Some of them are solopreneurs or own agencies, but the vast majority of them struggle with the job of marketing.

And social's a key part of what they do. It's not all that they do. The reality for us is we're keeping up on the news. So we have to kinda watch what Zuckerberg changes with Facebook. What's happening with up and coming platforms like TikTok. And then of course, we also have to really be aware of our core audience to what their challenges are, which means we have to survey them every year. We have to really understand the customers that belong to the various. Like we have a professional organization called the social media marketing society, which thousands of marketers belong to. And there's a Facebook group and we kind of study, what do they complaining about?

What are their struggles? What are their challenges? And we kind of look at all of that. And then of course, I interview people on my podcast every week who I think are doing it right. They tell me things. So all that data comes in and then we kind of make projections and, and hypotheses about what we think our audience is going to need for the next couple of months.

And then we go ahead and develop the content, recruit the people to be on the show. And, and we just kind of are always if you will, we're like a ship out to sea looking at the weather patterns and when the weather pattern changes, then we need to change kind of what we are, the direction we're going.

Teresa: Yeah. And I think you hit on a couple of things there. That one, the speed in which it moves is just, you know, and in fact, and, and I'd sent you a DM and you replied to my DM once when I did a TEDx talk and I quoted you in my TEDx talk, because you said at one of the events I've been to that we're in one of the fastest moving industries in the world. And we are, it doesn't stop.

And I think that is a challenge itself. And secondly, for all these marketers that you're dealing with the overwhelm in this industry is just immense. I mean, do you ever see it ever changing, you know, or ever slowing down or ever feeling a little bit calmer?

Mike: I will say that over the last two years, it's slowed down a little bit only because Facebook has been so distracted with lawsuits. All over the world and government inquiries that they have not innovated as much. And as a result of the largest social media platform, not innovated as much the competitors slow down their innovation. It's only, now that we're starting to see a lot of new stuff coming from Facebook's fastest growing platform, which is Instagram.

And that's going to begin the competitive wars. If you will, across the social platforms. As, as other platforms are beginning to like, say, all right, I'm gonna add this or I'm gonna do this. Just like, you know, Facebook does it. But yeah, I, I always say internally that as long as social is changing. We have a very solid business model.

Because the moment it stops changing is the moment when pretty much we're not in a good spot. Right.

Teresa: Got nothing to say.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but it's slowing down for sure. And I think that. I think that as a result of it slowing down, there's a little bit going back to basics with a lot of marketing right now. Like, rather than just going here because it's new. Now, the deeper questions are being asked like, well, what is this doing for the business? What's the actual trackable ROI for something like this. And I think a lot of marketers right now are using this slightly slowing season to kind of make smart decisions about where to stop. So they can start something new.

Teresa: And I, I totally agree. I think sometimes what happens with the social space is that everybody thinks I've gotta be on everything. I've gotta do everything. You mentioned TikTok, you know, That comes out. Everyone's like, oh God, I, should I be doing that? Should I be on it?

Should we, you know, and actually sometimes for me, and, and when I speak to my audience, it's more about doing what you do with consideration and being consistent at it and being where your audience are and focusing on that platform and doing what you can manage. Because otherwise you will completely overwhelm yourself with all these platforms and try and do all these things and keep up with all these changes.

And I think all the platforms have got so many amazing things that they can do. And probably, I mean, you might agree, disagree, you know, lots of businesses are just scratching the surface of it.

Mike: I would agree. Most marketers are doing social wrong or bad. And that might mean they're doing just Facebook ads, for example, and it's kind of working, or it might mean that they're going live on LinkedIn or using LinkedIn video. And, but they don't really know if anyone's watching. So, but yes, I don't even remember what the original question was. What was the question?

Teresa: Just the fact do you know, I've forgotten as well. Yeah, the answer it's gone.

Mike: Yeah. It's the reality. The reality is we are in a changing world, but I think what I think, what, what, what a lot of us need to do is step back and answer the question why first, right?

Like why, why go do this? Right? Why, why continue to do this? Like, one of the things we've done at social media examiner over the last years is we've stopped some things like we decided no longer on Pinterest because in our particular demographic, it, it wasn't serving our business objective. We've also scaled back some of our use of live video.

Um, and instead we're producing podcasts, you know, and we're doing live tapings if you will. And it just really comes down to cost benefit analysis, right? Like we have a team of X number of people in the company. And I think there's five people in, in our marketing department, which is a decent sized marketing department. But they're all overworked and overwhelmed and it's like, There are a lot of things we would love to do more of YouTube being one of them.

And we just haven't been able to do it because we've been distracted doing what we've always done. So one of the things that I keep preaching to people is like, if, when I ask you why you say it's, because that's the way we've always done it, that's a legitimate reason to stop. Because it means you don't really know why.

Hardest thing in the world for a lot of people to do is to stop something, just cuz they've always done it. You almost feel like you're compelled. You must do it. And, and I say, you, you actually must consider whether or not that's a complete waste utter waste of your time. Because you will never be free for the next big thing when it does approach.

Teresa: And the other thing, sorry.

Mike: No, go ahead.

Teresa: So the other thing I was gonna say, that's really interesting when you have been in marketing a long time. When I, you know, I did my degree 15 years ago and well, one marketing then and marketing today looks nothing the same, but we couldn't prove this stuff.

We couldn't prove whether, you know, I used to head up corporate marketing for Land Rover in the UK and, you know, we would, our budgets were massive and we would then go in and do an advert in a paper that cost hundreds of thousands or whatever it would cost and they'd go, "How many cars did we sell?" And we'd be like, "No, I dunno."

You know, because we couldn't track it. Whereas now we can. And that's kind of the frustration that it's like, when you say, you know, why you didn't, well, this is what we've done. And oh, I, I wouldn't wanna stop that just in case. Well, you don't know what you're getting from it. So what do you think's gonna happen if you stop it?

So I think like you said, you know, the fact is we're in a world now where we can see all these things. That we're, it's ludicrous if we do not take advantage of those various different things and actually prove to ourselves that this is actually working and not working. So.

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. So great to have you with me again, as you may have known, if you listen to last week's episode, we are doing some replays. We are doing four in total. The first one was last week, which was Jasmine, which was just brilliant. I love that episode still one of my favorites. And this week is another of my favorites. Obviously they're all my favorites, which is why I chose them. But this week was my second ever interview. When I started my podcast and, and I talked to people a lot about podcasting, often people who join me for the 90 day program want to launch a podcast. I've launched a few podcasts now with people.

So we use that 90 day program to go through and launch their podcast. And one thing that people ask me, or one thing that I talk about, if you're thinking about one is what's the format going to be. Are you going to have interviews? Are you not? What style? And actually, one of the things I did when I started my podcast was I initially just did solos.

The first 20 something episodes were solo episodes and I did it because I think I heard Pat Flynn say something about it. Anyway, I heard someone say about it, you know, if you're going to do a podcast, you wanna get really comfortable with doing it before you start interviewing anybody. So that's what I did.

I got really comfortable with talking to myself and recording myself and putting out the episodes. So for me, I didn't start interviewing until around episode 20 something. This amazing person was my second ever interview. My first ever interview, FYI, if you wanna go back and listen, it was Pat Flynn, which is a kind of crazy, amazing first interview.

But my second ever interview was Amy Porterfield, which I am confident, you know who she is. Cause I've talked about her before. It's it was amazing that I got to interview her second on my podcast because she's a very sought after. All these people are that I'm bringing to you in these replays. And the fact that I've interviewed any of them is, is unbelievable, but to have her as my second was amazing. And actually like I did last week with Jasmine's, I've just listened back to lots of it and. And I really enjoyed the conversation. It was a really lovely conversation. And obviously some time has moved on since then. Like, again, it's about four years I think, but it was the conversation still stands.

We're talking about online courses. We're talking about transitioning into an online business and some of my opinions and thoughts might be different now from what I've learned. And I think that's interesting. It's interesting to see how far I've come as a person, but again, the conversation was just lovely, really, really nice, really fun.

And I think what's really great about these replays. I'm giving you, they are all very charismatic people, so they're, they're great to listen to great to hear their stories. So I really hope you enjoy this replay. Again you might have listened to it, but it could have been a long time ago, but it's a good one. So I really hope you enjoy it. And I'll see you at the end.

Amy. Thank you so much for being a guest of my podcast. I am so excited to have you here.

Amy: I love that I get to do this every time you and I talk. It's like girlfriends are just chatting about everything, work and life and all the good stuff in between. So I think this is gonna be a lot of fun.

Teresa: Oh, I'm really excited about it. You are only my second interview. Oh, my goodness. My last interview was a Pat, he is just like a consummate professional. Isn't he? He's amazing. So that was awesome, but I feel like I'm getting all the best people to start, so it's just fantastic.

Amy: Well, uh, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be the second.

Teresa: Ah, thank you. So obviously I have followed you for ages. I've been very lucky to see you taught live. I'm in, I'm a student in courses that convert and I follow your content. I love what you do. And also your story. I feel like if I was to think of my future forward of how I want my story to pan out is your story.

So I would love it for my audience that may not have come across you. Although I've talked about you a fair bit, I would love it if you could just explain how you kind of got to where you are now.

Amy: Great. Okay. So I started my marketing career with Harley Davidson motorcycles, but it was at a local level. So it was in the States.

And I, uh, I say in the States, cause you're not in the States, but it was in California and I worked for Harley for a few years and that's where I learned marketing. So when you work for a company where people tattoo their logo on their body, I mean, that's crazy. It's a tribe. It's nostalgic. It was amazing.

And that's where I learned community. But from there I then went to work with peak performance, coach Tony Robbins. And funny enough, I got there because I broke up with a boyfriend. I was up late at night, couldn't sleep for weeks and weeks. And that dang Tony Robbins infomercial kept coming up on the television and I would see it every night.

And I thought, I need, I need some of that. So I went to the library, I got his tapes. I mean, this is how long ago it was. I got his tapes. I listened, I fell in love with this message. And then I thought I wanna work for this guy. So I left Harley Davidson, got a job with Tony Robbins and I was the content director.

So I got to work on the content that Tony would do on stage and in his digital products. And for six and a half years, I got the best education I could possibly get. Right. I mean, I got to learn from the master and I was really in it. Like I got to pitch and catch with him. I got to be in his proximity.

We traveled all over the world. I mean, I got that. My travel bug is out of me. I am done, we are on the road all the time. And so I finally realized I wanna be my own boss after listening to Tony over and over again, I wanted to do my own thing. And quite honestly, I was exhausted traveling that much and being on somebody else's time, you could only do that for so long.

And so I thought I wanna be my own boss. I wanna call the shots. I wanna create content for my own business, not for somebody else's. And I had just gotten married and the traveling all the time, just wasn't going to work. And so I, I, I took baby steps. So this is great for anybody to hear that is wanting to transition outta one thing into another.

I didn't just wake up one day and say, I'm quitting. I'm starting my own business, but instead I said, I want to move on. I wanna start my own thing. I'm gonna start taking baby steps. I asked to move from the content department to the marketing department and I had a lot of clout there. I'd been there for a while.

So they said, yes. And then at one point, I said, can I start working from home a few days a week? And then from there, can I go part-time and then from there. I took the leap and went out on my own. And I think when you're a good employee, I recently heard Marie Forlio interview somebody about being a good employee and how you want to just shine no matter what.

And I feel like I was a good employee till the very end. So they said yes to all those things. Then I finally took the leap and here's where I'll wrap up the story. My goal was to create online training programs around social media and online marketing and sell those program. That's how I had seen it done by the big guns that were making lots of money and a big impact.

I went out on my own, had no idea how to create an online course. Didn't have an audience and I was freaked out because I didn't have a big savings. So I started to take clients for social media. So I took about eight clients. I was doing their social media for small businesses and I hated it. I didn't realize that it wasn't for me.

I mean, it's great for other people. They kill it. I didn't enjoy it. And I had no idea how to set boundaries. So they were calling me at all hours of the day. Their expectations were wild because I didn't set any and I just was not loving it. But I did it for two years and being in the trenches with small businesses, doing their social media taught me so very much so I needed the education.

I just didn't enjoy it. About two years into my online business. It's almost 10 years now, about two years in, I decided no more. I do not like this business model I created, I'm starting over. And I started to create courses and let go of my clients. The day I let go of my final client. Oh, wow. Turned up the radio.

I danced it out alone in my little condo. Like I finally am doing it. And it was hard for a while. We actually went into debt a little bit when I let go of my clients and started my online courses, cause they kind of took a while to ramp up. So that wasn't ideal, but I'm here now. 90% of my revenue is made from three online courses I sell on evergreen every single day. And then I do some affiliate marketing as well.

Teresa: It's just, honestly, the story's amazing because I used to work the Land Rover. I did corporate marketing for Land Rovers. So again, a brand where, you know, in some parts of the world, that is the only vehicle they see, you know?

Amy: Oh yeah.

Teresa: And people love the vehicles.

Amy: I have a Range Rover. I love the vehicle.

Teresa: And, and it is, it's an amazing brand, a great product. And then obviously worked in marketing forever. Started on my own, but I did exactly same and I, you know, I had clients and I remember hearing you say once, which is exactly what I thought was you went from having one boss to suddenly having eight, like no, that's not what I wanted.

And they think, oh, I'm gonna have my own business so that I can have free time and I can manage my, and it's like, no, no, no, that didn't work. That isn't how it's working.

Amy: Never.

Teresa: I think with clients and you have them, you do feel like you are kind of tied a bit or you are responsible or gotta be around in business hours.

So if I come off to, you know, go off to the States, I feel a bit like, oh, how are we gonna manage these things? So, yeah, I feel like I hear your journey and think that's where I wanna be. That's where I wanna be in five years’ time. Let's say.

Amy: I love it.

Teresa: It's my fingers cross. Did you ever imagine in the early days when you started, did you think I'm gonna become this successful?

Amy: Oh, heck no, like never in my wildest dreams. Did I think that I'd have the business I have today. And here's something I tell my students, the business you have today will look dramatically different in just a few years from now. And so making big decisions, making pivots, all of that is okay, because it's going to look different.

And I wanted to sell online courses, but I didn't know exactly how it was going to turn out. And I think that's okay as well. I recently heard a friend of mine say she never sets goals like five years out. She does it about 24 months out and that's about it. And that's what I've always done. At first it was like six months out, then 12 months out.

Then I could look about two years forward, but no more than that. And that's allowed me to not have to make everything such a big deal because I could pivot as I go.

Teresa: Yeah. And I think that's so important again, when you said you started off on social media, I've thought about social media courses, but the problem with the social media world is you do something and 10 minutes later, it's out of date.

So I thought, you know, I could spend months putting together an amazing Facebook course and Facebook makes one change and that's it. I'm done, you know, that is no longer relevant. What is it that you love and are there still things that you dislike about what you do now?

Amy: Oh, yes. Okay. So what I love is I love the teaching part.

I absolutely love to put together content and teach it in a way that light bulbs go off and people think, oh, I get it. Finally, you broke it down. I'm best known for step by step in breaking things down and holding people's hand through the process. And, and that definitely is something that feels good to me.

So I absolutely love it. I mean, I of course love the emails that say it worked. I did it and look at my results. So I live for that. Now the stuff I don't love when I first taught Facebook, I had the same problem that you'll likely be up against where it was always changing. I had a Facebook program back in the day and I wanted to pull my hair out the second Facebook would make an announcement.

So I get that part. I don't love updating my programs. It's no matter what you teach, it's a pain in the butt. And I also feel a lot of pressure to support a lot of people, my community, I worry. I'm a worrier by nature. I worry about them. I wanna make sure they're getting the kind of support they need and that they're getting to the finish line.

And so I hold that a lot, like on my chest, like I can physically feel it sometimes. And so I have to be careful about my self care. Like I talk to a therapist type person every single week on a Friday morning at 7:00 AM. I do meditation. I have to, I, you know, I go on walks with my dog. I have to do a few things because I, I take everybody else's struggle and burden of building an online business and just put it all on myself.

And you do that when you have courses that teach people how to do stuff and they're going through it and they're struggling, it's building an online business is not easy. And so that's the part that I have to be very mindful of.

Teresa: And I think as well, There's a big difference between people who just put courses out to sell and people who want people to succeed.

Amy: Yes.

Teresa: And you know, you can't just, well, you can, but it's not, I don't think this would be my sort of thing. This definitely isn't yours. You know, you can just put together a course and sell it and who cares if they do it? You know, at the end of the day, that's up to them. But of course you don't want that.

You want people to buy your course go through it. In fact, I have a friend who has her own business who spoke to me just the other day and went, "Oh my God, Amy's done it again." And I was like, "What you mean?" She went, I I've bought courses. I she'd already got courses. She said, and I've gone and bought email and webinars that from her. Not, and she knows what she's doing. She can't, I can't help myself.

Amy: Oh. And I love her. But those are the people I think about because that's hard earned money they're spending with me and I, I get it and I want them to truly succeed. And you're right. There are people that just put out their courses and they say, it's up to you.

You know, you're a big girl. You're a big boy. You figure it out. I can't, I can't do it. And you can't either. I know you enough to know we, we care deeply.

Teresa: We do. And, and I want to, the, the bit that I love doing is adding value is, is being a help to...

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. So I have a really, really exciting episode for you today. I had the pleasure of being contacted by Denise Duffield-Thomas' team. And to ask if I would like to interview her, which I was like, Well, like SO obvious.

That's not a call. I was very much like OMG. Yes, please. So I am assuming, you know who Denise Duffield-Thomas is. If you don't, then you can thank me later. She is an amazing money mindset coach from Australia. She has had three books out already and another one's just come out and I've read her books and I've ordered the new one.

I pre-ordered it, uh, which I will have by the time this episode comes out, I'm actually only recording this a week before it comes out, which is normally. We normally have a much wider window for our podcast, but obviously we wanted to get it out as quick as possible because she's got this new, amazing book out, had so much fun talking to her.

She was so lovely and so much of her morals and ethics and the way she does business is in line with mine. She is also very anti sleazy, bro marketing tactics. And. She does really quality stuff. In fact, she talked me through, after the call, we carried on chatting for about half an hour, which was lovely.

And she showed me her new course and like, she's put so much effort into it. And it was just so reassuring to see that someone at her level cares as much as I care at my level, that, you know, we deliver a quality service and that people get genuine transformations outta the work we do. So that was really, really ACE.

Uh, I really think you're gonna love this episode, please, please, please share it. I would love you to tag us in I'd love Denise to see what an amazing audience I have and brilliant community. And I really, really appreciate it. So yeah, here is the amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas. Okay. It is with a much excitement that today I welcome to the podcast, the amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas. Denise, welcome to the podcast.

Denise: Thank you so much for having me. I just so appreciate it. It was funny. I'm in winter and you're in having a massive summer.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Which is funny, cuz at one of my team members. Left the UK recently and finished working with me because she's gone to live in Australia for 18 months. And she's literally posting beaches and it's horrible here, and you are having a heat wave and I've moved to Australia. It's ironic.

Denise: You know what? It's so funny. I actually have to check the temperature for today because you you'll just laugh. I was freezing today and I think it was about 15 degrees. Yeah. It was something like that. And I was walking along the beach and I was just like, it's so cold, but yeah. And then soon we'll have heat waves and you'll be freezing.

Teresa: What's the heat. What temperature does it get there? Like what's the hottest?

Denise: We do have a couple of 40 degree days, at least every summer, which can be just so hot. It. Yeah, it'd be crazy, but I, I live near the beach, so I have a nice beach breeze, which is good. I can see the oceans from here. So it's that's nice.

Teresa: So cool. Isn't this the most British way to start a podcast talking about the weather? Like could I be any more start typical.

Denise: Nice cup of tea.

Teresa: And talk about the weather. I love it. I love it. Denise. I start the podcast the same every single time where you tell my amazing audience who you are and what you do. Now I'm sure they know who you are. But we'll human them anyway. And we'll go ahead as normal. Please introduce yourself.

Denise: Of course, I'm Denise Duffield-Thomas and I'm a money mindset mentor. And by that, I mean, I help people with the mindset around charging, around having conversations around money and specifically dealing with your past and your stories and beliefs about money that stop you from living a beautiful first class life.

And I do that through my books and courses called money bootcamp. And I live in Australia. If you can't tell by my accent. I'm married to a British man though from he's, from, uh, Crewe.

Teresa: Nice.

Denise: Yeah, and I have three kids and two doggies.

Teresa: Nice. How old are your children?

Denise: I thought you were gonna say, how old are your dogs? Cause I always talk dogs more than my kids.

Teresa: Not interested with the kids, we talk about the dog.

Denise: Um, 8, 6, and 4.

Teresa: Man.

Denise: And we, yeah, it's intense. And you know, my hubby went away for the weekend. On a boys' weekend and left me with them. And I was just like.

Teresa: So much hard work. Honestly. I have one that I, I learned my lesson very quickly. One was enough for me. That's all I could manage.

Denise: That would be plenty. Our eight year old, she goes, "I told you not to have any more kids." That's what she was saying after that, when I was trying to get them all to bed, she goes, "Should have listened to me. I told you to have no more children after me."

Teresa: That is hilarious.

Denise: Indeed.

Teresa: And I think as well, like we were just talking because your new book is about to come out called Chill and Prosper. And we were just talking about the fact of, you know, it's hard work sometimes and having children and juggling families and working and doing all the things as much as you really do, uh, you know, demonstrate what you teach. There's still times where it gets crazy busy.

Denise: Absolutely. And I'm, I'm totally in it now. And it's always of my own making. And this is what I talk about in the book is, you know, being a chillpreneur is a practice and nobody's perfect at it. And I I'm someone who is very delusional about how long things take. And my capacity to do work.

So I tend to say yes to a lot of things. So what I talk about in the book is, you know, you have to sometimes develop systems. Because behavior change is actually really hard. And if you can do things in spite of having to, to change it, and I'll give you an example, my Calendly account to do, um, interviews, it used to just book things back to back.

And I would just be again, so delusional about time and space and oh, I don't, I don't need to pee or eat.

Teresa: Yeah. Who on earth would do those things?

Denise: So, but I've set up the system in spite of myself that it could, you know, there can only be a certain amount of interviews per day. They have to have half an hour in between. So it's not about being perfect.

It's about finding the easier path for you. And, and sometimes you have to do that in spite of yourself, which I, I often have to do to.

Teresa: And that's what I love actually about you and your books. And I think probably your books are probably some of the ones I first read about money mindset. Cause if you'd asked me four or five years ago, what money mindset would I, I wouldn't have had a clue and I don't think I could have told you.

And I don't know that I would've understood the importance of it. And I think it took a bit of time. But. What I love about the books is not only are we talking a mindset side, so we're talking a lot of stuff that some people might find it hard to get their head around to begin with. But you talk about a very practical side.

And I remember in one of the books, you talk about how obviously you have electronic keys to cars and you talk to having electronic keys to your house. And how else could you make it easy? And I love that. I love that practical element of. One with the calendar. No, actually. And I'm exactly the same as you. I will literally book back to back, or even when I do leave a gap, I know what I'm like.

I will be on a call, a coaching call and I'll stay on longer. Cause I'll think, oh no, I've got actually my next call. Isn't till this time. Instead of thinking, no, you need to get off and get a drink and have a wee and, you know, get ready for the next call. So I love the fact of sort of practical and the, the more mindset stuff.

So when did the mindset stuff really? When did you kind of go, oh, hang on a minute. This is important.

Denise: The mindset piece for me, I think is actually where I started from because I started reading personal development books at a really young age and started, you know, watching Oprah after school. So I always knew that mindset was important and I knew that work was important, but for some reason, I didn't know how to put that together with money.

It was kind of like, cool. You can do your woo woo practices over here, and then there's like money and they're just that they just had to be separate, I think, in my mind. And so it wasn't probably until my late twenties that I just sort of went, wow. I've been doing all of these things for a long time, but it hasn't moved the needle of my finances.

What if I kind of combine them a little bit? So I started looking at the work of Louise Hay, for example, you know, so much self-love work and things like that. And I was like, well, what if I did that kind of work with my money and, and treated my money, like a spiritual practice. And so. And I also think it came from the other side of me.

When I, when I started learning about the law of attraction, I was like, but what do you do? I, I really thought it was about just becoming perfect in your thoughts. You know, I was like, oh, I just, I guess I have to meditate every day and just become like a really nice, good person. Because we, we are so caught up in this deservingness piece of what we have to do to deserve money instead of realizing, well, sometimes you just have to put yourself in the path and just ask for it.

And that's hard because of all the mindset stuff. So it becomes this chicken or egg kind of scenario where you just go round and round. You have to do both all the time.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, it's a practice. I, I found that all the mindset stuff I've done, I think people, you know, meditation's a great example.

I meditate every day and people think, you know, oh, once you've got it, you've got it. And I just can't get it. And it's like, no, I will still sit down. And I've been doing this for a couple of years now. I will still sit down in the morning and go, yeah, it's not working today. I could not get this to work.

So I think it's that constant practice and that constant reminder. So if someone was sat listening, thinking, okay, but what sort of things, what is it that I'm meant to be doing? How can I be trying to improve this? Because our brain is insanely powerful and we have the most like possible critical side of us ever.

You know, we'll say these affirmations or whatever, and then immediately we'll go. Yeah, really though. So what kind of things can we be doing to think about this money mindset?

Denise: Yeah, so I like to reverse engineer sometimes things, right? And because sometimes in the personal development world, we think really big woo woo spiritual stuff. It's like, I can, I'm willing to receive money. I'm willing to receive, universe I'm open to receive a million dollars and then someone offers you a compliment and you say, "No, no, Nope." Or are you friends? That's can I buy you a coffee and you go, "No, no, no, no." And so it's those small things sometimes that are so symbolic.

And I talk about in my money bootcamp about incrementally upgrading your life. Looking around and seeing what makes me feel poor. What makes me feel inconvenienced, but really what you're looking for is those symbolic things that, uh, well, that. A symbol of how you treat yourself, how much you think you're willing to have, how much comfort you're allowed to have.

And so sometimes it is the small things that make the biggest difference. So here's an example. If you really struggle to ask for money, you know, as in you struggle to invoice, you struggle to set your prices, things like that. You might have to go back and unravel this deep, fundamental feeling that it's impolite to ask for what you want.

And you might have been told you, get what you get. You don't get upset. You might have been told that it's greedy to ask for some another thing, you know, or, and, and so you might have to practice and go to a cafe and say, do you mind if I have a little bit more milk for my tea?

And that might take everything that you have. But if you can't do that, You know, it's just putting a band aid on the top to go "Universe I'm ready for my millions." It's like, well, you're actually not. So that's what you do. You do those tiny, tiny little things. So I teach a, a three step process in money boot camp and we just, we go over it again and again and again.

And we look at it from a million different ways. So it's OCP. O- Origin stories. you know, and this is where sometimes people start here and I just say, make an inventory of everything you think of you remember about money, and then you could say, tell me about, you know, Christmas. Tell me about birthdays.

Tell me about your birth order. Who got, who, who got what they wanted and who got hand me downs in your family? So there's a million different prompts of ways that we could figure out some of our stories. What did your family talk about when it came to money? How did they talk about rich people? How did they talk about poor people?

How did they talk about what did, what did, what was a real job in your family? What was not a real job. What was your unofficial family motto? If you had a, a crest sometimes it's, you know, Jones has never quit. So we look at all of those things, but we don't just stay there because sometimes we don't remember, or we don't see the nuances.

So that's O of OCP C is Connect the Dots to how this is showing up in your life right now. And actually some people start there because they come to me and they, they have a problem. I, I can't charge, or I can't send out invoices or I just hate talking about money. Sometimes it's specific. Sometimes it's just this vague feeling of I'm just not meant to be successful or money seems to allude me.

So then we would go, what are the origin stories? So if you were told. You know, all the time growing up, it's really impolite to talk about money. Well, that's a really big understanding and a compassion for yourself. Of course you struggle to put a price. Because it's against every fiber of your being.

So that's the C- Connecting the Dots. So we've got Origin Stories, Connecting the Dots and then P is for Patent Interrupt. And this is where we, we change either the thought the behavior, we can do it incrementally. We can do it like straight away. And so a pattern interrupt in a moment could be. Oh, I always say things like there's not enough money or we can't afford it.

So in that moment, I'm gonna say there's always more money. Something like that. So you can do patent interrupters in the moment you can do long term stuff where it's maybe do Tappy. Yeah. You know, things that kind of change you from a, you know, like a, a brain point of view. Or long term stuff could be working with a coach surrounding yourself with other people who talk about money.

Because it rubs off on you. And so you can see how you can just go around and around. Cause I, I still come up and realize new origin stories, or I'm always coming across the same money blocks and you know, you have to kind of go back and do it. So. Anyone can kind of start to dig into that. It's an excavation.

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah.

Denise: You know, and yeah.

Teresa: Sorry, go...

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Do you know what I get on every week? And I record these and I just say the numbers. But 250 episodes. Wow. That is loads. That is so many, that is so much content. It's crazy. It blows me away how these numbers just creep up and if I was smart I would work out how many years that has been but I'm not sure I want to because that's a lot a lot a lot. Anyway

This week I have an interview for you which is really really cool. So I have the lovely Nakia Gray on and we're talking all things legal. Now I know if you're anything like me that stuff scares me Like I'm not even kidding you. I do not find that stuff like enjoyable or easy or fun. The same with the finance stuff, these two areas for me are like oh I really have to focus and really have to remind myself to do these things.

But The way she talks about it and some of the stuff she says is so so helpful. And it's really really important as small business owners that we have some kind of cover in some way or other. And one thing that was great to talk about is the fact of like the template thing. And I know you know I've heard people say you know you're not allowed to use or not allowed or you shouldn't use templates. You shouldn't just Google a privacy policy and use that. But you know what not everyone can afford to bring a lawyer in.

So I talked to her about it and I said "You know, is that Okay? What do you think?" So yeah that's really helpful We talked around that. We talked about things around intellectual property. Also we talked about where you should never say you've got lifetime value of something which is really interesting cause that's definitely a mistake I've made in the past, years ago but I've definitely said you've got lifetime access to something and she talked about why you shouldn't say that. Um because basically it's not true is it because whose lifetime are you talking about yours or mine or what is a lifetime? Does that mean that I need you to still be serving me. I saw someone do lifetime access for a membership the other day which I think is fascinating because courses I can understand why people would say that like even ones. So I had a course of Jasmine Star, That was a really old course. And she actually said I'm checking this course down but you've got so long to download all the stuff. So technically yeah I have had access to that course for you know as long as I need it for a lifetime if you like. So courses I get but memberships I don't like what if that person decided they don't wanna do that membership anymore. What if I don't know just That just didn't sit right with me.

Anyway I didn't mean to go on a little round about that. But yeah we talk about that and we talk about lots of other good things. So let me tell you who Nakia is. So Nakia is an intellectual Oh God I knew this was gonna happen I hate reading out and I can't speak when I read. She's an intellectual property attorney and business strategists who helps entrepreneurs build profitable and protected brands. Armed with her creative legal mind savvy marketing skills and extensive education with the 20 years’ experience fyi she does not look old enough. She operates great legal PC and modern and in law firm uniquely designed for digital entrepreneurship which I think is really interesting. Because I know there's professionals that I deal with who don't understand the digital online world. So I think the fact that she does really really helps. Uh she has clients but she also has a membership called lockedandlawyered.co and premier online destination for entrepreneurs to make sure their business is legal legit and overflowing with money. That would all have a bit of that.

So okay this is Nakia, she's wonderful I think you're really gonna like her so over to her. Okay It's my pleasure today to welcome to the podcast Nakia Gray. Nakia how are you doing?

Nakia: I am doing lovely. Thank you.

Teresa: Good. Good. Really good. I'm really excited to have you on. I did a request a while ago in a group we are in for people who talk about different subjects that are not subjects I ever talk about because they are definitely not my zone a genius. So I am really really glad to have you on. So, we always get started the same way by you telling my audience what you do and how you got to do what you're doing.

Nakia: Sure. So I am a business and intellectual property strategist and I help entrepreneurs with protecting their brand and also creating protecting and monetizing their intellectual property. So that is my zone of genius. And I have been doing this and I actually am going into my seventh year of in this practice. I've been practicing law for 16 years. I was a litigator before this, Yeah But I kind of moved into I took Marie Forleo's B-School in 2014 and that was like okay I wanna be in the online space. Um and definitely kind of made a shift at that time for personal reasons and some professional reasons. And so I've been at this for a while but just you know in in a different lawyering in a different way but still being a lawyer.

Teresa: Yeah Yeah. So explain to me what you did before this. You did say but I wasn't sure I know what that means.

Nakia: So I was I used to go to court. I was a divorce lawyer.

Teresa: Okay. Oh God I can only imagine. As a divorced woman with a husband who was is also divorced. One was easy, mine was very easy like "Just give me the paper, I'll sign. See you later. Bye." Uh his Ugh Like yeah I can only imagine that job must have like.

Nakia: Oh I did, I had a heavy caseload. So I was doing about 50 contested divorce cases a year with custody issues, property businesses like knocked down, drag out fights. And so it just got to be, I mean you've been through it and I and I understand with yours being easy but for some people it's the worst. I was meeting people at the worst time in their lives. And they were going through so much. They were I was really the only person that they felt comfortable sharing all the stuff that was going on. So people were dumping a lot of their trauma on me. And that just after a while it just literally sucked the life out of me seriously. Like it was just it was just too much It was too much.

Teresa: I can only imagine like the negativity, the heartache the because it's it there's so much to it. You know there's and you see the worst of people I'm sure like where they're behaving really badly especially when there's children involved. I can only imagine that although it must have been very rewarding in lots of senses to come home every day with all that like weight on your shoulders must have been so much.

Nakia: Yeah it was. And it was also just it was it began to be really difficult for me to leave it at work. You know what I mean? Like my husband's phone rings late at night and it's like "Who's that? What's going on? What are you hiding?" You know what I mean It's just like yeah you're listening to people and they've you know it just it was just so much. And then even my kids at the time my youngest was heading into middle school and he said you know he hated that I did this. He and he said mom you know I hate divorce because his friend you know I was looking at it from the adults right. Like all the people that I was representing.

But in his little world he was seeing the effects of it on the kids and how bad kids felt and how they were now not able to come to his birthday party because it was on dad's weekend or you know what I mean. So as a as a middle schooler he had this this conception that you know this perception that divorce is just ugly. It's bad. It rips families apart. It makes my friends sad so why do you do this mom? And so that really was eye opening for me. Like my goodness I'm tearing families apart every day that can't be God's purpose for my life.

Teresa: No. No. So had you had any experience with the online world? Had you seen it? Had you what kind of then made you even discover you know B school and that sort of stuff?

Nakia: Yes. So I went back so my undergraduate degree is in marketing and even law was a second career for me. I was in the fashion industry first right outta law school. For an undergraduate degree in marketing went.

Teresa: Can I just say Nakia you do not look old enough to have had all these careers and the children and everything else. Like you were sat there looking very young.

Nakia: You are my new best friend. Yeah. So my two kids, I have two seniors this year, my youngest is graduating from high school and my oldest is graduating from college this year.

Teresa: Get out of here. They are not. Oh I need like some serious work done. Come on people disheveled And now I feel really annoyed that like I didn't come on my A game honestly.

Nakia: So despite how young and vibrant look I am old and I went to college like before the internet like I went to when I went to college there was no internet. Like it was it So all of that marketing experience started to feel a little outdated. And so I went back to school in 2011 I went to American University. They had a master a weekend master's program on branding and strategic communication and online presence and blogging. And so that was where I kind I went and that was the first time in my life that I went to school for me. Like I really wanna be better Like I was starting to feel outdated and I learned about people that had these online businesses and I'm like "These people are living a great life. Like what! Where I'm in?"

Teresa: This is amazing! Yeah.

Nakia: And I stumbled on Marie I stumbled on Marie's B school. She does like a free video series. And I enrolled in that and I was like oh my God I'm gonna do this. And so I did it and I will tell you uh if full transparency at the time when I enrolled in B school my plan was just to start an online business I didn't know what it was gonna be I was just like whatever they're doing I need to figure it out. And it was in B school like being in the Facebook group and seeing all these people like someone stole my eBook I have a client that's not paying me.

I have these they were having all of these issues and I had my Oprah aha moment like I know what my online business is gonna be I need to be a lawyer for these people who need a lawyer and have no clue what they're doing about the legal issues surround around their content and their trademarks. So that's how I just so all of my first client like I built this to practice in Marie Forleo's B-School and then I enrolled in other online courses and it just took off from there.

Teresa: So so good. So how does your day look now. Like I can imagine how your day looked before. What kind of day do you have now?

Nakia: So now I've grown tremend I mean just astronomical growth since I first started. Also I forgot this little part when I first started my husband and I had agreed that I was gonna come home leave the law firm to homeschool. So I was a homeschool mom so I was part-time. So the online space really worked well for that. So I only worked um two season Thursdays So when my daughter graduated and went to college in in 2017 that's when I became I really ramped up and was like full time. And so now I have I mean I have an entirely virtual staff I have people all over the world. Attorneys, support staff, marketing automation you know I have all of these things. Yeah And so my day looks a lot better than it did back then.

And so I really, you know I spend Tuesdays and Thursdays doing new client consults and Wednesdays are dedicated to current clients. I run a membership now that is really beneficial for people because for a lot of business owners, a lot of my clientele I should say they don't necessarily need like a full time expensive lawyer all the time.

Teresa: Yeah totally get that.

Nakia: They just need to like reach out and touch me if they need to. And so that really so I am busy creating content for them. I have tons of contract templates and things that I'm constantly adding to their that they can use Like we just recently had someone who had a client I'm sure you could may have ever may have had to deal with this that isn't paying. And so it's like well how do we address this? What do we have to say? And so she was able to say to me tell me what to say, and so I wrote that out for her Like this is how we demand payment and you wanna I really wanna empower my clients to enforce these contracts that you have like you've invested in having this solid client contract but you really have to say well they have to do what you say we're going to do here.

And if you don't I'm gonna point you to the paragraph that says um may have to terminate our relationship. And that's not always an easy conversation for people to have. And so I spend my days you know responding to those kinds of things or someone says oh I uh found this really cool coworking space and they've given me a contract. What does it say? Can I sign this? Yeah You know And so they can just send that to me. I love that because every day brings something new. It brings something different. It's fresh which is exciting for me. So that's kind of you know for the most part what I spend on my day doing and then of course team meetings. I have my own staff that I have to meet with and strategize with and plan launches and all of those things.

Teresa: So good I love all that. And actually I love the idea of a membership. It's funny when cause obviously I have a membership. I have helped people launch memberships. I have a lot to do with the membership space. And so and I have met the most unique memberships that you think what is that really a thing? But actually for you because I have had lots of thoughts about I need to tighten up on this side of it but there's two things that I don't like dealing with and legal and finance are the two like they're not for me but they're really important. So like the thought of having cause the other thing is that what scares me is. And this was actually one of my questions was you know what's the difference between picking a template up and is that okay?

Because there are people out there who can't afford that at this point you know they're just getting going, they've not really got any clients or not got many clients. So is having a template better than having nothing but then is having you know when do you decide that you have to flip to paying someone to do it personally for you?

Nakia: I am so glad that you that you brought that up because definitely a template is better than nothing. However a template that's not done properly or that you aren't executing correctly can be very detrimental. And so I recommend that even with the template. So that's why in my membership although people have access to all of my you know hundreds of templates we also include document review. So you could up to 10 pages a month, after you after you customize your template send it to us to say did I do this right? Is this you know?

And so I'll tell you a really crazy story. One of my clients was doing a video shoot a brand shoot and the videographer had sent her a contract and my client who's in the membership sent it to say "Hey is this okay? Can I sign it?" And there was a clause in there that said that After the video was completed that the videographer would own the copyright in all rights to the work. Certainly that's not what the videographer meant. They didn't do that. They didn't intentionally say that. And so when I gave my client the language and I said copy this paste this set it to him. And they were like "Oh my God I just got that off Google I had no idea That's what it said." True story. Totally Not every so they just you know so not everyone is like you know and that was great that my client had me to not to talk her off the ledge and say don't get upset and just say "How dare you think I'm gonna pay you $3,000 for a video and you're gonna own it?" You know what I mean? It's like the videographer clearly just got the got a template. And had no And maybe in for some videographers like some famous person you know if Beyonce is your videographer maybe she does wanna own it. But you know for most people they don't wanna own it. They just wanna be paid for it and they'll give it to you.

And so that's a great example of why not having a template and then sending it to people to say. Cause the way that I...