2018 is half-way over. What questions do you have? CALL 1-818-572-2910.

Blog Talk Radio.

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get— hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910.

2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone, and happy, happy Fourth of July week. I hope no matter where you are in the world, make, make the Fourth of July a celebration for you as well. Any reason to have a party, right? And I'm sure many of us will be having one tomorrow. I was just speaking offline with Deborah and the two of us were kind of sharing what we're going to be doing for the day. Hers, hers sounds so Americana and so idyllic, you know, with family and friends and hot dogs and hamburgers and fireworks. And she's like, okay, so what are you going to be doing? And I'm like, I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure. It is hot. It is hot here in Atlanta, Georgia. Uh, so I do know, I mentioned to her that I'll probably take, uh, Coco my little new puppy. I'll take her up to our Park Beach to do some swimming, test her out in her new life jacket. So when we go to that deserted island in Canada and she is surrounded by water, she'll feel comfortable either going in herself or should she fall in or whatever the case might be. After that, I'm not sure. I will see fireworks. I get a wonderful display Actually, more times during the year than I care to because between the baseball stadium and multiple malls, not necessarily near me but in a skyline view of where my house is, I get a great display of fireworks, especially on events and on holidays like the Fourth of July. So I'll get to sit in my backyard and do that. But I do want to throw out a couple of cautions for those who not only will be going and viewing firework displays, but any of you that might be setting them off yourself. I know there's a lot of my neighbors that set them off around us. A couple things that always concerns me is one, and this is a childhood, I guess, bitch that I've had since childhood is the danger of fireworks when it comes to being close to homes and trees and things that can burn. And that's a story I won't get totally into. So just be very cautious and wary in regards to where you are potentially setting off fireworks. At the same time, and many people don't understand this, but at the same time, Fourth of July is probably one of the major events of the year that the majority of pets go missing. Because dogs, cats, they don't like the thunder, thunderous sound of fireworks. And many of them who are not typically escape artists will do anything to get away from that noise and/or they're just scared to death from what that noise is. That you'll find all of a sudden a major uptick in dogs that have, you know, escaped out of their homes, escaped out of their yards, whatever the case might be. So please put your dogs inside. Try to put them in a room maybe that can get protected from, you know, the thunderous noise of fireworks. But whatever you do, just keep an eye on them and make sure that they're not stressed out due to, due to something that you're trying to enjoy and that the community is trying to enjoy. But other than that, hot dogs, hamburgers, a nice cold beer, some marshmallows. Have a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous Fourth of July. Like I said, wherever you are around the world, just have a beautiful celebration. And stay cool. I know most of the United States is definitely suffering from it, from heat, a heat wave, and especially from the Midwest over to the East Coast, of course, where Atlanta is, where Philly is with my family. And so just everybody, please, sunblock, water, and shade, and just be careful, be safe out there. All right, we have our full-packed set of questions for our Ask Bernadette episode. Um, so we're just going to get right into it. We're going to be talking about a number of things. Uh, we're going to be talking about, uh, from a business perspective. Say you own your own business, but maybe you're also in corporate and you're responsible for deploying or packaging up products and services. So I was asked recently about establishing the right, the right rates for your products and services. So we're going to be talking about that. We're going to talk about what do you ask in a job interview to kind of vet out the culture of that company. This came up from a mentoree of mine that I've been mentoring for, gosh, a good decade, and he is continually advancing in his career. And he's now seeking another opportunity, and he really wants to ensure— and this gets more and more important as you get older and older and have less tolerance for just taking anything— and he just really wants to ensure that the company's culture is a good fit for him because he doesn't want to be— not that he's starting all over again, but he doesn't want to start another job, hopefully be there for a few years at minimum, and yet be miserable shortly after accepting the position. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about a question that I got. I'm told I should have a team or a network of people around me. What does that look like? What does that mean? How do I go about doing it? That kind of thing. And we actually talk— we talk a bit about this, but at the same time, someone who calls me Mama Bear and I'll tell you that when we get into that question. He raised this question to me. Then we have a question in regards to— and ladies, a lot of times this applies to you specifically, more so than even men, but how do I decide on a lucrative promotion, a lucrative promotion, or starting a family? So this woman who approached me is about 36, 37 years old. I wrote 36 years old, and she now has, you know, these— this choice of does she, you know, start her family now and ensure that at 36— she's concerned that she's going to be able to have children, have a family, so forth and so on— or does she go after a lucrative promotion because, you know, it might not be there again in the future. And women deal with this a lot, this decision, not just because of the fact of having a baby, but more so the internal fight over, you know, do I stay home and be a stay-at-home mom, or do I, you know, work to balance career and family? If I take off a good amount of time for maternity leave, you know, when I come back, am I still relevant? Is Am I going to be looked at as someone that is not going to be able to keep up with the expectations of a position because I have children at home, so forth and so on. You get the gist. So we'll talk about that. And then, of course, of course, of course, of course, it is July. So what's July? It is our midpoint of the year. Can you believe it? There's 6 months already gone from 2018. I can't believe it. And you have another 6 months, so whether it's life goals, business goals, adventure goals, spiritual goals, whatever those might be, mid-year is a good time to kind of do inventory and take an assessment and clean out the closet, so to speak. So we are going to talk about that. And just as a reminder, as a little pepper of reminder, because we do talk a great deal about goal setting and time management and assessing and that kind of thing, but we have to. It's important because I can guarantee you if I was in a room with you and all the other listeners, I'd get about 99% of you, you know, not raising your hand when I ask, do you go back and look at your goals and assess them and bring them up to date and hold yourself accountable and reward yourself for your achievements and all that kind of good stuff. So we always do want to talk about it as a reminder for all of us, including myself, including myself. So that is gonna be what we're gonna talk about today. I'm just going to real quick, I'm gonna have Deborah of Parker House Virtual Services who's manning the studio. We're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we'll dive into all of this. So I can grab my water that I poured a little while ago and don't seem to have with me. So we will be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business. Available on Amazon and shuttingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors: TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email deborahparker@parkerhouseservices.com. Deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern Time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everybody. During break I had little Coco jump up on top of me and start kissing me as I was trying to get ready to transition out of the commercial break. She's a lot smaller than my big Charlie. Many of you probably saw Charlie quite a bit when we videotaped our shows. And now our little Coco. I'll have to share a picture of her. My little 12-pound Chiweenie, Coco. She's just a hoot, an absolute hoot. All right. You're not here to hear about Coco or my little Chiweenie. Let's get into your questions. So this came up actually following a program that I was actually a student in, and yet of course, as I always do, will raise my hand and even ask questions that I know, whether it's for myself and/or other people, they would want to know but it hadn't been asked. That's just who I am. And so I had someone come up after after that program and she basically asked me, alright, so she has a consulting type of business. She does a balance of coaching and consulting and she was, and she's relatively new. I want to say she's like 6 or 8 months in, not brand new but certainly not established. But this is a question that I get even from people that have been in business for 3, 5, 7 years. And that's all around how to establish the right price or rate. You might call it a rate, an hourly rate, uh, for your products and services. Um, and especially if you are new, we're going to talk about that. But if you are, you know, you have been in business for a while, I, um, and I actually find— fall guilty of this myself. Um, I actually have people, a number of people that will ask me about when do I know to change my rates, when do I know to to, you know, release a new rate card, as they might call it. And because some of us just get very comfortable in what it is that we've been doing, and we just really kind of fail to kind of look at that, that big picture. So we're going to kind of touch on both of those, but this really is going to stem from someone starting their business and they want to start establishing the rates. Maybe they went out with something because I'll often tell any of you, don't wait. If you want to start a business, start a business. Do it part-time, do it for a few hours a week if that's the case. If you aren't sure of your price, now pricing is a little tricky, but even if you're not sure of your price, put a price out there, start working, and use the lessons and the experiences and the feedback and the objections and the yeses as kind of a barometer of where you should fall. But if I was speaking to this person, which I did for about half hour afterwards, I basically said to her, the easiest and probably the simplest way to kind of determine where you should, you know, sit when it comes to price points is you can always look at the competition. If that's the first thing and easiest thing for you to be able to do is just go out online. For instance, I was doing some event planning work. Now it was volunteer, but we wanted to qualify and quantify kind of the investment everybody put into that work. So I'm not an event planner, and yet I said, okay, so I just simply went out and said, what is the average hourly rate for an event planner? And the average was $75 an hour. Now, you know, being that I was brand new, could I lowered it to $25 or $50, and/or if I was experienced, increased it? Yes. But that $75 was just a good baseline. So obviously that's a good place to start, but I'm going to back you up a little bit, and I would just simply want to, um, and we're not going to dig deep into the— this part of it because that could be a couple of radio shows all in itself. But you need to have your overall plan, even if it's a one-page business plan. You need to understand what is it that you're doing, why are you doing it, how are you serving your customers, what's the value that they're going to get from the product or service you're offering, who is your target client. And again, especially if you're new, it doesn't have to be perfect and it's not going to be perfect right away. But you want to give it a lot of thought and just say to yourself, who do I want to work with, who do I not want to work with, who is open and is receptive to my type of products and services, in this case coaching and consulting. Now, another question I had been asked recently too is, could you explain what a business coach does? And that opened up a whole conversation because that's not, Really, there's no obvious answer to that question, and that's another story for another day. So you really want to get a good understanding of your target client, what they look like, what they feel like, what they like, dislike, what their needs are, what their goals are, and you should get a pretty good idea of that based on the service and the value that you provide. And it's basically your problem. What's the problem I'm solving and then what's the solution, okay? But I don't want to lose, get off track on the question which was around how do I find and establish the right price or rate for my products and services. So you want to, but you want to look at those things. Competition, your target client, what is your value and worth? And what I mean by this is, ladies, You know, if your value is 100, you make it 40. That's just, you know, it's not what you should be doing, but I find that too many of us, the majority of us, devalue ourselves. So a lot of times, in this case, this is somebody in corporate coming into working for themselves, and I did that myself. So I told her, I said, look, Were you doing something similar in the workplace? Yes, not core competence, wasn't coaching or consulting, but yes, it was an element of what I did. Great, did you do good work and did you, were you billable? Did you get billed out to your clients? In this case, she did not. And okay, I did, so I used myself as an example. I used to get billed out to a client and I thought to myself, okay, yes, corporate has a lot of overhead, so if I got billed out at $100 for, let's say, a good chunk of that's going to be overhead, corporate overhead. So what should my value, what's my value worth or price out of that $100 then? And so I told her, I said, well, I said, you can go with your hourly salary of, you know, what you made when you were in corporate for the work that you did, or you can look up average consulting coaching rates for the type of work that you're doing, which was in the spiritual arena. And I said, or you can just establish a rate that you're comfortable with, because another element of what it is that you need to look at before you establish that rate is, how much do I want to earn How many clients do I want to have? What will my own overhead and cost be? And all of those things can back you into what your hourly rate will need to be in order to achieve that revenue target or that income target. So there's a lot of components to setting your own, or setting the right rate. But right, the word right or correct is, is, what would I call it, is not accurate to use because those rates, those prices are going to fluctuate, not only because inflation and because the economy and the environment and whatnot, but it's also going to be because of the fact that you're going to gain experience, you're going to gain expertise, you're going to gain value worth. You're going to gain credibility, you're going to gain results for your clients, and therefore you would expect that if you started one day at 100, you know, maybe a year, two years from now you're all of a sudden at 175, and then you go to 225, and so forth and so on. Now, a big cautionary, cautionary tale for you: what you don't want to do, and this definitely pertains to the newer entrepreneurs, but it also pertains to those even in corporate and those that have been around for a while. And either the economy goes to hell or a situation happens, maybe more locally to you, or maybe you see that there's a lot of layoffs and you finally find yourself without a job. And the next thing you know, you're— what you're telling yourself is Oh well, I'm just going to be lucky to have a job or I'm going to be lucky to gain a client, therefore I'm going to devalue myself and I'm going to act desperate and that's going to wreak on anybody and everybody that I come into contact with and the next thing you know that $100 is $50. Now, my mentoree actually attempted to start telling me that that was what he was going to accept. That he was going to devalue himself. Well, you can imagine what my answer was and what my response was. And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't, "Oh yeah, you go ahead and do that." It was a lot of questions. Why would you do that? You know, how do you— how will your— what will your plan be to get back to where you were? Why do you think you need to devalue yourself? So forth and so on. Because the cautionary tale is you can always, you can always come down. You can't always go up. And what I mean by that is if you really want to work with a certain client, certain customer, and you're priced out of the, out of the market of working with them, and you choose, you choose with a lot of thought and logic that you are willing to take a discount of your value, of your worth, because you really want this client, then that's a good decision and you'll probably feel good and accept that. But I guarantee you, should you choose to devalue your rate and your pricing, not totally bought in, not totally desiring, this opportunity and you're acting out of desperation, you just need a job or you just need a client, then I can guarantee you you'll be miserable or bitter in some way, shape, or form throughout that engagement. Because you could, like I said, you can always come down in those exception-based, you can always decide to take, you know, give a discount, but you're going to have a hard time if you take yourself down to 50 to get back up to 100, even with that client. Even with the client that you even say, well, you know, I'm giving you a discount, so forth and so on. So we can talk about strategies for pricing at another time because there's ways to present it where you're not really devaluing your, your product or service. You're making adjustments, you're making considerations to what it is that you're going to be able to deliver based on that different price or that different rate. But that's, again, that's a whole other hour conversation we could have as well. So what I would just leave you with is there's a lot of components to what it is that you need to consider when it is, when it comes to setting a price and/or even adjusting and assessing a price that you might be charging for your products and services. Again, it's competition, target client, your value, your worth, your goals. What are your goals? We talked about that briefly regarding what target income or revenue do you want to be making, how many clients do you want to have, how many days a week do you want to be working, and all those things you back into what the best price or rate is. Again, it's a living thing. It's a living rate that you can adjust and assess to make sure you're in line with both the economy but also your value and worth and your goals. 'Cause of course, obviously, you definitely need to consider the costs so you make a profit. I know a number of people, especially in services like coaching, consulting, where they're like, oh, I have very little overhead because I don't package something or I don't have something tangible. And yet they forget that, you know, they have to travel to the client or they may have to fly or they might have to, you know, get some technologies into their office, maybe Skype or something that costs in order to even interact with that client. So you want to make sure you're considering all those levers, so to speak. And let me make sure I just covered everything that I wanted to. But again, that cautionary tale, don't price desperately. If you need help with pricing before you go and act on any desperation or even act on ego, I knew someone that was pricing themselves so far out of the market and they just really believed that that's what they were worth and yet their client base didn't align to it. Their deliverables really didn't align to it, and I had to kind of bring them down a little bit to kind of say, look, let's look at this realistically. You're struggling because you might— you're not aligned to what the target client that you're going after is accepting. So let me— I will touch on this. Let me give you a quick example of that. People that leave corporate, as I mentioned, and become entrepreneurs, and especially if they're in the coaching and consulting space. They now choose to work with entrepreneurs, not corporate, but they're now charging the corporate rate because remember, you could always use your corporate rate, your corporate average salary as a benchmark, but yet entrepreneurs can't afford those corporate prices, and yet, you know, many of them refuse to adjust because they want to, you know, be targeting that same level of income that they earned in corporate. Realistic? Not so much. Um, a goal? Absolutely. Something definitely to aspire to. Um, but you need to make sure that whoever it is you're targeting is going to be receptive to what it is, not only that you're selling, but also what the price of it is. And if they decide to choose to switch their target market from entrepreneurs to corporate, they would be very successful in being able to maintain those rates. But at first, they might not be able to if they're targeting a client that is not receptive to that rate or price. Fair enough? All right, um, we're going to go right into our next question. Uh, what questions should I ask in an interview to determine if it is a good fit for me? So I mentioned my, my mentoree, and this was an area that was definitely important for him to really scope out as far as if it was going to be a good fit for him at the, at the stage of which he was in his life and in his career. So I would have all of you first consider, where am I as far as what I'm looking for in a employer, and even you could apply this to clients for those entrepreneurs out there. Not all money is good money. So, you know, whether you're being paid a certain salary in corporate or whether you're accepting a particular rate, which we just spent time talking about, from a client, just because the money might look good, but yet you haven't vetted out whether it's a good fit of a client for you, then no amount of money is going to help or make a difference because you're still going to be miserable if you haven't vetted out whether or not that client or culture is a good fit. But this was all about, you know, job hunting and making sure a company that somebody was going to be going to was a good cultural fit. So this is definitely something that you want to plan and prepare for. Too many people show up to job interviews and yes, they have a notebook because it looks good and they have their business card, but they don't— they're not prepped with an outline of questions and an outline of talking points that they want to make sure from a job or a client perspective that they really, you know, kind of tick off their entire list. And I'm sorry, but that would demonstrate to me immediately, as it did about a year or so back. I interviewed a young man as a favor to his brother, and he shows up, forget the fact that he was in sweatpants and a t-shirt, but he shows up with nothing. He just sits down, plops down in the booth across from me, has no notepad, no pen, He has his phone, you know, but at the same time, nothing prepared to talk to me about. He was expecting me to do all the talking. Now, of course, you know I can, but that's not— that's not the interviewer's job. It's your job because it's your job that you're looking to secure. So some things to think about. Let's look at categories first because then you can list some questions within each of these categories. Nowadays, and at any time, but it's so, you know, in our face these days, is you want to make sure that the culture is diverse. And diverse meaning— and even inclusive— and diverse meaning that they're not only diverse in the genders and the races and the religions and the sexualities and all that, you know, more psychographic type of things, demographic type of things, but you also want to make sure they're diverse in hearing opinions and taking ideas and open to debate from all, you know, from their teams, from their employees across the board, that it's not some hierarchical, well, you know, an individual can't talk to a vice president and a manager can't talk to the CEO and They don't, you know, provide platforms for open collaboration and communications and ideas and conflict and that type of thing. So you really want to put, you know, a category of diversity and inclusion and list a number of questions down there that are important to you to ensure that you can vet out. So for women, it would be, so how many women are there, you know, on your leadership team? Could be something that you should already know if you did some homework, but you can also talk, you know, about what, you know, what opportunities are provided to, you know, to women or to people of color, or, you know, are there any known, you know, discriminate— not that they're going to say that, they're not going to answer that, but, you know, is there What do you provide as a community to your employees in order to come together and share and collaborate? Or what is your hiring process for the type of people that you're looking for? That type of thing. So you want to ask a lot of questions about that diversity, that inclusion, the ability to engage and collaborate. You want to ask questions around how they handle decision-making and conflict. So you might ask questions such as, you know, what has been the biggest challenge that the company's dealt with, you know, in the last 12 months, and how was that handled and by whom, you know, so you can get an idea if it's, you know, the CEO handling the issues all the time or if there is a point of which, you know, the vice president levels, maybe there's presidents, vice presidents, and managers are kind of given the responsibility and the opportunity to handle difficult situations with their teams directly, as opposed to everything coming from the top. You can ask an individual, and this is a great way to kind of vet out a culture, is ask that person, so what makes you proud to work here? What gets you excited? What gets you out of bed in the morning? To come to your own job or your own work. And that doesn't matter if it's the immediate boss that you're being interviewed by or if it's an HR person or it's a senior manager or boss or the CEO. All of them should be able to articulate, and you want to look at things not only verbally but physically. You want to watch body language. You want to really kind of not that you have to be an expert in it, but you just want to be able to see how open, how inclusive, how transparent is this person sitting in front of me. You might ask about what opportunities are given to employees to be able to take risks. What happens when people make mistakes, or what happens when they really screw up or fail on on delivering on something? What is the process in which, in which, you know, that type of result is handled and managed with me as an employee? You might ask about, you know, their— not only their hiring and qualifying process, like what are the next steps and, you know, is there a criteria that's being used in order to make a decision between me and someone else. But you also want to be sure that you also understand not only the opportunities you're going to be provided, but also what is the performance review, development, enrichment process or program that you have. So many companies, you know, will— won't share with you, or not that they don't share with you, but some people won't ask about, okay, so what is the performance review process other than in 6 months I want to be reviewed so I can get another increase within the first 12 months I'm being hired because you're not giving me the, the salary that I want. That's one thing, but you want to make sure that there's an ongoing development and review process built into the culture, built into the culture, that will ensure that you're getting the feedback, the evaluation, and the opportunities that you need to advance yourself and your own career. And then you might ask questions such as, to kind of get into the day in the life of the company, so what does a day in the life of that person in their job look like? And then have them explain what's a day, typical day in the life of this role and this position that I would be taking on. You want to vet out from a culture perspective, You know, is this somebody and/or a company that requires you to be on call basically 24/7? Or does it— does boundaries mean something to the company? So they don't want you, you know, working endlessly. They don't want you working weekends. They are okay if you don't take your laptop home with you or you don't answer your phone and you wait until the next morning. That's both an individual manager thing someone needs to vet out. As much as it's a company culture thing that needs to be vet out. And you want to vet both of those things out because an individual— say you're interviewing with your manager or with a future manager. They might be a control freak and they might be a micromanager and they might require you to respond immediately. Well, when you want to set expectations of how you operate is in that interviewing process. Not that you want to say anything or do anything that's going to not have them hire you, per se, but challenging them or asking them and inquiring and making them transparent and open about what their expectations are and how they manage people will kind of give them an indication to you or to them that you are cognizant just how you might make your own decision about being hired. Remember, interviewing for a job is not one-sided. They're just— it's not just about them making a decision about you. It's you making a decision about them. And you need to make sure that they understand that. And asking as many questions as you can about the culture, about the fit, about the way they operate will give them an idea that it's important to you to not only consider, um, or you're not only thinking that they're considering whether they'll hire you, but you're also considering whether you're going to hire them and take them on as your new employer. Does that make sense? So you want to vet out both from a cultural company perspective and even that individual in front of you, especially if it is going to be your new boss. And don't be afraid to ask those questions that cause them to talk about themselves and their position, the day in the life of that role, their position, the company, the hiring, the performance review process. You really want to hold them, you know, kind of accountable to providing you the information you need to make a good decision. Because hiring on both sides, it's an exhausting, expensive, and time-consuming process for not only you but also the company. And therefore, you'll do— you'll be your best if you are inquiring and vetting out both sides of that equation because it will benefit both the company and yourself in the long run. All right, I need to go and take some of that water that I, that I got earlier. So we'll take a quick break and we'll come back and finish up our last few questions.

We'll be right back. You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches of the career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/shuttingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. We are talking a number of things that happen to have things in common today for Ask Bernadette, so a number of your questions were based on establishing the prices and the rates that you might charge for your products and services. And even the question in regards to how do I ask in a job interview, what questions to ask in a job interview to determine if it is a good fit for me, for that individual that asked me about it. So those sound like they wouldn't kind of have things in common between those two questions, but they actually do based on just— it comes down to vetting out whether or not a client or an employer, whether or not a price is relevant and is a good fit in order for you then to go out and feel secure that you have the right rate for your products and services. And/or you're asking the right questions about possibly a job opportunity with an employer. So this next question is a little bit diversion. It's around how to build a network of supporters or advisors or mentors. And this came out of a conversation due to this individual just feeling like she was, you know, on an island by herself. Like I'm going to be in about a month in Canada. But, um, but she was feeling like she was on an island by herself, and she just wasn't sure just how to kind of build a team. Not a team that she would have to pay per se or do work for her, but how to build a team of supporters, of cheerleaders, of mentors, of people that can guide her. And we often talk about, like, in corporate, how to ensure that you have a mentor, an advocate, or a sponsor, and the difference between those. And of course, as a coach you know, to have a coach in your corner or even be working with a coach in order to enhance your leadership skills or your business talent or, you know, grow your business, whatever the case might be. But in this case, how to build that network of supporters that around you, how do you go about doing that? Well, this is definitely something that won't happen overnight. But if you do start working on it right now, regardless of where you are in your career, where you are in life, meaning age, where you might be, whether it's entrepreneurial or corporate, or maybe you're a stay-at-home mom, we all need a tribe, as many people will call it. We all need a, you know, family unit, even if it's not blood. People that we can rely on, people that will, you know, keep us motivated, people that will hold us accountable, people that will be there with an open ear and sometimes good, sound, constructive advice in order for us to just be motivated, be ambitious, be curious and excited about what it is that we're doing in our lives, whether it is personal or business. We need that unit. So how do you go about doing it? Well, you first have to really understand why you're doing it. And that sounds kind of ridiculous, but some people just feel that they have to do it because other people are doing it. In this case, and I have to, I'll acknowledge that this individual responded from a conversation that other people were having around their so-called tribe. And so all of a sudden this person, you know, felt like a squirrel and she felt like she had to go follow that that nut, so to speak, and she started questioning, well, I don't have one either, and should I have one, and so forth and so on. So think about it, how often do you learn of something someone's doing, and this can be in any aspect of life, and all of a sudden you're a squirrel, you shoot over in one direction, you shoot over another direction, you start kind of chasing all of these different things that the world's saying that you should be doing, whether it's in business or life, and you're not, and all of a sudden you feel a little bit overwhelmed, you feel a little bit alone. So you really need to understand why you would go about doing it. Is it something that you should do? Like, you know, I think we kind of concluded that it benefits all areas of our life if we have a strong circle, tribe, network, mastermind, whatever you might want to call it, around us. So, but why would you be doing it? Why would you go out consciously and work on it? You want to define that for yourself, and you might break that down by saying, okay, what, what are the goals that I'm trying to achieve by having that? Well, I want people's advisement. I want their ideas, their lessons learned. I want to know their best practices, what worked for them, what didn't work for them. I want to be able to strategize with someone so I'm not doing it on my own, and I want someone to pick at what it is I am working on and give me the good, the bad, the ugly about it. I want to be able to reach out and leverage individuals for their connections and their contacts, their referrals. I want to be able to go and you know, help, you know, discuss a situation, a conflict that I'm in, and kind of get some ideas of what I should be doing. I want coaching. I want mentoring. I want to be assessed as to where my strengths lies and where areas of improvement reside so I can ensure that I'm always paying attention and I'm always, you know, improving upon where I am today. I mean, there could be a whole slew of reasons, and someone might say, "I want it for all those reasons," and that's fine too, but quite honestly, even my laying all those out for you exhausted me. So don't exhaust yourself. Find 1 or 2 really core, core meaningful heart-provoking reasons that you would benefit and you would gain value from this network. And go with that. And again, just like everything we talk about, it's living, it's breathing, it changes over time, so forth and so on. Okay, so you, you're getting an idea of why you would do it, what your goal would be, what the benefits would be for you. You want to lay that out. What are the benefits to me for doing this? And obviously there, you know, it could be few, could be many. What are the benefits to the individuals that I'd be bringing into the fold? There's got to be something in it for them. Now, that doesn't mean quantifiably there's got to be something in it for them, but there's got to be a reason. And it could be just that it comes out of friendship and it comes out of a relationship, personal or business, but there's got to be kind of a benefit on both sides of it. And then you really need to get clear on what are the expectations as you're kind of building this posse, so to speak. What expectations do you have of them? And then you need to also kind of have a conversation with them about what expectations they have of you. So say you are going and you want to formally kind of have a mentor or a sponsor. And again, just real quick, mentors will provide you some insights and guidance and lessons learned and best practices that you make decisions on and you take and and run with. A sponsor is basically someone who might do all of that, but they're also going to be someone that is looking out for you and talking you up and looking for opportunities for you even when you're not in the room, so to speak. So corporately, that would be somebody that, you know, when you're not in the room and people are talking about promotions or high potential individuals or advancements, you know, they're cheering you on and they're throwing your name into the hat, and you might never know that it was them that threw your name into the hat. Mentors are more of a, you know, a collaboration, a relationship, and then, you know, for insights and guidance and that kind of thing. So how do you actually go about building that network? Well, you determine, you know, what is it that you need? Are you looking for a mentor versus a sponsor? Are you looking for just connections to where you can always reach out to somebody when needed, or you're looking for something more formal. Maybe it is a formal coach or consultant or advisor that you actually pay to provide you something. You define all of that, and then you look at not only what you need qualifiably, so to speak,, but also are there certain expertises or skills that you're looking for that you actually want to surround yourself with people with those specialties? So for instance, if you are starting a business, you might surround yourself with other entrepreneurs. You might surround yourself with other women executives. You might surround yourself with business consultants or financial advisors or people that, you know, can help you understand what it means and what it takes to start and grow and manage a business. But maybe it's even more specific, maybe it's even a function. So maybe you are— like, I, when I first started out and I was writing my book, turning it into a radio show, turning it into like a brand, I needed to know branding, I needed to know marketing, I needed to understand PR and media. And as the years went on, it turned into needing to understand film and television and entertainment. So I started— you know, you start surrounding yourself even with specific expertise that, you know, you can lean on and reach out to. So some might be very general in their contribution and their relationship with you, and some might be very specific. And then, like I said, living and breathing. So over time, those things might change. When I actually first started out and I was coaching and consulting corporately, more corporate business, I surrounded myself with other business consultants and coaches, with executives, with strategic planning, business planning, financial planning type of people, because that's the type of work I was doing. As I started getting more into the media entertainment arena, I started then reaching out and I changed out kind of who my posse was, my tribe. Of course, I've had also business connections for 25 years and I've had business connections for 10 and I've had them for a year. So you just want to kind of really understand what it is you want, what goals you have, what benefits are there, what expectations, and then you just start going out and networking and socializing and sharing. And engaging and kind of bringing them in for their own goals and objectives that they have as much as, you know, you're bringing them in to support yours, and you go about it like that. All right. So, and I had mentioned that that was brought to me by someone who I've known for a couple years now. I've actually mentored and coached in the Philman and Shayman arena. He calls me his mama bear. Which I find very endearing, and he's continually looking to learn and grow, and that I've always found very, very impressive for a young man. This is a man, actually, another young man, and at the same time, very much it attracted me to wanting to help him, and that's what the key is, is people will want to be part of your tribe, posse, your community, when you demonstrate that you are so passionate and you want as much for them as you want for yourself. Okay? All right, we need to move on because I just noticed the time. And let me answer this question about how do you decide on a lucrative promotion or starting a family? Now, I've never had to, well, I kind of had to deal with this myself, but it wasn't because I was getting married and having children. It was more so because I had the choice of moving, you know, back home or staying where I was and even moving to a different location all around my career. But, you know, this is about a 36-year-old who's trying to make a decision as to whether or not she starts a family now or she takes this lucrative promotion that she has. And quite honestly, it's not going to take me long to answer this question. Not because I don't have the experience of making that decision between a child, family, spouse, partner, whatever the case might be, and a career, but more so because it's such a personal decision and there's no blanket answer. What I would have that person sit down and do is really look at, you know, lay out for yourself, for yourself first, What are your dreams? What are your goals? What's the vision you have for yourself? What brings you the most joy? And where, you know, do you feel the most you, you know, in? What is that place? What is that environment? Now, this individual not have had the child yet, certainly doesn't know, and it definitely changes the moment that little being pops out. And all of that could change, but in order for her to make that decision right now, I suggested that she really just get grounded on what's really important to her. Lay out both the materialistic, quantifiable things as much as the qualified things. Look at both the family life and picture and the white picket fence and so forth and so on as much as it is look at the you know, the career path, ladder climbing, you know, bank growing opportunity that she has laid out in front of her and just go with her gut as to which makes her really excited or gives her butterflies or makes her really nervous or scared, you know, and just realize that whatever decision she makes, as long as it's made with, you know, great heart and yet at the same time a clear, focused, logical mind will be the right decision for her at that time. But again, you know, it's a very personal thing, and I would never, you know, put my own personal beliefs on anyone in regards to that. Okay, we're not even going to take a break because I need to at least spend a minute or so on our final question, which is basically our mid-year— it's mid-year It's July— well, it is July 2nd. Let's pretend it's July— oh, it's July 3rd. Let's pretend it's July 1st. It's mid-year. It's time to look at what goals you had at the beginning of the year. If you didn't have them, then it's a perfect time to set them right now. Don't even consider or beat yourself up for not having them. Just simply go into having them. If you've had them, assess them, readjust them, create new ones if that's the case. Give yourself a grade, A, B, C, D, or an F. Be okay with whatever that is and then put a different plan in place if you have to. If it's going well and it's an A, then just ramp it up. Just ramp it up and just think bigger and greater if things are going the way you wanted them to go. Assessments and evaluations are not judgments. They're simply a barometer for you to look at as to whether or not you like the results or you don't like the results, and then make the adjustments accordingly. However, with whatever you do, you at least want to do it. You don't want to go about life and every day waking up and really not having a reason for going out in the world and working as hard as you, you are, whether it is at work or at home. You want to have something to attain, to aspire to, and that's what goals do for you. So that's that on that. Thank you for another Ask Bernadette episode, and I'll look forward to having you right here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio. Happy Fourth of July, everybody! And for all the rest of you, just find some reason to celebrate tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I'll talk to you soon.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.