Why ADHD entrepreneurs need to make REAL human connections (and not ChatGPT ones)

Hey, new listener. Thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you, Squirrel. In this episode, you'll learn what my high school janitor can teach you about attracting your ideal clients. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. I have the most traumatizing recurring nightmare. In this nightmare, I get a phone call from my old guidance counselor from my high school, Mr. Bennett. And Mr. Bennett says, hey, Catherine, so great to talk to you. I'm sorry, but I have some bad news. And I'm like, what, Mr. Bennett? Like, what happened? I'm thinking like, someone died or the school burned down, whatever. And he says, you know, we've actually been auditing our past records, and it looks like the courses you did in your senior year of high school actually weren't enough for you to graduate. And unfortunately, we have to take your high school diploma back. And if you'd like to keep it, you'll just have to redo your senior year of high school, and you'll have to come back and enroll. And in my dream, I'm very aware that I'm in my 30s. There are a few ways this dream goes from there. Sometimes I go back to school. Sometimes I say, fuck it, I'm just not going to have a diploma. There's a lot of different ways that dream Katie handles this nightmare. And the only reason I bring this up is because I'm talking about this incredible thing that happened at my high school graduation that helps me prove a point about what you should be using to create content that will attract your ideal clients. Before we get to that, I want to share. At my high school, the senior class would always vote on who their main speaker would be at graduation. This was usually a local politician, a celebrated business owner, maybe one of the favorite teachers, maybe an administrator who, you know, had been influential in some big project during their time at school. My class, however, chose our school janitor. I believe his name was Dave. And I'm so embarrassed. I'm really bad with names from that far back. The reason my class chose the school janitor to speak at our graduation was because he was the adult in that building who made the most people in our class feel seen and understood and taken care of. He was there in the hallways when someone got kicked out of class for misbehaving and they were just having a really bad day and they needed to talk to someone. I seem to remember him putting his mop up against the wall and just kind of walking with them down the hallway for a bit and just being an ear, you know, after school if kids were, you know, sitting around and kind of avoiding going home, he'd be the first person to ask like hey, what's going on? If you made an excuse to go to the bathroom in the middle of class cuz you needed to go cry. He was usually in the hallway. He was usually just a very kind person to speak to. He offered genuine connection. And it, it wasn't that structured connection that you got if you went to the guidance counselor's office and set up an appointment and then had a meeting with Mr. Bennett and all the things and, and they put the, the notes in your file that you were having a hard time with this, that and the other thing. He was just an adult who cared. He gave a f K when he got up to speak. He was incredibly touched that he was being recognized in this way. And I don't think he realized until that moment what a difference he made in so many teenagers lives simply by being there, simply by listening, simply by giving a fucking caring. It's really something special to be able to do that for kids that, you know, have adults around them that might not be listening. And I'm sure as I'm describing this person, you're listening, thinking about this person that was there for you when you were younger, that adult who is just kind of always there in the periphery, who if you needed to talk to them or if you were crying, they would ask you what's going on? You okay? We remember these people. These people have a very special place in our hearts even if we can't remember their names 20 years later. I say all this to prove a point that ChatGPT is as you're growing your business, I know a major part of promoting your work and marketing yourself and being on social media is coming up with a crap ton of content. And it's so easy now that we have this incredible robot brain to turn to, to go and give them a couple prompts and get some language back and say amazing. This is content that I'm going to share on social media that's going to convince people that they need to hire me. Guess what? ChatGPT can't build connections. ChatGPT can't make people, people feel seen or heard ChatGPT can't make people laugh in a genuine way. It can't represent your personality the way you show your personality. It's great for coming up with content ideas, but I don't want you becoming Reliant on using ChatGPT content to promote your business. Because guess what, it won't work as well in my programs. Whether you work with me in my group program or one on one. The type of marketing that I teach is called empathetic marketing. And this style of marketing does a couple different things. It really communicates that you understand the troubles, the stresses, the fears that your ideal clients have you exhibit that you deeply understand where they want to go from here, what does winning look like to them? And a lot of that is listening to them. And a lot of that is also sharing your personal stories, showing that you've been in their shoes, you've struggled with similar things and you've overcome similar things. And by the way, if they're ready to overcome them, you're happy to be there to help them. In the content creation universe, there's this myth of, of giving value. All the social media gurus are out there saying, give value, give helpful tips, give listicles of things that people should do to move from X to Z and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, yes, you can absolutely give tips. You know, you can exhibit how smart you are, you can teach. But I want to remind you, my senior class did not nominate a single teacher to speak. They nominated the person who is listening, who built those connections with them. Your ideal clients out there who are paying attention to your content are waiting for you to build that connection. They have enough people who are throwing information at them, who are trying to teach them shit that like in that moment they're not ready to accept. And to prove this point, I'm going to tell you, oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. One of the biggest challenges I hear from new business owners is how hard it is to figure out what to post on social media and to stick to consistent schedule with it, because it's hard. And so in the month of May, I'm actually launching a challenge to help you build that muscle of posting every single day. Each participant will get their own customizable content plan for the month of May, an extensive list of content prompts. So you have an endless bank of ideas of things you can post that work with your content plan. Every Monday through Friday, we will have a 45 minute Zoom call at 9am Eastern where you will create your content and one lucky person per day will be able to volunteer for the coaching hot seat where I will help you fine tune your messaging so that your content can help you attract high paying clients. If you can prove that you posted every single day for the 31 days, you will win a 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. Normally I charge $497 for this but for the whole challenge for your content plan for the content prompts for those 23 daily calls that you're gonna get throughout the month. It's only $197. This is my birthday gift to you this year and I'm so excited to hold your feet to the fire and make you post every day about your business and get more clients. If you're down for a challenge and you want to join us, then go to weanedcast.com challenge. I can't wait to see you there. And to prove this point, I'm going to tell you the story of the two old men in the park. I've told this story previously, but it really shows you what works in marketing. Every single day there's a young mom and she has a three year old daughter and they go to the park and this little girl is obsessed with the fishes in the pond. She insists that every single day, rain or shine, they have to take some pieces of bread to go and feed the fish. And she checks on them and she kind of names them and you know, she gets really excited when they come up to the surface and they bite the bread and all the things and she really takes her time to spend time with her fish, right? And the mom of course, you know, any excuse to get out of the house and give her child an activity that like she doesn't have to really be the entertainer for is a nice little break. And so every single day around the same time they go to the pond, the daughter feeds the fish and the mom just kind of hangs back, watches. And occasionally she'll notice that around the same time every day, there are two old men that sit on either side of this little pond. One day, after they've been doing this for a long time, she realizes like, this is so silly, I should just go and introduce myself. So she goes up to the first old man and tells him her name and says, hi, you know, I see you here a lot, thought it was just time that I introduce myself. And he says, oh, it's so nice of you to do that. Yes, like my name is so, and so please, you know, have a seat on the bench. Like, you know, how's your day going? She says, oh, it's going really well. And he starts, you know, talking and he starts saying, you know, I saw your daughter having a temper tantrum last week, and here's what I would have done differently. Here's like the three step process that I would have taken to handle a child having a temper tantrum. And also, like, you know, do you ever have a squeaky wheel on your office chair? Here's how you fix it. Also, if your door hinge is ever out of alignment, like, here's what you do with a hammer to just like tap it back into place. And if you ever have a leaky faucet in your house, like, here's how you'd fix it from a plumbing perspective. But if you don't have those tools and you're a little nervous about like doing plumbing work and you're waiting for an actual plumber, what you can do is you can tie a string around the tip of the faucet and instead of the water doing the drip, drip, drip, that drives you crazy, the water will just fall down that string to the bottom of the sink. And he goes on and he's sharing fairly helpful tips with her throughout the time that they're sitting on this bench together. And then of course, it's time to go, the bread is done, and the little girl has lost interest in the fish for the day. And the woman says, you know, it's been so nice to talk to you. I will see you tomorrow. And they say goodbye. The next day, the woman comes back to the pond and instead of talking to the first old man, she decides she wants to say hi to the second old man who's also there every day. And so she goes, and again she introduces herself and, you know, explains that, you know, she sees him there all the time and thought it was time that she introduced herself. And he, you know, says, oh my God, it's so nice to meet you, My name's so and so, please come and sit down. And he asked her, how's your day going? And you know, he says, I saw your daughter have that temper tantrum last week and I just want to say you did a great job. I know having kids at that age is so tough. I had three of them and the oldest one used to do this and it drove me crazy. And then the middle one would go off on these tears and oh my God, I thought my wife was gonna like burn the house down. And our youngest. Oh, our youngest. We are so delighted that our youngest has children now. So they get their comeuppance right. They have kids and you know, their kids are around your daughter's age and you know it like they call us. They're at their wits end sometimes. And being a parent is so hard, isn't it? But it's so gratifying. And then he goes on to ask her questions about her life and about what's going on for her, and then he shares stories about himself. And throughout this time, she feels really connected to him. She feels seen, she feels acknowledged. She doesn't feel at all shamed for how he's observed her parenting her daughter. And then of course, like the daughter runs out of bread, loses interest, it's time to go the next day. Who is she going back to? The first old man or the second old man? And this is a rhetorical question, but there is a right answer and it's the second one, of course. Not only that, but if she ever, ever has a parenting question, if she ever wants to feedback from someone who's been there, she's not asking the first old man who gave a ton of quote unquote value. She's going to the second old man who normalized the struggle, who like, didn't give her any suggestions how to do it better, just acknowledged that it's hard and shared that he had a lot of experience with it, didn't try to fix her problems and made her feel safe, seen and listened to. When we're thinking about value, we oftentimes think of, well, what's the lesson that they're going to take away? What is the actual curriculum that they're going to walk away with that like, is going to show them how to get from point A to point B? But that's not all value is. Value is also a feeling. Value is that connection, that trust you build. I would actually argue that the value the first old man gave was pretty worthless. It was all stuff that if she actually had that problem, she could go onto the interwebs, Google, search it and find the answer. It was all stuff that I'm sure a million first old men have created YouTube videos about. But she can't get what she got from the second old man from a Google search and neither can your clients as you're thinking about what kind of content to create. I know it's really tempting to turn to tools like ChatGPT because that's what everyone's telling you to do and it seems so easy and as ADHD entrepreneurs, we're always looking for different ways to hack things and make it easier for ourselves. But it's not going to be as effective as actually just connecting with your ideal clients and showing that you understand where they are. There's this funny thing that happens with new business owners in particular, and especially people who have adhd, is that when you start a business you feel like you have to prove to the world that you know what you're talking about, that you're an expert, that you are a quantifiable authority in your industry. You know, it's almost like you feel like you have to make a list of all the things that you know and present this list to everyone so that they can see that you know stuff. Because we're so self conscious that people are going to think that we're dumb or we're doing it wrong or that like we're not qualified for the thing. And this can come from a myriad of things. Like this can come from having massive shiny object syndrome, right where you're jumping from topic to topics. You become a very, like a very spread out generalist. You're not necessarily an expert in one particular area. It can also come from people just treating you like you're not good enough. And it doesn't necessarily even have to be true. It could be rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, where you're just perceiving the tone that they're speaking to you in as they're thinking that you're not good enough or you're not smart. Smart enough, you're not qualified enough. It's that self rejection that you do to yourself that makes you feel like you have to prove to the world that you are smart and capable. You know the interesting thing about humans is we actually don't go around assuming everyone else is stupid. We actually go around assuming that everyone else is just as smart as we are until proven otherwise. So unless you hang around with really, really dumb people who are very aware that they're dumb, you do not have to prove anything. What you do have to do is you have to build connection with your ideal clients. That is the thing that is going to make you the most memorable. That is the thing that is going to create a special part in their hearts for you because you understood them more than anyone else. Especially if you're selling a high level service that costs a lot of money. I want you to think about the people who are out there in the world who are following your content, who are reading it every single day and reading other people's content that's giving a ton of value. If they're going to spend a ton of money on solving this problem that you fix, are they likely to hire the person who's offering advice they can find on Google, or are they likely to hire the person who they feel deeply connected to, who they trust more than anyone, and who they know will not shame them for being in this problem? Bet you it's the latter. This doesn't just go for creating content. It also goes for engaging on other people's content. I want to urge you not to use ChatGPT or other AI tools to comment on other people's posts. It's obvious. I have started deleting comments that are obviously written by a robot because I'm not online to connect with robots. If I'm having a conversation with you in my comment section, I'm having a conversation with you. I don't want to have a conversation with a robot. If I did, I'd be spending a lot more time on ChatGPT and I'd be getting a little weird. We both know that. Not that I'm not already weird. I know using ChatGPT comes from a place of fear and worry that what you have to say is not good enough, that being you is not good enough. But I promise you, you are. I promise you that it doesn't matter how you show up. There are going to be people who, when you show up as your authentic self, will be drawn to you. You can make all the spelling mistakes, the grammatical mistakes that you want, and it really doesn't matter. And please, for the love of God, do not use ChatGPT to comment on my posts. Squirrel. Squirrel. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy. Call with me by going to weenicast.com strategycall on this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams, and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together. It's just like. Like there's so many comments where they're just summarizing my post and I'm like, are you kidding me? Haha. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this. 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