Evan Carmichael Radio Show - Episode #37

Hello, Believe Nation! Welcome to another edition of the Evan Carmichael Show. I am your host, Evan Carmichael. I'm super excited to be here with you. I have a little bit of allergies today, so pardon the occasional sniffle that comes in. Working on that. The trees and the grass are getting to me today. But I'm super excited for today's show. Today, I mean, it's all about helping you grow your business, helping you turn that idea that you have into something meaningful, something impactful, something you can make a lot of money with too. Today I'm going to be going to be talking about how to get started as a public speaker, what holds a lot of entrepreneurs back. I have a special guest, John Oda, who's a business growth expert who's going to come on and share his wisdom. And also talking about perfectionism— does it hold you back from being the entrepreneur that you could be? So let's get into it. So I got a question from Robert DiMano, who's one of my viewers, and he said, can you provide me with some tips and resources that helped you get started when becoming a public or motivational speaker? Super important topic, and for me It was never my plan to be a public speaker. I was an entrepreneur, I had some success, I sold my first business when I was 22, and as a result, I got asked to do a lot of speaking. That kind of came naturally, I kind of just fell into it. But if that was my goal, if I wanted to be a public speaker and I'm starting from scratch, then I'm going to give you 3 tips that I think will help you. The first is you've got to practice. You've got to practice, practice, practice. You've got to do as many speaking engagements as you can because there's so much competition. There's so many people who want to be public speakers right now that it's getting harder and harder and harder to stand out. And the people who are the best, who have the best message, who deliver it in a fantastic way, those are the people who stand out and get the better gigs. And so you have to get better. You got to practice, right? It's not enough just doing a few speeches every now and then. You got to be dedicated to this craft. And so I would practice on my own. I would practice in front of the mirror. I would practice in front of my friends if possible. I would practice at any possible speaking engagement. Do it for free. Volunteer. Do it for nonprofits. Do it for school groups. Whatever it is, just to get better. You have to get better, and that's not going to come if you're only speaking once a month. You got to practice, practice, practice. Second thing, guys, I'd get onto YouTube. For anybody, for any entrepreneur who has a visual product or service, something that I can see, something that when you demonstrate it live, it makes me want to take action, then you got to be on YouTube. And I think a fantastic way to do that is to show you the— you know, show your audience how you present, how you speak. Put that in there and do it frequently. Again, you have to practice. So, you know, I'm at an agency as an example, and the agency that I'm with, they train people to be better thought leaders. They put people onto radio shows and get them speaking gigs. And when I first started, he said I was the worst, right? I was the worst at delivery, I was the worst at my presentations, and I almost didn't get into the agency. And then 3 months later, I became the best practice on YouTube. I became one of the best at the agency. And it wasn't because I was great. It wasn't because I had any fantastic natural skill. It was because I worked really hard at it. Most of the people at the agency struggle to get one video up per week. If you're really dedicated to this, if you want to get better at this, you want to be a better speaker, you have to be able to do more than one video per week. How I got really good was I did two videos per day. Every single day on my YouTube channel, there are two new videos coming out, and that's how I got better. I practiced, I practiced, I practiced, and when people couldn't find time for one video a week, I was doing two videos a day. This is important, right? If this is an important goal of yours, if you want to get to that next step, then you've got to practice and put in the time. The other thing that I found is a lot of my new speaking gigs come from my YouTube channel. People who are searching for entrepreneurship, people who are searching in your case for motivation, then they would be searching on YouTube and they could come across your channel and there's a high likelihood that they're going to want to connect with you, potentially hire you, and move forward. So I'd practice, get on YouTube, and then model success. Study great speakers, people like Les Brown, Tony Robbins, whoever it is that you look up to, study them. Look at them. Break down their speeches and how they tell stories and surround yourself with them so that you can apply those lessons to your speaking career. All right? Good luck, Robert. I want to get to the calls. I have Carol on the line. Carol, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. How are you?

I'm great. How are you?

Wonderful. Great advice so far. I guess my question is this. What do you also think about live streaming? Because sometimes I do YouTube videos, I get it, but sometimes I don't always have the time and I'd rather just do it live and take as much Q&A as I can. What would you think about that?

What are you selling?

I am a business consultant and I work with a lot of high-growth, high-level entrepreneurs, high-level CEOs who are looking to kind of expand and get past the plateau in their revenue. And so I'm always looking for different ways of prospecting, but YouTube is wonderful and I do a lot of it. I do have so far about maybe 137 videos, and that's a little bit for someone who's only done it for a year. But I prefer— that's just my personal preference— to do live streaming. But I will admit it is its own headache to get people to get on at the time that you're available.

Yeah, so a couple thoughts for you. One, I love live streaming. I do it once a week on my channel. I have a live stream coming up later this afternoon on my channel. I think it's a fantastic way to engage with users. Who are live and say, "Oh, I get a chance to talk to Carol and ask my questions!" You know, it's really great engagement and they feel really connected to you. I would suggest doing it on a schedule so that they know if, like, the first Thursday of every month or every Thursday at 3 o'clock you can talk to Carol on her livestream, then you'll start building up a following and an audience and it's easier for people to start to remember. The downside about livestreaming is that Yes, the video is still available later on on YouTube for people to consume. The numbers aren't as great as if you have a polished edited video, because there's a lot of, you know, in a half an hour livestream, there's not all fantastic content. And there's, you know, maybe technical issues and you scrolling through comments, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things in a livestream that don't lend itself well to consumption after the livestream, even though it will get some viewers. But if you're feeling like it's more natural for you, then the best thing is to do you, right? Like, you'll have the most success doing what you love and where you feel most at home. And so if that's live streaming, then, then I'd go all in on it, right? And have the Thursday afternoon live stream chat with Carol.

Okay.

Are you using Google Hangouts to do it?

No, I've also done screencasts. I've done a lot of screencasts. I do Google Hangouts, but I sometimes don't like the actual platform where people can kind of keep coming in and out. So I've been doing Spreecast, and at least the stream is available afterwards so they can watch it right after I'm done, as well as it also goes now to YouTube. So some of my Spreecasts are now available on YouTube. So that's one of the reasons I kind of like it.

Got it. And can people ask you questions?

Yeah, people can ask questions. They can actually post it on the side so I can answer their questions as they're typing them in. And I also give people the opportunity to kind of come on screen with me so that we can share a screen. I can just do live coaching right then and there. So I can just do it like 5-minute laser session so they can really get the value. Instead of typing in a question, I invite them to click on sharing a screen and that helps. But again, I wouldn't say the conversion rate is so low, but I'd say that it's hard to get people to commit because I'm really only available at a certain time to do something live. And a lot of people would say that I'm not available at 10 o'clock, I'm not available then, and that's always its own issue where people want to still ask questions, but it's after that time. And so they wanted to ask it live on the show, but they can't.

So, you know, a couple options. One is figuring out, do you care, right? Like, there's a— there is a nice cachet in the exclusivity of it only on this time, and it forces people to pay more attention, and there's the exclusive element of it. Your other option is to take a question or two that's from somebody where you answer it on the show, right? Like, just leading off this show, I answered a question from Robert. Who was one of my YouTube subscribers who asked me a question. I answered it on a radio show. Now we're going to you who's live, right? So you can mix it up if that's a format that works well with your style. I would look at doing Hangouts more because it helps really build your YouTube community, and YouTube's the game, right? You want people subscribing to your YouTube channel and tuning in every week at a certain time. The technology can be a little clunky. There are ways around it, but I think, I think YouTube is probably better choice to live stream to the Google Hangout platform, because it's then your YouTube subscribers asking you the questions and you're building your audience.

Okay, definitely. Well, thank you.

Cool.

Well, thank you for calling in. Good luck with the, the casting. So for everybody listening, if you're looking at getting started, you try to do a screencast— I was talking about being a public speaker— having a live session on YouTube is a fantastic way to go. You have an audience, you have people asking you questions, you are able to engage with them. Doing it live is a great way to do it. I still have a mix. I find I get more long-term success from having edited polished videos, and then I mix in the live stuff. But again, do you do the thing that makes you excited, makes you come alive, that fits naturally with your talents and skills, and you'll see that you start to rise up and leverage it and start to get some traction to help you grow your business. Today we're talking about strategies and ideas to grow your business. I recently got asked a question from one of my viewers. Phoenix wrote in to say, you know what holds me back? My friends, they have talent in areas that I lack talent in, and I can't create things at the rate that they do and I want to move forward at. This is a super important topic, okay? First of all, I think you should be grateful, okay? Just like, let's step outside of your world for a moment. Be grateful because you're a product of your environment. Most people don't have people to push them. A lot of the entrepreneurs I know don't have people in their network who are doing things that are better than them and they're pushing them to be better, right? There's the expression that you are the result of the 5 people in your life, right? The closest 5 friends that you have. And that's true, right? You are a product of your environment. And if you have friends who are doing things that are better than you, that you aspire to be, that's good because they're going to pull you along that journey. Where if your friends are all doing simple, boring, mediocre things and hate their lives, that's bad because you're going to get sucked down into that negative vibe and energy. I would just take as a first step, take a step back and realize that you are really fortunate. You should be grateful for having people who push you to be better. The second thing is don't try to be them. If you're comparing yourself to other people, that could be a great goal, like I want to be able to compete at this level, I want to be able to produce this kind of quality. I don't know what kind of product or service you're making, but at the end of the day, for you to have true success is going to be from you being you. And stop trying to be them. You can't compete at being them. You can't beat them at being them. Instead, you want to be the best version of yourself. And that may mean taking a few steps back to really explore yourself and figure out what you could be the best in the world at, to then move forward and explode and really leverage. So that would be my advice. It's great to have these friends who are pushing you to be better, but don't try to be like them. Don't just compare on what they're better at because that's not you. Focus on what you're really good at, focus on your strengths, and create something amazing. I have Jason on the line. Jason, where are you from and how can I help?

Hey, we're down here in Spring Hill, Florida.

All right, how can I help, Jason?

Say, uh, we, um, we've been down here for a few months, uh, got a house with a pool, just got married. She's significantly younger than I am, you know, she has opinions, I have life experiences. That's our first problem.

Okay.

Yeah, now we have, uh, now we're starting a business together and I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be great. You know, she'll do the things that she's good at. I'll do the things I'm good at. Oh, and boy, uh, it's just not working out that way. I mean, uh, she still is not picking up that it's about money. It's about getting fired up. It's about getting excited. And, and I'm trying, I can't motivate her. I mean, we can be broke, but that's still not motivating her. I don't get it.

You know, it's hard being in partnerships in general, let alone partnerships with your life partner. And you have to decide, you know, how obviously important that relationship is to you, and the relationship should come before the business. And it honestly may mean one of you exiting the company and just supporting the other person and not working together, because that could be detrimental to your marriage.

Well, I'm certainly reconsidering. Hopefully, you know, right now Luckily, we're still early in the game here where I could just say, hey, you just do this thing over here, way, way, way over here, and I'll do all this over here. No hard feelings. Spit on our hand, give each other a handshake and a hug, and kind of be on our way. That's where I'm at.

Yeah, and you know, you can't change people, right? You could try to change people, but you can't change people. Like, if she's not motivated by you being broke and really needing money, and you are, and that's causing conflict in the business, you're not going to change her, right? You're not going to suddenly make her now motivated by money. It's not going to work. So if you guys have a happy marriage and happy life outside of the company, then that's probably the best way to handle it is to split the business. Like you're off doing a business if that's your passion, she's off doing something that she's super excited about because it's not worth the headache and the nightmares and just the stress if you're not getting along inside the company.

Well, yeah, that's a whole nother Dr. Phil episode right there.

I'm not Dr. Phil.

She's not gonna get up and get fired up and she's still waking up at noon every day. I mean, what is it gonna take to light a fire under her butt?

She's gotta do something she's excited by. Maybe it's not the business.

Well, I'm just thinking it's just her and her, she's in her early mid-20s, I'm in my late 30s. So it's a generational thing perhaps, so the entitlement again. And that's a whole nother issue, whole nother topic to talk about.

There has been times, I guarantee, where she's been excited, where she's been motivated, where she's, you know, woken up early and been excited to go do something. It's just not this business. And she's got to find— and it may be part of her self-discovery and journey, but she's got to find something that she gets excited by, that makes her come alive and makes her want to explore and put effort into something. And for you, that could be your business and other things that you're working on. For her, it's something different, and maybe she hasn't figured it out yet. It's not worth the stress and headache to try to force her into the business if you're not, if you guys aren't getting along in it. And I would have a conversation with her to say that you really value her, you value your relationship, you want, you know, you guys as a couple to work out, and you don't see a way to do that and be in business together at the same time. Instead of saying, okay, you know, you go on your way, I'll do this, I'll do my thing, you do your thing, show some compassion, right? Like, be honest in that you care about your relationship, you want both of you to be happy, and it's probably best to move on.

Well, I'm not gonna give up yet. I mean, she and I will have a few more talks before we officially go live with the website and all the fancy jazz. Right now we've just been developing prototypes and getting a few things taken care of, you know, preliminary things. Haven't officially launched anything until, you know, late next week or so. So, you know, I'm gonna give myself a week deadline or so, you know, maybe she'll see the big picture. I don't know.

Good luck. You know, again, it's hard to change people, but, you know, remember that she's your wife first and business partner second.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I keep on thinking.

All right, good luck, Jason.

All right, hey, thank you.

No problem. And for everybody listening who has business partners, man, I mean, I've been down that road. It's hard having business partners. You spend more time with your business partner than you do with your husband or wife. I mean, it's intense, and you have to make sure you guys get along. And you're not going to agree on everything, but you have to have the same values, you have to want the same thing, you have to have the same kind of drive and ambition and motivation. If you don't, then it's probably not going to work out. And if you are in a relationship with your significant other, it's a whole new ballgame, adds tons of complexity, and you have to make sure that you understand that you guys are husband and wife first, or boyfriend and girlfriend first, and you value that relationship more than the business. And put each other first and have that as a priority. So I feel you guys, everybody who's going through those problems. Today we're talking about How to grow your business, and I'm really excited to have a special guest on with me, Dr. John Oda, who is a business growth and coach expert. Welcome to the program!

Thank you so much, Evan. Long time, man. How's things going for you, man?

Things are amazing, and it's great to have you on the show. I think this is the first time you've been on a radio show.

Yes, it is. Definitely.

Alright. Well, let's get into it. You know, you're the growth expert, so when someone is trying to grow a company, what do you think is the first thing that they need to work on?

Well, you know, Evan, the very first thing that people should work on is their mindset. And the reason why they work on the mindset is because we're going to have problems and challenges and everything that's going to take place, right? If you don't have the proper mindset, the business is not going to grow. So I'll give you a great example. I was working with a couple of businesses and The owner had a negative mindset. So everything would go wrong, he'd get mad, and then he would get in this tyrant state, right? Once I told him, you need to change your emotions, change your mindset, get positive, and then when that takes place, all of his, every last one, of his employees will follow him also. And the biggest thing, and about this, mindset dictates everything. That is your whole success, is your mindset.

I love that. How do you go about changing your mindset if you have a negative one?

Well, there's a couple things. The very first thing that you can do, you can read this great book that I tell everybody is to read, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, right?

Great book, great book.

The book is phenomenal. It's a great— I was reading back in the '40s and maybe in the '30s, phenomenal book, right? And that is the first thing. The second thing about it is you have to change your environment, meaning that you have to hang out with people who are like-minded, positive, upbeat, exciting. That's another way of how to change your mindset. But then again though, the third way is you have to ask yourself, listen to me, if I have this mindset, who's going to follow me? And then again though, being a business owner, you have to be like the Pied Piper. You have to have your employees follow you, lead you, and then plus once that takes place, your whole business will actually succeed.

I love it. And I'm feeling the energy and the excitement in your voice too, man. I love it. Now, you'd like to talk about educational marketing as well. Can you talk about what that is and why it's so important?

Exactly. So for all their lives, right, we've been learning, learning, learning, learning, learning from kindergarten to, you know, preschool to first grade all the way up through, right? And what I found out, a lot of businesses, right, they don't even educate people. What they do is they try to sell people, right? My concept in business is you want to become the expert. Now think about this. You can go to a Tony Robbins, you can go to a Chet Holmes, or excuse me, the late Chet Holmes, right? And what— and then like, for number one, what they did was they educated you. They became the expert. And think about this, people, businesses, they pay for the expert. The expert can charge $15,000, $20,000, and they're like, "Well, you will pay for it." I give you a great example. I used to live in the state of Oregon years ago, and I used to have a house with these crazy skylights. And I called up 3 people. I called up 2 people from the state of Oregon, Portland, and 1 person from Seattle. So the two people from Portland came in there, they gave me the price tag. The third person came like maybe like maybe two days later. He came in there and he says, you know, how much is the house? And I told him, he said, how much do you think the roof is? I said, I don't know, maybe a couple hundred thousand. He said, you know what though, if you don't clean these skylights out the right way, it can rot in your roof, rot in your whole house. And then, you know, your house won't be worth that much money. Evan, he scared the crap out of me. Man, maybe, maybe this guy is right. Now think about it, this guy charged at 40% more. So what I did was I said, you know, wifey, I said, you know, what should we do? And of course my wife said it, go with the cheap one. And I said, but how about if they don't know how to clean the skylights the right way? And of course what I did was I chose the one who educated me. People pay for the expert. And that's why all of your marketing from your website to your post, it should be educational because the biggest goal is You want someone to freaking say, this is the expert, I want to use them, and nobody want to be sold. So I give you another example. I went to a car dealership to get a car, and I was looking at this car, and beautiful car, and I was gonna walk out because, you know, this guy told me, oh man, this is a great car, all the girls will like you. And I'm like, man, I'm married, doesn't make a difference if the girls like me or not, right? And I was getting ready to leave, right? And then the Older guy came up to me, said, excuse me, why are you leaving? I said, ah, it's not for me. He said, so what do you think the safest car is? And I said, Volvo. He said, oh no, no, no, Mercedes is the safest car. And he showed me these brochures and showing me about all these airbags and all the airbags that they had and how everything else was. I walked outside with Mercedes, right, because the guy educated me. And that's why I say education is the key. You must, and you must educate your audience.

I love it, and I love how you use an example from a service provider and then also somebody selling a product, right? He's selling cars. A lot of people think the expert just says, oh, I'm a consultant, you know, I'm a speaker. But here, like, hey, he's selling cars. That's a real tangible product, and you can still sell by being the expert.

Exactly. I mean, and then, you know, though, What people got to understand now, just think about this, all through high school, all through college, all through grade school, we learn and learn and learn. Now you need to think about your ideal client, and most of the time the ideal client is you're going to go get a Mercedes, you're going to be educated, you're going to be this or that, right? But think about it, you will at least have a high school education, and people always want to learn. I mean, we have the internet right now, and the internet have— I mean, I can like Google anything in there. It can tell me everything. Why don't we market the exact same way? Now, here it goes. Once you people market that way, they become the expert. People go, yeah, you know, let me go to John because he, you know, like John would teach me something. He, John won't sell me, but he would teach me something. And that's the key.

What do you think? So for somebody who is maybe doing the total opposite of that, they haven't done any educational marketing and they're just the hard-selling entrepreneur, what's an easy way to start? What's an easy way to test this? Like, what's my first step to dive into educational marketing?

The first way, what I would do is, so for example, go for a stat in your industry. Go for more of like educational marketing. When I teach it to my clients, we go for more of pain points. Maybe the 3 devastating mistakes, you know, of people make when doing X, Y, and Z. Because think about it, people are going to get off the dime for pain, right? So if it's painful, if they're gonna lose anything, they'll go for it. If you say, you know, you need this service because it's gonna make you feel great and you'll be doing great, you're like, yeah, yeah, I need it, maybe one day, right? Doing it this way, it's gonna be— this is going to be urgency. You're gonna want it right now. Gonna go, man, God, is this me? Is that not me? I can lose this, I can lose that. So what I would first end up that I would do is do a stat. I'll give another example. I had a doctor in Australia that I was working with, and he was a chiropractor. And he said it in his first statement, in 1900, people lived to be 50. I said, okay. And then he said, in 2001, people lived to be 81. And I said, dang, wow, I didn't know that. And he caught me. I'm like, wow, that's a good one, right? Because he educated me first, right? And then of course, then, and of course, then he went inside his whole concept of educating a person. And the great thing about educational marketing, he did not talk about his service or else his product. He educated you, right? And then, and then plus, once he educated you on the pain points, what's going to take place, of course he said, listen to me, No one has told me this except for you, so you must be the expert.

I love it. Dr. John Oda, everybody. Where can we learn more about you for people who are curious, want to improve their mindset and learn about educational marketing and grow their business?

They can reach me on my website, which is www.drjohnoda.com. So it's www.drjohnoda.com.

I love it, man. Thanks for joining in. And for everybody who's listening, Educational marketing is something I'm a strong believer in, and Dr. John Oda wrote a great article on my site that was the 8 Devastating Business Growth Mistakes All Businesses Make. Got a lot of traction, got a lot of advice, got a lot of people commenting on it, and it led to a lot of people learning about my website, about him as well. And so try to be the expert. Whether you're selling a product, whether you're selling a service, show that you are knowledgeable. And I really believe in that statement. Instead of just trying to hard sell somebody, Instead of just trying to, you know, put their pain points in there, also try to show that you know what you're talking about and that you care about their best interests. I got a question about perfectionism from Noob4Life91 saying, Evan, I was wondering if you can share your opinions with us on perfectionism. So there's good and bad sides to this, and I used to be a lot more of a perfectionist than I am now. The good side is it means you care, right? Being a perfectionist means you care, means you don't release garbage products, means you're creating things that people will use and are meaningful to their lives. The bad side is that it's never done. You're striving for something that is unattainable. It can never be perfect. There's always something to add. There's always, always, always something to add, and it's never finished. Whether you're writing a book, whether you're creating a song, whether you're making shoes, whether you're writing code for software, it's never done. There's always something you can tweak, and what that does is holds products back. It means you never release it. You got to make sure you don't go that far with it. It also means that often you're creating in a vacuum. You're creating things without getting feedback from your customers. And you need that feedback to improve it. You can't just create the best product ever for your customers sitting in your apartment. You gotta be able to get their feedback, put it into the product development, make it something that's even better for them. And so the acid test that I would use if you are a perfectionist is don't make it perfect. Don't hold on to the release until it's perfect because it's never going to get there. Instead, Use the acid test of, are you proud of it? Are you proud of what you create? It's not perfect yet, but are you proud of it? If you are, then release it. Because if you're a perfectionist, you have such high standards that if you're proud of it, chances are most people are going to love it. It's beyond the expectations of most of the people who you're going to be selling to. Then release it, improve it, release version 2, version 3, version 4, keep making it better and better and better, and release when you're proud. All right, I have time for one last caller. I have Summer on the line. Summer, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana, and I was wanting to know some good branding techniques I could use for my business, some really good marketing and branding to get my business name out there.

I love it. What do you do?

I own my own clothing store.

Okay, and what's different about your clothing?

Well, it's trendy plus-size women's clothes, and it's stuff that you can wear, you know, to the club or from work, or I mean, I just have everything in my store. A woman can walk in and walk out with everything she will need for the weekend. Are you plus-size yourself? Yes, I am.

I love it. I think you need to tell the story of why you started this store and who it's for. And that, you know, if it's making plus-size women feel comfortable, feel acceptable, feeling confident, if that's why you started the store— I mean, I'm putting words in your mouth, but that's something that can get people excited. Right now, you're not just a clothing store. Your clothing store stands for something. Your clothing store has meaning behind it. And you didn't just start the store because you said, oh hey, maybe I'll start a business, right? I'm sure you had an intention, a purpose behind starting this, and that's what needs to get out so people can tell your story.

Okay, okay, that makes sense.

So why did you start your store?

What do you—

what is your— what does Summer stand for as a human being, and how are you putting that into your business?

Well, I started my store because no one in our area was selling trendy plus-size, and I really don't like to use the word plus, I'm gonna say curvy fashions. And everything either looks something that your grandmother would wear, but it was really nothing to appeal to us younger curvy girls. So that's what made me start the store. And I wanted to give women confidence. So my clothing is much different. It's not as expensive as most decent plus-size clothing are. I mean, what I sell is something when women walk in, they do have confidence. They look really good when they leave. They take pictures in my store, post to Facebook. So I just want more people. I just want to reach more people in the Indiana or Indianapolis area. To be able to draw them into my store.

I love it. Yeah. And if you don't like the word plus size, don't use it. Right? Like, come up— if it's curvy women, then it's curvy, right? That's part of the atmosphere is buying from your company, right? So, you know, you're giving curvy women confidence. That's the image that you want to project, right? And now that's something that is way more meaningful than Oh, okay, I'm gonna go look, you know, for a clothing store, and you're one of 30 that I'm gonna go check out, right? I'm gonna go online and look at some clothes on Amazon or wherever, right? Now, now you— what I— it comes from everything about your store. Like, you have an advantage, and that's a retail location, you know. Do I walk in feeling confident, right? Like, do I see other curvy women pictures on the wall with quotes that make me feel like I should feel confident in being a curvy woman, just walking into your store. Where most of my life, if I'm walking around and I'm a curvy woman, I might feel a lack of confidence. I might feel people are judging me, people are looking at me, people are making fun of me. That might be my daily experience in, you know, my life with friends and going to work. And that all kind of disappears when I go to your store because I feel confident and happy and accepted by walking, just walking into your store, dealing with you, or if you have staff looking at the clothes, like, that's the atmosphere that you want. And if you get that happening, then people will, will share it, right? And they'll come back way more often, and they'll tell their friends, and they'll bring their friends along with them.

Okay, right, you're giving me some ideas.

Okay, so if you look at the experience from, from the outside of the store to the inside of the store, you know, companies do a great job of this are companies like Disney, right? When you walk into Disney you feel like you're, you're transported to a different world, right? It's a magical new world that celebrates happiness and dreams coming true and kids and fun. And so that should be the same thing when I walk into your store, but instead giving me, as a curvy woman, confidence and, and acceptance and ability to express myself and happiness. And I don't get that anywhere else, you know, in Indiana. This is the place to go in Indiana.

Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Cool, I love it. Good luck. If I'm driving by Indiana, I'm gonna pop in.

Okay, awesome, please do.

All right, thanks Summer, thanks for calling in. And for everybody listening, you have tons of competition, right? There's no way you're the only one selling what you have. And the people you're going up against, you have to make it clear how you're different. You have to make it clear what you stand for, what makes you unique, and that's what makes you a brand. That's what makes people want to talk about you. That's what people will pay more for because they want that experience beyond just buying the clothing. That wraps up another show. Thank you guys so much for all of the questions and the comments and the attention. I love it. I feed off of it. I want to thank my producers again, Brandon and Josh. You guys rock. I'll be on again next month. Until then, continue to believe, continue to invest in your business, continue to work on your your mindset and educational marketing and the brand and all the stuff that we talked about. Thank you guys so much. I'll see you soon.