Giveaway of 51 ROAR! Together Online Accelerator 6 Months Accesses to SEO Women

Perfect. We are now live. Excellent. So hopefully people will start joining right now. And thank you very much for coming over, Kirstie, Rioni. I really appreciate it. And thank you very much to all of you who will be connecting now. This is the moment that I have been expecting. I actually never expected it to be so big for the giveaway of 50 21 spots to the Roar Together online 6-month trainings with the wonderful Kirstie and Brioni, who are joining me today. So I am so very excited to be able to finally disclose who are the lucky winners, and hopefully you will be able to take advantage and to improve all of the type of, I don't know, concerns that you might have or eliminate any type of challenges that you might be experiencing. experiencing from, from a confidence perspective, right? So allow me to start because maybe I potentially didn't start it very well. This all started a little bit more than 2 weeks ago when I wanted to give away a couple of spots in the Roar Together online training that Kirstie and Briony manage, right? So I will allow you, Kirstie and Briony, to tell much more about the Roar Together because of course I know why, why it was the reason why I wanted to give the Road Together to, to 2 lucky winners, uh, initially. Now, uh, potential— like, now 51, right? But, uh, it would be better that you tell it. You probably tell it much in a much better way than, than myself, right? So please.

Oh, thank you. Do you know what? It was so funny. So you sent me a message saying, can I sponsor 2 places? And I was like, that's so nice, of course, yeah. Sent you an invoice, and then I kind of didn't think much else of it. And I had a— I was having a really busy week. I was doing lots of workshops, and I was looking at my Twitter, and I was like, what's happening here? And I could just see it was like blowing up, and it was like just the whole SEO community had kind of like rallied round and gone, oh, I'd like to sponsor. And then we ended up with 51. From 2 to 51 places have been sponsored. So like, my huge thanks, A, to the sponsors, but also to you for kind of starting the original initiative and kicking something off that I don't think any of us anticipated happening. So I know that Bryony and I are both really, really grateful. So thank you. And I guess we maybe now might tell you a bit more about the group, maybe a bit more about, for those people who perhaps don't know who me and Bryony are. So I'll just do a very brief introduction to myself, what you can expect from the group, and then we will announce the winners. It's all very exciting. So my name is Kirsty. For those of you that don't know me, my background is in SEO. I used to run an SEO agency and everyone was remote. Most people were freelance and we got up to a team at the biggest, I think where there was about 67 of us all working at one time. And I realized that so many of the issues that we experience that we have to face and deal with in this kind of professional capacity, it pertains to confidence, like stress, personal development. So 2 years ago, maybe a bit more now, I wrapped up my marketing agency, my SEO agency, and started— founded Raw Training. And our mission is to create training programs specifically for the digital or the agency space that level the professional playing field. So we teach confidence, emotional resilience, a broad range of topics. And Bryony and I started the community together as just an experiment, really, right at the beginning of lockdown all those months ago. And I'll let Bryony talk a little bit about her experience. But I messaged Bryony and I was like, okay, so we're in a similar space, we're doing similar things, should we just collaborate and try and build something? So we built a community, it's a Slack community. And it's just a really wonderful supportive space. We do regular webinars, meditations. And we've seen over that time, we've we've seen some people in the community like really transform. People have totally shifted careers or started their own business. And I think we're really proud and excited by what we've built. And so we're just very excited to welcome more people into that space. So thank you. I'll let Bryony talk a bit about what you do.

Lovely. Thank you, Kirsty.

Yeah.

And I'll just say thank you again, Aleyda, for, you know, for kickstarting all of this. And as Kirsty said, we weren't expecting it to gain the momentum that it did. Um, and so my background is also in SEO, and, um, I've just been agency side for— it would have been 10 years this year, but, um, I've kind of stepped away from digital marketing, um, in the last year or so. And my passion, really what inspired me on this, to get on this path in the first place, was seeking support for my own benefit, you know, learning how to deal with stress. Being agency side, it's a very fast-paced environment. Being in SEO, it's like the definition of reactivity because we're constantly like, what's Google doing? And for many people, like, burnout is a real issue. And that's something that I had experienced. And about 6 years ago, I started meditating, did a lot of courses around that, became really passionate about mental health in the workplace. And trying to support my teams when I was in leadership roles to make sure that they had the best conditions for them to thrive in. And that often meant developing a lot of internal resources, as in for people internally, around understanding more about themselves. What are their triggers and why? Where might they struggle and why? And the more that I did this work, the more that I found it so rewarding and very fulfilling. And it also means I get to work more on myself. And then I've trained as a meditation teacher. I've also trained as a breathwork practitioner now as well. And I'm also a certified mindset coach. So I've been developing all these professional skills which put me in a better position to hold space for other people to discover more about who they really are. And like even big questions like, why are we even here? So me and Kirsty like to ask the big questions, but also give people practical tools. You know, so this is not just stuff that is, um, stuff that sounds good. It's things that create meaningful change in people's life. And Kirsty, yeah, messaged me just saying, do you want to do something together? Because then we can serve more people. And we have complementary skill sets in that where we overlap, then it's obviously like even more power there. But it's fantastic to be able to work, um, with Kirsty because we can have fun along the way and actually create this amazing community that supports one another, that we work through real-life challenges. And it's not just about professional development in the sense of focusing on work. It's understanding that there's only one you, and we want to also consider your life outside of work as well. So there's all sorts of topics that we discuss together as a community. And as Kirsty said, it's been really so amazing and awesome to see the transformations that happen, which is actually really down to the individuals and the work that they do. You know, so people get out of it as much as they put in. And it's been just really, especially at a time like now when the world is changing so much and we're really all being put to the test, to come together and support one another and to explore these topics, to me, feels so important. So I'm really grateful to be doing this work.

Amazing. No, I have to say something, right? Like 2 things. I think that it was amazing timing for you to start with that, especially online, right? If you had started it in an in-person type of setting, oh my God, yes, maybe it will have been like very challenging. But I love that you're doing it online because one thing that I have to say, there are a lot of people who are participating in the giveaway who are from India, from Latin America, from all over the world. So I love that you will be able, that these people will be able also, these women will be able to, to, to have the chance to, to get the experience and the support, uh, that you will be able to provide on one hand. And then on the other hand, the timing indeed. I, in general, yes, SEO and digital marketing can be quite stressful. One of the things that I have to say is like, I, I started this because I, I, after, especially after the, the Crawly Mondays that we did, Kirstie, right?

Yeah.

In which we, we talk about resilience, about the, the the lack of security that many of us went through in this industry that is always changing, right? But then again, as for example, I have Crawling Mondays and I have SEO FOMO, which is my newsletter, and literally 90% of the people who pitch themselves to participate there are men. So I was like, you know what? I need to do something. I want to be able to do something to make the change happen. Because if, if we don't see as many women also speaking at conferences or, or getting their, the raises or big levels, good levels at companies too, um, it's also because of, of, of this challenge, right? And, and I think, uh, it is a very important time also to be able to give this, this type of, uh, of, of support because indeed A lot of people have been laid off, have been furloughed, are going through very difficult situations and scenarios in their professional lives. So hopefully also this will be able to help also to women who are going through not necessarily ideal circumstances right now. And these are also like a support system, skills that can help these women to go through, through these times too, hopefully. So yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I think what we were thinking is, you know, a lot of the work we do is very like foundational, and, you know, the best time to build a new foundation is when the current one's being disrupted. So I think that was kind of our thinking. And a lot of the— exactly like you said, like a lot of the— I mean, the reason I got into this work initially was because I was speaking at an SEO event in 2000 and 16, 17 now, and it was me and 17 other white men. And I was like, okay. So I started offering free presentation training to women to help level the playing field. And then I got into confidence coaching and it all kind of came from there, really. But I found the same thing. I used to run events called Give It a Go events, and they were in-person conferences that I used to organize to give people an opportunity to get on stage for the first time, to try things for the first time. And it was totally self-submit. Anyone could speak. all you had to do was fill in the form and you were a speaker. Like, that was the deal. There was no barrier to entry. And every single time, it was about 96% men would self-submit, and then I would have to like go and actively find women. And, um, but yeah, so it's definitely a consideration. And again, just to reiterate, we're really grateful for everyone supporting this really important ongoing work. Thank you.

Yes, yes. So without further ado, what I will do is I will share my screen Drum roll. Yeah, yes, drum roll. And before actually announcing the winners, I want to actually thank you, uh, to all of, uh, all of you who have supported. This has been amazing, I have to say, to see so many, uh, people from the SEO community come together and getting in touch saying, hey, I want to sponsor this, I want to help with this. Uh, so thank you, thank you very much, very much, uh, to Giselle, from Neomam, Cybulb, Aira, Screaming Frog, Ship6, Dom Huntson, Dan Lipson, Martin Splitt, Dana Di Tommaso, James Brockbann, Tom Rayner, Luke Carthy, Ram Fishkin, Ian Laurie, Upbuilt, Pete Watson-Wales, the @ecommerce Twitter handle who want to remain anonymous, Jackie Xu, Ryan Glass, Mark Johnston, Kristen Semper, Sam Rush, James Kurt, Mike Davis, Impression, Andy Drinkwater, Hennessy Digital, Deep Crawl, BrightLocal, and Content Merchants. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I really, really overwhelmed reading that. I'm bringing it to my eye. I'm like, all these people just so grateful and so overwhelmed as you read through it. I'm like, how did that happen?

Try to do it fast. Do it fast. No, thank you. Thank you very much. They deserve to you know, to have a, a very important mention here because this wouldn't be possible, uh, without them. It would be only 2, uh, spots, and instead of that, we have 51 spots. I have to say right now, going to the, to the, um, to the winners, like, we, we received in total, um, like, more than what I could imagine in comments. I eliminated the ones because in some cases there were 2 comments from the same person, uh, because indeed, like, I had to approve the comment and some people didn't realize that and send money. And then I imagine that after they realized that it took a while to approve the message, they stopped sending them. So yes, so I had to do a little bit of cleanup. And in total, actually, there are very good chances to win because we have 229 unique comments from unique women who are participating. And I randomly selected here with the help of Excel. And without much further ado, because we have also limited time and we don't want that you are spending here so, so, so much time, what I did was to randomly select 51 from this initial list. And you actually have the 51 winners here, from Kim Atkinson, Ariana Martinez, Jill Albura, uh, Lucy Dudes, uh, Rosa Coles, Michelle, Marcella, Crystal Horton, Jessica Peck, Brianna. So there's Himani, Viv Ramirez, Kunjal Panchay. So I love Andy Kuplanais. I love Eleanor Reynold. I love seeing like a mix of names from everywhere in the world. So you are winners. Congratulations. What I will do just to be able so you can see if you actually won, I will be leaving a list on the post right now with the names of all who have been chosen, the 51 of us, with, uh, your comments. So you can see if it was you, or maybe there was another person with the same name, potentially, I don't know. But like this, you will be able to be sure that it is— sure that it is you. And in any case, what I am sending, uh, right away after this, uh, to Kirstie and Brioni is the list with the emails too. Of course, I cannot share the emails over here, but they will get them. So Kirstie will get in touch with you directly, uh, to give you the access to, to the program. And, uh, so please stay alert. You'll— you will be getting the, the message, uh, to the email that you use when you left the, the comments in the first place. So you, you need to be alert. If at some point for some reason you don't receive an email, right, please give it a few days, right? So because there are 51 of you, and so Kirstie and Brioni can coordinate. But if not, maybe Kirstie, maybe 3, 4 days. And if not, maybe you can leave your contact email or something like that if they see themselves there in the list and they don't receive anything.

Perfect. Yeah, so thank you and, and well done to everybody that won.

Yay!

Um, you know, for every, every winner, there's somebody else that didn't get an opportunity. So really, I hope everyone's feeling like really grateful. Um, and thanks again for creating these opportunities for women. What I will do is I will— I have all your email addresses, so I will email you all over the next couple of days with next steps, instructions, introductions to me and Bryony, giving you a little bit more information about what we expect from you, what you can get from us, all of that good stuff. Um, if you don't hear from me, you can get in touch with me. My email address is Kirsty, Kirsty, at roar.training. Um, so that's my email address. I'm also very findable on the internet. You can Google me. I have SEO with my name. Ouch. I am very findable. Right, it was— it's a unique name.

Um, Don't worry, I will add it in the, in the, in the post too, along the, along the winners too, in case, yeah, they can, they can reach you out, but don't worry, Kirstie will, will be in touch with you.

Well, for sure.

Yes. Yes. So thank you very much again for joining me. Thank you very much, Kirstie Broni. It has been amazing to be able to, to share with you this moment. And, um, if you are still unsure if you have won or not, if you think that you saw your name very quickly in the list, but of course it is. 51 of you, and we have limited time here, and we don't want that you are like, you know, too bored from this. I will be uploading in 1 minute or 2 minutes after this the post, and I will be sharing, uh, it again everywhere so you can confirm that you are there. And then Kirstie and Brioni will be in touch with you in a bit. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Just say thank you to you later because there's been a lot The amount of work that you've put in to do this, actually. The uploading the posts, the tweets, the sorting the emails. I think you've spent quite a few hours doing this, and that's—

Well, it might or might not be a little bit, especially the first week. I was like updating that post like 5 times per week, and I was like, oh my God, I need to work too. But you know what? You know, this is This is interesting, but I feel such a big satisfaction from doing this. And, you know, my husband actually was teasing me a bit ago. He was like, oh my God, you're more nervous when you're like closing the deal or pitching to a big client or whatever. Like, yeah, somehow, you know, this is another level, another type of emotion, right?

Right.

So yes, I'm thankful to be able to do this. And thank you again, Kirstie and Brioni, for doing this. I'm very looking forward to hear the success stories in a few months, by the way. Excellent. So thank you very much again. And, uh, well, stay tuned. I will be updating the, the post with the winners in a bit, and you will be hearing from Kirstie and Bryony also in a few days. Take care.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Bye.

And congrats to the winners.

Yes, huge congratulations. Welcome.