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Mildred Talabi on Business Success through Authentic Personal Branding · The Biztape

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekly Biz Tape, a show where we highlight some of the biggest hits in business.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Broderick Lawthringer, and today I'm talking to Mildred Talabi, author and LinkedIn personal branding coach, speaker and trainer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Do you treat your LinkedIn page like a shop front?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: If so, what are you putting in the window that makes people stop and head inside the shop to learn more?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Today, Mildred will break down some key learning she's had on how to stand out in a crowded marketplace, setting boundaries for your business and winning people over by being you.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: With that, let's play the track.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So where are you at in the world right now?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: In Kent in United Kingdom.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have not been.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I was just in London earlier this year for Star Wars Celebration, just because we have a Star Wars podcast, and we went out there, saw all the things there is to see in London and I was stunned.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I was thinking you know, before I went, my impression of London, because I'm from the Midwest, I didn't know a whole lot.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I was thinking oh yeah it's going to be a lot of posh, white people and everyone that's in Narnia.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: That's probably London.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: That is not London.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: When I learned, I got there and I was like, oh, this is like so diverse and the food was amazing.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Now there are other places in the UK I cannot say that, but London's food was great and I think they said the most popular name in London now is Muhammad and that was news to me.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know where I heard that and that's even true.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But I remember hearing that and I was like, oh okay.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I love it out there.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Food was fantastic.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Are you from London Born?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and raised.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I grew up in London.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I spent my whole life in London, so I owe different parts.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I grew up in East London, studied in North London, met my husband in South.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I lived in West London.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I visited for shopping and things like that.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I moved out.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So Kent would be the equivalent of a bit of the suburbs.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So I moved out here about eight years ago with the family because there's a lot more space.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: You get a lot more bang for your buck outside of London.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: London is lovely, it's alive all the time, but it's also one, it's an expensive place.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Two, if you're raising kids, it's not necessarily the best environment, depending on what part of London you live in.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we moved out of here for those family considerations, but yeah, it's nice.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting to me too because it's so diverse there.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: But it feels like with every different pocket they have it's a different culture and people not only do a different culture, but people have different dialects from like 30 minutes apart from somebody else.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And we have friends who I mean.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I've got some friends in Wales with very distinct accents.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And then I have a friend from I don't know.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He's got more of a cockney accent and I remember like he would meet people here and he played soccer over here and folks would talk to him and say, oh, you just sound so fancy with your accent and he's like well, my accent where I'm from is more ghetto.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So cockney is not fancy.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: No he's like but you know, people here think I'm so posh, it's so fancy.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting when you come here and just a different audience takes that and has like a completely different impression of what you're actually putting out there, which I'm really excited to talk to you about today because you're a LinkedIn top voice.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: You found ways to communicate with a multitude of audiences and I mean, I think, written four books and founder of Visible Women Tribe and you're putting out a podcast.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Now that you're putting a new podcast out there that we're going to get into all of those things today.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: But obviously you've found a way to communicate with different people across a variety of mediums and found a way to be effective.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And not only that, with your mission, especially going back to the Visible Women Tribe and with your coaching and everything, not only communicating with them on these broad mediums, but you're also communicating with them on a one-on-one basis, with that really personal touch and finding a way to not only speak to them directly but get them to act and do something that changes their lives and, with the case like the Visible Women Tribe, getting women to actually speak out, especially if they're a newer business, right within like the first three years of their business going out of their way to say, okay, I'm going to speak up, and I think you mentioned on something else I was listening to you're saying how it's not so often the people work with businesses who are just the best at what they do, but sometimes just the first person who raises their hand and says, hey, I'm here and helping women be confident to do that.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: So we're going to dive into all of those things today, and before I do, though, you've done a lot of things, you've been a lot of places and you've developed a lot of skills, right?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Professional podcaster, author, business owner, you name it.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: But if you got to, if you met a genie and that genie said, hey, I'm going to give you a chance of training in any skill, what would be the one skill you would pick if you got to skip all of that time?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be career related.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I think for me it's gonna be violin, just cause I see how hard it is and I'm like, well, I would love to say NBA player, but even if I got 10,000 more hours, I don't think my.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: You know, in video you can't see how tall I am, but I'll put this way, I'm not 66.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So it's no matter what the limit?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say violin.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, so what would my skill be?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I actually used to play basketball.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I'm not very tall either, I'm five foot three but I could jump really well and I can still jump really well.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So I used to play basketball but skill wise, it's really funny because this business that I'm currently doing so my late in coaching, late in visibility business I've been doing coming up to four years now in January, but I've actually been.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I've actually had a business of some form.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Well, from 11, age 11 was my first business 19, I had another one, but consistently from my early 20s, so well over a decade, plus side hustled, had a business.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: But I'm really now only just learning that there's so much I don't know about running a business.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: There is a difference between giving yourself a job and self-employment and actually being a business owner, and I've been learning so much recently I'm like I don't even know how I called myself a business owner this past 12, 13, 14 years, because it's only now that I'm really stepping into it properly.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: So the skill that I would love to have is a complete understanding of how business works, because I actually love business.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I love the fact that you can create something out of your mind and then put it out there into the world that other people benefit from and that you can benefit from as well on a financial level.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: It's very cool.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: So a skill that allows me to just deep dive into all of that and know everything I need to know immediately would be amazing oh yeah, I mean on my own, just from my own story.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: That's how I got into doing podpony, because I remember I used to be in sales for a long time and I loved sales.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I loved working with people, connecting with people.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Even the account executive stuff, the account management stuff, I just loved it.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I loved building those relationships.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: But I also wanted to develop a skill.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So I got into marketing and I'd been doing media for a long time so I really enjoyed that.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But I also really liked doing some design stuff and messing with the Adobe products and making something.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm like eventually remember I did a podcast during the pandemic and that's actually how I found you years ago, because I started producing someone else's podcast who really all it started was I did my own, I got decent enough at it, I did it for my main job and I had a friend who said, hey, there's my business down in Austin.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: They need support with their podcast for like if just six episodes.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, so that was the future of content which you were a guest on, audra Sneen Kirk.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: So listeners, go check that out.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Then you do a pretty good job there.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Then more people wanna work with you and work with you.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Next thing, you know you're like, oh, I should probably quit my day job.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: But then at what point do you and I mean this isn't really something we in the outline we were planning on asking here, but it's something I think about when selling.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: You know we have an entrepreneur who's starting a business, let's say they're a pie maker.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: There's a big difference between someone who just wants to make pies and understands the value there and makes great pies, and then she's or he has done such a good job with this pie business that eventually they're running an enterprise where they've got you know 30 locations and across the nation and they've got a factory where they produce them all over the world.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: We have that here in Omaha.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: By the way, this place is called the Village Pie Maker and it was kinda that just made a few pies.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: The next thing, you know you can go to any.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Let me get tons of different stores out in the States and if you go to the frozen food section you can find Village Pie Maker, and so I guess that's something that finding for yourself.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You were talking early on.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You're like, well, I loved business, but I didn't really know what I was like.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I wasn't really running a business, I was a self-employed person.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So I guess when you're coaching people, do you help them identify those, especially newer businesses.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Help identify that per se, to say like maybe that's what you should be a consultant or whatever because that's what you enjoy.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: You enjoy being in the nitty gritty.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Or working with people to take that next step, to say you know, you wanna basically run operations and you wanna oversee a business, a scale, and so if you do communicate with that, with people, like, what does that look like?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Because those are completely different jobs.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they absolutely are, and the thing is in my LinkedIn coaching.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: So my business is I call the LinkedIn like the shop front.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So you know, you walk past the shop window and it's like there's the mannequins at the front with the nice suits and dresses, whatever it is right, but behind the scenes there's a lot more going on.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: They might have shoes and hats and all that kind of stuff.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So LinkedIn is the thing that gets people through the door in terms of that's what people want and the visibility and I love doing that.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: So it's a form of marketing.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: But really, at the core, I'm a business coach for small and growing businesses and because, as I just explained, I love the whole, how business functions and all of that.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: So part of what I do, I have a program that's visible to profitable.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: So I help my clients not just look at how do we market on LinkedIn by being visible, but also before that, how do we even get the foundations of the business right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: You know, and that's all the clarity of who is it you're serving, what is the message.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: You know, what kind of offers do you have, the services, what's the pricing structure that you have in place.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: We look at all of that need to agree to you and I help them to kind of develop a solid business strategy behind the visibility strategy as well, so that the two work hand in hand.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: But I honestly feel that there is nowhere near enough people talking openly about the journey, the one, the difference between actually being a self-employed person as in you've given yourself a job but you think you're in business and someone who's actually running a business, and one of the key distinctions is that if you're running a business, your business can function without you.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: So because you've got systems in place, you've got things set up in place, even if you're a coach and you do one-on-one coaching, but you still have things in place where there's elements of that that somebody else can do, and your business can function without you and you're able to go on holiday, for example, for a month, and not worry about shutting down operations.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: But the vast majority of business owners are coming to contact with myself, including previously, but all of that is changing for me Can't do that.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: They can't go on holiday.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: They can't because they've created a job for themselves, that they call them businesses.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and I think this is part of my content when I create content, linking it to the theme of your podcast.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: One of the things I like to talk about is the reality of business.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I don't want anyone to think I've got it all together, I'm perfect and it's sharing.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Some of that stuff has been.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Some of it resonates a lot because I might just be a step or two ahead, but what I've learned can help someone who's a step or two behind me.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm constantly looking for ways to share what I'm learning on my journey with other people, because that's how we all win in this process.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and in that too, when you're talking about being able to go on vacation and everything, again, I'm only five and a half, five and a half, six weeks in, but I'm noticing that for myself, where I'm like I used to do project management and I remember when I did it I thought to myself like you know, if you do this job really really well, it's pretty.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: At least where I was not saying this for everyone, but for myself, I was like this is pretty simple.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy that I can make this money doing this task.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And I always got a little nervous, had some imposter syndrome, like sooner or later they're gonna find out that this job's too easy and they're gonna let me go.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And now that I'm running a business, I'm like, oh my gosh, I need a project manager.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: This is so.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: There's so much going on.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Please someone like competent help me.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Like this is it's crazy.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So I completely empathize with being able to have stuff running so you can go on vacation and actually unplug.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But speaking of when you're plugged in, something else you mentioned that I really, really liked and I haven't thought of it in this way before.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think many people have is you said your LinkedIn profile is like a shop front and where people can kind of look in and figure out yes, there's these things like you're really, this is what you're advertising.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You're like, these are the top things I want you to see in the window.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: So you come into the store and I love that analogy.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be using it, but, yeah, we'll sign it.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fantastic and it's so true, especially for yourself, for you're a top voice on LinkedIn.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So, when it comes to building out that shop front okay, this is all curb appeal at this point.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: So A how do you build a dynamic shop front that gets people to walk in the door?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: So in my book Start being Visible, I talk about the four pillars of LinkedIn success, which I've since renamed to the page formula, but that's not in the book.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna update the book, but it's the same concept.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So there's four pillars of LinkedIn success.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: These are number one is your profile.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Number two is audience Now in your audience, targeting your audience.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Three is content and four is engagement.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Now I've put them in numbers, but that's not all driven portals.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: They are all imported because they are pillars.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: So when it comes to the shop front of what you do, the profile and the content are the ones that really serve as the shop front.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Because when you, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that your profile is really kind of speaking to your target audience and speaking into the areas that you help people with.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Because once you have that page set up like that, that's working for you 24, seven round the clock, because LinkedIn is a global platform with millions of users across the world.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: So at any given point of the day, somebody's logging on to LinkedIn and that somebody may potentially stumble upon your profile and that somebody may be your target audience and you may just have what they need at that particular moment in time.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: So having a profile that works hard for you is really important, because that's your.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: I even say it's more important than having a shiny, fancy website.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: So because for most people, especially when they're new in business, you take your time and you wanna create this Before I launch myself out there, I wanna have this wonderful website, and a lot of people spend loads of money, loads of time into websites looking nice, fantastic, and no one goes there.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: There's literally like no traffic on your website, whereas all you have to do is spend a fraction of that time really creating an incredible profile on LinkedIn, from the banner picture all the way down to that section, and then you have guaranteed traffic of at least millions, even though thousands of people regularly being able to pass through your shop window.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: So that's number one profile is number one.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: The second one that's important on the shop window front is content.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Without producing content, without creating content, you are invisible.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: People can't see you.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: They don't know that you're there on LinkedIn and there's so many people About 80% of LinkedIn users are what's classified as lurkers so they look, they look Present.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you're present, that's it.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So many people, they just look.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe every now and again they might raise their hands and like a post, but they don't post their own content, they don't really engage, they just look.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You know so, when you're a lurker and you're not visible and therefore you're not going to advance your business in that way, because nobody knows that you exist, nobody knows that that great profile page that you might have created is there, because you're not doing anything to direct traffic in that way.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And that's what content does for you.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Content increases your visibility.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Content allows you to be seen by your potential target audience, which in turn then leads to more opportunities for you to increase in what I call the free areas of influence, income and impact.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And that's ultimately what a business owner is looking for.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: When creating content.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I found that usually because, again, at Podpony we do all sorts of content marketing, but obviously podcasting is one of them, and when folks come in sometimes they say, okay, I'm going to do this podcast, help me become rich and famous.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And maybe you have a different take on this, but I usually tell folks well, let's take this first year to build a solid library of content, and sometimes it's not a month that we get your podcast out, it's well, maybe 90 days, because we really want to get to know you.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: What is it you're talking about?
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Right, like a lot of the podcasts we produce are pretty successful because we spend that time really doing research to find something you're passionate about, something that's entertaining, where you can educate people.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: You can easily identify that target audience and build something that you could do bi-weekly, that, most importantly, you enjoy, because if you don't do it, I mean 69% of podcasters quit within 10 episodes, and so we help folks build that library of content.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: So once you have that curb appeal, then you're able to go in and actually someone can say, okay, I'm going to go and listen to this podcast now.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, I know for myself, it's kind of that cobbler's kid situation, like I said, about myself being a lurker on LinkedIn, and I'm trying to change that right now.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: But you find where, okay, you've got all these clients really busy, you're carving out time for yourself to do these things and I know on our own page we're actually getting ready to, we've done that, we're recording this podcast.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Now we're getting ready to start doing some nice distribution on LinkedIn and kind of amp that up.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: But I know for a lot of businesses, when it comes to doing a podcast, it's so hard because if you have all these other fires or whatever else taking care of yourself, a lot of business owners just kind of put that at the end, whether that be recording your own podcast, skipping lunches or whatever.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Taking care of yourself, it's one of the easier things to do, but a lot of us just forgo it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But ultimately that really hurts us.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So take me through.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: You just started a podcast.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Take me through that.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: How you did it?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Because, again, it's not easy to just turn on the lights and say, no, I'm going to do this, it's great for my business.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Obviously, it's the way that makes it work with being a LinkedIn top voice.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But talk me through how you got into podcasting to ultimately up your game in that area as well.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I think I definitely more than happy to share that.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: One thing that I do want to say, though, and because I get this question in terms of Mildred how do you do it all?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I am married, I have a husband to look after, I have two kids under eight.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I run a full-time business.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I was even a point I had a job full-time.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I know business full-time, but as it is today, I have all those responsibilities and everything else, so I now have the same 24 hours in a day as everybody else does.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: So I always answer that question how do you find time to do it?
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I always say you don't find time, you create time.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: You absolutely have got to create time and create boundaries in your work life, in your personal life.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: If anything is important to you, you have to allocate time to it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So one of the things that I realized after several as I said, I'm coming up to four years and doing this business in January.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: In the beginning, I was doing everything, at all times.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I was doing LinkedIn profiles for people, I was doing content strategy courses.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I was doing everything.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: There is a period in your business when you are starting out, when it is useful to do everything, because, as you do it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Then you start to narrow down.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: This is what I love doing, this is what I don't love so much.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: This is what I cannot source.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: That is okay in the beginning.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: If you are a few years in and you are still doing everything, you are still doing it all yourself.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Something is going wrong somewhere, so that is one.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: What I started to do back then is to create boundaries in my work life.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Part of that boundary and I don't know if you are aware of this project I survived a major health challenge in 2019.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I am fully recovered today, but it took a while in terms of the operation and coming back to myself, walking again, all of that kind of stuff.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: It was a whole process.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: It took almost a year for full recovery.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Part of the blessing and I call it a blessing part of the blessing in that journey is the whole thing of it did make me look at what kind of life do I want to live In terms of how do I want to manage life, because part of the thing at that point I had a lot on.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I was full on.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: As I said, my life was full on and my kids had health challenges I was dealing with.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But when I had to stop everything to deal with my own health challenges, you kind of realized that the world doesn't stop when you stop.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: So if you want your world to stop, you have got to create stop points, you've got to create boundaries in how you work.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So I slowly started, when I was doing my coaching business, putting in boundaries like, for example, even in coaching sessions.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't enjoy doing them because I had international clients and I still have loads now and I used to try to accommodate them by doing evening coaching sessions.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: But that really clashed with my family time and I'm there trying to be mum to the kids while I'm on the call and then the kids had to wait and it just was stressful.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: So I was like you know what, I'm cutting it and I cut it with a risk of what if that means I won't get any more international clients because they can't do my time.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: But guess what?
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: when I put the boundaries in place, people conform to the boundaries, you know so over the years there's many other boundaries are started putting in, and one of the ones today is Wednesdays, for example, on me days I don't do meetings.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: On Wednesdays I generally don't do any work.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I think I'll send them off.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I want to you know.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: If there's any urgent work I want to catch up on, I might schedule that for Wednesday, but generally it's kind of like a more leisure, take it easy type of day, a boundary that I've put in.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: So how all of that fits in with a podcast is Because the podcast was a priority and is a priority for me, because I've been creating content for actually quite a long time in various forms, including in the books that you've mentioned, and I actually had a first podcast about seven years ago.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I had a career's podcast, which I did for a year when I had a previous business.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: So I knew I know the basics of podcasting and what it's called about, and I always had in the back of my mind that I needed to do a podcast for this one.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: But I needed the time to be right.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: So one of the things I did when I realized that this is now a priority, I created the space.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: So I have a set day that I tend to do my recordings.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You know I have a set day that I do it.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I got in some help.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I have a podcast producer who does, you know, all my editing and all that kind of stuff.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I have a VA who supports me with the research in terms of the.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: So all I have to do basically is show up and do the interviews or record the solids, and there's other people and technology that does the rest, you know so.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, in terms of that journey, so it's really kind of, when you're intentional about what you want to do and it is a priority, then you have to create the time and the space to make it happen, and what that means is sometimes something else has to give you know so you need to.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Everything cannot be absolutely as important and as urgent as it's as each other in your business you need to look at, okay.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So, for example, I have a client who, at the moment, we're working with working with a little strategy.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: She also wanted to create a podcast, you know.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: But she's actually at the stage where she's a consultant, where her consultancy has suddenly come to an end.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: She's a little bit earlier than expected you know, but she's trying to set up this podcast and I'll sit to listen.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: From where I see it, the priority right now is to find the new consultant role.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: You know, because you can spend time doing what I call busy work setting up the podcast, which will eventually pay you back in future visibility and all of that.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: But right now the priority is get yourself a new consultancy work so that your finances are covered.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Then you can breathe.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: You know, because it's pretty hard to be creative when you've got many issues.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It really is hard.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I know that from first-hand experience from way back in the day.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: So that's my really long-winded way of saying in terms of this was the right time for me to launch this podcast and because of that I created the space in my schedule so that I can focus on.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: My priority is getting this podcast to you know.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Actually, for my first month I want to get to like 500 subscribers.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: You know for this month.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: So if you're listening, you have a subscribe.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Subscribe, please, yeah.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: It's a notification though.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We can grow it from there.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you mentioned something in there, too that I've spoken at a couple of things on digital media and podcasting, and one of the most important elements I think there are to creating good content is having a team around you.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Now, that's not always the case.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: For some people, some people are just superhuman and can do it all, and that's great, but more often than not, especially on the podcasting side, whether you need a co-host, whether you need a podcast producer, whether you need a marketer which, by the way, typically a podcast producer and someone who markets the podcaster typically two different people.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Lots of time people think, oh, this person is going to do great audio video and is going to create all these social posts and schedule them and have all this SEO, and sometimes that's the case.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you have one superhuman who does all of that and is great in all those things.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Other times you find an agency like potpony.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: There we go Ding selfish, plug there, but you find someone who's really good at what they do, an agency who's really good at what they do, and you go to them.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: And other times you need a coach when it comes to that side of the business, to say, ok, well, I'm launching this podcast.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I need a coach here.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I need someone who's going to help me build the strategy.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I need someone who's going to help with the podcast.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I need someone who's going to help with the social, the marketing, growing it, getting to 500 subscribers.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And in doing that, when setting goals for yourself, you're also setting boundaries.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It's so scary to, because you just launch a business.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You're like all I want to do is go and make sure we get as much business as we can.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And, as you said, when you finally say no and you create that boundary, well, yeah, people, usually they conform with it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And if you lose business, well OK, like that's a sacrifice.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You can actually see your kids, so you can actually do those things.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: But having that team in place hopefully, like I said, whether it's a coach producer or your own employees they help you kind of see the blind spots that you don't see yourself so you can actually do a better job and be more efficient and actually, if you get more sleep, you're probably going to be a better podcast producer.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: So, for yourself, when it comes to building out that team, what are the right kind of players you look for when building a team around you to help you get to 500 subscribers on YouTube or whatever?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: So I look for passion.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: You know I'm a very passionate person.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, have you read the book strengths finder?
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, I have, yes, I have yes, and then the test right, okay, I love that.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: It's um, there's all these tests out there.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Personally, all of that Stamps finders I think the only one that I've ever done that I thought like this is spot on and accurate and I love it.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: So one of any put into it, put into words things I've always known about myself.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how to explain it, but one of the key, my key strengths, is kind of belief, and which kind of translates as passion.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: So if I believe in something, I'm gonna go on in and I'm gonna drive this thing forward, you know.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: So I look for the same thing in Terms of for the people that I look to work with.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I need to see their passion for their area of expertise, their area of skill, because if they are passionate about it, then they are gonna do go above and beyond because they love this thing, you know, and they know things about it that I don't want to know about because that's I'm not passionate about.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever the technical term is for how you edit this second out of an audio.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: That's not my thing, but so I look for that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: So when picking up reducer for this, I shortlisted three people.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I put out adverts and stuff and I shortlisted three people and I had Conversations with all three of them and the guy I went with in the end.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: It's like the passion that he demonstrated and we were like having conversations.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: I was asking him things and he knew stuff that I asked him and then he was even giving me advice and things.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I hadn't hired him.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: At this stage we're just having like talking, all that and I was like man, this guy is really into this thing and some of the stuff that he's given me, oh, that makes sense.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, somebody some suggestions.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: So he was the first person I interviewed so I was like, unless the other two are really gonna come with something, he's already hired and and as it turned out, they didn't come one of the women, one of them other ones was a woman and she was just kind of just there was no energy, no, nothing was just strictly business kind and it just wasn't.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: We had within vibe.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: But she could be great.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: What she does is just not the great fit for yourself.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Not a great fit for me, and that's the other thing.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: That that whole great big because all three of them are shortlisted, because they're all good at what they do, but then that fits, you know, can only come from well.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: For me it can't.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: It comes from interaction with somebody and you know, and and intuition kind of stuff.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so with this guy, I knew that he was the one, but I still gave the other to a chance and and I've hired him and so far he's working out brilliantly.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: You know that kind of ahead of the game.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So I think, when it comes to hiring people is look, I I tried to look for people who are passionate about things that I'm not passionate about.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: You know, because that's the thing, because that's I don't need anyone else is like me, because we won't get much done, because we're both doing the same thing.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I need someone who is passionate, like numbers, for example.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: I don't love numbers.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: So I love, I love financial, financial numbers, making money, income, all of that kind of stuff.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: But I don't love data and Analysis.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I don't look at my numbers and who's subscribing and oh, how many post impressions.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I don't love that stuff.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: So I know that that's my next, hire someone who can look at numbers and Give me some meaning from them, you know, because I don't want to be the one doing that, because it pulls me, yeah, totally.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, finding, as we said, finding those right people.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: It's it's crucial to not only run for yourself, for for your own team, but also the people you work with, with clients.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: At least, that's something I'm learning.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I've, you know, I've gotten off of prospect calls where you people ask you like hey, how'd that go?
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, I don't think they're gonna work with us, whereas there's other ones where I mean I wrapped up one yesterday.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be 30, or last week supposed to like 30 minutes long.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: They end up being like an hour and 15 minutes.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And Especially, if you're a good Podcaster, you're probably in my mind, you know, be putting out something about yourself, right, that connects with an audience.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And when I talked to her about her story and we got into like okay, like take me through your podcast, like let's cuz, I want to make sure before we even do it, like hey, would you be a great fit for us?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: What's your?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Why are you just, you know, are you doing?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, hers was amazing, you know, and really we got into her story and she ended up crying, I ended up tearing up and it was just, it was amazing.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: We really connected and it's like, okay, we don't even know what, like, we haven't even discussed pricing or anything yet.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: But I'm like where this is happening, we know this is happening like let's just figure all that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: But let's figure out the boring stuff so we can actually do the awesome thing here and like make your you know, make your podcast happen and then make all your marketing stuff happen.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: So In doing that, a big part as I we were talking about the really the big thing here is Connection, whether it be on LinkedIn, whether it be with your team, whether it be with your clients.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Connection is everything here to having effective relationships that translate into results where everybody wins.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And so when thinking about these, like line these, these, these the kind of the linings here that tell this story and all of our lives have stories for different aspects.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Right, this shows called the weekly biz tape, right, and there's a song for every single area of your life.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: By the time your career is done, do you have a song that you hope Would best some eyes, everything you did and what your career was about, and so what's that song?
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, Wow Question, don't know why you struggle with this one.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: It's so hot to me.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it is, it is.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: It is kind of because you don't look around thinking about what's my career song, you know.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: But, um, I Think we're talking of error about is that.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: This is such an interesting question and I actually want to kind of take my time to think about the song at some point.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: But for now there's a, there's a few, there's a few songs kind of I Don't know so much if they mark my career, but kind of more my approach to life, you know, and one of them is something inside so strong.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: You know that classic anthem is more to do with is is is less to beat me down side of it, but more the, that inner strength of I can overcome, I can go through stuff and I can overcome because there's something inside that's so strong, you know.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: So this lack of, I've always had like an innate inner thing that made me think of like I have greatness inside of me.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know where it came from, from the time I was young, but I've always had this something inside that's so strong.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: So I think that's probably one of the songs that would make the the shortlist and not yes, you know oh yeah, and I I feel like when I ask this question I don't think I've ever had once had a super confident answer.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Or often than not, people give me three songs and that least that's been my experience.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: This point they're like oh, that's one of these three and you know it's so hard for people to pick.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: But, as we talked about beforehand, one of the reasons I like asking is when you have that song, because songs means speaks to so many people on a such deeper level, on emotional level, than movies, television, any other content medium out there.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Music just really strikes a chord with people and if they can have that song that they identify, that really speaks to what they hope their career to be.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: When there's a day where you feel low or there's a day you want to and trying to give yourself a break, but when you start doing things that deviate from what you think your purpose is or that, that, what you feel like, no, this is who I am, this is what I want it to be, probably more in line to, because you have that goal, you have that mission and you have that.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't really know what other way is to describe it other than that feeling to motivate you and say, no, I want to stay with integrity in this path that I'm making for myself and so I think it's for me.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: It's a really powerful question that you know.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: It's fun, but also that's that's kind of the meaning behind it and I I do.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Finally, for listeners out there, I do.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I figured out my song.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know why it took me so long, but I'm excited.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna drop it on the hundredth episode, that like boom there, it is like the thing nobody cares about that.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna drop this thing or someone else says it first.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: That'll be the episode.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: We're all okay.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: You too.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, all right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Well, that is this week's episode of the weekly biz tape.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: But before we jump, mildred, tell our audience.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Tell us about your podcast.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Where can they find it?
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Where can they listen to it?
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: What's it about?
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Let's start there, because there's I mean, look, there's books, there's your LinkedIn, there's all over.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: If they just search your name, they're gonna find stuff.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: But your podcast is new and we want to be sure people are listening to that and we get you to 500 subscribers.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: So where can people go?
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: awesome also.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: So my podcast is called start being visible, you know, and as you can probably guess by the title, it's all about encouraging people women especially to start being visible, to do what I call to step out of hiding and into the limelight in your own work life.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So it kind of out.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: It is solar episodes where I share insights on this journey that I've been on for my own self and that I work with clients on.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: And then there's amazing conversations with female leaders in every industry, because my mission is to raise the visibility of women in every industry.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm having conversations with women across four industries sharing their own journey to be invisible the challenges as well as the highs you know of the whole process, so that you can start your own journey, whatever phase of that journey that you're on.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: So you can find the podcast and anywhere that you listen to podcast over that's Apple, amazon, music, spotify you can also find it on YouTube and we also release it as a LinkedIn live on LinkedIn as well, and if you go to my website, startbeingvisiblecom, that's got all the details, all the resources for that and my book by the same name and my weekly newsletter that you can sign up to as well, if you want to stay connected awesome, well Mildred.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the weekly biz tape.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And listener.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you for checking out this week's episode as well.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: If you want more information on the weekly biz tape, you can Google it or go to pod20.com.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: We've got our episodes and everything that lives there about this podcast, so go find that there.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Check out the links in the description.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, look forward to having you again next week for the next episode of weekly biz tape.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: See you then.