Challenges of the C-Suite with Sara Ledterman, Episode 2s

Hi everybody, this is CB Bowman Live. How are you today? I'm so glad that you tuned in. This is my second show today. Remember, on Thursdays we have 2 shows, so you have a chance to see me twice. Oh, I feel so sorry for you. Oh, okay, so listen here, this is my new show. So Social media influencers. You get to meet the people that can put you on the map because they're already on the map, right? So we get to find out the inside scoop. And today we have a wonderful guest who is a superstar on Clubhouse. So you want to know all about Clubhouse and all the tips. And by the way, don't forget to follow me on Clubhouse. Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn Live and reach out to me on LinkedIn, of course. Now, so let's rock it out. Okay, I have to think of a secret to tell you because, you know, that's what I do for every show, right? So yeah, my secret is I just met Sarah and I hounded her to come on the show, so she She finally said, who's this crazy person? I have to go on her show. So, and another secret, Sarah and I have the same professional background from back in the day before I became a thought leader in the executive coaching space. So without further ado, I'm going to ask Sarah to introduce herself. Ready? Go, Sarah.

Hey, thank you so much, Cece. She— this woman just is a powerhouse. I listened to her on Clubhouse and she knows her stuff and we love hearing her talk and she's not afraid to get up there and share. And that's the power of Clubhouse and tip number 1. The most important thing is to get up on the stage and just raise your hand and ask a question or contribute. There are just phenomenal, phenomenal thought leaders on there. Like, it, it's just incredible that the caliber of people that are on there sharing, um, information for free. and just having conversations is incredible. I mean, from every space and industry, it's phenomenal. I mean, there's over 10,000 people just in the wedding industry on there. Interior designers were a little slow. They're starting to get on there now, which is our old industry that we both came from. So that's fun. But just in business and finance and technology, real estate, insurance, it's just, it's incredible. You can find every profession, you can find knowledge that you would pay $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 to go to masterminds and be a part of. It's just been incredible. It's an incredible learning platform and sharing platform. And we just meet people that become our friends in real life. So there are Clubhouse meetups all over the country now. It's incredible.

So I'm Sarah. You know what, Sarah? We have to tell people. My mic, I hope, is not doing an echo. But we have to tell people there are 1 or 2 people in the world that don't know what Clubhouse is. So let's— can you believe it?

If you don't know what Clubhouse is, it is the fastest growing audio sharing platform. They just received a $4 billion valuation and an offer to buy out from Twitter. They have over 10 million users on there now. It's so easy. It's drop-in audio chat. It's on if you have an iPhone. It's not even open to Android yet. It's still in beta, but you can request an invite if you don't have one and you want one. DM me on LinkedIn and I'll share mine with you. It's really great. Now is a great time to get in and just be part of it while it's still a relatively small community. And and just you get a hallway. You can see all the rooms for all the events that you want to find or all of your interests. And you just go in a room and join a conversation with hundreds of people from all over the world and just in any space. We have thought leadership, we have coaching. There's, like I said, just every industry and every topic you could imagine. And it's so great during this pandemic. People feel so isolated. You can get out there and literally have conversations 24/7 with anyone you could imagine. And it's just been phenomenal. It's just great to meet people that way too.

Yeah, so let's, let's go back a bit. So Clubhouse was originally designed for the entertainment business, so it was a vehicle for them to be able to communicate with each other. And then last year, around mid-year, they went out on a beta test. Now here's the thing you have to know about Clubhouse: it's based upon gamification theory. So you start off by first getting an invitation. Now Sarah has said, reach out to me. Sarah doesn't know that this airs to over 15,000 people. You may be getting quite a few requests, Sarah.

I have a club. There's a secret. If you have a club, you can get more invites to share.

So we'll see.

I might have the most popular club on Clubhouse by the time we're done with this.

So, so the way you get a Clubhouse, what Sarah is talking about, first you have to get an invitation to come on, right? So you have to know somebody who knows somebody, right? And then after that, you can set up your own room to chat to people. That's what I did. It's kind of scary because the first time you do it, it's just you sitting there, right?

Saying you are someone.

Exactly. Waiting for somebody to say, Hi. And so you pick a subject that you're passionate about and you open up a room and you wait for people to come in. Or secret, you preset it up so that all your friends come in. And so you have to find friends of yours that are on Clubhouse, and then you have a moderator who helps you manage the room. Now, after you do this a certain number of times, You can have what's called a clubhouse. So that's an umbrella in which your rooms go underneath, right? So I have 2 clubhouses, one for leadership challenges on Wednesday at 5 Mountain, and then I have Saturday morning at 9 executive coaching tips for executive coaches, right? And then, Sarah, what's the name of your clubhouse?

The Legit Business Club. Am I a member of that one?

Let me write that down.

I hope you are. You better be.

But you know, I follow you all over, so I don't know. I think I'm just following you.

Like, I actually open most of my rooms in the hallway just randomly, and so everyone joins because I have a lot of friends that own clubs as well that, um, that we co-mod with. So a lot of mine I just open up straight in the hallway, but I do the Legit Business Club, and I, I do that mostly because I do, um, office hours on Clubhouse. So every Wednesday from 10 to 12 and Friday from 10 to 12 Pacific Standard Time, I just have office hours where I basically open a room like CeCe's saying and sit there and wait for people to come in. Amazing conversations. Um, we get Every startup founders needing help with pitch decks. We get people with small businesses who just have questions on starting or scaling. We have everyone come in and out. I mean, there's the celebrities of the business world on there. And it's nice when you have intimate conversations like that. People just stop by. It's like if you were walking down the hallway in your office and you just stick, duck your head into someone's you know, office or cubicle and say hello. So I do that because a lot of the rooms that we lead now have 200 to 500 or 700 people in them, and it's hard to have like deeper conversations in there. Yeah, but we do, we do try. I mean, we run— I just, to give people an idea, sometimes we bring up a subject and we're trying, we really try. I mean, moderators on Clubhouse, like I say, are incredibly busy professionals, but when they're committed, they're committed. And sometimes we have rooms that go for 5 hours just to get through everyone's questions or make sure everyone feels like they were able to contribute to a topic. It's pretty incredible the time that people devote outside of their workday to this. And we've had topics on like everything. Yesterday, we had incredible people who really manage brand partnerships and sponsorships in very high-dollar spaces come on. We had a panel of 5, I mean, everything from television to print and social influencers. And they, they talked for 2 and a half hours on how you strategically go about building the correct brand to partner with a sponsor and how you do that. I mean, we had people in there like from that have Netflix partnerships and ever— I mean, it was just incredible. But that, that just tells you what the caliber of the conversations are. And then you have several hundred people come in and want to ask questions, and they just sit there and answer all the questions. I mean, they go through it with people. It's incredible. Sometimes we have high-level conversations. Dane Cook is on there. MC Hammer's on there. Um, Vanilla Ice has been on there to talk about real estate. I mean, it's just— it was really amazing. Um, There's— but also just your everyday business people who through and through know what they, they do well and share knowledge. I mean, there's a woman on there who teaches people, um, how to scale their real estate brands, which I mean, I've had some feedback from people who've been in those rooms that have been able to implement things into their business that have been just game-changing for their revenue. And, um, there's tax people that give incredible tips for businesses and things that you just, you just would never even know to ask or don't have access to. And that's what I love about it. I'm passionate about small businesses and I'm passionate about startups. And sometimes access to information and access to even venture capitalists has been so hard. And this is just a platform where you can just literally step into a room and have an open conversation with a VC. or an investor, we do Baby Shark Tank, which is like, you pool together. I mean, sometimes the buy-in for the, the buy-in for the sharks is $50. And then people come up and pitch their ideas, and we pull out whatever the sharks have put in the pool. There, I mean, there's amazing stuff. And Dave Kerpin and a few others do that. So there's, there's a lot you can do. But the knowledge that small businesses and, and in their industry, can get industry-specific knowledge without paying to go to a conference, without trying to hound someone and make these connections. You can literally just make connections right off the bat and have deep dive conversations that grow and help your business scale. It's incredible. I mean, I just encourage everyone who wants to either start or is really struggling with business, especially during this time, to, to get on there and find find help, I mean, or advice, or just meet up with fellow, um, entrepreneurs in the same space as you and just have community. It's, it's really incredible. I can't say enough about it.

Well, you know, here's the thing, um, your show comes on at the time that I'm working and it's not recorded. That's the bummer. So I have to catch you like on the weekends or at night if I'm lucky. But now I am putting it on my calendar as though it's a regular meeting that I have to go to on these dates. And I'm taking a break and coming on because I would have loved to have heard that show. And the negative is it's not recorded.

No. And that one's Wednesdays at noon Pacific time. And we don't record it because a lot of those are— I mean, the one thing that's powerful about Clubhouse is it's kind of in the moment. Those conversations are in the moment, and eventually we might start recording it. But I love people just to be able to come up and be honest about where they're at, um, and, and get advice. And, and, you know, in the long term, be able to come back and report rather than feel like they're on display. I feel like when people are put on the spot and they know they're being recorded, they're much more careful about what they say.

Absolutely.

You can't really have an open conversation. And I mean, some of the stories I hear from, from owners of small businesses or entrepreneurs is just a serious struggle. Um, and, and it almost is an intimate space to share that where it's— they're not put on the spot. Like, they would never go to a meeting or a mastermind and put that stuff out there, but they have that space on Clubhouse to do that. So I feel, um, I feel a little bit more protective of my spaces and, and not having them be recorded, but There are a lot of rooms that are recorded and you can find those recordings on YouTube and other places. And they're great to listen to because those are just general advice and knowledge rooms that are pretty powerful. I mean, like I said, the amount of information that you're able to get on as a beta user now is phenomenal. I don't know how it'll change as it opens up and it opens up to Android. It'll open up to a lot more countries then.

I'm really concerned about that because I love it. And one of the things I love— and I'm sorry guys if you're getting feedback, I just changed some settings, so, you know, bear with me. Next week we'll have it figured out. But one of the things I love is hobnobbing with celebs. Oh my God, when I go to Felicia's dinner and Terry Crews is on, MC Hammer is on, Gayle King is on, I'm like, uh, I say to my husband, yeah, I've got to hang out with the celebs. Uh, tonight. So fix your own dinner, you know. No, he's actually a chef, so he, he cooks really well.

Um, well, there's a ton of celebrity chefs on there. I've been in some of those cooking rooms, and there are some amazing bakers on there. I mean, literally anything you can imagine, you can find on there. It's incredible.

I loved— I was scanning through one day, um, I think it was after town hall And Simon Sinek was on, and I was like, drop the mic!

Because well, Mark Zuckerberg's been on there. Every everybody's been on there. Really, everybody comes through.

So yeah, let's talk about how you became a social magnet. You're an influencer on Clubhouse. How did that happen?

I I I I I blush at the thought. I don't think so. In real life, I'm very sociable. People like to talk to me. I'm a community builder, um, just by nature. So I think I've gone on and I've added value where I can, and I, I know where to just keep my mouth shut and listen. I think that's a huge thing. I think some people really love to overtalk or overshare, or just, you know, they're so excited about being on the platform that they just They don't know. And I run it like a business, and I run it like a business meeting. When I'm in a place, I, I would— I just behave like I would in any corporate setting or at any conference. Um, and I, and I listen. I genuinely try and listen to people and help them. And one thing I am really good at is I'm a connector, and Clubhouse is a great place to connect people, not only people that you want to connect with, but I listen and I hear like, okay, this person is looking for this and I know that person and I can send them to this person. And we've made beautiful relationships for other businesses where, you know, I had a veteran entrepreneur in one of my rooms and had an amazing product. And I know the founder of the Veterans Entrepreneur Network.

Wow.

And so I've been able to connect her with him and, you know, get her the help she needs. So just being a connector, um, has been hugely helpful. So that's kind of my skill. And I've known I get a lot of DMs saying, hey, I'm looking for this, or I need a co-moderator for this. And I just sort of keep my list and vet people. There's an app that I actually hugely love for this. It's called Contact Mapping.

Yeah.

If you don't have it, and people's Clubhouse bio pictures fit in the, in their photo spot, which is incredible, but You can make notes about people. So one thing I do when I'm sitting in a room and people are asking questions, I make notes about the person that's talking and then I keep those. So when someone else says, hey, you know, I'm looking for X, Y, or Z, I can actually search contact mapping and see who, who was in those spaces and I can share their contact info. It's been a game changer for the way that I have been able to do that because I'm terrible with names. So the actual thing I love about Clubhouse is you can remember people by their photo, and I'm— I have a visual memory, so I'm like, oh, I know you from their photo. But God forbid they change their photo, I'm in trouble. But, um, I do the contact mapping and then I can actually find them, but what— by what I remember about them.

So I'm just changing my, uh, a little bit here to see if I can fix this. Um, I, I've, uh, been told to use Close, which is another sort of platform for tracking people you know. So I'm in the process of comparing the two because it is getting to be a bit overwhelming. I have meetings on my calendar and I don't know who who they are.

So there's a new site. I think it might be up today. I don't know. It's in beta. It's pretty incredible. It's called followthemod.com. But you're going to be able to, from what I understand, um, put your Clubhouse calendar on there eventually. I think you'll be able to put all of your social platform follow, um, schedules on there. So like you'll be able to put your LinkedIn Lives and all the links on there.

Yeah.

But right now they started it for Clubhouse, but you're able to go in and find the people that you want to follow on Clubhouse and get their calendars because there's really no way to do that in Clubhouse, as you know.

So use the calendar to make an appointment or to—

No, to actually find all the URLs to go directly. And you'll be able to set alarms and get reminders for their calendar. But you'll be able to put a calendar together for yourself of all the different things you want to see in Clubhouse and follow. And then there's going to be a spot for them to list events because like there's big fundraisers and things on Clubhouse with Nashville artists and all kinds of things. So there'll be able to be like a community bulletin board where you can post events, um, and then you can follow, you can find your friends or your, the moderators that you like to listen to, and you'll see all their, um, the links of when they have rooms there. I, I, I'm speaking early. I'm— it's supposed to be up by the end of this week. Um, if it's not up, you could probably sign up and get on their list. Sarah, Clubhouse connector. So I'm just pushing everyone else's amazing tools that I learned. And that's the one thing I do love. I love supporting other businesses. I love supporting other founders. When I hear about something great, I'm definitely gonna shout it from the rooftops. But Contact Mapping has saved my, my, my sanity on a lot of things. So that's an app that I love. It's like an orange C and it has like a web on it, but it's in the App Store. I love that. But it's incredible. It was actually made for network marketers. network marketers, oddly enough, really, so they could remember people that they meet.

I think I heard about it in one of your groups, and I looked at it. It was still in its infancy. Yeah, I didn't quite get it, but I'm gonna go back and take another look at it.

It's pretty— it's been great for me. I love using it. It's been, it's been really helpful.

Um, hey, Sarah, I want to talk about, um, first of all, we know you're connected. That's obvious.

Right.

You know, um, but let's talk a minute about— we know that Clubhouse is working on being able to monetize, uh, your time, but you talk about the fact that you met— you've met tons of people, and some of them have become your clients, some have become, you know, colleagues. How do you make the transition? How do you personally make the transition from meeting them on Clubhouse Hearing them speak for a few minutes and then being able to follow up and develop a relationship with them.

So there's a couple of ways that people do this. I do it a little bit differently. The, the ways people do this is usually they develop sort of their 30-second elevator pitch when they come on stage. They go, hey, you know, I'm Jane from Ohio. I teach busy homemakers how to manage their time better, whatever. I just made up something anyway. And then they ask their question, but they have like this elevator pitch that just says in a nutshell, in like one sentence or, you know, 10 seconds, who they are and what they do. So then people who are go, oh, like, I need that. They look at their bio, and then there's a link to their social. So then they usually pop over to Instagram and either direct message them or just listen or follow them on Clubhouse. And then, um, if they like what they say, they usually start connecting. And a lot of times those people will say, or if they're modding a room, hey, and I have direct message me about whatever they're selling. I mean, people are, people are pretty open about that for the most part. Um, then there are people who are just influencers on there who don't sell anything. We're kind of few and far between. We're just there to give back. And I repeatedly say, I, I'm not on here. I'm not— I don't have anything to sell you. I'll give you whatever advice I can help you with, or I'll find the right person to help you. And, and that's what I'm on here for. Um, and, and so people direct message us usually with questions, with then they need help or they need a referral. And then there are people that are there listening and looking for people to work with, and they just reach out to you. So you never know who's listening. I'm really careful. I don't go in a lot of the social rooms. If there's drama, I avoid those spaces, which there are people on there who are there just to cause drama. There's a lot of, you know, rooms where people kind of trauma dump and do all those things, and I, I just stay away because I'm not there. I'm not there for, for the social aspects of it. And there are those groups if you just want to get out and hang out on a social platform and, you know, go To a comedy room or whatever, you can do that too. Um, I just am very careful. Be careful with your reputation. Be careful that if there's, you know, a lot of times there's— there was a bunch of, uh, very wealthy businessmen screaming at each other in a room the other day. I was like, where's my popcorn? You know, so, so you just have to be careful. It is an open social platform. It's People kind of lose the veil of what they would have if they were out in public sometimes. But you get— what you do is come up with a really, you know, compelling pitch about who you are and what you do and makes you different, just like you would pitch anyone on your business in real life, just very quick. And then, um, go up and ask questions and engage with people. And then you'll, you know, find your group that you want to moderate rooms with, or just open your own rooms and meet people about whatever you're passionate about talking about. And you will find clients that way. People are looking for those services on there. So if you are in those industries, you know, and a referral is, is worth its weight in gold. I mean, as a wedding planner, you're on there, you're modding a room that's about business stuff. And you happen to say, oh, I'm, you know, Houston's best wedding planner. And then all of a sudden, you know, you know someone who needs to get married or a friend's daughter who's in Houston. You go, you know what? I met Houston's best wedding planner on Clubhouse. He had amazing things to say. I think he's incredible. You're hosting a wedding in Houston, here, here's his contact info. And I think there is a lot of that going on too. So you never know who's listening, you never know who they know. So it's pretty powerful.

So Sarah, you know, when you first join Clubhouse, you get to select your interest. What interest is your room under?

So my room is under business, I think startups and entrepreneurship, and maybe finance too. But I, so I come from a little bit of a technology background, having built software myself. So when I got on Clubhouse, I didn't follow any of the suggested people. And I didn't pick any interests because I wanted to see what the hallway would look like with no influence. So I actually started backwards, and then I started just following specific people that I heard in rooms. And really, and so I did it a little differently. If you want, you can, you know, there's 100 suggested people on there. I don't think they've even changed since I've been on the app. They're kind of the OG of Clubhouse, and they weren't all interesting to me. So I think I picked one or two and then just moved on from there. So you don't have to follow those people when you join. They suggest that you do, and some of them are cool, and if they fit your interests, you can do that. But I left my hallway wide open, and I've met some incredible people. I mean, I met people from all over the world. I was talking about email best practices with a gentleman from Dubai, and you know we talked about cybersecurity with a panel in Southeast Asia. We've had— we were working with a woman who's building franchises in Scotland. Like, it's just incredible, like, the, the amount of people that you can meet from all over the world and, and just the power of community is amazing.

Well, I know that when I first got on, first of all, I didn't know that you have to leave the room. This is embarrassing. And so fortunately I was on because I belong to a group called MG100. And you may not know Marshall Goldsmith. He is in the coaching space, and he is the guru in the coaching space. And so he selects specific people to be part of this special group. And so we all got on Clubhouse together, and we were testing it out, and I closed out and put my phone in my pocket. I got a call from a colleague of mine in Brazil saying, CB, just to let you know, I can hear the conversation with your husband. And so I'm like, oh my God, thank goodness we didn't say anything naughty.

Moderators can now mute you. So you're, you're good now. Now if they hear you, they can, they can mute you. They've made that change. Because it is still in beta, so there's some funky features.

The problem was I hadn't left the room, so I didn't know you were supposed to do that before you close the app. And I'm like, oh my God. My husband just looks at me like, okay, CB.

At least I hope the conversation was appropriate. It wasn't like screaming children in the background, which is what I have.

No, we don't have screaming children. We, we just got married in July.

Oh, congratulations.

Yeah, we met on eHarmony.

Oh, fun. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. I picked up— I sold my house in New Jersey, came to Colorado and decided I was going to find a husband and get married. And 5 days on eHarmony, he found me. And the rest is history. Oh, what a beautiful story.

You see, now with that, you should be hosting a room on how to find love online. That should be your topic. And Patty Sangler is on there, so you could get her to do it with you.

Oh my God. Okay, I'm gonna talk to you about that because that was really an interesting experience. I read a book— oh God, Steve Harvey's book Um, how to think like a man and act like a woman. That was a pivotal point for me.

Really?

Oh my God, I've been doing this all wrong. Well, when I read that he said it's up to the woman to decide who and when she's going to get married, I was like, my mother never told me that. And so when I came out here, our second date, I said to him, You have a year to propose to me. Now, my husband is Italian. He is stubborn as all get out.

So did he wait a year and a day?

He didn't. And 6 months later, I said, enough of this. So he had given me this gorgeous bracelet of Italian gold, and it broke because, you know, Italian gold is very soft. So we went to the jewelry store, and I said to the guy, Would you please size my ring finger? And he said, yes. And I turned to my husband and I said, darling, you need your finger sized also. And he said, okay. And I said, and over there, there are some lovely rings for men. And he said, okay. And as we're walking over, he said to me, well, darling, do you see anything you like? And I said, sweetheart, These are much too small for me. So let's, let's find something for you. And so we're looking at the rings and the salesman said, well, you know, Ms. Bowman, it's very in vogue for the woman to ask a man. And I said, really? And he said, yes. So I turned to my husband and I said, so will you marry me? And he said, sure.

I love it. That's amazing. How fun! That's such a great story.

And after we got married, I said, were you ever gonna propose to me? And he said, yes, on your birthday.

But oh well.

But that would have been 2 years, and I was not waiting 2 years.

Oh my goodness, what a fun story. See, you should, you should be— people are trying to find love on Clubhouse. There's a lot of, uh, What are they called? They're shoot your shot rooms where people go and try and, and try and do dating. It's pretty funny.

It is. I'm dying to tune in, but he might hear me.

You can be a coach on there. You can get on the mod squad and be a coach.

Oh, I so could. I so could, because it was a challenge. And I said to him, look, I'm marrying you. Because I love you, but more because you've— it was such hard work to get you to this place. I don't want another woman to benefit from my work.

Yeah, you, you don't want to be a fixer.

No, not at all. Done that, been there. So, okay, now, Sarah.

Yes.

Will you tell anybody that's on the line, we're almost at No, we have a little bit of time.

Yeah.

How can they become an influencer? Now, I know that you claim that you're not, but you truly are.

Thank you. I think it's just showing up and then volunteering a lot. There were people that I heard on the app that I, I listened to, and I kind of— and I suggest you do this. If there's someone that you like in one room, follow them around a little bit, you know, hit the follow button, follow them around, listen to them in a couple of different spaces. See how they moderate, see how they treat people. And if it's someone that you feel like you align with, send them a direct message and say, hey, I love talking to you. Can we either have an offline conversation or I'd love to moderate a room with you. And you kind of find what everyone terms your mod squad, which is your core group of people that you have the same values, you treat people the same way, and you moderate the same way in a room. And everybody has their different strengths and you do a lot of rooms together. So that's a great way to become, I guess, an influencer, is have your team of people. And then the more you do that, the more people listen and like you, the more people that will reach out and ask you to do the same with them. And that's kind of how you build your community on there. And, and be diverse. Like, if there's something that you're passionate about and it's not your space, just volunteer to help moderate a room, which is just bring people up and push people down. Um, I do that for a lot of friends, now friends on Clubhouse that I don't, I'm not an expert in the space, but I love the space and I love learning about new things. So I'm happy to go in there and just support them. So that's something you can do as well, you know, serve first and then you, you'll reap the rewards later. But yeah, it's a great community that way. And people are very inclusive. If you offer to help, people will let you, people will definitely join you and they'll come along and It can be a great way to get your feet wet and also build a name for yourself on there. And then opening your own rooms.

Now, you mentioned opening your own rooms. How do you figure out what to talk about?

What do you know about? I mean, talk about what you know about or talk about what you like to know about because you can get people in there who actually know about the subject and they'll be happy to come on stage and share. I, I mean, just as a funny thing, the other night someone was trying to decide if they wanted to buy a Pit Boss or a Traeger barbecue. So we opened a room and we're like, hey people, come in here if you have a Pit Boss or a Traeger and tell us what you like better and why. And literally there was a guy who came in the room who had gone as far as to bring his Pit Boss to his brother-in-law's house who had a Traeger and compare them side by side.

No way.

Yes. So he got on there and he was happy to share all of his data on why they, what they thought tasted better, what the cooking temperatures. I mean, just really, you can talk, you can find someone to talk to you about anything. So if it's a subject you wanna learn about, you can open a room. Hey, let's talk about this. And you don't have to be an expert. The experts will come in because they're passionate about that subject. So, I mean, There's all— there are so many ways to learn and take advantage of the learning. If there is something you want to learn, like, there, there are people, and you can get in a room and you can hear the people that are kind of fluffing it and making stuff up. And then there are just these incredible people that leave your mind completely blown of, um, on the level of detail and data and, you know, information that they're willing to share. There's a guy who even runs a group on how to buy Uh, luxury cars at a lower rate. I mean, the— and he's a car dealer, he's a luxury car broker, but he's sharing this information. There's a guy who's a yacht broker on there, and I love listening to him. I, I don't own a yacht, but he's just— the stories he has and, and the information that he shares about is, it's just fun. Like, there are rooms that I, you know, you're just in there to learn and listen and Kind of, it would be like, as you know, it's replaced television for sure. But you can learn a lot. And there's a lot of, there's actually a lot of venture capitalists on there. If you're in the startup space, you want to do a deal, you can get great advice. There's rooms where you can go in and just practice your pitch with people. And they will critique your pitch, tell you what to fix. They'll ask you questions that you would be asked by investors. There are a lot of investors who volunteer their time to help people figure this stuff out. And they say, hey, I love what you're doing. Or I have expertise in this space, direct message me. I'll set up some time to talk to you offline. Um, there, it's incredible.

Um, the hours a week are you spending on Clubhouse?

I don't know. I don't want to know. No, I limit, I mean, I limited, I'm, I'm pretty good about the times that I spend. And the other thing is, Like if I— some of these rooms I'm only jumping into for 15 or 20 minutes. I mean, if it's not a room I'm moderating. But when I, when I mod big rooms, when I open big rooms, there's 700 to 1,100 people sometimes and they go for 4 or 5 hours. So I have to block out that time. And that gets tough. I mean, I have kids and— but the nice thing is it's at home. Your kids are in the background. Everybody knows you're at home. Everybody else is at home. So it's okay. Like my child is You know, every— it's pandemic time, so I think it's become sort of the norm. And when my kids are in the background, I just say, oh, my child says hi and she's looking for some grapes. Can you help me find some in the fridge or something? I just make it fun. Um, so I make it work around kind of my everyday life anyway.

Yeah. Okay, now I need your advice. I joined Clubhouse and signed up for things the wrong way.

Okay.

To clean up my Clubhouse. So I have way too many people I'm following. There's not enough people following me, although it's not too bad for a newbie. Um, but I have too many invitations coming in, too many announcements of rooms I have no interest in.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what I would do is a lot of times you go in there and you're like, oh, you sound sweet. I'll follow you because you followed me. Well, that's great, and I totally agree with doing that in the beginning. But then if you're like seeing like there's, you know, rooms about something totally unrelated like toddlers, and you're like, oh, I met this woman in a room talking about, you know, single mom dating, but now she's talking about toddlers and I don't have a toddler, and every—

How do I find out where that's coming from and eliminate it?

Well, here's what I would say is that you might not know that, but you'll start to see the notifications. For the rooms they're in, or in your hallway, you'll see what rooms they're in. If they're rooms that aren't resonating with you anymore, you know, possibly go in and unfollow that person. Or if you just really like them, stay connected to them. But the one thing you can do is go through your follower list, and pretty quickly you're going to find the people that you really enjoy being in rooms with, you really enjoy hearing from, and you're just going to keep those people, and you're going to kind of unfollow some of the rest. And then you can refollow more. There's a limit on how many people you follow. So you, you know, you people are careful with that. So that is one thing.

Yeah, I reached the limit and then I had to—

Yeah, so you're gonna have to unfollow some people anyway. So just go in, keep the people that maybe follow you, keep the people that you want to stay close to, that you want to be notified when they're talking, and then start to unfollow. You can also, now that you've been in Clubhouse for a while, you can go into your preferences and you can, you can alter those to to reflect more of what you wanna hear about. 'Cause sometimes you go in and you're like, I like to cycle, I like to do these things, and you click all of those as subjects, but you don't really wanna be in a room with a bunch of cyclists talking about where they rode this weekend. So you can go in and unfollow those preferences as well. So that's an easy way to clean up your hallway.

Okay, so if I see, for example, somebody is in the room and a good one is about moms, Yeah. Through marriage, I'm a parent, but yeah, children are 38 years old. I don't really need to know about—

There's probably a parents of adult children or a stepparents of adult children room. I mean, if you can think it up, it's on Clubhouse. If not, you can just make it. You can own that space. That's the other tip. Own a space. If there's a space that you're passionate about, be that space. Open up those rooms regularly, put them on the calendar and do it every You know, and you have to be patient. There's a lot of people on the app, and, and when you're new, sometimes you— it takes a little bit to gain traction. So, you know, open up the same room. I opened up a room the first 3 times, I think there was 30 people in there maybe, which is a great amount of people. Like, if you were having a meeting and you invited 30 people, that would be a huge meeting. That's a huge amount of connections, and probably all— about all the people you could actually have an honest communication with. Without chaos. And I was like, oh, this is okay, this is okay. And now that room has about 250 people in it on a regular basis. So, and now it's a different— it's got a different feel to it. We had to change the format. It's not so much like everyone comes on stage and has an open communication. So we have to be a little more formal. When I mod my big rooms, I am really particular about the way I mod. I let people come up. I let like nine people on the stage come up and ask questions, and then we we I like to say tuck them back into the audience. So you know just to keep it clean and organized and flowing because that's the only way I feel like we can democratically get through a lot of people rather than popcorning and letting you know people it it there's a lot of different ways to mod and they work it just depends on your personality and some people probably don't care for the way I mod they rather just have their friends do all the talking or the same few people.

I love the way you mod. I was In a room this weekend that was popcorning in and out. It drove me up a tree.

Well, the other thing that's important to remember is there's a lot of people with impairments on the app who have, you know, speech impairments or hearing impairments. And so they're using a transcriber. And if people are just popping around, they can't figure out who's talking.

Yeah.

So it's tough for them.

And actually the room became chaotic. And, um, you know, a couple of guys— it was being run by a woman— and a couple of guys stepped in to pull her out of the, you know, craziness that was going on. Oh, chivalry, is that gone?

No, I mean, it is incredible. You meet all kinds of personalities on there. Um, one thing I love is there is a huge minority community on there. There's a lot of activism on there and advocacy. We did a fundraiser this morning. We raised— by the time I left the fundraiser to come talk to you, we had raised over $20,000 for inner-city kids in Oklahoma City to go to camp over the summer and just provide snacks in their schools. So, I mean, like, it's incredible. It's incredible.

Um, donate to that, Sarah.

Oh, I will pop the link in. Um, I'm gonna text the link to you right now if you want to pop it in the chat.

Um, you can put it in this chat right here and people will see it.

But, um, let me see if I remember.

Yeah, I'd like to donate to that. I missed that. I'm missing some of the great rooms. I wish—

Yeah, well, that's what I'm hoping that Follow the Mod site will solve, that you'll be able to see these events are up. Um, here we go. Let me share this with you. But he's, he's a huge player. You know who Marcus Black is? Have you heard him on Clubhouse?

I've heard him.

Um, so anyway, it's his organization. I just popped it in the chat. So go donate, send some kids to summer camp and, and, and help underserved kids in the community and the schools there. I mean, he has some incredible stories. You can follow him on Instagram too and hear all about it. He's on Clubhouse. He speaks every day. He is a passionate speaker. He's just incredible to listen to. So I encourage everyone to go follow him. I think his name is Marcus Black.

I'm gonna check now. Marcus.

Marcus Black. And let me see if I can find his. But he's incredible. There's so many. And this is the thing, like, you can participate in any, at any level you want. You can go into a room that's doing a fundraiser like this and donate $5 and share it. It doesn't cost you anything but your social currency. You know, it's a cup of coffee. Or you can go in and there was a woman in there this morning Um, she said if you guys—

2 Marcus Blacks. There's a Black Marcus and a Marcus Black.

A Black— uh, hold on, in Clubhouse, let me see.

I think it's Black Marcus that you're talking about.

Um, it's Marcus Black. He has a sweatshirt on, um, and a black hat. He has a gray sweatshirt and a black hat.

Nope, that's not the one. Maybe I'm spelling Marcus wrong.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I oh it's C U S.

That's why I put it. I dropped it in the chat.

Okay.

C U S. But he's an incredible, incredible speaker and motivator on there. It's yeah. He he would be one of my recommendations to follow if you're gonna follow someone follow. Follow Marcus. Doing it.

I got him. And whoa. All right. I am following him. I'm going to follow him on Instagram.

Yep. And this is the power of connecting people and connecting people to causes that you support and rooms and people that you love. It's an incredible Sorry, I'm saying um 20 times. I'm trying to think of a better way to say it. It's just an incredible platform for engaging and connecting with people that are outside of your, your, uh, 6 degrees of separation.

I'm gonna talk— I'm gonna send him a note about my, uh, WE conference, Workplace Equity and Equality.

He's phenomenal. I love him. He's an incredible human. Um, so that, that's like what I did this morning, you know. It's great. You can go in, you can hear just about anything or anyone you want. And I think though, it's going to be moving towards regular shows like you do this live, um, and it'll be similar to that. I think it'll start being a regular thing where it's just, um, people host things weekly and they're just regular events.

Yeah, that's the reason why I do my 2 Clubhouses At the same day, specific time each week so that people know what to expect. But, but I love your idea of just sort of an open office kind of scenario. Hey, we have a few minutes left. Can you tell everybody what do you do for a living?

So I do consulting. So I do consulting for startups and mid-sized companies that are scaling, mostly around restructuring and just Growth periods where they need to pivot and, um, and think about their businesses differently, especially in like rebranding or just, just finding new revenue streams in that area, mostly around technology.

I love it. So do you know Alyssa, Alyssa Cohn?

I don't. Is she on Clubhouse?

She's on Clubhouse. And she is very involved. She coaches in the startup space in Silicon Valley. And she's going to be— you just put— yeah, she's going to be a speaker at my conference.

Oh, exciting. I'll have to follow her and go say hello in one of her rooms or send her to my room and we can have a conversation.

I will hook you up by other means that are more direct. Yeah. She's in the middle of writing a book. She's a great person. She's part of MG100.

Awesome.

Yeah.

But this is how— this is the power of Clubhouse. We meet people and we introduce them to everyone else. And I think, I mean, when you talk about having a reputation or being an influencer, I think this is what I love about it. I can use my influences to connect people who are— who are in different spaces and just make great partnerships for people. It's definitely an amazing way to build community, especially for women. I feel like it opens the doors for women to access so many resources in business that they don't have access to right now.

So give us a picture of— and I want to be mindful of the time.

Okay.

Give us a picture of your ideal client.

My ideal client? It depends. It's either, it's someone in the, you know, who's usually reached that million-dollar mark at least, or is in the $10 million range that's restructuring or rebranding or just needs to, is growing rapidly and needs to make sure their organization is on track to meet KPIs and just really reassess where they're leadership channels are, where their, their different verticals are, and just reevaluate their business and rebrand and grow. But just restructuring. Well, I started and scaled both in publishing and then in the startup space, in the SaaS startup space. So I have a lot of background in starting and scaling fast-growing companies. So that's my background. And that's why I really am passionate about the startup space. I think being a female founder, when I was a female founder, was really hard because there wasn't a lot of other women in the space to work with. And now there are so many more. So I really enjoy building community around that and especially supporting female founders.

And do you do any writing?

I used to write a lot being in publishing. I haven't been writing so much lately, but I actually started working on a book over, over the pandemic. I started finally writing again, so it'll probably be about another year before I publish.

So, and what's the book about?

Hold on one second, my kids just walked in the door. Sorry, kids, enjoy being home. So it's gonna be about leadership and scaling leadership in organizations, basically how to move efficiently and effectively Okay, all right, um, so are you interested in writing right now for publications? Sure, sign me up. You tell me what you need, you got it. For you, I'll do it.

Not for me, but I can do an introduction, so we'll talk.

And then of course I love our old space. I mean, I love being in the home and shelter space, so I'm always happy to lend in there. I used to be at High Point Market every season. I used to do a ton of writing in that space and I'm still passionate about it. I love seeing that industry change. I think there's a lot of moving and shaking going on there and restructuring. So it's always something that I'm watching as well.

Okay. All right. Well, we are, we have only about 6 minutes left and what I'm going to say to you, let's set up a meeting on Zoom. And I want to talk to you about some ideas that I had in terms of who to introduce you to, because I love the fact that you spend the time to introduce other people to people that can help. So it's time for you to have somebody introduce you too.

So I love that. Thank you so much. That's great. So I love having these conversations.

Yeah, I love this. I'm going to send you my online calendar and Instagram. Okay, some time that's convenient for you. I love it. Tell us about your children. How old are they?

They are 10 and 12, so I have a 4th and a 6th grader. They're crazy. They do soccer and cheer and keep me on my toes for sure.

Oh my God, I don't know how you do it all, but you know, not—

you know, they're— Randy Zuckerberg wrote the book about you can only do a few things well at one time, so you have to pick those. So I definitely picked those and let the other stuff go.

I love it. Hey, Sarah, I am so glad I chased you down for this. It's been so much fun. And you should know that this— while we're doing this, it went out on LinkedIn Live, Facebook, and YouTube at the same time.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and by the end of the week it will be on, um, Twitter, and in the coming weeks it'll be on iHeartRadio and, uh, Apple Podcasts.

You are a powerhouse, man. You're everywhere. That is incredible. Well, I, I feel so grateful and blessed for you to reach out to me, and I, I'm so glad I could participate. I hope I added some value. To someone.

Oh, you did, even to me. My God, I took notes. So I'm gonna reach out on Instagram. Watch for my message. And thank you so much for doing this and for being a guest. And everybody follow Sarah on Clubhouse. Thank you.

It was so— this was so nice. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Sarah. Hey everybody, don't forget next week I'm on Tuesday and we talk about challenges of the C-suite. And you know, I always have incredible guests.

I'll be there to listen to that one.

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, we have a powerhouse community, uh, that follows CB Bowman Live. So, um, we're a LinkedIn group. And it goes out to all the social media. We're looking forward to, uh, having you in the audience, and we'd love for you to even come back again.

I'd love it. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. So stay on, Sarah.