146 – Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs with Donna Miller

by | Nov 30, 2020 | Podcasts

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, guest Donna Miller shares with Karen her advice to budding entrepreneurs.

 

Donna Miller, the president and founder of C3Workplace, is a business and community leader, speaker, educator, and entrepreneur who is passionate about seeing small businesses thrive.

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

The COVID-19 pandemic has made life more difficult in many ways, and it can make it even more confusing for a budding entrepreneur to know where to begin.

Donna recommends that all entrepreneurs start with a business plan. She also recommends that, from day one, entrepreneurs shouldn’t charge as if they are the only ones doing the work, but rather as though they were paying someone else to do the work for them.

Every decision the entrepreneur makes should be data-driven, but it should also be filled with intuition. Yes, the two can go hand-in-hand! It’s also important that entrepreneurs surround themselves with a group of people who will support them – this doesn’t mean telling them what they want to hear but rather what they need to hear.

Don’t let Covid hold you back from achieving your dreams. Hear more from Donna by listening to this episode!

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/146
  • Introducing this episode’s guest, Donna Miller (1:53)
  • C3Workspace (3:23)
  • Shift mindset of productivity (11:40)
  • What do you want your life to look like? (13:47)
  • Donna’s story (14:44)
  • Donna’s advice for budding entrepreneurs (17:29)
  • Make data-driven decisions with intuition (20:09)
  • Build your tribe of people who will support you (24:50)
  • How Covid has shifted things for Donna (29:12)
  • What’s next for Donna and C3Workspace (31:28)
  • Where you can find Donna (32:45)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 146.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello, I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 146 of the good girls get rich podcast and this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing to women that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people, people who will change your business, your life and your bank account for forever. So I’m really looking forward to for you to hear today’s episode with Donna Miller, Donna and I have known each other for a few years now. And we live in the same state we’ve run into each other at networking events and got to know each other and did a couple of events during this pandemic world some virtual events and we realized how even though we went to completely very different businesses, there’s a lot of similarities in what we do. And I really wanted you to hear Donna’s point of view on how COVID and is affecting local businesses and just all the all the things that she’s been able to do to grow and really thrive her business, even in these challenging times. So if you listen before, or if you love what you hear today, you know, we love to hear from you. So make sure that you leave us a review or share on social media that you’re listening, take a quick screenshot of this episode, tag me tagged on all of our links are in the show notes for this episode at Karen Yankovich comm slash 146. And I look forward to seeing them because then I can give you a shout out to my audience. And that’s how we all win. Right. So buckle up and listen in to Donna Miller. So we are here today with Donna Miller, who is president and founder of the C three workplace. She’s a business and community leaders speaker, educator, and an entrepreneur who’s passionate about seeing small businesses thrive. She’s helped thousands of companies to start and grow by providing office space, virtual assistants, bookkeeping, educational programs and advisory services. She believes that company should be a force for good and very much believes in the power of collaboration. She’s the recipient of numerous awards and is a sought after speaker and author. And I’m grateful to be a servant leader in many volunteer and pro bono roles. And Donna and I know each other personally because we don’t live far from each other. And we’ve we’ve been at same the same conferences many times. Donna, it’s so good to have you here today.

Donna Miller 2:37
Thank you, Karen, I am delighted to be here to share whatever parts of my story might help one of your listeners.

Karen Yankovich 2:45
Yeah. So Donna and I met I where I used to live, I was a member of a chamber of commerce in northern New Jersey. And I still do a lot of work with that chamber where whenever I’m called to and I love working with local business owners. And I remember when I first met you, Don, I was impressed. And I want you to tell everybody a little bit about what c three workplace is. But I remember looking at that thinking, oh boy, do I need one of those down here where I live now and Oh, God, read there are none. By the way. If you’re looking to expand, there are none. And there might be good business reasons for that. But I’m still you know, I’m still harping on please somebody open something down here like that. So tell everybody a little bit about what you do. And what c three workplaces?

Donna Miller 3:23
Sure. So at C three workplace, as you mentioned earlier, we help companies start and grow. And really how we’re doing that is by giving them a place where they can focus on driving their business forward, and a resource to help them stay focused on that which drives the business forward. And that’s a long way of saying we offer co working and flexible office space. I’m sure some of you have heard of we work or Regis, but our differentiating factors that we’ve built a community around people who believe what we believe. So we provide office space, we provide virtual assistants, we provide bookkeeping, and the place where I spend most of my time these days is around business coaching and consulting. And to as best I can tie all that together. The C three stands for Connect collaborate community, I really believe in the power of collaboration. And we model that behavior for our clients. And we teach them that once they identify those things that drive their business forward, we’re sure that collaboration is a smart thing for everyone. We model that and we teach them how to do it. And at the end of the day, the goal is to help people build businesses that provide them with the work life balance that they’re looking for. Give them away if they want to to build an organization that they do not have to be involved in in the day to day and I’m doing all of that because that’s what I’ve done. I started out I often say I’m recovered micromanager but I’ve grown into a multi location organization that runs without me and now it’s beginning to grow Without me, which is a very exciting thing for any entrepreneur. So I take what I’ve learned through my own experience, and I help others to do the same.

Karen Yankovich 5:10
Yeah. So you know, in the role that I’m in now is always been kind of like a work from home type environment. And I do, you know, occasionally rent conference rooms are like, Did pre COVID, I was renting conference rooms, when I would work privately with clients and clients would fly in from wherever and wherever they or I’d fly to them, or I go to them and you know, or if I was going to be traveling somewhere, sometimes I’d be like, Hey, I’m going to be in Phoenix, who you know, who’s ready for summit one on one strategy knows, I could segment my list that way. And I would use you know, we work Regis all those places you just mentioned, and I, I love it. And even here where I live now, there’s nothing really all that close to me. And while I love working from home, I mean, I do I’m blessed to be able to do that. I’ve you know, I love this setup that I have so much so that I’m I like to think of myself as you know, like have the laptop lifestyle, but I really kind of miss when I’m not at my desk with all the all the you know, fast internet and the best computer and all that I do really miss the people, right like the water cooler type stuff. And you know, when you’re home, no matter how focused you try to be, your doorbell rings, your laundry calls you you know, something happens when you need to do like I, I realized, when I bought this house, I was getting a lot of work done on the house. And I would go to a local coffee shop where you can’t really talk to a lot of calls there. But I was getting so much work done just in like four hours at a coffee shop, that I thought I would love to have something close by that I could just go to it a few times a week even to just get more focused work done so that my work life balance is a little bit more organized than it is now. And so that’s what I love about what you offer.

Donna Miller 6:50
Yeah, and I think the truth is, Karen, that working at home is great. And of course we’re all doing it more than ever before. But what I find is there comes a point. And it could be full time, it could be part time, as you talked about where productivity becomes an issue or as you’re growing your business, there also comes a point where getting dressed and going to an office gives you some some credibility. And I don’t mean that externally. I mean, internally, you get your own buy in, you get your own buying on the the legitimacy of your business, it can be hard to do that if you’re sitting on your bed with a laptop. So you know, what we seek to do is offer this flexible program where you can keep your fixed overhead as low as possible for as long as possible. So it could start with a virtual office, you just use the mailing address so that your home address stays private and, and you can use what you need and grow. And that’s what we’ve done is we’ve created a suite of services that you can almost walk up a ladder to the place where you’re trying to get to.

Karen Yankovich 7:54
That’s amazing. And it’s so important for as you’re building your business, right. as entrepreneurs, we feel very often like we are alone in this and many online communities to support entrepreneurs, it’s you still have to reach out and find those places, right? Whereas if you’re going someplace even again, even just having the you know, somebody to bat things around, and I love that you offer offer additional services to go with it. That’s amazing.

Donna Miller 8:23
Absolutely. Well, you know, the truth is you mentioned before watercooler and I often say there really is there’s nothing small about small talk. And you know, I’m sure we’ll we’ll talk about our current environment. And I think work at home is sustainable to a certain point. But I think that we are missing out on that watercooler connection. And that’s really what it is, as humans, we’re meant to work in community work to live work and worship and community. And so I think that these, we I believe we are well positioned for the future in offering this flexible space. And as you said, also offering other ways to help companies whether it’s, you know, email management, or CRM implementation, or project management, all those things that are probably not things that the typical business owner has in their skill set. And what I find is that sometimes business owners because they bootstrapped it, and I really respect that and I get it, and I did the same thing. But there comes a point where it no longer makes sense for you to be the person to figure something out. You know, you’ve got to find a way to delegate and outsource and, you know, we bring a level of expertise to the table that gets it done fast gets it done, right. And helps you to then take the next step with your business.

Karen Yankovich 9:39
Yes, and you know, we feel like often, you know, I know that I’ve done this myself many times, like I feel like because I can balance my checkbook, I should balance my checkbook, but that’s not true. You know, because I should be growing my business. I should be doing the things that I do best not just because I can do it. And every minute that I spend doing things like balancing myself checkbook is a minute that I’m not growing my business or spending time with my family. Right? So I agree with you 100% on the you know, in the beginning, we’re bootstrapping whatever we can. But the sooner the sooner you can have the bravery and it takes bravery. It takes guts to hire your first virtual assistant or your bookkeeper, whatever. As soon as you can hire that. And then literally, I mean, and until then, it also comes down to like, maybe it’s a housecleaner. Right, like, right, like, if you, you know, like, it’s whatever you need to do to that you are spending your time productively growing your business is money that’s well spent. And that takes guts to do that in the beginning. And then once you start doing it, that’s just how you leverage and grow. And having you know, what I love about what you offer is is also trusted, right? Because, you know, if I said, Okay, you know, if I talk to somebody today and said, Okay, let’s, we need to get you a bookkeeper. And of course, I know some, but I’m gonna pretend I don’t how do you find a bookkeeper? Now you got to interview them? And it takes less time to do your stinking checkbook than die or somebody? Right? But you could they can go to you and say, okay, Donna, who do we? Who do we use for this? Right, and they know that you’ve already vetted it, and that, you know, and trust it.

Donna Miller 11:16
That’s a really good point, Karen, because you can certainly hire many bookkeepers, many virtual assistants, what we bring to the table is a team approach. So you’re getting not only are you getting back up, you know, we’re never off because there’s always someone there, but you’re getting the collective wisdom of the team. And for me, our team, they’re highly credentialed. They’re You know, they’re QuickBooks certified pro advisors, they’re tyshee Pro advisors. But you know, the other thing is, you know, you talked about balancing your own checkbook. And I think that sometimes business owners as they’re growing can get stuck in being busy versus being productive. And I think we often have to shift our mindset of what being productive really is. So if, for instance, you can outsource your bookkeeping and save, I don’t know, four hours a month, if you took those four hours and did some creative, strategic planning, or created some content, or made some biz dev calls, you are absolutely, and this is what we talk about new clients, what we talk with new clients about is, okay, if you’re going to get this off of your plate, well, how are you going to spend that time so that, you know, you’re going to get an ROI on this investment that you’re going to make? So there’s a whole continuum. And so when we’re working with clients, on Office rental, or virtual assistants, or bookkeeping, we’re taking that business owner approach of the bigger picture, not just the task, but what does that mean to the bigger picture and, and I think that’s where, you know, my team does an amazing job of really helping to move companies forward.

Karen Yankovich 12:48
That’s amazing. That’s awesome. And that’s so important. It’s so important, you know, again, because, you know, you help businesses feel less alone, as they’re growing their business. And, and also, you know, what, sometimes when you see other, it’s easy to get, like, you know, they talk about the the statistic, you’re the sum of the three people you spend the most time with, right? So if you’re if people are coming in there, and they’re seeing businesses that are thriving, because they’re starting to invest a little bit, and getting some of the support, or in spending more time on business development, rather than the busy work, then they can start to model that and grow their own business instead of being in the house. And, and right, you know, and rightfully so, because a lot of the people in our lives don’t understand entrepreneurs, right? And they’re like, you know, what are you doing, like, you’re paying somebody to do what, you know, I can do that for you. Right? They don’t get it. So you’ve got to get, you’ve got to have a community of people that understand about growing an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Donna Miller 13:47
I agree. And I think that, you know, as, as I work with business owners over the years, I often say bigger isn’t always better, I think part of what every business owner needs to do is decide, you know, what they want their life to look like. And if you want to become an organization that that runs without you, and there’s some scaling involved in that. And that’s not necessarily right for everyone. But if that’s something you want to do, if you want to become an organization, you really need to think like an organization before you can act like an organization, as one of the challenges is, you know, sometimes business owners wait too long to delegate. And then they end up on a hamster wheel. And it’s really hard to get off because it’s going to take them 60 minutes to explain something that takes them 10 minutes to do and they’re like, Oh, that’s gonna take me too much time. But that’s the thinking that keeps them on the hamster wheel.

Karen Yankovich 14:41
Right? Right. So let’s take a step back. I want to hear a little bit about your story who and what inspired you to to move into this direction in your career?

Donna Miller 14:50
Great question. I think it’s more of a a what than a who, for me, for me was necessity. I I’ve had see three workplace. I was 26 years, just recent. And prior to that I worked for another very small share facility. For seven years. That was my way of learning the trade. I recommend that to anyone before they open a company. And I was supposed to buy the business from him. It didn’t work out, I had two children, a 10 year old and a seven year old. And I number one wanted to be a present Mom, I wanted work life balance before anybody was talking about work life balance, I needed to make a certain living. And so I wrote a business plan. I did what I have done, maybe a million times since then I figured it out. I wrote a business plan. I raised money. And I opened 1.2 miles from where my prior employer was located. And I have surrounded myself with, you know, smart people who could help me accomplish the things that I didn’t know how to accomplish. But for me, I it was really, it has always been about having a business that funds the life of my dreams. I am not into working 80 hours a week, I never have. So for me, it was always about work life integration.

Karen Yankovich 16:07
Awesome. Awesome. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And but you know what, then? So as you started to do that, what brought you to? I mean, I would imagine at some point, you had to invest in a facility to do this, right? So

Donna Miller 16:20
Oh, yeah. Oh, I had to invest from the get go. Yeah. So.

Karen Yankovich 16:23
So once you just saw the business model, because you had worked in the field?

Donna Miller 16:27
Yes. Well, I said, good question. I saw the business model because I worked in the field. But I worked in the field, because the very first position I had, was in a building that had a shared office facility, probably the first in New Jersey, and I just saw what they were doing. And I thought, how logical doctors and lawyers have been sharing the cost of all that administrative, why not business owners and entrepreneurs. So I just thought it was completely logical. And when I went to work for that gentleman, I had a low salary and a percentage of profit. And when I filled up the business, it filled up the facility, like, Okay, how am I going to make more money and that truthfully, again, necessity, that’s how I ended up making more money was I did what smart business owners do, which is okay, how can I collect more money from the same client for the half?

Karen Yankovich 17:16
My guy? Exactly, exactly. high value, just more value.

Donna Miller 17:21
And so that was the groundwork for the differentiating factor that that we have come to represent.

Karen Yankovich 17:27
Yeah. So I know. I mean, listen, we both live in New Jersey, we both do a lot of speaking. So that’s where we run into each other a lot. So I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that see you and admire you, not just me, right? So what would you advise people that are kind of especially young people that are looking, because you know, we’re living in these uncertain times, and entrepreneur, people are looking more and more towards entrepreneurial endeavors, and successfully accomplishing it? Right? People that have always just had a paycheck? Or like looking at people like you and going, how do you do this? Right? What do you do by it? What do you tell them?

Donna Miller 18:06
Well, there are so many things that I would tell them. But I think and again, I always share from a perspective of what’s worked for me. So what I would say is number one, you You must, must must must have a written business plan that needs to include you know, your marketing strategy, your financial strategy, your operations, and that you need that business plan, even if you are starting up a solo business from your house. Because the truth is, it costs money to be in business, whether it’s your time, whether it’s hiring outside resources, it costs money, and you need to know what you’re going to invest in this new venture to, to decide, does it make sense so, so number one, have a business plan, because the other part of a business plan is, it’s great to have passion about what you do. But you have to have a plan to monetize the passion. And that’s where the finances come in. And my point on top of that is you must charge as if you were hiring someone else to do the work from day one. All of that is probably

Karen Yankovich 19:17
high fiving you from across on that? Oh my gosh, yeah.

Donna Miller 19:21
Right. So So the truth is, you need a business plan, and you need to continually update that data. That’s number two. So business plan leads to data. And data is not only what do I charge, but ultimately data is what’s my most profitable service product or product offering so that that’s where I spend my marketing and advertising dollars. So to me, the key piece is that business planning and you know what, financial literacy is not optional if you’re a business owner, and it’s okay if you don’t have it, because many people you know, it is overwhelming. There’s a lot of volunteer, it’s not just a p&l and a balance sheets, all kinds of things. You can hire that so you know whether it’s c three workplace or Whomever that financial literacy is a superpower that every business owner either needs to have or buy. So you know, I mean, there’s so much that I could say, but that business plan and then data and making data driven decisions that you combine with your intuition. Now we’re talking lightyears ahead.

Karen Yankovich 20:20
Mm hmm. Tell us a little bit about that. Let’s dive that. Let’s dive down.

Donna Miller 20:24
That’s really good. So So I’ve always said that, you know, I think that okay, and I’ll back it up a little bit. So the other thing I think is really important is that I think it’s important, this is also part of your business plan, is that every person get clear on their mission? What do they do their values? What do they stand for? And their vision? Where are they going? Okay, mission values vision. And I think that, once you get clear, especially on your values, and you start to live them out loud, it amplifies your intuition, I believe, we all have the voice of something greater than us inside of us. Some people recognize their intuition because they get a churning in the gut, and they know something is wrong. Well, I believe you can increase your muscle of intuition, I believe it’s like a muscle that you know, increases, I think you can increase your intuition to make positive decisions. And if you combine that intuition with data, Oh, my gosh, it’s really kind of unbelievable. So I never disregard my intuition. There was a time when I always felt I had to be able to articulate it. But having worked that muscle over the years, I simply trust it.

Karen Yankovich 21:44
Wow. So for me, I love that. And I agree with that completely. And the biggest challenge that I had around that was listening to it, listen to that, listening to it, listening for it. Mm hmm. So you know, I have this left brain that just takes off. And it’s just running all the time. And, you know, I’ve had to almost trick it into being quiet enough for me to hear my intuition, right, because it’s so incredible. And sometimes, I’ll hear things that I’m like, really, alright, I’ll do it. You know, but there’s always a reason for it. Like, I remember distinctly because for me, like, you know, I like to start my mornings, intentionally, right, kind of a little with a little bit of quiet time and a little bit of like, introspection around what the day is bringing whatever. And so meditation is a part of that. But I was experimenting with meditation. And one of the things that works really well for me is to just kind of sit quietly and say, What do I need to hear? Like, what am I What did I not hear yesterday? What did I What do I? What do I need to hear? Like, and then I just whatever it is, I write it down? You know, and sometimes it’s things like, you know, go to the beach, and like, go to the beach. Like, okay, I love the happy to do that. But sometimes really what that does is like, you just need to get out of your you need to get clear your head, you know? So it doesn’t your intuition. My intuition doesn’t always tell me why I need to do these things. I’ve learned to listen for them. Because there’s always a good reason for it, even if I don’t understand the reason when it’s coming up, if that makes sense. You know, because when I don’t do that, that is when things start to slip. Absolutely, we are so much smarter than we even know. And we absolutely I think we don’t give ourselves credit. In fact, I don’t even know if you know this, but in my my shoes linked up accelerator program, our strategy program that we offer, there’s a mindset video in every single module, because I think it’s really important not just to do the things, but to be the person that you want to be to be able to achieve these things. And you have to start to be that person today, or these per store to sort to shine a light on that person and start to beam out the energy of that person. So that other people, when they’re connecting with you start to see you as that person. And that’s how you can start to grow. Because if you just think about all the things you used to do, then you just kind of get stuck there. Right? So you need to listen a little bit to be able to be able to move into the future. I love that you incorporate that in all of your, you know, left brain stuff that you build in some of the right brain stuff as well.

Donna Miller 24:22
Absolutely. And I think the other thing that’s really important, and I agree, I have a morning, I have a morning routine, and I’ve been doing it for years, and I get up at 5am. And, you know, I happen to be a Christian. So it’s scripture, and it’s, you know, be still and, and I have to spend time doing that. And I have to say that, you know, we’re we’re broadcasting, I don’t know, we’ll be eight or nine months into COVID. But I have to say that during this season, I found it a little bit harder to quiet my mind. And so I have to do new things. And I’ll tell you what I’m doing in a minute. But the other thing that I think is really important in this process of building your business is yes, you have to listen to your intuition and you have to develop that muscle. But you also have to build your tribe of people that are going to support you in this walk. So, you know, we can’t do an isolation, we already mentioned that. And I think it’s really important to surround yourself with people who tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And oh my god, they all of that, because one of the things that I am now doing is I have decided, in the middle of all of this, that I only want to work a three day workweek, I want a four day weekend, this is me stepping into what my future is going to be. And it’s allowing me to spend more time in that quiet place so that my three days are super, super productive. And, you know, it allows me more time to be present, to be mindful to work on the things that are important. And that idea came to me from a group of people that I mastermind with on a regular basis, it was such a simple idea. And the way it came about, I wouldn’t have seen it because we all have blind spots. And we have to create structure to be able to address our own blind spots. No one I I’ve been in business for 26 years, I have had a business coach or a mastermind for the entire 26 years. I am completely self taught completely self made. I know my intuition, I trust my intuition. But I also trust the opinion of valued people that are that are more successful than me and further along in the process. So it’s all in that comes back to community. And collaborating.

Karen Yankovich 26:32
Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh, that’s such good advice. That’s such good advice. Same, I have had moments where I haven’t and I every time I don’t have that I miss it and regret. Yeah, and I don’t live with regrets. But I understand the value, the value of it, and, and it and it requires you to think bigger to write back to that, back to that, you know, thinking bigger, like making sure that you’re when you create your pricing that you’re building all that in, right, you’ve got to build that. And that’s all part of what you do. And and that’s that’s the first mindset hurdle that I think many, many, at least one I feel like, and this is probably an unfair thing to say but local entrepreneurs, right. Like, I feel like when entrepreneur groups that I’m in that are that are virtual, seem to have more support around that. But I think with a were like just using examples of like, doctor’s office, yoga teachers, things like that, like, you know, well I How can I charge? You know, more than $75 for massage? That’s an hour, it’s an hour set? $75 an hour? I’m like, No, it’s not. Right. Like, no, it’s not you have there’s many, many hours that go into you being able to stand over that massage table. Right? It’s not $75 an hour and that. And that’s why you know, and listen, that build like imagine. It’s funny, like when I speak to groups like that, where I feel like there’s a lot of mindset like that, often I get asked like, what is the one piece of advice you would give and I would say double your double your prices. And they’re like, why I’m like, I’m not looking for you to double your prices for what you do. Like, think about if you’re charging $100. Now think about how amazing it would be to have $200 and all the cool things you can now offer. Because now you can over deliver and you’re coming from a space of over delivering not a place of well, I can’t do this because there’s not enough in the budget. Right? Like, and that’s just an amazing place to run your business from. And that’s who I want to work with. Right? I don’t work with people that are over delivering to me.

Donna Miller 28:27
Absolutely. And, and you know, the truth is, especially, you know, ideal, largely in a b2b professional services firm. And I always say to people, what you really hire the least expensive lawyer, the least expensive accountant. No, you’re not price shopping, when you come to advice. So when it comes to getting support for your company or LinkedIn guidance, are you really going to hire the least expensive person? No. And also, I will tell you this, if you don’t price, and I know you know this, Karen, if you don’t price yourself appropriately, you’re actually attracting the wrong people. Yeah. Right. So I completely agree. And it needs to become a value proposition. How are you delivering more value than the next person? That’s really what it becomes?

Karen Yankovich 29:08
Yes, Yep. Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about how things have shifted for you. In this crazy new world we’re finding ourselves in right now.

Donna Miller 29:19
You know, I’ve spoken a lot in the past several months on leading remote teams and work life balance in this new norm. And, and what I’ve often said is that nothing is the same and everything is the same. I’ve been leading a remote team for a long time. I believe the key to leading a remote team is communication, communication, communication. And now in this current environment, I think communication becomes really simple checking in with your people and saying, Hey, how are you today? Do you feel okay, is there anything I can do? I think as leaders, we all have to be aware that the next wave is going to be mental health people are stressed out. So I think that One of the things I’m doing differently internally is i’m i’m looking less of productivity and more mental health of my people, just kind of you know, because if I know if they’re okay, they’ll be productive. And like everyone else, we took a good hard look at everything we were doing, and what needed to stay what needed to go. One of the things we’re doing differently. And this, this is an idea that came from my team wasn’t mine, we have created what we’re calling a family share office, we’ve got a lot of couples that are working at home, and they have children. And so we have people who are renting offices that they can alternate use of the office, because our offices if they’re full time, or 24, seven, but also, we’ve put in small deaths in the offices, and if they have a child who’s seven years or older, they can bring that child in and the kids are loving it. And the families are loving it. So we took when we may saying that, yeah, I mean, we’ve always been a family friendly. I mean, I brought my kids, I have tenants who have brought their kids. That’s who we are. So I think and again, when you get that quiet time, and you you that’s where the great ideas come from, I bet everyone who’s listening to this podcast will say they get great ideas at like 3am, or in the shower, wait, we have to find more of the 3am in the shower time. So we come up with the great ideas. But so some things are very different, many things are the same. And I believe that in every challenging situation, there’s opportunity. And that’s what we have to find as business owners.

Karen Yankovich 31:26
Amazing. Amazing. So what’s next? Or c three? And four? Donna?

Donna Miller 31:31
Well, that’s a great question. What’s next for Donna is as I step further and further away from the company, I am raising up my leadership team. And that’s why I mentioned before that this is a company that’s beginning to grow without me. So now my life is way more advisory and day to day, which I love some. And so I will shift and I will work more in my consulting capacity. And I have a few companies that I work with. And I’m building a little portfolio that I kind of like as well, I am not the retiring type, I just want to do what I do from anywhere. And I’m pretty much already there. And the future of C three is helping, I want to I want to be able to say that I helped 10,000 companies to start and grow. And that’s the legacy that I want to leave to this world. And it is about legacy. And that’s one of my values is really about creating impact. And so that’s what we’re always looking to do is how can we create impact and you know, now more than ever a small business is what is driving this country forward. And I believe it’s more important than ever. And so I’m on a mission to help as many businesses as I can.

Karen Yankovich 32:42
Amazing, amazing. So Donna, how can people find more out about you? And if you’re in New Jersey, and you’re looking for something like Donna’s location you can do you can check out c three but you want with people everywhere, right?

Donna Miller 32:54
Yeah, we do we work. In fact, really, at this point, we probably have about 250 clients and maybe 25 of those are office rentals. So the vast majority of my our business is the bookkeeping and the virtual assistants and the coaching. So we do that anywhere. So they can visit our website, see three workplace Comm. You’ll see we do events, we are always trying to equip and empower and all my contact is on there. But you know, I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram, and Donna at sea three replaced calm is my email. And I

Karen Yankovich 33:26
will get linked to all those places in the show notes

Donna Miller 33:28
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and and that’s Yeah, that’s that’s

Karen Yankovich 33:32
awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was good to catch up, Donna and I in the beginning of this whole COVID thing I co hosted a luncheon, learn for a couple of sessions for a local Chamber of Commerce. And it was so fun. I wanted to have her on the show because there was just a lot of synergy, I think in mapping not even what we do as much as how we do it right and how we approach it. And I just think that I love that you come from a place of service. And I think that that serves the New Jersey community really well. So thank you for doing that.

Donna Miller 34:01
Well, I love what you’re doing as well. And you’re really helping women especially to be more successful. And LinkedIn is just so important to all of us now.

Karen Yankovich 34:10
Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, thanks for being here and check out Donna’s stuff. You definitely want to follow and follow her journey because it’s very inspiring. Thanks for being here, Donna.

Donna Miller 34:20
Thanks, Karen.

Karen Yankovich 34:21
I hope you enjoyed Donna as much as I do. I love showcasing the really smart, successful women in my world with you and just take a page from Donna’s notebook man I have I love when she talked about how she’s created a business that not just survives while she’s not around but thrives and grows. And that is what we should all be striving for. Right. I know that that was really an impactful statement to me. So I’m certainly going to be paying attention to that. If you are looking for some support and helping your business thrive and grow. You know I’m always here for you. We are offering complimentary consultations, complimentary breakthrough calls to anyone that really wants to chat about whether LinkedIn is the place for you to be to take your business to the next level in the next few months in the next year. And I’d love to chat with you. So just schedule a call at Karen Yankovich comm slash call schedule a breakthrough call. We’ll chat with you. We’ll talk about what’s working in your business. Most importantly, we’ll talk about where you want to go in your business in the next few months. And if we think that LinkedIn is a place that can help you get there, we’ll tell you what that looks like. And one way or the other that we want you to get serious value from these calls. It is it is our favorite thing to do is get on these breakthrough calls with you. So get in on this while we’re still offering them Karen Yankovich comm slash call gets you on our calendar. I look forward to seeing you on the calendar. And I hope to see you back here next week. We have a really special episode next week. I don’t say this very often, but I’m going to get a little vulnerable next week on our show next week, but you got to listen in to hear what it’s all about. So check it out. subscribe so you don’t miss it. And we’ll see you back here next week on the good girls get rich podcast

145 – Emerge from Your Cocoon Prepared

by | Nov 23, 2020 | Podcasts

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen discusses how you can prepare for a post-COVID-19 world.

Advancements with the COVID-19 vaccine are being made. While we might have a few more months of restrictions ahead, now is the time to be planning for the future!

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

We’re starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is hopefully nearing its end, we most likely have a few more months of pandemic restrictions ahead of us. Instead of getting depressed about the next upcoming month and wishing it were all over already, let’s instead look at this time as our cocoon where we can be planning for the future. When the pandemic is over, we will emerge like butterflies from our cocoons.

Be Intentional

Where do we start when planning for the future? Start by being intentional and planning for the future. Since we have fewer in-person events and fewer places to go, we can take advantage of that extra time and plan for the future of our business.

Focus on LinkedIn Relationships

Next, focus on your LinkedIn connections. Are the people you’re connected with the people you would be connected with if 2021 were your millionaire year? Connect with the right people and nourish those relationships.

Think Big

Stop thinking small. Instead of selling multiple low-price products and services, brainstorm and find a way to provide a high-ticket offer. People find more value in high-priced products and services. You also don’t have to sell as much when your price is higher.

The end is nearing! Let’s take advantage of these last month and prepare our businesses for a non-COVID-19 world.

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/145
  • Introducing this episode’s topic (1:42)
  • Be intentional and plan (8:37)
  • Focus on those relationships (12:45)
  • Think big (14:57)
  • Episode recap (19:34)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 145.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello, this is Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 145 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up the program that we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing to women that gets you on the phone all the time consistently with perfect people, people who will change your business, your life and your bank account for ever. We teach digital marketing with the human touch human to human marketing, talking to people looking for the bigger opportunities that relationship marketing can bring to you. So you know if you’ve listened before, if you love what you hear today, we love to hear from you. So make sure that if you’re loving what you hear taking a quick screenshot of this episode, and share it on your social media tag me I’m @KarenYankovich. Use the hashtag #GoodGirlsGetRich so we can see it. And then share that post with our audience. And then we can get you more visibility. Right. That’s how we lift each other up. in the show notes, there’s a link for speakpipe where you can leave an audio review or you can just leave us questions. Let us know what topic you may want to hear about on the show. Or maybe you have a guest you think we should interview I’d love to hear from you just go to KarenYankovich.com/145 you’ll see the blog for this episode, you’ll see the link to speak pipe and we love to hear your voice. So today’s topic, you know is timely for those of you that are listening to it live. If you’re listening to this on the replay that I want you to just kind of put this in maybe you look back at it and go oh my gosh, remember those days, right? But maybe there’s also something coming ahead that you can apply these principles to right. It is November 2020. I had unexpectedly had to go to Florida, my parents have a condo there and I they sold it like in a day. So I needed to get out of there in a couple weeks. So I was volunteered to go down and take care of all that for them. So the beginning of this month has been a little crazy for me because I kind of had to shift gears and thankfully my business can come with me, right. But it definitely takes you a little out of your element when there’s not as much planning involved. Also, in the beginning of November 2020, my Facebook ad my facebook account got shut down my ad account got hacked. And that just led to this stream of crazy Facebook things right. So all of this is happening in the first couple weeks of November. And now you know I’m coming home This episode is going live, I think somewhere around November 22 ish. So I’ve been back in my office for a week, we’re slowly getting Facebook back, I’m back to kind of sitting here at my desk where I’m always most productive, even though I love that I have a lot laptop lifestyle for my business. But what I’m looking ahead at now is 2021. And what I’m looking ahead at is getting colder here in New Jersey. And what I’m looking ahead at is, you know, maybe more pandemic restrictions here in New Jersey and in other parts of where maybe where you are as well, right? And I’m looking at this saying, okay, you know, I’m a little Pollyanna, where’s the where’s the goodness because you know, I don’t there’s a little bit I have a little bit of introvert in me so there’s I’m not too unhappy about getting locked in my house. Although I missed the heck out of my kids and grandkids I just don’t get to see them anywhere near as much as I’d like to and I cannot believe we’re looking at a few more months of this. And I also know that I’m one of the lucky people who has been healthy and everybody in my life has been healthy. I’ve definitely known close I’ve had close friends that have succumb to this virus so I if you’re hearing this and go girl, like get get a grip, you know, this is not all Pollyanna, I get that Believe me, I get the severity of the issue that we’re dealing with. But I can only do what I can do for me right and and if you’re listening, I want you to kind of take what what you listen to in this episode that works for you and kind of just leave the rest. So I’m sitting here and I’m not necessary, thankfully, not necessarily the depressive type had it kind of occurred to me that I can look at the months ahead as cold and dark and locked in my house and sad and insane or I can look at it as a little bit of a cocoon because while I am you know not while I’m looking at dark and cold and not being able to go out again. I’m also starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had a conversation the other day with Chris comatose. I am a part of their vid fest conference and they’re doing a pod fest conference in which I was a part of live in March of last year. And they’re doing they’re they’re moving the pod fest live conference to June of 2021. Because he says we were the last conference out and we’re going to be the first conference back and I was like, wow, I love that mindset. Because Because he’s starting to see the light. Right. He’s starting to plan for what’s on the other side of this. We’re seeing vaccines get approved here in the US. We’re starting to see See the light, right? So, so maybe instead of looking at the next couple months, in your business or in your life, as, you know, dark and depressing, we can look at it as a cocoon. And we can start to plan for the butterfly that can emerge, right come spring of 2021, doesn’t that feel better than then looking at this, as, you know, depressing. And when we do that, now we have intention, right? Now we have, we’ve shifted our mindset, a little bit around it, right, we’ve shifted our mindset instead of, and now we’re saying, okay, you know, we’ve got a few months ahead of us, and then the light will will, the light will start to shine, the light will start to shine. And I don’t think there’s gonna be I don’t know, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if there’ll be fairy dust sprinkled all over the planet. And we’ll all just be able to emerge from our restrictions, you know, all in one fell swoop, I’m guessing that’s not gonna happen. But I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I do know that I’m starting to see light. And because of that I want I choose to look at the next few months as the cocoon that will let me build and thrive and nourish the business and the life that I want to have as the light starts to come back to us. So that’s kind of what I want to talk about today on this podcast. So how about you? Are you ready to kind of shift your mindset about what’s ahead in the next few months. And instead of looking at it as Okay, we’re going to be locked down again, we look at it as our cocoon, we feel like we have a little bit of, we have a little bit of time. Now. You know, remember the last time this happened, we know how long it was gonna be right? We were always thinking, well, it’s a couple weeks, and this things were closed down for a little time. Now we know, we know, we’re going into a time period where we’re going to have at least a couple weeks, probably a couple months, maybe six months, where we have time to plan for. And by the way, while we’re planning, we’re going to make some money, right? I don’t want to plan to not make money, but we’re gonna have time to plan so that when the light starts to shine back on the world, we are ready, and we are ready to step into that light. And we have the best year of our lives in 2021. Doesn’t that sound amazing? You join, you’re ready for this? Because here’s the deal. It couldn’t be simpler to think I’m crazy. It couldn’t be more perfect for your business right now. Right? You know, we didn’t know this was happening. Now we do know what’s happening, right? So we know we’re gonna have less shiny objects. In the next few months, we know we’re going to not spend as much time in our car, right? So the travel time that you might have had to go to events is gone now. So if you if you did three, you know, networking events a month, let’s say you went to Chamber of Commerce events or something, and it took you you know, maybe there’s, you know, there’s travel time all around what was what is now a half hour or an hour zoom of your time used to be three or four hours, right? Because you had to drive there and you spent some time and you’re schmoozing and talking and whatever. So we have that time back. And we know we have that time back. Because we know in the next few months, we’re not going to be going to in person networking events, very likely, right? So we have that time back. We know it. So we have less shiny objects, we have more time in our calendar. It is a time to plan and be intentional. And create the cocoon and inside the cocoon, right? I don’t know what’s happening inside a, you know, a butterflies cocoon. But I know there’s a lot happening there, right? There’s a lot of growth happening. There’s a lot of thriving happening. There’s a lot of nourishing, happening there right inside that cocoon, which we look at as as quiet but maybe it’s not so quiet. Right? So that’s we’re gonna talk about here today. So the first thing I want to talk about, as we do this is being intentional. Okay. So again, we’ve already I’ve already mentioned, we know this is happening, we didn’t know this was happening before, right? We know this is happening. It’s we’re not looking at, we’re going to open soon. And by the way, if you have a gym or a restaurant, obviously this is not necessarily for you. This is for the people that you know, most of my people listen to this podcast, people that have service businesses, maybe their employees, and they’re using LinkedIn, to, you know, to build their network, you still can be doing this, if you’re a restaurant or a gym owner. So there’s still things in this podcast that are gonna be good for you. But I understand that your challenges are different, I totally understand that your challenges are different. But for those of us that work from home, whether you’re newly working from home, because your office is now not doing in person work, or you’ve always worked like me, you’ve always worked from home. We know now that we have time to build to nourish our cocoon. We know we have time to plan and to make a plan. So that’s what I want to do. That’s what I want you to do now, right? It’s November 2020. I want you to start to plan, start to plan maybe if you’re doing events, maybe you can start to plan an event for the summer of 2021. Maybe Maybe you’re um hopefully you’re looking at your business plan for 2021. And you’re looking at how many of this Do I need to sell to and how many of these do I I need to enroll people in in order to hit the numbers I want to hit. But you can be doing this planning. And you can be intentional with your time. Maybe you even Wow, I just thought this is I’m talking, I like this, I might do this on my calendar, maybe you even put two hours or three hours a half day a week, or every week for the rest of 2020. And call it planning time. Okay, let’s plan for 2021 lets us because we probably didn’t have three hours a week, right prior to this pandemic time, where we could literally just focus on our time, take that time that you’re not driving, and create a planning time, be intentional about how exactly you’re going to spend your time in 2021. You know, one of the things that I’m doing, and I started to do this in the beginning of the, you know, in March of 2020, I was going live every day on LinkedIn and in my facebook group, and I’m still having challenges going live in my Facebook groups, because while my Facebook profiles back, a lot of things are still not back yet. And I can’t schedule multiple lives in multiple platforms at the moment. Hopefully that will be not the case, by the time you’re listening to this. But what I was doing was I was getting up every morning and getting up taking a shower, brushing my hair, putting on makeup getting dressed, because Lord knows we know what it could be like to be pandemic, Karen right and not shower for a few days. I don’t want I didn’t want that to happen. So I committed to go live every morning on LinkedIn and on Facebook. And sometimes I send them to YouTube or Twitter, right? There’s all different ways we can do this. And I knew that I could do it now like say 9am every day. And I couldn’t do it in a normal world because I would never be around 9am every day, I’m always all over the place. You’re going to networking events and meeting with clients or having coffee dates, but I wasn’t doing that now. So I knew that I could at 9am every day I wasn’t going anywhere I was home, but there’s no reason. And frankly, it helped me It helped me get ready for the day, right? I had to force myself to be camera ready by 9am, which helped me turn my camera on for stories and things like that over the rest of the day, right? Instead of going well, I can’t do a story yet because I haven’t brushed my hair yet. Right. So to be intentional, I actually am going to go back to that. Because I’m looking at how can I be intentional, as I move through the next few months of knowing that I’m kind of being it’s going to be in my house in my office for most of the time, I’m going to go back to my morning daily lives. And I hope you listen, I hope that if we’re connected on LinkedIn, you join me for them, because I’m going to help you right. I’m not going live just to tell you about what my dogs doing today, right? I’m going live to teach you some of the things that I do to thrive to have helped my business thrive. And hopefully you can take some of those tips to help your business thrive. So be intentional about how you spend the next few months, knowing that it’s very likely that you’re not going to be leaving your house as much as you’d like to or your office. Okay. So the second thing I want you to do is focus on those relationships. All right, focus on those relationships. You’re listening to this podcast, you know, we’re going to talk about LinkedIn. Right? LinkedIn is about building relationships. Do when you look at your LinkedIn network now? Do the people in your LinkedIn network reflect the type of people that millionaire Mary would have in her network? So if you’re looking at 2021, to be your million dollar year, your multiple 6,000,000,006 figure maybe your multiple million dollar year? When you look at your LinkedIn network? Do you see the people in your network that millionaire you would be hanging out with? If not, I want you to be building those relationships now. Build the family that start to build the foundation for a personal network. And remember, like, it’s not like your Twitter followers, your LinkedIn network are actual people that you can build actual bit relationships with human to human marketing. So start building the foundation for your millionaire network for 2021. Okay, so as you’re being intentional, which we talked about in the first point here, part of that should be continually building relationships. And you know, I call it watering your money tree, right, going over to LinkedIn, what are your money tree, and make sure that you’re consistently connecting with people. And what I want you to do now is be consistently connecting with people that are going to help you that are going to be the network of your dreams as you move into the business of your dreams. In 2021, you’ve got the time now they’re locked in their house to most likely, so a message to them, which is like listen, you know, looks like you’re doing some pretty cool things. We’re both in the same Chamber of Commerce. We’re both in whatever commonality you have with whoever you’re looking to connect with. Right, use that, and then quickly try to convert that into a zoom call or a call or a phone call, right because they’re not doing anything either. So it’s quicker to build relationships virtually today than it’s ever been. But be intentional about who those relationships are. Make sure there are people that are that are going to be the people that are going to fully support you as you build your millionaire network. And then the third thing I want you to focus on As you’re cocooning, right, and as you’re planning and being intentional and building relationships is to think big, because we have, I mean, listen, we could you could look at this to it, I like to look at this as we have less noise, right, we have less noise, because we’re not running all over the place, we can be more intentional about where we how we’re spending our time, right, less noise allows us to bring more value to what we do. So you know, where you might have thrown a, you might have thrown an offer out there a $200 offer, hoping that you’re going to sell 10 of them make $2,000 this week, right? I want you to now think about what your $2,000 offer is, because while you’re in this cocoon, right, I want you to come out of the other side of it with a bigger ticket offer. Okay, I want you to come out of this with a bigger ticket offer because here’s the deal, when people buy your $200, whatever, maybe maybe 10 people buy it, and of the 10 people that buy it, probably half of them don’t even do it. Because I don’t know about you, but I have a hard drive full of $200 things that I bought and never got around to doing. Right. And of the two of the five of the 10 that do watch it, half of them are probably not doing anything. Because you know, we just add it to our to do list, right? Because it’s we don’t put a lot of value in what we spent $200 on. But if that if you sold one of those 10 people a $2,000 offer, chances are, they’re going to have the results you wanted them to get from the end of that because their investment, they’re more invested in it, and you with a $2,000 offer, can add more of your time to assist them in getting that transformation you want them to get by buying that offer, right? So take this time in the next few months to really develop your bigger ticket offers. And don’t be afraid of them, please don’t be afraid of them. Because I’m telling you, the I’m gonna I’m not gonna say who it is. But if you’re you know who you are, if you’re listening to this podcast, and I’m going to tell you to listen to it. I had a conversation yesterday with somebody that teaches yoga. And she was saying, Well, I don’t know what, I don’t know how really I would use LinkedIn. So we spent a little bit of time talking about that. And like right now, it’s a little crazy people are going to yoga studios maybe right? And yoga classes are What $10 $15 $20? I said, What if you developed $1,000 personalized yoga package, an individual, your individualized yoga package, you have people that are women that are aging, that are working from home, and they’re sitting in their chair, maybe they’re babysitting their kids, or their grandkids and their, their, their lives, and their bodies are completely out of whack. They don’t have time to do an hour yoga class. But if you spend a day with them, and really give them a high level of service, holy crap, I want that right? Don’t you want that? So we spent some time really building out what a 1000 or maybe even a $2,000 personalized package would be? Right? And I’m a giver gifts giver presence getter, great yoga mat, right? Like what kinds of cool things could you do to really elevate someone’s success because guess what, that person that invested 1000 or $2,000, in you to help them develop a personalized yoga practice that you are going to be their personalized coach for, right, that takes into consideration their bad knees or their bum hips or their carpal tunnel, right. So they’re not sitting on the floor watching a YouTube video and sitting on the floor watching the video half the time, because they can’t do half the poses that the YouTube person is doing right, give them a personalized one, they’re gonna have better success. They’re happy to invest in you write. So take that same concept. And put that in your business, create a bigger offer go big, and you don’t have to do anything fancy to do this. Because here’s the thing, the bigger your offer, the less work it is. Right? If you’re creating a $200 product with a tripwire and funnels, you got to have sales pages and an email opt ins and you’ve got to build your list to thousands and thousands of people. And I’m not saying don’t do those things. But it’s a lot of work, right? When you do personalized big ticket offers. They’re custom. All you need to put on your website is we create custom packages to help you get this result. Right. And that’s it, you’re done. Right. So for the third piece of this is go big. Think about what your bigger offers can be. And in this time, just dream big I when I do these projects, I’m I tend to have sticky notes all over the walls, what can I think of something else I want to add to this big ticket something and I’ll write it on a sticky note and stick it on the wall. And I’ll figure out where to put it in later. Right. But just do a brain dump of all the amazing things. You may wake up in the middle of the night and go, Oh my gosh, I could do this too. If I’m if they’re investing me at 5000 or 10,000 or $25,000, right? I can do this too if I can at that investment level. So think big. All right, does that make sense? And you have the time in the next few months to do these things. So let’s just recap this for a second. The first thing I want you to do is be really intentional. We know we have a couple months ahead of us where we can look at it as our cocoon, right as our we know where our butterfly is going to emerge from as the light starts to shine. be intentional with how you’re spending your time. Take maybe take some more planning time maybe even take some more self care time, but be intentional. Instead of sitting back and going this sucks. Can’t believe I can’t go out, I miss my kids, I miss my family, I miss my parents, I miss my friends, we know all of that right? be intentional, maybe part of the intention is every day at lunchtime, have lunch dates, right, have lunch dates, schedule lunch dates, be intentional with how you’re spending your time in the next few months. Looking at it as your cocoon, as you’re building and nourishing your thriving business, that’s going to happen on the other side of it as it emerges as a butterfly, right. And number two, don’t forget about the relationships. Okay, if 2021 is going to be your year, then start to build a millionaire network. And that happens by building relationships. That happens by having, you know, having lunch days with people and having getting on the phone with people getting on zoom calls with people at any level. And the third thing is think bigger, this is the time to start to think about your big ticket offers, okay? I mean, I’m telling you like my, my friend that I spoke to about the yoga practice the yoga business yesterday, you know, these women that are not doing this, we are not getting the benefits of yoga, because they’re, they’re frustrated, they can’t do these online classes, because they’re not meant for them. They can’t even even if they were in person classes, and they’re, they don’t have an hour, maybe to do this, because they’re doing a million different things. So customizing something for them. This could be life changing, right? This could be life changing, this could change their health forever, they’re willing to invest to do that. Don’t look at this, you know, so look at it as that look at it from that perspective, and just serve the EverLiving hell out of these people. Okay, at a high ticket level, and this is the time to be building these offers. Because we are tired of all the noise, we’re tired of all the all the stuff, right? And we’re more willing to dive deep to get fast results to hit our achievements or to have those transformations. And in a shorter period of time. People will pay for that. So go big, how does that sound? You guys? How does that sound? Does that? I mean, does it doesn’t it feel great to think about this time as a cocoon, because we are starting to see the light of the spring maybe changing and being the light that we know is going to is going to help us get back out to the world and spend more time with our friends and family and frankly not be so worried about our health and the health of our family members and our friends, right? Doesn’t it feel great to to take this time to just nourish ourselves and nourish our businesses, so that when that light starts to shine, we’re just we’re just taking full advantage of it. I’m here to support you with this, we have tons and tons of different ways to do this. We do we in fact, one of the things I highly encourage you to do, as you can see by the conversation I had with my friend yesterday about our yoga practice, I love brainstorming what your big offers could be or what your breakthroughs could be. We offer complimentary breakthrough calls to anybody that wants them. Just go to KarenYankovich.com/call schedule a breakthrough call, you’ll talk to me or someone on my team. And we will we will talk to we’ll spend an hour with you really developing helping you develop what’s there for you in 2021. And obviously, if we think it’s something we can help you with, we’ll tell you what that looks like. But we’re not there to just sell you on our programs, we are truly there to serve you. Because we know when we come from this place of service, it’s when when the right people, we want only the right people in our program. So we don’t make an offer, frankly, to everyone that has a call with us. So we love having these calls. We want to talk to people, we want to support you, we want to give you ideas and frankly you may come back to us in a year or two. Right if tonight if Now’s not the time, but it is the time to start thinking about this. So book a call KarenYankovich.com/call gets you on our calendar, we’ll spend an hour with you will really help you develop this and we’ll just hold your hand as you kind of think about how you can nourish your cocoon. So if this was helpful to you, I would love for you to take a screenshot of this episode and share it on your social media tag me @KarenYankovich. Use the hashtag #GoodGirlsGetRich, we’ll share it with our audience because what my goal is the reason we do these breakthrough calls complimentary is we love to lift you up. And you can help us by lifting us up by sharing this podcast and we want to let will lift you up then by sharing that post with our audience. So we’re all lifting each other up, right? A rising tide lifts all boats. I do this podcast to support you. We do these free complimentary breakthrough calls to support you. We want to help you get started and have an amazing network of people an amazing business and a big fat bank account and I’m here to help you do that. Let’s kick some 2020 booty together. And you know it doesn’t have to be hard. It can be simple. I’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.

144 – Lend a Cup of Courage with Krista Martin

by | Nov 16, 2020 | Podcasts

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, guest Krista Martin and Karen discuss why you should have courage and how you can make sales fun.

 

Krista Martin is the president and founder of Make Your Mark. She teaches coaches how to attract more clients, make more money, and create a bigger impact. She’s also the founder of the Six Figure Impact Academy and takes a stand for helping her clients build six-figure businesses.

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

Does the word sales sound icky to you? Does it make you squirm and think, “I could never enjoy that”? Perhaps the reason a lot of people feel this way about sales is that they’re looking at it from the wrong perspective.

The goal of sales is to answer someone’s problems and fulfill their needs. How do you do this? Start by serving them. Learn who they are, what they need, and cater to those needs. Even if someone chooses to not buy from you immediately, they’re sure to remember how you tried to help them instead of “selling” to them.

It’s no secret, though, that you have to have confidence when making sales. As Krista Marin likes to remind herself, lend a cup of courage. Believe in yourself, invest in yourself, and soon you’ll have the courage you need to make sales fun!

Learn more about how to invest in your confidence in this episode with Krista Martin!

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/144
  • Introducing this episode’s guest, Krista Martin (1:51)
  • How Krista and Karen met (3:59)
  • Six Figure Impact Academy (5:16)
  • Krista’s journey (7:10)
  • People are wanting change (13:49)
  • Going first (15:52)
  • Go for the money first (17:35)
  • Lend a cup of courage (23:29)
  • People are still investing in themselves (25:27)
  • Where you can find Krista (32:06)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 144

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 144 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing to women that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people, people who will change your business, your life and your bank account for ever digital marketing with the human touch human to human marketing, right good old fashioned talk to people on the phone and get their credit card for big fat juicy deals marketing. So you know what, if you’ve listened before, or if you’re loving what you hear today, we love it. When our listeners take a screenshot and share on their social media, and let your audience know that you’re loving this podcast, we have an amazing guest today you’re gonna love this show. But if you tag me @KarenYankovich, or tag Krista, her links will all be in the show notes. We’ll be sure to share that with our audiences. So put it in your stories, put it in your Instagram post whatever works for you. Put it in your LinkedIn stories. Are you doing LinkedIn stories? Pretty cool, right? So put it in your LinkedIn stories, and tag me so that I can be sure to share it with my audience. And that’s how we both get more visibility right, we can lift each other up that way. in the show notes, there’s a link. There’s links to everything we talked about on the show today. And you can just go see that at KarenYankovich.com/144. So check that out. today. I am so excited about this show today. It’s a long time in the making. Krista Martin was my business coach for a while we have known each other for years we met each other when we both took Marie Forleo B school seems like a million years ago now. And we have just supported each other from that moment forward. And talking about human human marketing. Chris and I have never been in the same room together yet. And we will be we will be soon we have to be right. I mean, it’s crazy, that I’ve just, you know, I really consider her a good friend and a mentor and she’s helped me in so many ways. So I’m so honored that she agreed to be on the show today and share her genius with you. So check it out. Krista Martin on the good girls get rich podcast. So we have Krista Martin here with us today on the good girls get rich podcast and Krista is the president and founder of Make Your Mark. She’s a sought after speaker and business coach and teaches coaches how to attract more clients make more money and create a bigger impact. She is the founder of the six figure impact Academy and takes a stand for helping her clients build six figure businesses and the reach impact and personal transformation that our clients achieve through this process is what makes this level of success so important. And Krista has spent a lot of years 12 more years in the corporate world. She’s got lots of business experience. She’s got all kinds of awards that she’s won. She’s the former director of marketing for the Georgia international coach Federation was featured speaker at the Midwest Regional coaches conference in 2017, and 2020, as well as the ICF global converge conference in 2018. And Krista, her passions include supporting homeless animal shelters with the goal of helping every pet live in a happy and healthy home. And she is my friend. So I’m so excited to have you here. Krista. It’s way too long in the in the making to have you on the show.

Krista Martin 3:42
Oh, Karen, I’m so excited to be here. And I know you and I go way back and we can geek out on all things, business marketing and and just life in general too. So I’m just thrilled to be here and can’t wait to dig into some really yummy stuff.

Karen Yankovich 3:58
Yeah, so Kristin I met years ago probably like 2012 ish. And we were both working corporate jobs at the time. And our careers our businesses kind of had like kind of went along the same trajectory for a while. We both left our full time jobs in the same area and you know, started our businesses full time. So you know, we’ve just I feel like we’ve been through a lot together. Could you imagine we would be doing this in 2020 Kristen when we first met in 2012

Krista Martin 4:25
Oh, heck no, I would not have I mean it’s such a beautiful place to be now and look back and say wow, you know, if we could have only known or had a clue and and the whole journey with you has been such a wild adventure and and just the fact that we connected right away and we’re so mirroring each other like you said in our journey, that it was so great to be partners in crime through a lot of stuff.

Karen Yankovich 4:49
Yeah, and I think one of the things that you and I have Well first of all, like when I read your bio, it’s like read the beginning of it actually is teaches coaches how to attract more clients make more money and create a bigger impact. Just a lot of what I do, right? I mean, we’ve, you know, I use LinkedIn as the tool that helps get there and you focus it specifically on coaches. So we have different like angles to what we do. But at the end of the day, it is about creating impact for your business that creates impact around the world, right?

Krista Martin 5:16
Yes. Oh, my gosh, absolutely. And that’s, you know, one of the things that I’ve really been working with clients on especially just recently, we actually read dug into this, but it’s what I call your six figure impact that you create that, really your successful business allows you to create. And I always say there’s, there’s three tiers of impact to the first year is, I know, you can’t see me right now. But it’s like this, I’ve got my hands like in a circle, if you think about it, just where it’s the closest level to you, where you’re making the impact on paying your bills, you know, covering your mortgage, you know, doing those things that allow you to be whole and taking care of your loved ones. The second tier of that impacts of going out a little bit further is when you’re impacting people or groups or the community that I like to say that you can reach out and touch because you’re actually seeing them or talking to them. And the third tier, which some people want to go to this level, some don’t. And there’s no right or wrong to that. But what I’ve discovered is that third tier is when your impact reaches and impacts people across world that there’s literally no way that you could ever meet all the people that you’re touching.

Karen Yankovich 6:25
Oh, that’s so cool. That’s so cool. I’ve never heard you describe that like that. I love that. Because you know, here at the end of the day, it all ties together, right? If we want to have a bigger impact, we can have, you know, a lot of followers, but that doesn’t really make an impact. What makes the impact is when we are running, you know, we have money in our bank accounts, right and had to get money in our bank accounts, we need to have clients or we need to have a business or in your case, because you focus on coaches, it’s really about clients. Right? So. So but somehow I feel like in, you know, there’s so many women that I talked to that, that want to make the bigger impact, but are, you know, concerned about the sales piece of it and attracting more clients. And you know, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, Tommy. So tell me a little bit about your journey from when you lie, I know your story. So I don’t want to assume everybody else does. So tell me when you left corporate, why you really chose to help coaches.

Krista Martin 7:20
And, you know, it’s I love that you’re asking this. And for me the reason that, you know, I think so many times when we’re trying to get clear on who we want to work with, or a lot of times what I work with clients on too is figuring out who their ideal client is. And the reason I chose to work with coaches is because I went through the exact challenges that my ideal clients are going through right now. And so so many times, our ideal client is a younger version of ourselves, in some way, shape, or form. And so knowing that I went through coach training program came home, you know, I, the way I tell my story, which is true, but it’s also you know, a little bit funny, but it wasn’t funny at the time was coming home, you know, having my coaching certification in my hand, and I opened the front door, and I yelled, I’m open for business. And I love that. Yeah. And that people will totally come tackle me and I jokingly say, but it’s true, it was just me in the cricket. So I yelled even louder. And they’re still just me in the cricket. So since I went through that exact challenge myself, and learn how to build, you know, multiple six figure coaching business, that’s exactly why I love supporting clients is getting clear on what they need to do, because they’re always my ideal clients are super smart people. They’re great coaches, they just don’t necessarily know the business side of running a coaching business.

Karen Yankovich 8:40
Oh my gosh, and that’s so true about all businesses, right? Not just coaching, you might be a great yoga teacher, you might be a great you know, accountant, but again, you can’t just open your door and say, Okay, everybody come on in, you need to have a plan to get business to get clients.

Krista Martin 8:54
Yes. And that’s where people mistakenly think I’m a great coach, I built it so they will come, which isn’t at all how it works, you know, and, and I was thinking and I thought, well, I have my MBA and marketing I’ve been in sales, you know, all these years, this should be easy, and it was the most different thing learning then you know, how to sell and market and communicate value and attract clients, when you’re essentially selling yourself especially when you’re first starting it’s, you know, you’re exchanging your services of working with someone for the transformation they want. And it was even with all that background, I still struggle to figure it out right at first and so that’s a long answer to your

Karen Yankovich 9:36
no and that’s that’s a it’s an important thing because I think that that’s important because my you know, my journey was I was in sales pretty much my whole life. I’ve always done something along sales, but I was never selling myself. And I didn’t know that there was a difference until I started doing it. And even when I started doing it, I didn’t realize that there was a difference and that there’s a big mindset difference between You know, representing a company, or even if even when I own the company, it still wasn’t my name that I was trying to you know what I mean, that bill didn’t come from Karen Yankovich. International, you know, so when I started my business and just started doing consulting, it was a, it was a lot to make that shift from selling somebody else’s products, even if they were kind of still mine, two things, everything had my name on it, everything was selling me, right. And that’s so different than anything I’ve ever done before.

Krista Martin 10:27
Yes, and it’s so to me, at least my experience, and that really what I work with clients on a whole lot to is that mindset piece of seeing your value, building your confidence, you know, in the value that you can deliver, getting clear on what your clients need, and making sure that you can help your clients get a result. And those pieces aren’t necessarily required when we’re selling somebody else’s thing or another brand. Or, you know, I jokingly say that I sold drugs for a long time, there were pharmaceuticals. But I would say I learned a lot through that experience, because I was selling essentially something that was invisible, you know, as a client feeling better, or a prescription, but it wasn’t like I was saying here, buy this thing. I’m going to give it to you, you know, hand it to you. It was me helping them to think differently and make different choices, which is really what I really look at sales as now when we’re having a conversation with someone, we’re helping them to get past the mindsets that have kept them stuck up until this point. And so, you know, not only working on the mindset piece for the the person on the other end of the sales conversation, but for ourselves, too.

Karen Yankovich 11:33
Yeah, that’s so important. That’s so important. Because at the end of the day, people aren’t buying, you know, what you think they’re buying, right? They’re buying the, the answer to their problem, whatever that problem is, you have to uncover that problem. So that they know, you know, like, people don’t like the I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, Krista, people don’t buy socks, they buy warm feet, right? So, so finding the warm feet in your business, and then you know, kind of really, and at this at this point in my business, and I’m sure you’ve seen the same thing, there’s people that I’ve talked to a couple different times over the years, and that have not invested in my services. And then I talk to them a year later, and they’re in the same place. And I feel like that I’m not doing my job properly. Right. Because if I, if they’re in the same place, and I haven’t been able to help them, right, and they’re still obviously having that same, they still have cold feet, right? Because they still don’t have the socks, yet. It’s a year later. So it’s an interesting, it’s just an interesting talent that are a skill that that I needed to learn how to develop in order to grow my business and, and to have the impact on the world that I wanted to have.

Krista Martin 12:43
Oh, absolutely. And it’s, it’s also looking at it, too, from the lens, you know, I always talk about with clients, you know, sales and service sales as service because so many times people have that energy of no sales is spammy, or achy or whatever. And if we have that mindset, of course, our clients, you know, that’s going to come out in our sales conversation, that energetic feeling of us not wanting to have a sales conversation, because we feel like it’s spammy or icky. Doesn’t, you know, that keeps people stuck in in the same place. But when we can shift to see the value and the impact and the transformation. And like what you said right there, too, is really taking a stand for helping your person that you’re talking to not be in the same place in the year. It’s all about them, and them getting what they need. And it really becomes a conversation about service and transformation. And not, hey, I want you to buy this random thing today. It’s saying you want a different result. Let me help you see what’s possible when you invest in yourself through, you know, working with me, you know, to leverage your LinkedIn presence or really just helping them to take a stand for themselves too. And so they’re tired of seeing in the same place.

Karen Yankovich 13:48
Yeah. And you know, as we record this, it’s October 2020. And there’s a lot of people rethinking the place that they’ve been in for a long time. Right, they may or may not be, you know, that things have shifted for almost everyone right in their business and in their careers. So there’s a lot of people looking at making changes. And I think that, you know, they really have finding the confidence to determine what that changes and invest in themselves. To help them get to the other side of it is never been more important, I feel like than it is today.

Krista Martin 14:22
Oh, yes, this year, especially I see it as a year of like the most people learning about how strong they really are, how resilient they really are, and what they can really create. I think this year is going to make such strong business owners or help people step into that level of really being a CEO and looking at what the client needs, helping them achieve those goals and really looking and enjoying sales, which I know makes a lot of people break out and set and hives when I say enjoying sales that feels like an oxymoron but, but really looking at you know, what are the gifts here? How do we shift it and How do we create a bigger, bigger impact? And how am I willing to go first, that’s really a big thing too, that we don’t wait until we get the clients or, you know, the speaking offer or that kind of thing. We we have to go first. That’s what I’ve learned about building your business and really showing up with conviction and confidence for yourself to is that you have to go first. And when you go first, it’s almost that the universe says, okay, Chris is really serious. Now. She’s all in on building a business and creating this different impact. I’m going to, we can now open the doors and send clients versus the, I’m gonna wait, you know, that energy of waiting is a chaotic energy that that tells the universe maybe sort of kind of I sort of want a client, maybe I’m ready for it. Maybe sales is spammy, but when we’re willing to, to go first, everything shifts.

Karen Yankovich 15:51
So give us an example of going first.

Krista Martin 15:53
Okay, so there’s one client that comes to mind. And she, I love working with her. And she is someone who felt like building her business. She was very, I mean, she would tell you, and she would use these words that she felt very scared to invest in herself, she felt like she had spent all this money on her coach training. And she was scared in the sense of she’d already spent, you know, $10,000 on this coach training program, and yet was just more of the waving energy of, you know, I’m just kind of building my practice. I’m doing a little bit here and there. And she actually decided to join us in the six figure impact Academy before she had the business income to support that, you know, so that was her saying, Yes, I’m all in, I’m gonna do all the things, I’m willing to take the steps. And really what the energetic shift for her was, was, she was willing to bet on herself for the first time. And that right there not saying that any program out there is the perfect one. But when you bet on yourself, everything shifts, because you start looking for reasons you’ll succeed versus reasons you’re, you’re gonna fail or reasons your business won’t grow. So so she said, Yes, for example, to stepping into the Academy, scared to death. And she said her commitment was to recoup the investment as quickly as possible, you know, do all the things trust the process. And she, in that year, of growing for business, cross into six figures in one year, which is not something that everybody does, but I will tell you her willingness to take imperfect action, and be all in shifted exponentially when she invested in herself first.

Karen Yankovich 17:33
Oh, my gosh, I love that. So this is not something that that we talked about talking about. But that leads me to something that I know that you will just full disclosure, I’ve actually hired Krista at a time Krista has been my coach at times, because I know, sometimes I need to kick in the mindset, right. So one of the things that I know, so one of the things I know you teach the people in your program, which is also what I teach people, but sometimes I need to even we all need to be reminded of this ourselves is go for, like go for the one on one clients go for the money first. Because a lot of people when they start out as a coach, or even in a lot of businesses, they’re like, Alright, I’m gonna do this program. And it’s gonna be $97 a month, and we’re gonna do all this stuff in it. And it is for sure the hard way to hit six figures. So do you still talk about that? Do you still coach around that?

Krista Martin 18:23
Absolutely. And I’m sure you have similar reasoning, you know, that, that you look for that and create that with your clients too. But what I see as really being the number one goal, especially being pre six figures, is to bring in income and clients and create confidence as quick as possible. And when you’re selling something for $97, you have to sell a whole bunch of $97 things to likely reach your income goals. And so looking at how can we create really big results? And by the way, really big results usually happen working one on one with someone versus an info product or a yes, you know, something like that?

Karen Yankovich 19:00
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And and I think that comes down to confidence too, right? Because if you’re a new coach, or you’re new to your business, you probably think well, I you know, often I see people that are thinking that how am I going to charge that I don’t even have a lot of experience yet. But it isn’t about the experience. It’s about the results that people can get. And that’s weirdly how you can start to base that. And to me, then you if you really want to do that $97 something then you have the money to hire a team to help you with it. Right because you’ve you’ve established a nice base of income with the one on one services that you offer.

Krista Martin 19:35
Absolutely. And and I would say especially at first Our goal is to help you hit whatever you know income number that you need to make yourself feel like you’re at least achieving that first level of impact. And I remember going through the exercise for myself because I thought I was in the same camp too. I built a $297 information product. I was like this is gonna sell out you know be on the beach drinking Mai Tai And just million dollars.

Karen Yankovich 20:02
Pay Pal is just gonna keep beeping all day long while I’m drinking my does.

Krista Martin 20:06
Yes, exactly. And, and then when I did some, you know, just basic math of reverse engineering and I thought for me to leave my corporate job I needed to be bringing in $10,000 around, you know, or on average a month. And I thought okay to sell $297 program, how many do I need to sell to reach that income number and it was I don’t can’t do the math right here in my head, but it was a whole ton of selling those. And so I think what’s the easier way to do it? Well, the easier way is to have a higher investment bigger impact program. And then we I saw maybe I needed I think at that time, you know, I had a three month coaching program that was 20 $500, or something like that. And so all of a sudden, I could see, okay, I need four of those. Sadly, you know, or Yeah, I’m my math is I’m no, that’s not…

Karen Yankovich 20:53
Your math is right. Hire Krista as a coach, not as an accountant.

Krista Martin 21:00
Yes, exactly. That’s what I don’t have my phone pulled up. Like, let me double check myself, that’s something I’ve learned. But looking at it just as a business owner versus the, you know, saying, Okay, how is what’s the most easy way to hit my numbers and my goal, or what I want to reach, and you have to sell a whole bunch of $97 things? And then to think about to do you have an audience Do you have, you know, the ability to get in front of enough people knowing that likely 3% of your audience is ready to buy at any time. And when you do that math, that’s what motivated me. And that’s also what allowed me, you know, Karen, to grow my business from $40,000, to over 220, that next year, and then grow quickly from there. And it was because I said, Okay, I’m all in on doing the program serving individuals. And then we can look at groups or whatever that looks like,

Karen Yankovich 21:55
right. But Krista, I’m gonna help you recognize that that took some courage on your part, to say, all right, what is it 20 $500 program look like? Right, so. So that takes some courage. And I think, I think that that’s what I love about what you do is that you so you have this, you know, this group, or the support system built in for the people that you work with, that helps them have the courage to go, alright, let me let me try that because it isn’t always, you know, easy like the my she’s linked up accelerator program that we run. Now, it was originally just a digital, just a digital form. It was never just a digital program. But it was a digital program. And we had q&a calls built in and things like that. But I recognized at one point that for people to have the successes that I wanted them to have, I need to build in that we’re going to write their profile, and that increase the investment a lot. And it took it was it was a big step. right to do that. I was like, but they’re not, you know, when you buy a digital course, I have a, I have a hard drive full of a million dollars worth of digital courses that I’ve bought that I haven’t really finished. Right? So I had to look at it and say, What do I need to do to the program to shift that so that people are finishing it? And that increased significantly increase the investment, which took courage, right? So that’s kind of why you know, I lean on people like you and the people in my life. And I hope that people are leaning on me and you as they move into that new new paradigm in their business.

Krista Martin 23:19
Yes. And it’s you know, and I look at it as my job and your job. And you know, as we’re serving our clients and supporting them is really to I’ve a little sticky note on my computer that says, you know, lend a cup of courage. And that’s just a reminder that that is my job. Like, that’s what I tell myself part of my job is to help lend a cup of courage to my clients, so they can see what’s possible that I can maybe already see for them, and they’re stuck in the, you know, figuring things out, but to help them say, Okay, this can be possible. This can happen, and what would it look like if it did?

Karen Yankovich 23:57
Very cool.

Krista Martin 23:58
And Karen, what I heard you say to that’s so important that most people don’t do is that you said one of my clients need to get massive results, versus what’s being offered out there. And that you said, okay, they need to have this LinkedIn profile, you know, that’s huge, to help them get the results. And you were willing to do that. And it’s really like looking at what’s offered out there. And then not saying I have to offer exactly what Karen offers or FL for exactly what Christina offers, but ask yourself the question, What am I clients really need that would allow them to get huge results. And then all of a sudden, you have ideas, you have ways of showing up of serving this may be very different than what’s being currently offered. And that’s awesome, because then you become a category of one, you’re doing something nobody else is doing. You’re really thinking about what gives the clients the biggest, fastest, most amazing results. And you’re not stuck in the cookie cutter of this is how I do it. This is how it’s always been done. But you say these are the things that people need to succeed and I’m going to give it to them

Karen Yankovich 25:00
My gosh, yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true and making it about them and less about you. Right. And even though we’ve gone to all these certifications, and and all these trainings and all of that, that helps us help them. Nobody cares about that stuff, right? They care about can you get them to the result they want to get to? Yeah. And you solve that, that, you know, pain point that you uncovered earlier, those cold feet? How you know, and I mean, do you have something that can help them? You know, never have cold feet again?

Krista Martin 25:27
Yes.

Karen Yankovich 25:27
So what do you advise people Krista to do when it’s, you know, it’s it’s, we’re well into, or beginning into q4 2020. You know, which forget the fact that it’s q4 2020. Alone, you know, is on people’s like, it’s just the crazy thing, like memes all over the place about how crazy 2020 has been, what do you do? Are people still buying this kind of stuff? Are they still investing in themselves? At this time of year?

Krista Martin 25:52
Absolutely. And I know, there’s gonna be people that say, wait a second, No, they aren’t? No, they aren’t. And we always find what we’re willing to look for. And so you know, if you’re thinking nobody’s buying right now, you know, I’ve heard from a million clients, you know, at the end of the year, they’re like, nobody wants to buy because they’re spending money on other things. And that’s actually the opposite. People love to buy when they’re buying something that helps them achieve a goal, you know, feel good, you know, thinking about Christmas, at the end of the year, people are buying presents, of course, they’re buying, they’re spending more money probably in that month, and they do the entire year. But it’s being willing to look to find that proof first to shift your mindset and say, okay, who is buying, let me see an example, for example of a business owner that’s thriving in 2020. Go out. And if you look for that, you will find it, which gives you the proof and the confidence that if it can exist for them, it absolutely can exist for you. And then the thing that, you know, I’ve some of my clients have had their best income years this year in 2020. And the reason was that we I know the word pivot has been used way over us this year. But we were willing to they were willing to go back to the drawing board and pivot in a way of re asking their clients what it is that they need, and not assuming that they know all the things, you know, or, you know, one of my clients I’m thinking of in particular, works with she coaches in the corporate space. So she was selling leadership development programs. And she was willing to go back and say, guess what, what do you need right now, what’s different for you than the last time we spoke? Because if that company, that Corporation had just laid off half of their staff, they are not looking for leadership development right then, but they’re looking for something else. And so she was able to pivot and actually leverage her HR background, to be able to serve them in a different way, but still serve them based on what they needed in this moment. And then when things shift back to normal, she can absolutely you know, she’ll be the first one they think of, but you have to be willing to go back and ask and be curious and help your client solve problems.

Karen Yankovich 27:58
Yes, yes. Yes. I love that. Krista. I love that. And so regardless of what time of the year, it is, what year of the in the world, it is, right? You know what, what you said earlier, which I want to pull out on is, you know, they’re just looking for one person right now, like, even when you’re saying you want for people for your 20 $500 to get to your 10,000. Right? You’re not really looking for for you’re looking for your next one, right? And you can find one person that’s in a position, even at q4 2020, that you can you know that you can make that impact on their life in their business.

Krista Martin 28:33
Absolutely. And there’s people that are looking for solutions always. And you know, what, what I see is so important is just being willing to really listen, versus where I think that the bad energy around sales comes from, is when it’s just Karen, I’m going to sell you this six month coaching program, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it’s like I’m gonna sell it to you, versus Karen, let me hear what’s important to you, and see if I can help you know, you achieve what you want. And really look at helping Karen solve a problem versus Karen, I want you to buy this program, because it’s about me really making it about Karen, because and what she needs and then seeing if, if I can help her create those results, and everything shifts, when it’s focused on the other person versus focused on, you know, a selling that program, it’s no, we’re selling a solution or helping our person achieve what they must want. So really listening and being in tune with that.

Karen Yankovich 29:26
Yeah, I love that. You know, Krista, one of the things that I’ve started doing recently before I have calls with people that are new people that you know, are considering enrolling in our program, is I literally block out a half hour before the call like so I’m giving them an hour of my time on the call and I block out a half hour before the call to just look at their stuff watch look at their LinkedIn profile, look at their website, see what I can find them on Facebook or Twitter and see what they’re interested in and really tune into them before I even get on the phone with them. And because I really do want to know if it’s a good fit or not, and if it’s not, you know, that’s okay too. But It has shifted so many things for my business, when when I started doing that, and people on my team started to do that, to really kind of step into the energy of the person we’re going to be talking to, because if they’ve reached out to have this call, right, they have a, they have a need. And, you know, I, I’m willing to invest a lot of time, whether or not it’s a fit, I want, I want that call to be really valuable to them, whether or not they choose to move forward with us in the program. And that has shifted so many things for my business, because it isn’t about just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, it’s truly about serving regardless,

Krista Martin 30:36
oh my gosh, that’s huge. And just giving yourself, you know, what I also heard in that to pull out is that that’s how a, you know, multimillion dollar, you know, whatever your aspirations are for your business. But that’s how a CEO shows up, versus the energy of someone who is plugging holes. And you know, kind of in that energy of, Okay, I’m just wondering, I’m so busy and not being intentional. When you show up that way for your client, I guarantee even if you don’t necessarily say that or bring it up, they feel that you’ve already invested in them energetically, and that you’ve also invested in your business by giving yourself the time and space to really show up as your best for that call to. So that’s hugely valuable and then just being detached to the outcome, meaning if this person says yes or no, that’s okay. This is about me, helping them to serve them, help them to see what’s possible. And then I like to look at it as that sales compensation is also helping them to make a clear decision. So if they say, No, I don’t want to do the thing. That’s great. But then in a year when they’re at the same place, they can remember and go back to say, hey, guess what, I made that intentional choice not to do the thing to work with Karen to work with Krista. So I chose to be okay with being here. So it’s also bringing their awareness to their own thought patterns and, and helping them to confidently decide I’m totally fine where I am. Or Okay, I’m not totally fine. where I am, I am willing to bet on me, I am willing to go first.

Karen Yankovich 32:03
So cool, Krista. So cool. So tell me how people can get to know more about you and what how to get more into your world? How do they step into your world?

Krista Martin 32:12
Well, thank you for asking this. The easiest way to find out more and to continue the conversation and see the cool things that we’re up to, is to check us out on our website. Of course, you know, I’m on LinkedIn. Of course, Karen has helped me really step into seeing the beauty and the power of LinkedIn. So connecting there or on Facebook, we also host a workshop that is going to teach you or does teach you everything you need to create rapid results in your coaching business. And you can find out more about that and see if it makes sense to join us at MakeYourMarkWorkshop.com and everything you need to know will be there and I would love to continue the conversation.

Karen Yankovich 32:51
Everybody needs more Krista in their life, I promise you so totally check out Krista. We’ll have links to all of this in the show notes as well. But definitely check out the free workshop because I’m gonna check it out. Because I don’t think I’ve seen this new one on I learned something every single time. I talked to Krista and trust me you. You want more of that. So, Krista, I’m so glad we finally did this. Thank you so much for sharing your genius with our listeners here today.

Krista Martin 33:16
Yes, thank you for having me, Karen. And we totally need to set up a time to geek out and just catch up on all things, grandbabies. And all the good stuff.

Karen Yankovich 33:24
Yes, we totally do. We totally do. All right. Thanks for being here, Krista.

Krista Martin 33:28
Thank you.

Karen Yankovich 33:29
Come on. Was I right? is Krista not amazing? She is so smart. I’m not kidding you what we have in common and we talked a lot about a lot of these things. But is we really like to go to dive deep and go for the bigger opportunities rather than you know, creating a $29 something and selling a million of them. There’s no judgement to you if that’s what you’re doing. It’s just not what I do. And it’s not what Krista does. And I think that that’s why we we connect so well because we just have similar ways of thinking this. So obviously, click all the links in the show notes. do all the things Krista has offered because you’re totally going to want to hear more from Krista. But also, you know, remember that we have just completely revamped our masterclass. So we have a free masterclass that we’ve been offering now for a little bit it’s all brand new in November 2020 so check it out. You can check that out at KarenYankovich.com/masterclass. And we have links to all of this in the in the show notes. But this is how we you start to learn a little bit about the things that we’ve talked about on this episode today. You know how I add the reasons why I think it’s important to be using LinkedIn marketing and to and to really take a quick jump forward with your life in your business. So check that out. That is my treat to you. You know we do this podcast every week we have this free masterclass. I’ve got a Facebook group that you’re welcome to join us in. We’ll link to all of that in the show notes where we do monthly LinkedIn profile, happy hours. We’re on there live doing profile review So do you want to join the Facebook group if you want to jump in on that? So there’s so many ways that we heard uplevel Media serve you. And if there’s if there’s more that you can think of, I would love to hear that. So again, help us help you share this episode, take a quick screenshot and share it on your social media. If you tagged me and I get to see it, I will be sure to share it with my audience. And that helps us both get more visibility. So I’ll see you back here next week for another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.

143 – Working Together to Bust the Gender Wage Gap

by | Nov 9, 2020 | Podcasts

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, Karen discusses busting the gender wage gap.

It’s 2020, and the gender wage gap still exists. It’s time to bust that gap. Karen shares how you can claim a piece of the pie for yourself!

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

In an absolutely mind-blowing statistic, women in 2019 collectively made 500+ billion dollars less than their male counterparts. You read that right… in 2019! We, as women, need to work together to claim our chunk of that 500+ billion dollars that is just sitting there for us in 2021. How can we make this happen?

Your Mindset

Having the right mindset is critical to success. Who is it that you want to be? Adjust your mindset and identify as the person who will achieve success and take her part of the 500+ billion dollars.

The Math

Next, look at your business and ask yourself the questions, “Does the math work?” Can you see the pathway to the number you’re wanting to achieve in your business? If not, now is the time to look at your products and services, ask yourself how you can ramp them up, and create a $20k offer you only have to sell one of per month.

The People

Who are you spending your time with? Are you spending time with people who drag you down to a poverty mindset, or are you around people who lift you up? Don’t abandon the people in your life, but make sure you’re spending a lot of your time around people who are thinking bigger.

As we’re nearing 2021, let’s work together to bust the gender wage gap and claim our chunk of the 500+ billion dollars!

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/143
  • Introducing this episode’s topic (1:59)
  • Your mindset (7:00)
  • Make sure the math works (9:45)
  • Think about who you spend your time with (11:52)
  • Episode recap (14:08)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 143.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 143 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this podcast is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing that gets you on the phone consistently with your perfect people, people who will change your business, your life and your bank account for ever. What we teach is digital marketing with the human touch human to human marketing, meeting really cool people that can change everything. So you know that if you’ve listened before, or if you love what you hear today, we love when you share this show. So if you’re listening and you hear something that you just want to let the rest of the world know, and this is a good one, I think you’re gonna want to share this one, although I think they’re all good, right. But this is a really good one. You know, just take a quick screenshot, pop it up on your stories, pop it on your LinkedIn stories, who’s doing LinkedIn stories, right? pop it on your stories, tag me @KarenYankovich across all social media, because that helps me get this show in front of more people. And in return, I’ll share that with my audience and get you in front of my audience. And that’s how we all get more visibility right? in the show notes, which you can find at KarenYankovich.com/143. There’s also a link for speakpipe where you can leave us audio messages. Tell us what you loved about this. Tell us what if there’s a guest you want to hear on the show tell us if there’s a topic you’d like me to cover, we would love to hear your voice. So there’s a link in there to speak pipe for you to be able to do that. So this episode is really near and dear to my heart. This episode is why I do this show. Okay, if you go all the way back to Episode One, KarenYankovich.com/001. You will hear the story as to why I’m doing the show and this episode, all 143 episodes later, we’re still talking about this. And I’m gonna continue talking about this because I’m so passionate about this issue. And sometimes you just need to hear it a different way. Because I know if you listen to the show that you know a lot of this stuff. But hopefully I can help you think about it a little differently, and make those changes in your life in your business that are going to you know, really make the biggest impact for you. You know, Listen, I’ve mentioned on the show a few times I grew up in the 70s. And in the 70s women were first starting to make an impact in the workforce. They were starting to work more hours. You know, in the 60s, a lot of moms were still home, some moms were working, but most women were home raising their kids. You know, think Mary Tyler Moore, right? She’s Mary Tyler Moore started, I should check and find out where Mary Tyler Moore started. I will put that in the show notes. Because that’s when women started first looking at women. And by the way, Mary Tyler Moore was got her, you know, got blasted by Lou every day. Right? He certainly didn’t treat her with respect. But she was working. Right. And that was a big deal in those days. So that you know, women were burning bras Helen Reddy talking about, you know, I am woman hear me roar, right? And then oh my gosh, I’m dating myself, I’m gonna put a link to this in here too. Does anybody remember the Anjali perfume commercial, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never ever let you forget your man. I actually watched that YouTube video of that before I recorded this because I wanted to remind myself of it. It’s like, okay, and I am spending all 24 hours taking care of everything, like hope, thank God, at least that concept has gone by the wayside. Right? I watched a commercial and by the way, just warning, if you watch that commercial, you’re gonna have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. So just a little warning there, you’re gonna get an ear, it’s gonna give you an ear worm, but watch it because it just reminds us how far we’ve come. And you would think 40 years later, right? However, many years later things would have changed. But you know, I’ve this because this is what I do. I mean, you know, yes, I teach LinkedIn marketing. But really what I do is I help women meet people that can that can elevate their personal brand and their business and their bank account. You’ve heard me say that, right? So LinkedIn is the tool that we use, really, it’s about your personal brand. It’s about making you seem to show up and stand out and really claim that you are worthy of somebody’s serious business of serious investments. Right. So because that’s at the heart of everything I do. LinkedIn is the tool that we use to do it. You know, I was doing some research on this and I came across a statistic and we’ll link it in the show notes that talking about the gender wage gap, right, the statistic is collectively, more than 55 million full time working women earned an estimated 545 point 7 billion billion With a be $545.7 billion less than their male counterparts in 2019. Not in 1970. Not over the last 20 years, in 2019, more than 55 million full time working women earned an estimated $545.7 billion less than their male counterparts in 2019. Is that crazy? So if the gender were and then it goes on to say that if the gender wage gap had been closed entirely, this would have meant an additional $545.7 billion in the pockets of working women and their families, about $9,613 per woman to cover their student loan payments, mortgage payments, childcare costs, prescription costs, etc, etc, etc. $10,000 more you would have had in 2019, if the wage gap was truly closed, that is insane. And that’s 2018. Obviously, I’m recording this, it’s the end of 2020, which we’re not even gonna get into that year. So we don’t have the numbers for this year yet. But I wanted to do this show because I want to start the crusade. Okay, so that for 2021 and beyond, this is not going to happen anymore. This is why I do what I do. Are you with me? Are you ready to lower that number in 2021? And beyond with me? You know, it’s our time, right? It’s our time I did an episode a couple weeks ago about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and just how hard she fought for us, for women to really be able to have their place in this world. But we need to pick that baton up from her now. Right. So what I want to do today is talk about what you need to do or what you gonna, you’re gonna want to start doing to personally increase your bank account and take a piece of that 500 plus billion dollars that is sitting there for you. Okay, so let’s dive in. So the first thing I want to talk about is your mindset, you know, we can prove as women, we’re really good at talking to talk, we’re really good at talking to talk, right? We’re gonna do this, and we’re gonna do that. And you know what, we walk the walk, right, we I know that you probably do 45 million things. But if I, if I dug a little deeper past that facade past, if I break through the shell a little bit and get to your identity, do you really, and I want you to just think about this is the identity that you identify with the person that you identify with? Is it really that person? Or do you identify more with the person that and listen, there’s no wrong answer to this, okay? There’s no wrong answer to this, however you identify, I’m cool with that. But if you think that you are showing up and you’re breaking the, you know, breaking the glass ceiling and and you know, helping even out the gender wage gap, then I want you to dig in to do some identity work. Do you really in your heart of hearts, look at yourself feel like that person? Do you get out of bed every morning? Like that multiple six and seven figure earner? Do you live your life like that person. And I’m not saying going into debt and spending money like that person, but like, maybe take some time today, or maybe put it on your calendar, maybe it’s going to be easier on a weekend or a day that you’re going to have not a lot going on. And I want you to spend that day doing the things you would be doing. If you were that multiple six and seven figure earner, you might find that you’re doing a lot of those things already, right? Because I’m not talking about getting on a plane and jetting off to Bali, right? Is that really what you’d be doing? If you were a seven figure earner on an average Sunday? Right? So what would you be doing on an average Sunday, I bet. There is a lot of things that you can be doing now that starts to help you identify and feel like and shift a little bit the identity that you are living to become that person. So the first thing that we really need to do is we need to poke ourselves in the mindset. And that’s why everything we do on our show is linked up course, everything we do, we incorporate mindset into, because if I want you to show up and be connecting with journalists and be featured in newspapers and magazines, you’ve got to identify as that person, you’ve got to identify Oprah s great in order to be able to get that because if you feel like, Well, yeah, but that’s not that’s just not me. I’m not I do I think people are that you’re shooting yourself in the foot. So we’ve got to start to identify as this person that’s going to take a big chunk of that 500 and plus billion dollars, okay for ourselves. The second thing you need to do is you need to look at what you’re doing in your business in your career. And let’s just make sure the math works, right. So we started with the right brain stuff. Let’s go to the left brain does the math work if you are a coach or consultant or you have you know, your Have your own business or you work for a company? Is there? Can you see a path to that number do and we talked about this very in depth in Episode 141? And we’ll link to that in the show notes also, but does the math work? Do you have a path to that? Or do you need to look at your products and services for 2021 and jigger him up a little bit, beef them up a little bit and come up with something that’s a big fat solid 20 k a month 20 k offer that you can sell one a month of, Okay, one big fat solid 20 k offer is going to make a big dent in that $500 billion, you can take a chunk of that. So what can you be offering that’s $20,000 that you can sell one of every month. Okay? That’s how I want you to think got to make sure the math works. And obviously, I want to do other things besides that, right. But you got to make sure the math works. Because let’s get real, if the math doesn’t work, that it’s no, we’re not going anywhere with this. Okay, so when you’re doing your planning for 2021, or if you’re listening to this on the replay 2022 2023. And ever, frankly, every year from here on out, he kind of makes sure the math works. And and you know, listen, I want you to also think about does the math work after your expenses, right? So do you have you might have a six figure business. But if you’re paying out, you know, $5,000 a month, then you really only left with $40,000, that’s not you making a chunk taking taken a bite at that $500 million. So I want you to be looking at your numbers after expenses. And we’re gonna dive into this more as we go through the next few weeks on this show. Because as the year as we’re like, you know, as we’re starting to wrap up, you know, it’s November 2020, when the show’s going live. So as we’re starting to wrap up 2020, I really feel strongly about planning, and I don’t know, I kind of like the energy of a calendar year. So just make sure the math works. And then the last thing that I want you to think about as you move forward with an intention of taking a bite a big fat, juicy bite out of that $500 billion, I want you to think about the people you spend your time with. I am not saying you got to get rid of people. I am not saying that at all. I am saying are do you need to level it up, though, right. So Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. So if you’re spending the most time with people that are knocking you down, that are complaining about their life, that have this poverty mentality, I’m not saying get rid of them, but maybe you need to spend less time with them and find more people that are thinking bigger, okay. And again, this is why I love doing what I do, because we are bringing people together. And the women are a programmer. unbeliev. If you’re listening to this, and you’re in the program, you know what I’m talking about, right? Because we have amazing people that invest in themselves to take this next step right into their lives and into their business. And I’m so excited to watch what they do. So you know, and listen, it doesn’t have to be I mean, I’d love for you to join us in our program. It doesn’t have to be my program. It has to be something though, where the people in the program are helping you think bigger, not knocking you down. Okay, so I’m not looking for you. Again, I just wanna repeat this, I’m not looking for you to get people to throw people out of your life. But I want you to just take a good hard look at this. Okay, so going back to number one, the homework I gave you, right, which was spend a day the way you would be spending the day if you were a multiple six or seven figure person, who would that person be hanging out with? Would you be going to lunch with people that are saying, oh, we’re not going here? We’re just going to get pizza, and we’re going to split the bill because I only had a coke? Would you be hanging out with those people? Or would you be hanging out with people saying I got this when you get the next one? Right? That’s a tiny little thing. That’s, that’s a big difference, right? who is who thinks bigger, and who is generous with their time and generous with their praise and generous with their support of you. And those are the people I want you to be thinking about hanging out with. And if you don’t have a lot of those people in your life right now. Now isn’t the time to find them. Okay, now is the time to find them because they’re looking for you to write, they’re looking for you also. So I’m going to recap this a little bit. First thing we need to do is really poke ourselves in the mindset, do a little bit of identity work, okay? You know, if you have to find some books on identity work, but do a little identity work, be honest with yourself? Do you need to identify differently than you’re identifying today? and be honest with yourself and spend some time identifying living the life of the person that you want? That is going to take a big chunk of that $500 billion, okay, and beat up you know, start to live like that person. Number two, make sure the math works. So let’s get real. Let’s go to our left brain here, do you? Is there a path can you see a path to that? Because if you don’t, you have to change something. Right? You have to change something. So that you know in order to take a bite out of that $545.7 billion the math has to work. Okay, there has to be a path and think big dream big. Trust me, you can get there. Okay, you know, I can go on and on on that topic. And then the third thing is, think, look at the people you’re hanging out with? Do you need to level that up a little bit? Do you need to find some people that are going to help you get there that are also they’re also looking to really level up and take a bite out of that. Five, I’m gonna just keep saying this number $545.7 billion. Okay, we want to take a bite out of that number and you want to hang out with other people that are doing that. So are you ready? Are you ready to do this with me? Okay, I’m gonna repeat this step one more time, because it’s blows my frickin mind. Right? collectively, more than 55 million full time working women earned an estimated $545.7 billion less than their male counterparts in 2019. I want you to bed that in your brain. Okay, and, and make that your goal for the next 12 months. Okay, we have to do this together. That’s why I think it’s important that you look at the people around you, we have to do this together. We have to support each other with this. We have to do that intentionally. You know, in 2020, I feel like we’ve slipped back a little bit no judgment here at all, because I know how insane it is to do all the things right. But you know, how many articles have you read where women are working full time taking care of their kids? And you know, and you know, I love men, no judgment on the men. But when the men are set, men say, I have to babysit my kids for a little bit bummed when my wife is working. Sometimes that word comes out of their mouth. Right? But with the wife, they’re not babysitting their kids, right? So we are still not all the way there yet no judgement at all, if that’s your life, because I know you’re losing your mind right about now. Right? So just know that we can’t let that slip continue. I’m here for you find other people that are here for you, so that we can be intentional and support each other and bust that statistic. $545.7 billion. Okay, I’m here to support you, you know that. I’ve got lots of I mean, I do this podcast every week for you. I’ve also got a free workshop, which by the way, we’ve completely updated. So if you’ve watched that workshop together, you’re gonna want to watch it again. You can get that at KarenYankovich.com/masterclass. So check out the workshop, it’s completely free. So we’ve updated it to kind of just take into consideration a little bit of what do we need to plan for the upcoming year. And just remember that a rising tide lifts all boats, I do this podcast to support you. I’ve got this free training course to support you. We do the first Wednesday I think of every month, we do a free LinkedIn profile, happy hour in my free Facebook group will link to all of these things. I do all of this to support you. Take advantage of this. Let’s lift each other up. Help me Help you right share this podcast reminder, just a reminder to take a quick screenshot of this episode on your phone and share that on social media and tag me so I can share that with my audience. Okay, let’s kick some 2021 booty together, right? Let’s take a bite out of that $545.7 billion. And let’s do it together. The bottom line is this can be simple. I want it to be simple for you. And I’m here to help you do that. I will see you back here next week for another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.

142 – The Reward of Homework with Debbie Lang

by | Nov 2, 2020 | Podcasts

This week’s episode of Good Girls Get Rich is brought to you by Uplevel Media CEO and LinkedIn expert, Karen Yankovich. In this episode, guest Debbie Lang and Karen discuss the importance of homework and the reward it will bring.

 

Debbie Lang is the top New Jersey real estate agent. She has been marketing and selling homes full time since 1986, and she’s the former host and producer of “The Voice of Real Estate.”

#GoodGirlsGetRich

We want to hear your thoughts on this episode! Leave us a message on Speakpipe or email us at info@karenyankovich.com.

About the Episode:

It’s easy to forget how important homework is. With clients, we want to focus on providing excellent service – which is a great thing – but it’s important to wow the client from the beginning. That’s where homework comes in.

Before communicating with a client, take the time to look them up. What exciting things have they been doing? Have they been featured in any articles recently? Find out a little bit about them. By doing this, you’re sure to wow them from the beginning.

Homework can also do the work of finding clients for you. By putting yourself out there, explaining who you are, and showing your tract-record, clients will be able to find you online and immediately begin to build a relationship with you.

In this episode, Debbie Lang shares how homework has helped her in her business. Listen now!

Episode Spotlights:

  • Where to find everything for this week’s episode: karenyankovich.com/142
  • Introducing this episode’s guest, Debbie Lang (2:33)
  • Debbie’s journey (4:06)
  • Debbie’s recipe for real estate success (7:55)
  • How Debbie positions herself digitally (14:08)
  • Homework leads to success (21:13)
  • How Debbie nurtures relationships (22:00)
  • The wow factor (27:36)
  • What’s next for Debbie (32:00)
  • Where you can find Debbie (34:05)

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

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Read the Transcript

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 142.

Intro 0:06
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:24
Hello there. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And this is Episode 142 of the good girls get rich podcast. And this show is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach women simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing that gets you on the phone consistently with perfect people. It’s really about building a million dollar network, we want you to meet people that will change your business, your life and your bank account for ever true good old fashioned human human marketing. But with these cool new tools that make it really simple for us. So if you’ve listened before, or if you love what you hear today, we love to hear from you. So make sure that you subscribe to this podcast, wherever you’re listening to this so that you get the episodes next week in the week after because we’ve got some great shows coming for you. And if you love what you hear today, I’d love for you to take a quick screenshot of this episode on whatever you’re listening to it on and share it on your social media. tag me in it. I’m @KarenYankovich tagged Debbie in it, her links are in the show notes, hashtag it, use the #goodgirlsgetrich hashtag. Because here’s what happens when you share this with your audience. We appreciate it. And we want to share then your post with our audience. And that’s how we all get more visibility. Right. That’s how we lift each other up. And we need to be lifting each other up more, right. So don’t forget to you can check out the show notes either where you’re listening to this or go to KarenYankovich.com/142. And you’ll see the blog for this page, you’ll see all the links we talked about here. So check that out if you’ve got some time. So I’m looking forward for you to meet my friend Debbie Lang. She is an amazing realtor. And what I love about her and what I really wanted to bring her onto the show was because she has built an amazing business for herself. That is built on building relationships. And you know, what we’re talking about here, right? We’re talking about using LinkedIn to build that million dollar network for you, right. So this Debbie talks about how to do the human to human piece of it. And you’re not gonna want to miss this. So check out Debbie. We are here today with Debbie Lang. And Debbie is a top real estate agent in New Jersey marketing and selling homes full time since 1986. She’s had been a five star professional Realtor award for seven, eight years in a row for exceptional customer service. She’s the former host and producer of the voice of real estate, which was running on Fox Sports Radio in New Jersey. And I was lucky enough to be on that show a couple times with her. She’s got a ton of certifications. But one of the reasons I really wanted to have Debbie here is because of the way she built her business. And you know that we teach human to human marketing here. And I really want to do just have you understand that even, you know, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. It’s the human to human interactions, which is where the biggest opportunities for growth are in your business. So Debbie, thank you so much for being here today.

Debbie Lang 3:26
Karen, it is so exciting to be on your podcast, I have to tell you, I am so impressed with what you’ve built here. It is so informative and fabulous. And I’ve actually seen you speak live for the Chamber of Commerce and elsewhere, you are an inspiration to all.

Karen Yankovich 3:47
Well, Debbie, thank you, Debbie. I love it. So Debbie and I met locally at a chamber of commerce when I moved down to this area that I live in now that I joined and it’s been really great getting to know you and watching all of watching your growth as well. And just watching the detail and the level of attention that you give to your clients. So tell everybody a little bit about your journey because I you know, I know I can’t do your your bio justice. So tell everybody a little bit about your journey. What brought you to serving people in the real estate and with the help with the houses that they live in right with the most important decisions of their lives.

Debbie Lang 4:21
That’s kind of an interesting story. I really started out in media, I was a radio and television want to be, you know, broadcasting I worked in radio. In college, I was one of the inaugural first founding mothers of my college radio station. Interestingly enough, I was discovered by a gentleman who is still doing radio today. 40 years later, I hate to date myself, but it’s true. I don’t know where these two, four decades have really gone. But I started out in college radio and went to the number one FM radio station in Albany, New York. From that I worked and at NBC affiliate up there and I worked in a little bit in television, work for magazine and wrote, so I have a journalism background. And when I landed in the Big Apple, which is where I grew up, I was born and raised in Manhattan. And the streets of New York were my playground. And when we went to Brooklyn on weekends, I thought that was the country. You know, the fresh air in the country because they had trees, flowers, and they had houses, not buildings, I thought that was really cool. Anyway, I always had a fascination with real estate starting there. And even remember, when my aunt and uncle were looking to build a home on Long Island, I was 10 years old. And they took me around to look at model homes back then. And lo and behold, Who would have guessed that fast forward, many years later, I would be selling real estate as long as I have been. But there was a period for six years after I left Albany to go to Manhattan back where I came from, I was a modeling Talent Agent. And I was representing some of the top models in the world out of one of the largest modeling agencies in Manhattan at the time. And the owner had died after I had been there only for two years. And I really had made my mark then, and I was called into a back room. And I was one of five people who were left a piece of the agency at such a young age. So I became an owner of a major international modeling and talent agency at a very young age. So I went from the marketing of people, to the marketing of homes. So if they’re, you know, five foot 10, and they have 10 bedrooms and five bathrooms, it’s basically the same thing. You know, it’s marketing. It’s all about relationships. And I always had a fascination with the world. And I love to travel, and I speak a little bit of many different languages, enough to get us a good reservation at an international foreign restaurant. And, Charlie,

Karen Yankovich 6:52
I don’t think I knew that, Debbie, because we’ve learned to restaurants together, I’m gonna have to put you on that on that.

Debbie Lang 6:57
Yes, we go to a Greek restaurant or Russian restaurant, any a French restaurant Spanish with any kind of restaurant, I have enough skills to speak enough to charm them. And that actually translates into real estate and building rapport with clients who come my way. And it’s very interesting thing. It’s not just one thing that makes you successful. In real estate, it’s really like a recipe, you really have to have all of the ingredients for it to come out amazing. And I take a little bit of everything that I’ve learned from my background, in working in media, in journalism, to working as a model and Talent Agent, with beautiful people from all over the world and all the different advertising agencies on Madison Avenue at the time, that’s what they called it, you know, to translate that into what I do in real estate. And to me, it’s all about relationships, and being exceptional and giving great service.

Karen Yankovich 7:55
I love that. So is that like the outline of your recipe, tell us a little bit about your recipe for real estate success.

Debbie Lang 8:02
So the recipe for real estate success is about first of all knowledge, really knowing your market area. But not only that, knowing your clientele, and basically putting yourself in their shoes and looking at the world through their eyes.

Karen Yankovich 8:20
Wait, I need to stop you there. That is huge. Because at the end of the day, nobody really cares about you, right? They care about what you can do for them and the changes that will happen in their lives. And if you can come to them, helping them with that vision. That’s amazing. That’s huge.

Debbie Lang 8:37
So my brand is a lifestyle realtor. I am not just your average realtor, I try to strive for extraordinary in everything I do. And it’s true in my relationships with my family, with my friends, new and old. And with my clients new and old. I like to go above and beyond it really gives me a great deal of satisfaction to know that I gave it my all and that I gave my clients everything I could give them but always keeping their perspective in mind and what they need or what their needs are. I’m not looking to just sell a house, I’m looking to sell a lifestyle. So it all depends on what their needs are. So some people are downsizing, some people are upsizing and my favorite term is right sizing. What is right, who right now at this time in your life.

Karen Yankovich 9:37
I love that. I love that. And right now you’re specializing in Central New Jersey and I don’t think a lot of you I think like Central New Jersey is like the the hidden gem of the world. Because you know, we have beautiful beaches here but we also have amazing real estate here. Mountains and farms and you know, and what I love about that is you can you know there’s people that live in central jersey from Bruce Springsteen to Kids that just out, you know, just get are just buying their first house, right? So it’s such a diverse community. And you seem to have really found a way to to make people comfortable where wherever they land within that, within that range,

Debbie Lang 10:17
or the suburbs are hot, hot hot right now. And I have to say with COVID, this has been the hottest summer literally, as far as real estate is concerned, not just in temperature with regard to buyers buying here, and the young millennials, and they’re not so young anymore. They’re turning 3031 32 are coming out in droves from the major cities, the biggest population in the United States right now aren’t baby boomers and millennials. So the baby boomers have sort of reached their earning peak and they’re starting to slow down a little bit in their careers and are looking for a different kind of a lifestyle. they’ve raised their children. They’re done with the high taxes, and the school systems and they want something different. The millennials now are just beginning their families. And we have them coming from the major cities now, which I think is really interesting, because the millennials, and even baby boomers were trending towards the major urban cities for not having to get into their car every time they walked out the front door. It’s now with COVID it’s it’s really something interesting. The whole lifestyle perspective is completely changing. self care, you know, peloton, I wish I bought stock in that right? You know,

Karen Yankovich 11:40
right, right? Oh my gosh, I’m well on

Debbie Lang 11:43
Netflix and, and home movie theaters. And you know what’s interesting, this is What amazed me this summer, I’m seeing a shortage of inventory. But yet, there’s some great inventory. I actually have seen more homes that have beautiful movie theaters, and wine cellars and home gyms, and a pool with a spa and home dry saunas and steam saunas. I’ve never seen more of those come on the market and more of a demand for homes like that, in my entire 34 year career of selling real estate in New Jersey. And this is where I’ve been and I also this year, 2020 has become licensed in Florida in the state of Florida. And my specialty down there will be in the winter is Palm Beach County out of the Boca Raton office in Palm Beach County, Florida. I want to specialize in lifestyle for all my baby boomer clients that I’ve been servicing all these years, and then some to help them you know, enjoy the nicer weather, I think, which is what people tend to do when they get older and have more time to go to more of a tropical resort area that I’ve been going down there for more than 30 years. So I’m very familiar with all the

Karen Yankovich 12:54
Yeah, yeah.

Debbie Lang 12:56
So so I’m going to be you know, working both markets with a strategic partner in each office. So you can’t be in two places at once. So they will be well service. And again, it’s all about service. I’m very particular wouldn’t just be anybody. And the other thing that has made me successful is my experience, you cannot put a price tag on experience. And one of my sayings is experience is priceless.

Karen Yankovich 13:21
I love that. I love that. So, you know there’s a couple places I want to go with this. First of all, I think that I love that you’re following your best clients, right? Because I would think that these the people that the boomers right that we’re paying, they had a they had a home in New Jersey with a pool and a sauna. And we’re you know, had to maintain it because they owned it are now ready to move to a condo in Palm Beach County or a house in Palm Beach County, in a community that has a pool and a sauna, but they’re not responsible to maintain it, right. So they still have the same amenities. But the lifestyle is different, because they’re not you know, they, they they have they want the less responsibility. And I love that you are building your life and your business out to continue to serve the people that you’ve been serving for 30 years. So I think that’s so cool. But I kind of want to take people on a little bit of a journey, because there’s so much that you did behind the scenes to bring that brought you to the success you’re having today. Right? So I so yes, the servicing your customers is is such a huge piece of it. And I know that you over deliver, you know to your customers, and that’s a big part of what you’re doing. But I also know how good you are at positioning yourself even digitally. So for example, we were talking yesterday before the show, and you were talking about people that you that are clients that are moving across the country, right? So but they find you because of the way you position yourself digitally. So tell us a little bit about that.

Debbie Lang 14:51
Well, a number of years ago I decided to combine my media skills with my My talent to service the community to provide as much knowledge and information to people because, you know, real estate has become transparent in the sense that you have all these third party marketing sites, which the consumer doesn’t realize. They’re just third party marketing sites and your computer somewhere in Silicon Valley, that’s just spewing out information. And it’s not always accurate. So the computer still cannot replace the human touch that a realtor brings to any transaction. And people think that they can sell on their own, but there’s so much that they are not aware of. And in today’s times, with COVID-19, you have to be even more cautious in terms of who you show your home to, we have releases we’re dealing with. So digitally, I went on the radio, I combined My Media experience with my real estate experience. And I developed a really real estate show called The voice of real estate. And I produced over 266 radio talk shows where I had guests that provided value to the consumer and to my audience. And it included everyone from you, who talked about digital marketing as an expert that you are two authors of books on investing in real estate, mortgage loan officers that have been in the business for a really long time. Insurance experts. I talked about everything in anything related to real estate on this show. And it went on for five years on 920, the jersey, which was Fox Sports during the week, and on Saturday and Sunday, they had other content. It was a top rated show. And I also went on to after I left radio, I went back to TV. And I created the Princeton lifestyle show on TV 30, which was aired on TV 30 in Princeton, but also on Verizon FiOS and Comcast, cable and it could be seen anywhere in the world because then it’s on Vimeo after it airs. So that show had interior designers and interesting people, and we could visually show some things and graphics on that show. And lifestyle is so important. And that’s my new brand, where I’m a lifestyle realtor. So I’ve taken that two, you know, video, it’s interesting, I was ahead of podcasting because I started doing this way back before podcasting became hot, that radio show and it was podcasted on the radio stations website, so people could go back and listen to it. And it was really more of a community service to give back to the community. So they were knowledgeable. And it was sort of a secondary thing that people would contact me as an expert, to work with them. And after they heard my show. So I live up to what I do digitally online. I have a lot of testimonials and reviews from past clients unsolicited. And people are finding me organically, actually from these testimonials. And when they interview me and they call me based on what they see online. I live up to it and the initial phone call. And then when we meet, I continue to live up to my reputation and unusual this year. This is not California. This is New Jersey, I was able to sell three homes virtually this year, which is very unusual. And the first buyer is a physician from Chicago who was relocating here to work for a very big hospital. And his wife is going to be working for Rutgers University. She’s a very big researcher there. And they had two young children. They could not move here. They cannot come here to look and house hunt because of COVID they were really scared. And do you ever hear that expression? Karen? You had me with Hello?

Karen Yankovich 19:01
Yeah, yeah.

Debbie Lang 19:03
In love, right. So I want every client to be in love with me. This is what I strive for. Always. I really am a very caring realtor. So I had them on the first FaceTime tour of a home with the cracks in the driveway that I pointed out to them in the driveway. That’s where I had them. They I had their trust, because I pointed out the cracks in the driveway on the first showing of a virtual home. And then when we went inside, I would look for leaks. I’m not an engineer, but I have two eyes and I have experience my nose nose, I can open the lockbox to a front door walk into a foyer and if that house has mildew or mold or moisture, I can sniff it out like a dog. And if I smell it, I will discourage somebody from buying a house because if there are issues I don’t want my clients to have it Some realtors will just want to sell a house just to get it over with and sell a house, I don’t work that way. If it takes 10 months to find them the right house, that’s right for their family, I will do it. Sometimes I get lucky, it takes a weekend, it all depends on what my buyer’s needs are. So that’s how I work. And it’s a timeline for my sellers to I do everything in anything I could think of digitally, and then some to get their houses sold as well.

Karen Yankovich 20:23
So So digitally, is very often how people find you, because I know that a lot of your clients do come from outside of the area. And that is absolutely something you can control. So obviously, you’re getting all these reviews organically, which is amazing. But you’ve also got to be there to get the reviews, right? Like when I’m looking at your Yelp page, it’s not just reviews, there’s a beautiful header image on here that you took the time to put on here, I’m sure right. Or somebody took the time to put on here cuz it’s all pictures of you and your new every brand.

Debbie Lang 20:54
Yeah, I don’t even know what I don’t do. I don’t hand it over to somebody less experienced it to say here, do it. I do everything myself.

Karen Yankovich 21:02
But, but that’s what I mean, you took the time to help people make get comfortable. So So from what I’m hearing, and this is kind of what I’m trying to, I want to I want our listeners to hear the pre work that Debbie does, is leading to this massive success she’s having with real estate in New Jersey, taking the time to make sure that when people do look for a real estate agent in New Jersey, and throw something in Google, that she’s doing everything she can to not just show up, but show up and look worthy of their time and their investment and their money. And that’s how you and that’s how they even get to that call where you can have the Met Hello, right? So that’s where it starts. But then they Okay, so now they’ve got they bought this house from you kind of taking people on the buyers journey, I know you well enough to know that you don’t just say okay, see ya, you know, people come back to you because you, you know, you really stay engaged, not that you’re like, you know, stalking them for the rest of their life. But tell us what happens after a client has bought a house? And how do you continue to nurture that relationship?

Debbie Lang 22:04
Well, what I have a special guest that I do for my clients that I really think especial that they’ll always remember that they have. And I also tell them on their forever friend, not just their realtor. So if there’s anything that they need, they can text me, call me, email me, and they love how responsive I am, I feel bad if I’m not immediately responsive, you know, people know that if I don’t respond, it’s unusual that something happened to me, or I’m in the shower, or I’m sleeping or I’m with another client, you know, usually or maybe out to dinner in a noisy place. But usually I’m very, very responsive, because I care, I want to be there for them. In my opinion, if you snooze, you lose, it’s a competitive business, and you have to give exceptional service in order to continue to be successful, because every day you wake up, you’re really unemployed. And as a realtor, you know, it’s amazing that I’ve been able to sustain with any other source of income, I am single, and I have been divorced for a very, very long time. And I had no choice to but be successful. And and but it’s not so much about it’s about who I am as a person. Because I did win the epic award, for example, in my company, a year ago, it is being the most ethical, professional, innovative and caring, real estate agent. So after closing, I stay in touch. So just this morning, as a matter of fact, I had a text from a client who needed a contractor. And within 10 minutes, I gave him three names. I get invited for dinner to come visit them. And it’s very exciting to see the kids grow. They send me pictures, we stay in touch through social media sometimes and and what’s interesting with social media, and I find this fascinating and I want to share this with you, I will post a radically I don’t have a regular schedule when I post on LinkedIn, or Facebook or Instagram. But the one thing I did learn in my travels is that be consistent and focus on a few social media platforms. Don’t try to do them all. And, and, and and offer something of value. And I monitor what gets most interaction and engagement, which I think is very interesting. There’s a human touch this not just I don’t post just about real estate, it’s a there’s a human touch to it. I post information that’s interesting, valuable fun, you know, uplifting. I never talk politics or religion anywhere on any platform. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think there’s enough of that out there, that you don’t need to do that. And I’m very engaging. And I really try to be there for my clients. And one example is I had two clients this past summer, reached out to me randomly based on my reviews and I wowed them. I’m also So all about the wow factor. And they had children about the same age, and they’re coming from completely different states, they don’t know anyone. And I introduced them to each other so that the boys can have friends. You know, they’re both seven. And I thought, from what I could see in home shopping and meeting them, I could see that the children would get along well, so instantly, the seven year olds had a friend in the neighborhood, and especially with COVID. Right now, with all these different school platforms hybrid, I’m not homeschooling two days a week, it’s hard for these kids to define friends, you know, it’s a very difficult thing. So I made an introduction on via text to these two families so that they can meet each other, they live around the corner, walking distance from each other, I happen to have sold two houses very close to each other. And I thought that that would be a nice match. So I’m a matchmaker for friends for

Karen Yankovich 25:56
right? So they’re human to human, right? That is you. It’s not about the numbers, it’s about diving deep into each person you have, because I know that what happens after you do this is this is how you know these, the client rapport that you establish, and the relationships that you build, it has got to relate to repeat business, it’s got to relate to repeat business. So does that level of deep human to human relationships with your clients does that translate to

Debbie Lang 26:24
is it does, as a matter of fact, this one family that I just mentioned, I got a random text from her brother, about a month and a half after the closing and introducing himself that he will be looking for a house in the Princeton area in the next year. And he would love to work with me that they raved about me. And that just made my day, I walked around on a cloud the whole day. So I live for that I live for making people happy, that’s part of my mantra is to bring joy and happiness, and also to keep the transaction seamless. And to be a problem solver. One of the lessons I learned in my life is that there is a solution for every problem, don’t get focused on the problem, look for the solution. So if you focus only on the solutions, there’s no problem, you know, and I taught my kids the same thing. And that’s been also one of the ways that I operate is that to always focus on the solution. But this is something that definitely translates into referrals, but it’s secondary, it’s about I don’t think about it. See, I don’t think about the goals, financial goals at all. I will sell from condos to estates, it’s not about the price of the home. It’s about the service.

Karen Yankovich 27:34
Oh, my gosh, I love that. So you mentioned the wow factor, were tell us a little bit about the wow factor that you like to build into everything you do.

Debbie Lang 27:41
I just think it’s all about just going above and beyond, you know, exceeding expectations when it comes to being there for your clientele when they need things. So because I’m in the business so long, and I’ve lived in Princeton area since 1982. I know so much, right? So knowledge is power, right? You know, when I go to a party, somebody says Do you know the street around the corner from the supermarket that’s around the corner from the gas station, so just tell me your street. Oh, I know that street, I sold the house to the Smiths and I also, you know, listed the house three doors down. Like I have some kind of connection to all these neighborhoods around here I basically homeless on the street. So knowledge is power. So I know so much that a wealth of information. And if I don’t know something, I am a great researcher and I’m very connected. So besides being a connector where I like to help others, and connect them, so I’ve introduced people to their neighbors, and I’ve introduced them to other past clients or friends. They become lifelong friends and the kids become lifelong friends to the point where they’re, this is now 34 years that I’m selling real estate that they’ve been to each other’s weddings, and they you know, the kids got married. I mean, it’s so interesting to be responsible for this whole lineage of great relationships. Oh, cool. So that’s kind of cool. And then the other thing is, I do a little bit of research so I think in any business that you’re in, when you’re going to meet somebody, it’s kind of nice to know a little bit about them and the internet can be transparent there’s a lot of information and I’ve been blessed to have some of the best clients come my way just fall into my lap and i i really express my gratitude to a higher power for whatever it is that they’re sending me I’m so grateful and and the blessings and having an operating in life with a smile. And I almost bought a mask that had a smile or pasted on it because I

Karen Yankovich 29:41
totally should have it would have been so perfect for you

Debbie Lang 29:43
because I like to smile and I think personal it’s contagious and I work with a lot of international clients to from all over the world. So a smile it will go a long way researching my clients you know on the internet, just knowing something thing about them so that we have something in common, there’s a woman who wrote the scrappy book, and that’s being scrappy, you know, knowing something about your clients before you meet them and find ground with them. And, and really being able to talk about that really helps build rapport, you know, and the confidence they have in you based on your past experience of what you’ve done with other people that will help you. It’s also building that rapport, where you can find that common ground with somebody so they can relate to people do business with people who they like people who they can relate to who they have something in common with, you know, more so than not, I would think

Karen Yankovich 30:43
I love that. And that’s exactly in line with what everything that we teach on LinkedIn is, you know, spend more time before you make the connection request or before you reach out, researching them a little bit. And people often say to me, Well, I need a script to give me a script, I’m like, well, just ask them how they’re doing. You know, like, it’s crazy world right now, you don’t have to have, I mean, once you know, I want you to be have actual conversations. But if you have done this research, if you you know, if you’ve checked them out, maybe through their their name in a search bar, and you see that they were recently featured in an article, you can talk about that. And that’s so cool to talk about, or, you know, if you find that, you know, maybe you both worked at the same company 20 years ago, right, because we have this tool, this, you know, this tool of our phones and the internet on our hands. It doesn’t take that much to do a little bit of research, and it’s much appreciated when you can get on the phone with people and you know, and it helps you quickly establish that rapport. I love that, Debbie. I love that.

Debbie Lang 31:41
Oh, that relationships.

Karen Yankovich 31:42
Yeah, so you’re taking your your business now. So they bought houses, and now you’ve got lots of people that have bought houses over the year and, you know, and get any referrals and now you’re selling houses to people in Florida, that have bought houses from you in New Jersey so that you can continue with them on their journey? What isn’t what is next in your world, Debbie, what’s what is on your horizon?

Debbie Lang 32:03
I think just being the Princeton to Palm Beach connection, is really the goal here is to be able to continue to service my clientele in both markets. And especially I’m I love the warm weather. And I love luxury real estate. I’m certified as luxury collection specialist and marketing luxury marketing specialist. I love that. But I’ll do anything I really, it’s all about the service. I’ll even help clients with rentals. And I’ve had people say to me last week, Oh, I didn’t know to call you for this little rental in Princeton. I didn’t think he did them. You’re only doing I said no, no, no, I’ll do anything. It’s not about the money. It’s about the service. So I’m happy to continue to do that. I’m probably going to develop a Florida lifestyle show that will piggyback the Princeton lifestyle show and continue that and talk about that transitioning. They’re saying that about 1000 people a day are relocating to Florida right now, there’s a boom going on like no other. And I’m not happy. If I’m not servicing and serving others. I really like to stay busy. I don’t know how to sit still and read a book, I would like to do a little bit more that balance my life a little bit with that. But it’s I’m not happy, I probably will write a book instead of read a book, I’ll probably end up writing a book, I actually have a book in mind called it’s never too late. And it’s a book of empowerment for women, on how you can totally change your life. And it’s amazing how your life can just change on a dime. If you have the right attitude, gratitude and you just put the passion and purpose into it.

Karen Yankovich 33:41
So cool. You know what I love that Debbie and I know that there’s great things in store for you and I I’m so grateful that you’re in my life and I would encourage anybody listening to this. Reach out, we’re gonna we’re gonna put all the links to all Debbie’s social media sites and reviews and everything in the show notes for this episode. So reach out to Debbie if you have any real estate needs or just questions about lifestyle real estate because she’s truly real. She really truly is a connector and I think you’ll be glad that that you did. Debbie, how else can people find out like what how would you like people to connect with you?

Debbie Lang 34:10
Well, I have a website DebbieLang.FoxRoach.com I’m at Berkshire Hathaway homeservices Fox and Roach realtors in Princeton, New Jersey. I’m affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway homeservices, Florida, realty in Boca Raton, Florida, in Palm Beach County, and I cover everything from Jupiter down to Boca Raton in Palm Beach County. And they can reach me by email at Debthevoiceofrealestate@gmail.com and I’m open to calls 6092131900 and texts if they want to do that.

Karen Yankovich 34:47
You might be the first person that ever dropped their phone number on the show, Debbie so

Debbie Lang 34:51
well, it gave me It’s okay, I’m accessible. And then the other thing I want to mention about relationships that has made me very successful, it’s to me Relationships I have with other realtors, and that has won houses for my clients in bidding wars has got me at the front door, the day a house hit the market, and we won the house within 24 hours ahead of everyone else that has really made a big difference where other realtors want to work with me over and over and over again because I’m kind of nice, caring, knowledgeable, and I cross my T’s and.my I’s. So the relationship I

Karen Yankovich 35:29
didn’t think to ask you that question because that’s a huge thing. Because so many people say to me, especially on LinkedIn, well, all these other real estate agents or whatever, enter your enter your industry here, all these other real estate agents want to connect with me, why would I want to connect with them? That is why you want to connect with them. You want to build relationships. If you look at people that do something similar to you as your competition, you’re I think you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you’re looking at them as opportunities to collaborate moving further forward. That’s where abundance comes into everyone’s life.

Debbie Lang 36:01
Well, it’s interesting you say that because in 1988, I with a bunch of other top producers created something called the Mercer County top Producers Association, which was an organization formed with competing agents to get together once a month at the Hyatt Regency for lunch, to share ideas and have keynote speakers there that could inspire us and have best practices. And it’s still in existence today. It just celebrated its 30th anniversary, and I’m proud to say I’ve been in it and qualified for it every single year. And it’s grown by leaps and bounds with the president in 1997. I was the vice president the year before that in 96. It’s a fabulous organization. And I do get involved with other organizations like women’s Council of realtors, the Chamber of Commerce of the greater Princeton area, the Junior League of greater Princeton, which is the women’s charity organization I like to give back also to the community, because I feel if you give more than you take, everything falls into place.

Karen Yankovich 36:59
Well, that’s a great way to wrap this up. Debbie, thank you so much for being on the show with us here today. And I grateful to have you in my life and everyone listening, check out Debbie’s website and let’s let’s get let’s keep the connections going.

Debbie Lang 37:13
Absolutely. It’s a pleasure, Karen and you keep going because you inspire so many people. Thank you for everything you do and everything you give out.

Karen Yankovich 37:21
No, it’s crucial admiration society.

Debbie Lang 37:24
Definitely. Thank you.

Karen Yankovich 37:26
I love talking to Debbie, we can chat forever. Such good stuff from Debbie, she has really accomplished so much. And she’s done a lot of work. Listen, she’s earned every single thing, every single accolade she has, but she’s also done the work to get these accolades, right. And a lot of times, it’s about asking for it or showing up for it, or being in the right place for it and or building relationships with the right people. And all of that adds to your credibility, the credibility adds to your ability to build out your million dollar network. And that is, you know, it’s the people that bring in our lives that bring in the biggest money to us, right. So I love the way Debbie has done that in her business. And I hope that you got some great tips from Debbie that you can implement in your work and your career and in your business. You know, I’m always here to support you in this we have a masterclass that if you haven’t taken it yet, you totally need to check it out. We’ve just revamped it not that long ago so it’s all new. You can find it at hermillionairenetwork.com we teach you how to build a millionaire network a network using LinkedIn to build a network of people that can take your business to multiple six figures seven figures and beyond check it out just get started with this completely complimentary on demand masterclass at hermillionairenetwork.com. So check that out. And then of course, I’m always here to support you. You can follow me or find me on social media. Let me know how I can help you with this and we’re happy to do that. I will see you back here again next week for another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.