Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / Building Strategic Partnerships Over Sales for Entrepreneurial Success

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Building Strategic Partnerships Over Sales for Entrepreneurial Success · The One Small Change Podcast

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Welcome to The One Small Change, and as always, I'm thrilled to
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embark on this journey of exploration and transformation with you.
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And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy. I bring over 30 years of entrepreneurial
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experience, and I have a passion for
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discovering growth through the power of seemingly small change.
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And I like to bring interesting people to you every week that you
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can learn something from. And this week The person
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who's going to be sharing her journey with us is Susan
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Jarema, and she's going to share a small, unexpected,
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or insignificant, you know, or maybe not so insignificant, um,
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decision that sparked a remarkable transformation and growth
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in either her personal or her professional life. And
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the thing about these changes is sometimes we don't recognize it at the time
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when it has. So Susan, Thank you for being
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here. Thank you for being willing
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to share your story and your fabulous gift, which we're going to talk about when
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we get to the end. So tell everybody what it is you do and what
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happened that made you decide to go in the direction
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or pivot to doing what you're doing. Well, lovely to be
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here, Yvonne, and very grateful for all of your contributions
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in our community at the Grand Connection. You know,
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you're— I learn from people like yourself all the time. So, you know,
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when you're going around, it's meeting people that really creates a lot of change in
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your life. I'm thinking back to, you know, some big
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changes because I was, you know, you asked me, told me what I'm going to—
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you're going to be asking me a few minutes ago. And I'm like, okay, where
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was this big pivot in my life? And I had a—
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I have— I had my marketing agency for— I've had it for over
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2 decades now. So, I've been doing websites since
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1995, a long, long time ago. They
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were very different back in the day and the internet was hardly the same early
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days either. There was no social media and all that. So, I went through a
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lot of changes in the world of marketing. And having a marketing
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agency, you are, you know, you like to try out
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marketing tools and tactics and techniques and all the things because
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it's exciting. Well, next shiny object, I'm going to give it a go. But
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I was, I was a single mom at the time and getting
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drained out. You probably know that feeling. And I was—
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my kids had these hamsters and one of them's named Nibbles, and
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it was on the hamster wheel. And, you know, I was just staring at it.
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It's— I could hear it in the office going
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all the time. I'm up working late and I'm thinking, I don't want
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to be like this. Like, this is, this is like that hamster is running on
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a wheel. I'm just like that hamster. It's actually losing weight.
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I'm gaining weight because I was eating chocolate. And I wanted to be
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in a place where I could have consistent clients coming
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to me all the time. And how would I do that? I was always trying.
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You're always just pushing, pushing and trying. You know, I was— I would
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go and I would do a trade show. I would get an ad in the
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paper. I would do an ad in the magazine. I mean, eventually it started to
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be internet things, right? So you started doing article marketing, all the early sign—
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early internet stuff. SEO got started, and I'm always trying
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to get that next bit of new clients through the marketing efforts.
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And then I realized, you know, if I could be strategic about it,
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purposeful, and start networking more strategically. I
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did do a bit of networking, but I was always just like, you know,
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pitching and sort of just throwing it out there, collecting business
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cards and, you know, following up, of course. But I wasn't getting
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the strategic results that I wanted. That I could be getting later,
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which I now looking back, I was like, why didn't I start this sooner? I
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started looking for strategic partners, people that would— I did
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websites. So who reaches the same people that
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need websites or who notices the problem
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that will need a website, like a coach or a business consultant would notice,
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or a lawyer? The accountants often notice when their clients' websites aren't very good
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or, you know, what they're doing. So I started finding those power
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partners around me. And that's when life just changed.
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So you've hit on so many things. I kind
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of want to take a step back just to highlight some of the things that
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you said, because I think one of the things that everybody
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is looking for is they're looking for consistency,
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right? And part of consistency comes when you feel
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confident about what you're doing, and that confidence comes
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from the clarity. And so people are looking
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for consistency before they get clarity, so they're not feeling
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confident, right? So I think that's one big thing
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that we all share as entrepreneurs. I mean, I know that
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for me, that was like, you know, you know, squirrel.
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This week I'm pitching this, next week I'm pitching that, right?
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Just to focus on the one thing that you do really well. But
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here's the thing that you're talking— you talked about that, you know, was a really
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hard lesson for me. And I
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built my previous company before COVID
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on referrals. And so I did not have a
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consistent pathway to— for people
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to find me, you know. And I came to
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networking really, really late. And
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so that's one of the things that I love about The Grand Connection is
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that it is a warm,
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friendly place to network. I mean, when I started networking,
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it was like I looked at everybody in the room as having a dollar sign
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on their forehead. Are they gonna buy from me? It had
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nothing to do with relationships. It had, you know, it was
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purely a— I was showing up for sales. I was not
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showing up to connect. And that is probably the
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absolute wrong way to belong to a community
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and to network. So I just had to say that because that That was
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the big mistake that I made. Yeah. And I see it all the time
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coming through our community as well. People come in and they just want to sell.
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They start pitching and talking and no one listens. They're not listening at all to
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anybody else. And they don't build any relationships. And they go, oh, I didn't get
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any clients. And I'm going, yeah, because nobody connected with
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you. And I think the thing is, you
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know, you really are building a relationship. You want
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to, you know, you want people to know who you are so they can trust
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you. And from that, you either build a collaboration
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relationship, a friendship, right? Or
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potentially a client. But if you go in with your sales hat
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on, nobody actually gets to know you. And too many people go into
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networking, I think, with, I do this, this, this, this, this,
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this, this, I've got this degree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And
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if there was a client in the room, they wouldn't care because
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they didn't get to know you. So tell us more about how, how
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this revelation made you do what you now
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do so fabulously. Well, I, you
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know, I became strategic in my networking. This is back in the days of
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in-person because that was, it was a long time ago. There wasn't even,
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there wasn't even Zoom yet. So I would do it in person, but I was
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very strategic and I got, you know, 3 or 4 really good
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referral partners out of this. Of which, you know, I, I
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either supported them in some way. It was very, very good relationships,
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and that was 80% of my business. And then you're always—
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no, I was. Going to say, talk about what a power partner is or
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what a collaboration partner is, because I think people
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misunderstand that. Yeah, so in The Grand
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Connection, we focus on collaboration, and collaboration, I find—
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now, this is sort of the second learning that I've had, a big change. So
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the first one was how to find these strategic partners that I made— I called
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I call referral partners. Some people might call them your power team. Your
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power team is often used in those words. But I also say that
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you have your power team, that it's a broader team, right? So
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they would be referrals. But you can also have your collaboration team too.
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Like, you and I are collaboration partners.
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You've been on my stage many times. I've introduced you to lots of other people
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who could be strategic partners for you, possibly some clients.
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I'm here on your podcast as well, and you've— we've given each other
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support through that as well as I've learned a lot from you.
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So, you know, the other thing is
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your, your kind of power team and your collab, you know,
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is built on a real relationship. I know if I were
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to call you up, you know, just like yesterday, I was like,
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Susan, will you be on my podcast? And you're like, yeah, I'm there.
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Do you know? I mean, it's, it's, it's so heartwarming as
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opposed to people that,
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you know, like you feel like you have to go through gatekeepers and you have
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to do all, you know, do all these somersaults and, you know, kinds of things.
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And you want to have a big group of that.
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I mean, it doesn't happen overnight. And my thing was when I first started
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doing affiliate marketing, because my idea of being personal
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was putting first name into the email
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And Chuck is like, no, you have to pick up the phone. No, you have
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to actually reach out and touch people. And so the first
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time I did it, he was like, and people said, oh,
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yes, we'll do this. I was like, oh, my God, this is so different. I
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mean, it's so heartwarming. And it's
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way more fun. Chuck's a member of our community. I've had the opportunity
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to meet him in person because he lives in the same city as me,
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and he's helped me with my referral as program well. So Chuck is
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an asset to a lot of us in the community. And it's definitely, you
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know, those relationships, it doesn't happen overnight. Like, when did
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you join our community? When did you first come in? I think it was in
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'23, '22, something like that. It's been a couple of years. Yeah. But
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we've been collaborating more in the last year because we've gotten to know, like, and
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trust you. You spoke in our business growth buffet one time,
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I think, and you were in the magazine. And then later on, you came and
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you did a— You've done some mixers, you did the giveaways, and you, you really
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get high on that leaderboard for the giveaways. Like, you, you participate
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and you— but. But here's— this is one of the things I think you're going
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to talk about later. But one of the things that I think people
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do is they join communities because
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somebody tells them that they should, right? But
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they have no idea how to really be involved or
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engaged. And the other thing is, if when you're not clear
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you hesitate. So I was like, yeah, I should do this,
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but, you know, you had to like get yourself pumped up. You know, what am
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I going to talk about this time? You know, um, you know,
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I, I don't want to— I don't want to take a misstep or whatever. But
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it's so much easier when you know what you're doing, you know.
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And, and I don't mean that it's the absolute perfect
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end. It means what you're doing now. Right. Well, your,
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your talk that you did at the last mixer was all on this
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clarity, getting confidence through clarity. Yeah, that's a— it's
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coming out in our podcast episode 10. It's probably already out now.
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So anybody who's listening, you can hear Yvonne's talk for
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free on the podcast, the Grand Connection podcast. And
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that was a very good talk. Like, you had such amazing feedback afterwards. And I
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think like some people in the community reached out to you to collaborate. Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I have to tell you
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that this woman comes with amazing
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experience. She's running 4 businesses,
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and yet the grand connection, I think, is your heart.
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Yeah, it is. It is. I love it. I get to meet cool people all
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over the world. I've been a life— like, I love learning.
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So I, you know, when I guess you call it a life learner, I'm always
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reading the latest new business book. I'm following
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podcasts. I take— we have our self-mastery program.
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Yoga is a practice, which is a practice about self-awareness. That's what yoga is
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all about. So I'm— that's my life is just how to
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grow and become more self-aware and to learn to be a better person. And
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all of these skills that you learn for yourself become how you project
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yourself in the world and become better at what you do in all
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areas. For us entrepreneurs, ourselves, our life
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is our business. It is what we do. It is us.
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So it's such an important part of what we do here. Well, you know,
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I think the Grand Connection to me is an unusual
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community because there's something there for everybody.
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So can I get you to talk about how, how you decided
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to start this, how it evolved, what it's like now, why people should join
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it now? Well, it was a change thing too.
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I was at the Grand Canyon with Carolyn, my good friend,
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and COVID hit. So, we were walking
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around, the world had changed. We were supposed to go to a yoga conference and
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it turned out that we spent the time hiking at the canyon because it was
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still open and started thinking about how could we help
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the people around us who were going to be struggling for this new pandemic.
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Who knew at that time? You didn't know what was happening, where it was going
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to go, and people needed to get online. So we knew that that was
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happening, that there was going to be more of a virtual world. How are you
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going to start doing selling online more, networking online? And that's
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where the Grand Connection was born at the Grand Canyon. So that
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was a catalyst for change. So something that just happened in the world that
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made this happen. And then throughout meeting people
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at the Grand Connection, I started to see what works and what
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doesn't work for people. You know, like really learning to
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listen more than you talk is a biggie in networking
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and having that clarity at the beginning. And then I, I've developed
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now our Connect, Create, Collaborate framework that I instill in
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everything we do. And we have our Grand Plan Accelerator Labs where you build your
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grand plan for growth, getting that clarity, which you talked about,
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so that you know the people you wanna meet based on your goals and what
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you're trying to do. And with the CCC framework, it's
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about connecting to build those relationships. And then you,
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you're creating trust, you're creating ideas, you're creating
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shared values around, around something and shared purpose and goals.
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And then you collaborate and it's a journey and you can't jump
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into something immediately when you don't have the know, like, and trust. You
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need to get to know people. It's not like, you know, you get married on
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the first date. I mean, maybe the other person in Vegas does, but most of
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us don't. You want to get to know each other, right? And, and,
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you know, for me, one of the things that has happened when I— since I
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started networking is, um, not every
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networking group is for you, you know. And so I'm like,
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try a couple of things, see, you know, see what you like, see what
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you, you know, you don't dread going to, that you really enjoy
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going to. But stick with, you know, the things that you— it's better
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to do a fewer groups of networking that you
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become known in, you know, that fit what you're doing. Because there's nothing—
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to me, there's nothing better than if I go to a networking thing and some—
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and I make a comment and somebody goes, you need to talk
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to her because she does, you know, because that gives you more
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credibility. But it doesn't happen overnight. You have to actually
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participate and support other people before,
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you know, you are fully
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engaged in the thing and you've got a way to get into the community
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easily, right? Oh yeah, you can get in with it. You can come to 3
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events as a guest. So there'll be a guest pass in the, in the show
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notes that you can grab and check it out and you just start
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experiencing it. Another thing you need to do is just, you do need to
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just get out there and start practicing because I believe clarity comes through
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practice. It's you, you meet other people, you see
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what's working. They— you get— it's like a mirror for you. You practice your
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introductions, you see what works. You see, you know, if you say some introduction and
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nobody wants to connect with you, well, that obviously wasn't resonating with people and
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you need to go talk to Yvonne and get some clarity, right? Here's
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the thing. Here's the thing that I think people are afraid of. And
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it— this is like one of the big changes, you know,
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little change, big change.
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Entrepreneurship is an experiment.
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It's not, you know, too many people are like, they're practicing to get
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perfect, practicing to get perfect, practice. And this, when you think
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you're close to being perfect, whatever you've been
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practicing for is long gone. The world
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keeps— you're shooting at a moving target. And I think
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the other thing is We are too much in our own
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heads. And so my, my thing that I have
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finally settled on that I love is you don't need
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to be fixed, you need to be found. And that actually happened in a
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networking room. This poor person, people were telling you need to do this,
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you need to do this. And I said to her, do you have clients? She
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goes, yes. I go, do you get them results? She said, yes. I said, are
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they happy with, you know, what they're getting? She said, yes. I
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said, then you don't need to be fixed. You've already got their
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solution. You just need more people to find you. Yeah, yeah. You
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know, and everybody in the room went,
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and I would have never come up with that on my own. You know, knowing
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that reaction, it was like, this is what I'm helping people to do,
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to be found, to have the right clients find it.
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And so when you use your, um, the
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accelerator and the clarification planning thing tool that
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you've got, that can just jumpstart you.
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It can exponentially move the needle forward for you.
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Someone might come in and maybe there's some things they need to adjust in their
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business. Maybe their offer isn't right and it's not aligned to their market. And
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that's what you do. That's how you work with people as a strategist
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and get those things all working together. When you come to the Grand Connection,
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it is about getting found. We give you visibility right away. You get to
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know people right away. And you build those relationships by showing up,
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that's where the relationships deepen. And they can lead to then
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people who start saying, as you said in the chat, oh, talk to Yvonne.
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She's a great strategist. And they get to know you over time and
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will refer you to other people. And you're not going to—
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obviously, you're not going to refer somebody you just met because it's your
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reputation when you give a referral. You want to be able to
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trust them. I might have— we do have a lot of people that have VA
18:55
services in the community, and I don't know them all really well. And
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so when somebody asks me, I, I need a VA, which happens about once a
19:02
week at least, somebody needs help to get a virtual assistant in
19:05
their team to delegate and leverage their time, um, I will
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give a list of people and I'll leave it up to them to, to figure
19:13
out who's the right fit for them. But then there's certain people I know who
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I built those know, like, trust relationships that I feel
19:20
really comfortable referring because I know that they will
19:24
create value, and I— the client will not be disappointed. And for
19:27
me, I'm solving a problem for somebody, and I'm, and I'm helping them.
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And I, and I think the other— one of the things that I thought was—
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that happened, did not happen in the community, happened someplace else. Um,
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there were two people that I thought had, you know, there
19:43
was a possibility of an opportunity, right?
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And the person said to me, well, I looked at, I looked at their
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website and decided that, you know, they weren't for me.
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And I was like, you didn't talk to them. You didn't get to
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know them. I mean, you may have made the right decision,
20:03
but you never know in a conversation when you get to
20:06
know somebody better and what they do better, because some of us are not good
20:10
at putting stuff out in the world and stuff like that. And if you're like
20:13
me, I put my LinkedIn thing up and, and it
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was probably up there for a couple of years and I never even looked at
20:20
it again. Meanwhile, my business was totally changing. You know.
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And so you, you don't know who they know that may be
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even better aligned than they are. And so, you know, it might
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be found— it's like nurture all your relationships. Yeah,
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you know, good people are worth it. And somebody took the time to think about
20:40
you. So, you know, and I absolutely agree with you.
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It's like, I don't know exactly what you need, so here's somebody I
20:47
think, or here's 3 people that are in this area, see if,
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you know, who's the person whose service And this is. Where
20:56
you're getting leads in many different ways. So you're building your strategic
21:00
partners. You want to have your group of people that really know, like, and trust
21:03
you. You may have that sort of— we call it circles of
21:07
influence. You may have that third level that knows about you
21:11
and might say that would be, say, well, you could try out Susan at New
21:14
Earth Marketing for a website. So this is where some of these other
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principles that a lot of our speakers and the trainings that
21:22
different people do in the community like yourself, is, okay, your LinkedIn
21:26
profile should be up to date because people are checking that out. And so is
21:29
your website. Your website needs to reflect who you are. I always remind
21:33
people, we, we at our, you know, January events, have you
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guys done an audit of your LinkedIn and your website lately? Because probably
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you've changed what you've done in the last 6 months and need. To update those
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things. Yeah. So the, the other thing is
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one of the things that I see is that
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people can be very subjective and not objective.
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And by that I mean when something's going on, they go, what's
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wrong with me? Right? What's wrong with me? And
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so one of the things that I try to do is figure out ways
22:08
where you can make decisions that kind of takes
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that self-criticism and stuff out of it. And
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so for me, my— the way that I start my
22:18
relationships is I have my newsletter
22:22
and you can post something in my newsletter. And, you know, my point of
22:26
view is there's enough business for all of us, even people who
22:30
do things that are similar to what I do, right? Because we're all in
22:33
different stages of business. And I, you know, I might not be your
22:37
cup of tea, right? And so
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if you go through the steps to get into the newsletter, you fill
22:44
out the, you know, you fill it out and, you know, I can put you
22:48
in and then I can see if my audience likes what you're doing.
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You know, does anybody click on your link in that? And again, that takes some
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time. It doesn't, you know, and then I
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can see, okay, you're doing this on a regular basis. This is
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probably somebody who's working on consistency the way I am,
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right? So you're building— they're building trust with you, right? Yes. And
23:10
with my audience. Right. And then we move on to
23:14
something else. You know, we, you know, I see you're doing this. You've got these
23:17
events and stuff. Would you like to come on my podcast? Right.
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And again, do you fill out the form that you need to fill out? You
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know, one of the weird things that I found out,
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you know, for those of you that are hearing this for the first time, I
23:32
have a concussion. And in the newsletter, I was promoting
23:35
all these people that I had, I think, have no idea that I was promoting
23:39
them because I was— they told me once and I just kept doing
23:43
it, you know. And
23:47
it was like I had to simplify my life. I couldn't
23:51
keep chasing, you know. Yeah, it's so weird to me
23:55
that, you know, the person who's the VA now is like,
23:59
you know, you— we sent these new— you know, we sent out requests and
24:03
these people didn't answer, people that I have been promoting for a really long time.
24:07
So it's been really— it's really interesting about building the
24:10
relationships. And, you know, and there's some people that I sent out, here's the
24:14
new link, and got answers right away. It's like, oh, Yvonne, this is great,
24:18
glad you're getting help, you know, here's my you know. So
24:22
relationships are something that will keep your business moving.
24:25
I mean, I think that's, that's the thing that I found that
24:29
was unexpected, is
24:32
relationships that you build and the things that you
24:36
do with them when you're not at 100%, they keep your
24:40
business moving. It's that momentum. And yeah,
24:44
and it's not— and, and it's You're getting the momentum in new
24:47
clients and leads and opportunities, but you're also getting it in
24:51
ideas, inspiration, mentorship. You're getting,
24:55
you're getting accountability from some of the people. So it's, it's
24:59
this group that's your— it is really a power team in
25:03
so many areas. Yeah, absolutely. All right.
25:07
We could keep talking forever, but there are a couple of things that we have
25:10
to be sure that we do. So Yeah, tell us about the gift. Tell
25:14
us what steps people should take, because that's really important, because
25:17
you've got. A great— well, the— my steps are part of the gift, so this
25:21
is really exciting. So I'll start with the gift, um, so that you can then
25:24
see, oh, I can do that in these steps. Um, we have access
25:28
to a guest pass, and the guest pass lets you pick 3 events from the
25:32
Grand Connection. And one of the best events to come to is our Grand Plan
25:36
Accelerator, where you get clarity on the people you want to meet. And we have
25:39
It's a full plan you do, and I have an AI assistant that
25:43
helps you do it very quickly. And it really turns the needle
25:47
and gives you these strategic, strategic alliances
25:50
and things like it. It maps it all out. People you need for skill
25:54
building, people you may need to meet for referrals, people you need for collaboration.
25:58
Maybe you want to start speaking more. You want to get on podcasts. So you
26:01
plan all that out in the grand plan. So I would say the number one
26:05
thing to do is to create some sort of a plan.
26:09
So decide who you want to meet and be intentional about the environments
26:13
you choose to meet people in. And how often does that happen? Once
26:16
a month. Once a month. So you need to click in there and see when
26:20
it's coming so you can make sure you put that in your— Yeah, yeah.
26:23
And you will get right away when you sign up, you will get access
26:27
to the workbook. So you'll get the template, which is the plan. You can
26:31
see it. I like to work backwards so you see what you're working towards. You'll
26:34
get access to the GPT immediately. So that you can actually start playing around
26:38
with it beforehand. And it also includes access to our
26:42
workbook on creating memorable introductions and an AI assistant for
26:46
that as well. So you're going to get a lot of things in this bundle.
26:49
It gets you going. So, so I just want to tell people, you should
26:52
think of, of when you introduce yourself as an
26:56
introduction. How would I introduce myself to somebody that I want to meet?
27:00
Not a pitch. Well, I like to somehow
27:04
in, in your introduction, you include something of, you know, what you
27:07
do in the value. But I'm saying the mindset about it is a pitch
27:11
is like, I'm selling you, I'm selling you, I'm selling you. An introduction is,
27:15
I am so glad, you know, not that you're using these words, but, you know,
27:19
I am, I want to meet you, you know. So we
27:22
break it into two parts, a grand intro and a grand ask. So the grand
27:26
intro is, is what you do and the value you offer. So people get an
27:30
idea what, what, where you are, what you're— how, because it may align.
27:34
And most likely in there, they'll understand what audience you're reaching.
27:38
So then your grand ask is, who do you want to meet?
27:41
And a big shift in your mindset is to think about,
27:45
who do I want to meet to collaborate with, rather than who do
27:49
I want to meet to sell to? Yes. When you're trying to sell to
27:53
somebody directly and you come into the room and, oh, I'm looking for for people
27:56
to buy my product or buy my service. I want people who want to buy
27:59
my program. Well, everybody's just looking at you like,
28:03
well, you know, we don't know you. How are we gonna— yeah,
28:06
you know, so you got to go through that know, like, and trust. But what
28:10
happens is when you're introducing yourself with clarity and people understand
28:14
what the value you offer, if that's for them, they're gonna jump on it
28:18
anyways. Yeah. And, and they know you have a collaborative mindset, so they're going to
28:22
resonate with your values more. And then they're going to also, if they knew
28:25
a friend that's looking for it and they resonated with your values just from saying,
28:29
hey, I'm looking to meet other heart-centered entrepreneurs who want to do podcast
28:33
swaps or something that's very collaborative, that's going to get people
28:36
interested in wanting to know more about you and what you do. Absolutely.
28:40
Absolutely. All right. So that was number 1. Number
28:44
2, get clarity. So we already kind of talked about getting
28:48
clarity on your offer and your introduction. So if that's clear, it's very easy to
28:51
make an introduction and your grand ask. Who do you want to meet, right? If
28:55
those are clear. So first one, have a plan. Second one, get
28:58
clarity. And then the third one is to just get out and do
29:02
it. So book an event, like come to an event and
29:06
commit to saying, okay, you know what, I'm going to join the Grand Connection for
29:09
a couple of months and really commit to making some connections. And
29:13
you're going to see the needle move with that. And You know, as you mentioned
29:17
earlier, you don't have to be perfect. You know, you don't have to go fixing
29:21
a whole bunch of things. Get out there and start practicing because you're going to
29:24
learn so much in those first couple of events that you do. It's
29:28
powerful. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the Grand Connection
29:32
has a lot of opportunities to do that every month, every week.
29:36
Okay. Time for the fun question. When was the last time you
29:40
did something new for the first time?
29:44
Well, I went down a new ski run today, but anyways, I won't talk about
29:47
that. Actually, I probably had done it before.
29:51
But I, you know, I did a podcast. I have my
29:55
own podcast now. I had been trying to make— have a podcast for
29:59
3 years that I just never got
30:03
focused enough to make it happen. And so in
30:06
2025, it was year of the podcast. I was
30:10
committed to making that happen. And I worked with Michelle Abraham, who you know from
30:13
our community. She runs the Grand Podcasters group, and she's helping me. And, you
30:17
know, having that mentor and somebody to support you along the way made it happen.
30:21
And I was nervous about doing this, Yvonne. I'm not a public
30:24
speaker, so this is very nerve-wracking. This is why, like, I
30:28
asked you, what are you going to ask me so I can sort of be
30:31
prepared? Even though I'm not even looking at my notes or whatever, I just like
30:35
to be prepared. And I haven't been out there speaking and I
30:38
sometimes ramble and my mind's going super fast. So I've been learning
30:42
this year, 2026 is the year of self-mastery.
30:46
So I'm trying to learn how to be able to be a
30:50
better communicator by not going— getting so
30:54
excited about things and, you know, being able to tap into your mind.
30:57
Be excited. That's what people want to hear about. But if I get really
31:01
excited, I'll talk too fast and I might start rambling about hamster
31:05
wheels or go into marketing websites.
31:08
This is, this is what I learned. What I learned is,
31:14
and I learned this from Avatel, who was one of, who's got a,
31:18
who's got a tech confidence thing on, on the Grant
31:21
Connection. I did a workshop that I had it all
31:25
wordsmithed and everything, and she said to me,
31:29
I don't know who that person was that gave that workshop. It's not the
31:32
person that I like working with. And so you
31:36
will attract the people who like the way you are. I mean,
31:40
people say to me— and you know, now I'm kind of loosey-goosey— and people
31:44
say to me, I love your energy. Okay, the people that
31:47
don't love my energy don't call me, and that's fine
31:51
because I probably am like, oh, I'm trying to pull stuff out of them. Like,
31:55
you know, I like people who are into action. So be yourself, be
31:59
whatever hamster wheel you want to be on. And you will attract
32:02
the people that, that are looking for that. Well, it's a little easier
32:06
if you can calm down a little bit. Be
32:10
yourself. That's the best you, you can be, you know.
32:14
So guys, I have to bring this to a close,
32:19
but you will find all the information about the Grand Connection
32:23
and the gift in the, in the notes. And so, you know,
32:27
you absolutely need to do that. But before we go,
32:30
I just want to— I had to go— I have to do the commercial part.
32:33
So be sure that you subscribe and share and engage in the podcast on social
32:37
media. One of the reasons I decided to do this was
32:41
I wanted to supercharge your business connect— your business
32:44
through connection. And it's my way of giving back to this community
32:48
and hopefully fueling your quest for growth and impact and
32:52
bringing interesting people to you every week so you can learn something different
32:55
and get a gift and and build your business. So I hope you will continue
32:59
to join me on The One Small Change so
33:03
that we can embark on this journey and we can have these tiny
33:07
shifts for monumental transformations. And if you haven't listened
33:10
to the first episode, you should do that. And there's also a couple of them
33:14
in there where I, you know, I talk all by myself about, you
33:17
know, what's the clarity checklist kind
33:21
of thing. And and get you to think about what should
33:25
I be doing? And, you know, just to say, have I done this? Have I
33:28
done this? Have I done this? And I just want to
33:32
know, Susan, if you were to give a quote, some last words,
33:36
what would it be?
33:39
Oh, well, you know, one of my
33:43
favorite quotes is— what is it?
33:48
You just get me on the spot here. So you didn't tell me you were
33:51
going to do this one. I forgot. Yeah, well, I'm just going to say something
33:55
of my own, like change.
34:00
I would just say that a really simple change in your mind
34:03
is change for networking is to change your
34:07
mindset from pitching towards collaboration.
34:10
Absolutely. Absolutely. And the last thing I'm
34:14
going to say is what I always say. Remember, the change can be simple, but
34:17
it's not always easy. And it requires courage and resilience and
34:21
a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. And so if you're feeling butterflies,
34:25
it probably means you're doing the right thing, that you're doing something new and
34:29
exciting. And so I wish that for you. And so I hope
34:33
you will continue to join me on the One Small Change. And until
34:37
I see you next time, stay very curious.
34:40
Bye.