767. The Three Phases to Building a Successful Personal Brand with Caloni Michelle

Just take action. And sometimes you have to write a check to go faster because would you rather start, say, making $100,000 in six months because you hired the right coach or the right mentor or the right agency, or you joined Lori and Chris's mastermind? Or would you rather not make that, say, 100k for two years because you decided to go at it alone?

Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, best selling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entreprene. My journey has taken me everywhere from being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself to later becoming a multi millionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. At rock bottom. We had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and lear everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not alone and that we all feel like.

We don't know what we're doing.

We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that you're hired yourself is forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform, I want to feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started.

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited for today's guest. I have Kehlani Michelle on and I feel like whenever I have people who do personal branding, it seems to be an episode that does really well because so many of you are either wanting to grow your brand or you're thinking about it. And a personal brand is always the best place to start, no matter what it is that you want to do. So Kehlani Michelle is the go to personal branding expert and founder of Brand Storm, a personal branding agency. She's an international speaker, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, event host and an internationally recognized authority on personal branding. She's worked extensively with experts from all around the world to grow and build and scale their personal brands online. Kalani has built noteworthy brands for experts who make less than six figures to those who make multi millions. And she's been featured in and seen on Forbes Entrepreneur Inc. Entrepreneurs on fire and NASDAQ Dr. Phil Tuesdays with Tony and many others. She's on a mission to help 1 million people build authority, increase revenue and impact millions by transforming their personal brands.

So let's get started.

Kalani, I'm so excited that you are on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on Lori.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to dive into all things personal branding. We can throw in some mindset stuff, entrepreneurial things in there and I'm just, I'm so excited to be here today. I've been following you for multiple years now, so I'm just glad to be here in your presence.

Oh my gosh. Well, I am so flattered because I think you are just one of the most amazing women. You have an incredible business, you are so generous with your time. You guys, she has gotten on the phone with me, she's done various emails with me to help me just through some different things that I wanted to do with hiring. And you have been such a resource of just knowledge for growing and scaling. And I'm so excited for today. Not only for everybody to listen to, but I know that I'm going to learn so much too. So Kalani, we have some really great things to chat about. You have some really awesome offers. I know we're going to talk about it at the end, but you have a ten step blueprint for building a brand, a personal brand that I'm really excited for people to be able to dive into. That's totally free, but we're going to talk about three steps, the three phases of building a personal brand. And you guys, if you've heard about personal branding before, I mean, I hope that you have. I hope that you've learned many, many things, but you can never learn enough. Like every single time I talk to somebody who has a business like yours or you know, I learn about personal branding, there is always something that I take away because you don't integrate it all at once. It's like your business really goes in phases and I think that's so cool because that's what we're going to talk about. So, Kalani, why don't we first just kind of dive into how you just started your brand, so.

How I started mine. Okay. So funny thing is, right, is what some people say sometimes they're like, oh, my gosh, I want to create a personal brand, right? And it's like, wait a minute, you have one. It's just, are you intentionally building it? So I will go back to even say 2000 when I got on Facebook. I guess MySpace was before that, but Facebook and started creating content there. Part of that is me creating this personal brand, right? I'm putting out content that reflects who I am, it reflects my values, it reflects what I'm doing in the world, where I'm going. And so it's just that over time, social media became so much more prevalent in our lives. So even say Instagram, I think I got an Instagram 2013ish somewhere in there. And 2014 is actually when I started posting more content on there. I started to see these influencers doing brands, brand deals and having beautiful photos and doing branded photo shoots and all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, wait a minute, like, I can do this too on the side. Like, I can create something. Like I bought or my husband bought me a nice camera back in 2010, and I knew how to do, like, you some of the editing stuff where I was like, I can do this too. And so I started to create it there. And the amazing thing about that, Lori, was the impact that I was able to have with people sharing my message and resonating with people where it's just we oftentimes we get stuck in our own little worlds, right? Our own little bubbles. And sometimes we fail to see that if we just open our mouth, if we just type on a keyboard, sometimes that we can actually spread this message and be that light for other people when they may not have that light in their lives. So, I mean, really getting started with personal branding went back to, say, 2005 on Facebook, but then even more importantly, back in 2014 when I was a lot more cognizant and intentional about the content that I was putting out online. And it really just evolved from there as I found my voice, as I developed more expertise, as I. I developed more skills, as I started hiring and all those sort of things. And it really has just evolved into an agency at this point where now we could help. Help other people do the same, but in such a shorter period of time than it Took me.

Oh, my God. Okay, so I love this so much because you're telling me that you started your brand because it's something that you needed to solve for yourself and you were figuring out, like, I love that journey because people don't realize that this huge thing that they're solving right now is probably going to be the thing that they get to create this epic business on. And all of those super challeng challenging periods are necessary because it's going to be what you help other people through. So what would you say was one of your biggest challenges, creating a personal brand? Like, what was some of the big roadblocks that came up for you?

So probably the biggest one was going at it alone. And I'm just the type of person where I just like to figure it out, like, even just to think, like, whenever my sisters and I would throw, like, baby showers or bridal showers, we would always do everything from scratch, right? The invitations, they were beautiful and gorgeous, and we just did everything from scratch. And so coming into. Just always doing everything from scratch, coming into business and what I wanted to do, I'm like, oh, my gosh, Like, I need to create my own logo. I need to create my own website. I need to take my own photos and all those sort of things. And it was like, no, no, no, no, no. As Dean Graciosi says, like, write a check to go faster. And that's one thing that I wish that I had done. However, had I not learned all of those things, Lori, I wouldn't have the agency that I have today because I learned that expertise. Right? It's not just the logo, it's the website. Like, it's the brand messaging, it's the brand strategy. It like pr, it's social media content, it's copyright, and it's all the things. And now because I learned those skill sets, I've been able to create an agency out of that where we can help other people do what I've done, but in a such shorter period of time.

Oh, God, yes. I was just having this conversation. Like, when people ask, you know, what's the one thing? Or what are the couple things? I'm like, oh, God, it's all the things. And a lot of times you realize that it's a lot of the things that you did that you didn't feel were even moving the needle or you didn't see a direction result from, but it's like all of these compounding things that all of a sudden, five years later, you're like, oh, I think I'M doing it right. I think I finally have a brand, like after it takes a while. Right. Like, so what do you think is a good expectation for people to even feel. I know that this is like really even hard to say, but from starting a personal brand to being able to put, and I know we're going to go into this actually to being able to put a product or something, what does that timeframe look like?

Yeah, so, okay, so what often happens with individuals is they're either say corporate world 9 to 5, or they could even just be like stay at home moms or just wives. And they're like, I want to have my own thing. Right. But they don't know what it is because again, they don't know what their unique value is yet in the world. They don't know what they can charge for just yet. So that's going to be a big hurdle. Is really trying to dive into who they are as an individual and what they can monetize. Because there's so like, I could go so many different directions in terms of monetizing my expertise and then I'd hire a team, all that stuff to help me execute, but I really could go so many different directions. Just like we had talked about outsourcing and hiring, hiring a team with you, Lori, Like, I could have an agency just devoted to that, but I'm definitely not going that direction right now. And so that, that whole process, I could say, I would say that that could take about three to six months where someone's putting out content, right? They're creating content around something, something that they want to help the world. And they might not know what it is yet, but they're creating content and then they're starting to get an idea like, oh my gosh, like now that I have honed in a little bit on the direction that I can go, they start to see this problem in the marketplace that people are struggling with. And then as they start to identify that problem, they can start to create solutions in their head around how to solve that problem. And then it's putting pen to paper right now it's like, okay, now I can create a solution to solve that problem. Okay, well what would that solution look? Is it one on one coaching? Is it a digital product? Is it a PDF? Is it an agency model? Like, what is it from there? And then it's really just going after it and making those sales and then pivoting, you know, they're not going to have it right at first. So in terms of, say, just kind of the idea of, hey, I want to do something on my own to actual monetization, it could. I would say it could even be about three to six months. Awesome.

That's definitely kind of what. What we've seen, especially if you. If you're really committed to it. I think that you can get eyes on your. If you're adding value as well, which we'll. We'll talk about that too. So step one, building a personal brand. You kind of just went into it. What are some other things that go into this component of building a personal brand? Figuring out, you know, even what direction that is your worth. What are some other things?

Sure. So in terms of the build phase. Well, let me just tell you the three phases real quick. And we have three different divisions in our agency. We have the build phase, which is where you build your authority personal brand, and then you have the grow phase. And a big portion of that is social media content. It's also selling your products and services. It's also getting press and media. And then from there, phase three is scale. So how do you actually scale your personal brand? It could be through paid advertising, like Facebook ads. It could be. It is through hiring a team, an internal team, and not just a bunch of freelancers. Creating operations or streamlining operations creams, a standard operating procedure. So SLPs, OPs, manuals, all those sort of things. Okay, so we have build, grow, scale in the build phase. And the reason why I put this one before creating content, or it could go in tandem with content, is because here, if we can implement even in just six weeks to 90 days, depending on which one of our services, we can take a brand, make it look legit. So then when they're creating that content, people are taking them more seriously. It's so much easier for them to close the deal. It's so much easier for them to get eyes on their content. It's so much easier for them to get recognized by press, media outlets. It's so much easier to create industry connections because they look legit. What happens a lot of times is people are just creating content, but they don't look legit. And there's things that they can do, and with our system, that could be six to six weeks to 12 weeks, where we can make them look authoritative, credible, and all of that. So then when they're really creating that content, when they really know who they're speaking to, when they really know the problem that they solve in the marketplace, like literally, they're just hitting the ground running at that point. So we're Trying to reverse engineer it to how can we get them to the path of monetization and impact faster. And that's through building that personal brand. So when we look at building K, we look at different things from and it's not just the visual side. Oftentimes people think oh, logo, website. Yes, that's part of it. Because people are going to make a judgment about you, the quality of your services based on your storefront online and your storefront online. Part of that is your website. So again it's, it's a website. Could be a simple one page website where the design is good, like you look legit. It's different things like getting into the strategy and the of your personal brand. Like where do you want to go? Like what does it look like? Where do you want to be in three years? Do you want to be a high paid speaker? Okay, well what do you need to do to get there? Because oftentimes people focus on what they don't want, but they don't focus on what they want. If they're not focusing on what they want, that applies to all areas of life, then they're not going to be able to create and outline the path to get there to fastest. So it's like, okay, let's put a strategy in place. Place. Let's work on your positioning. Okay, so let's look at what other competitors are doing in your marketplace. Let's see how we can differentiate you based on your unique factors. Let's work on your messaging and copywriting plays into that. Let's work on your messaging so you can speak clearly to your ideal clients so that they know that you're the solution to their problem. And then from there we can get into the design phase and then the development of your online storefront, which is your website. It could be optimizing your social media profiles and all of that. And so that's really like inside of our 6 and 6 and 12 week programs. It's five phases. Okay. So it's strategy and foundation, messaging and positioning, design and development and then we have the whole social media optimization part of it.

Okay, amazing. So you had mentioned, you know, there are some things that people do, they might be doing all of the right things, but if they're not taking certain stances on even a social media page or you know, Instagram or whatever, Facebook, whatever that looks like, what are some of those things that you would recommend that do make you look more like an authority?

One would be a photo shoot. 100% a photo shoot. We do not work with any of our clients. So sometimes we include like photo shoot packages in our personal branding packages, other times we don't. Kind of depends on where they are and all that sort of stuff. And so a photo shoot will do wonders. And then having a good designer, don't try to do it yourself unless you're a decent designer. And you could do it on Canva. Like some people, they can still create something decent on Canva. But seriously, pay, I don't know, 40 bucks to get some social media cover images created. You know, pay, pay the money, write a check to go faster to even have that one page website created. So when people click on like when they search you on Google, your website populates and then you look like an authority and it's like, oh well Lori, she has her podcast, she has her website, she has her social media profile, she has all these, these things like she's, she looks legit. Why wouldn't I want to work with her? Why wouldn't I want to join one of her masterminds? Or why wouldn't I want to work with you? Even like on a one, one on one capacity, right? And so it goes a long way to look authoritative and that the photo shoot and having the good design will really help with that. But again, you can't do the design work until you've done some of the strategy that found the messaging. Messaging and positioning work first.

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Okay, so just, just to clarify, that's under the initial building personal brand. I know you went over all three of them, but what are some pieces then if we're moving into number more into number two and really focusing on the growth. So let's say you've done your shoot, you have that messaging, you know, which can really, like, I got so hung up on that. Like, maybe we should just stop there for one second because in the beginning, like, feels like it's the most important thing and you're like, I can't be like this person. I can't. You know, am I stealing this? Is this okay? Like, all these different things that go through your head, like comparison and, and, oh my God, it has to be perfect. Like, how can we, how can you help people let go of all of those things and just kind of move forward with. I don't, I don't want to say, but I don't know how to say it, like, good enough for now because it's going to change once you're out there. Like, can you share that message?

Okay, so it's we as a personal brand, we always evolve. Our messaging evolves exactly what we want to offer. The marketplace evolves. Who we want to serve sometimes evolves too. And so it's always going to evolve. So we need something that is effective for right now or at least the next six months to a year to get us into that next phase ways. But if we sit here and we, and we, if we stay in fear, right? We, we, we. All we do is re replay stories that we have made up in our heads about why we can't do something or why we shouldn't do something that's only going to like, keep us stuck. Where. If we look at like, okay, I know where I want to be in three years. Here's my plan to get there. I'm going to do it. Come hell or high water, I'm going to do it regardless. There's other, there's 50 million other coaches in the world doing this right now. And yes, I'm going to be another one of them, but there's going to be be one person at first who needs my unique message, who needs my solution. Then there's going to be 2 and then 10 and then 100 and then a thousand and say 100,000, right? And so it's. We can stay stuck, but that's not going to get us toward our goals. That's not going to help us feel accomplished. That's not going to help us feel like we're growing. And so we can focus on the fear. We can focus on, look, like, this is who I want to be. And the only person that's going to get me there is myself, because no one else is going to hand it to me. So I might as well put in the work to get there.

Oh, my God.

So good.

It's so important. I just, you know, just for everybody out there, like, this happens to everyone all of the time. I remember even. Even with my book, it was like, if I would have viewed that book as like, the one book, the one message, like, what do I say? That's where I kept getting stuck is I was like, well, I want to fit everything in here. I want to make sure they know this and, oh, my God. And this could change. And I have to share this whole story. It's like, it's realizing that you're really, like, documenting and doing the right. You're creating the personal brand of right now. And then in three months, you're going to reiterate, like, you're going to iterate on that and do the personal brand for yourself of right now. And it's that there was so much freedom in that for me, even writing my book, because I was like, okay, that's a future book. And I literally had a spot for it. Like a folder that was like, next book. And everything that wasn't right now that didn't have to do with the message. Just like, what with your exact personal brand, like Kalani said, like, what is that message you want to speak to right now? What is that solution that you have right now? If it's not that, you kind of table that? Like, okay, maybe that's my level, too. That's my next level of branding or my next offering in the future, in a year and two years. So it's just so much freedom of being like, you got to get this out in order to even know what your messaging is, like, getting that feedback.

So Lori, on that real quick, Quick Entrepreneurs, newer entrepreneurs. Because I know that you that you and Kris have a lower level mastermind, right? You people in there that are focusing on too many things is that when you're focusing on too many things, you're trying to be known for too many things and therefore you're confusing the marketplace. Because when people look at you, especially in the beginning, they need to think of one thing for you, right? And if you're trying to do 50 million things, that only are you spread thin and you don't have the bandwidth. But you're not also really claiming that stake in the ground. And so a lot of new entrepreneurs tend to complicate things. So it's like, how can you simplify it? Because it can. Complications when your brand or what you're offering is complicated at least leads to confusion. And guess what? A confused buyer doesn't buy. So make it simple. Focus on one thing and then from there you can build out the systems, the operations, the teams, the products and services all around that. And you can really hit home with that. And you can build a 6, 7, 8 figure company based on one idea.

Oh, God, if I could now, I have no regrets, but if I could go back and do one thing, I would do one thing literally, because I. There were so many people who had no idea that I had an online workout membership. There were so many people who didn't know I had a women's event.

There were so.

Because it was all over the place, you know, so I would go back and do that more in phases and really, even if I wanted to do something, I would be like, okay, for one year you're just going to talk about this. For one year you're just going to talk about this. And that's really hard for multi passionate people. But let me tell you exhaust yourself trying to keep all the balls in the air and you exhaust your audience.

So parameters on it. We really do. Like, when I get ideas, I'm like, no, not right now. And I'm the boss and I have to tell my team, like, listen, these are our priorities. Don't let me change them, okay? If I have an idea, I need to sit on it for a good week and then we can talk about, okay, how can we fit this in? But don't let me just get squirrel brain and start throwing things in the mix because this is going to not only throw me off, that's going to throw the entire team off. And that's not fair.

Yes. I mean, like, I think that being able to take that that week, like you said, to just give yourself that time to Marinate on it. Because if there's one thing that we know about most people starting personal brands, they're probably majority, I would say seem like creatives and creatives love the ideation process. Except when it comes to integrating, we're like, we're over it though. The hard work is here, man. Let's ideate some more. So sticking with it and integrating. So just know that that is also a pain.

Okay.

Number two, growing. Let's talk more about just the whole. It's such a. I feel like this is also another great spot where we can get really stuck. Do I grow on Instagram? On TikTok? Is it emails?

Is it?

How do, how do we know what to focus on? How do we break this down?

Yeah. Oh, well, it's not going to be easy at first if you're trying to create new pieces of content for every sing platform. Come out with your say weekly email blasts, create blogs and all the things. And so, and even I got stuck here, Lori, like years ago, I got stuck here too. And it's how can you have that one core piece of content? It could be a podcast, it could be a video, it could even be a blog for that matter. And then how can you take that and turn that into other pieces of content? So for example, like some of our frameworks that we have that are simple, like three types of personal brands, right? What we have done is we have a blog online that. And then what we've done is we've turned that into different pieces of content. So it's stories, it's a carousel for social media, it's videos. And then we turn, we take that and then once the blog is published, we'll send out an email to our email list and then they can click on the link to read the blog. And then it's like, oh hey, are we connected on Instagram? Great, then come follow me on Instagram. Then they can see that content there. And so rather than trying to just create these one off pieces of content, create that core piece of content content and then have someone on your team or hire someone, like even a part time VA from the Philippines to come in at 3 to 5 dollars an hour and then take it and make sure that the execution of that one piece of content is taken care of in terms of, okay, I have the blog. Now the VA needs to, you know, either create the content itself or the carousel, say in Canva, or at least work with one of our designers or freelancer. Designer. Freelance designer to put that into a carousel and create that Carousel. And then okay, let's, let's create the blog from that. Or not the blog, the email newsletter from that. And here's a template for that. And it's just like we, we complicate things, but we can really simplify it if we just have that standard operating procedure, if we just have that checklist, create that one core piece of content, hire someone on your team, even part time, to come in and execute it. And then from there that person can even help you post it to all the platforms.

So good. That's been a little out of practice right now, but when I was, was in it, it was so good. And we're going to do that again. So it really works because you really are just taking that one hour. Sometimes it's a little more, but really I find it's just one hour to go and circulate that through everything for the week, which is priceless for the work that the creator is creating there. Okay, anything else on this? Well, I know there's a ton on the growing phase because there's. I'll let you explain.

Sure. I'll just give you one example that's right here, right now to what you're listening to. So Lori here, she has her podcast, Right. So what can she do with this podcast? Well, not only will she most likely post it on stories, she'll probably create a post out of it. She can create multiple posts out of it. One of them could be just a snippet of the video or the audio, say like a 60 second clip. Another one could be a carousel with maybe the top three points of this episode. Then she can have someone on her team transcribe this episode using Rev.com or Timmy T E M I.com, and then you can have your VA, who could be out of the Philippines again for three to five dollars an hour, proofread it. And then you can put it up on your blog, on your website, and then from there that same individual can craft just a short email to send out to your list with a link to the podcast or even to the blog. And then on your stories throughout the week. Not only can you promote this podcast episode, but you can promote your blog. You can promote other things on there just from one core piece of content where Lori might be spending 45 minutes to an on this podcast episode. And then someone else on her team is doing the rest of the work to execute it. So Lori can really show up to her audience in a bigger way because she hasn't, because she has a checklist in place because she has a standard operating procedure in place and now there's all this content that people need to hear. And Lori, all she had to do was really just show up for about an hour.

Wow. So good.

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Okay, so we are focused on, focused on the growing phase. We're finding the things that work for us. We're making sure that we are paying people to get the most out of our content that we're posting. We have a really good idea of who our people are. Is there anything else on the growing phase before we move into the scaling phase?

Yeah, getting press and media.

Okay.

And there's different ways to go about doing that. You can use haro.com, which is help a reporter out. You can go on there and sift through and pitch to different publications or different people on there for them to publish what you have to say. And it's actually not that difficult to use Haro at all. In fact, I did a training on my LinkedIn. This was maybe like a year and a half ago now. And a gentleman took that training. It was maybe five minutes, maybe seven minutes. I don't remember how long it is now. He got featured on Forbes. He didn't have to pay for it at all. He got featured on Forbes just by that. And so there's things that we can do. I mean, you can also pay to play. There's different PR agencies that you can work with to get you featured in Forbes Entrepreneur and all the things. So there's, there's the press and media route there. It's also getting on podcasts. You can even pitch to different podcasts, podcast hosts, and say, hey, this is the value that I think that I could bring to your audience, and this is how I could help you promote it and show the podcast host the different, the various ways that you can help them and how it's beneficial to their audience. So that's another way to really get press media to get more eyes on what you're doing. Because that's what really press media is, is, is how can you get more eyes on what you're doing. And podcasts are another great way to do that. And it adds so much more credibility and authority when you do get that, that press in media.

Oh, God, I've had some things like that. That is just. You don't. Yes, they feel Like a big deal. But you don't realize how much of an authority that does make you when you get smaller things like that. So not even smaller things, bigger things like that. So even if you make it a goal every six months to get one larger piece of press and you really can, I do feel like it's a lot easier than people think if you're consistent and you're really paying attention to what people want and the. You know, taking what you do and show, shifting it to what the times are like, what's relevant in the news, what's popular right now, what feels like really adding value. And I want to point out one other thing that you said that I absolutely loved. You know, I get pitched a lot for the podcast, and it's very rare that I have somebody who says, here's how I want to promote the interview that I'm on. You know, here's my numbers, here's what I want to do. And as a podcast, my intention is always growth. You know, of course, adding value and always growing at the same time. So being able to hear that, too, and giving that feedback is so valuable.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and then also, when you do get featured in these publications or media outlets or on podcasts, create graphics for it. Also, like, create your own to promote it. And then that way that also helps you look more credible and authoritative, because all you're. You're doing is you're showing more people that other people are interested in what you have to offer. So it's like, go create something like. Like, so you know who Natalie Jelfett is. You're friends with her. So I was just interviewed on her podc. I think it went live about a month ago. We went. We transcribed it. We created a blog post about it. We linked to her podcast episode to drive more traffic to it for her. And then we created stories, we created graphics on social media. So we did all those things in addition to what the graphics, then, content that she had provided to us. Because, again, that goes back to how can I build more authority as a personal brand? That's one way.

That's so funny. I saw that on your site, and I was like, oh, my God, this is awesome. Yeah, you're doing the do. You're doing what you say you do. So it's great. Okay, let's talk about the scaling phase.

Scaling. This one is. This one's a fun phase. And I will say it's not as easy if you're not operationally minded. So I'm a mechanic on the wealth Deck dynamics personality test. Do you know what you are, Laurie?

I don't.

Okay, so I'm a mechanic. So my brain works in systems. I can take apart systems, rebuild them, improve them, make them 10 times better. And so I am very operationally minded as it is, where you might be more of a visionary than an integrator. Okay, I am just talking to you.

I'm like, I love even just having conversations with you because I feel like.

I'm on a track.

It feels very clear. I know what my starting point and middle point and destination where will be. Yeah, so keep going.

Yeah, no, so I mean I'm an integrator through and through. And so for me, when it comes to operations, when it comes to building a team, when it comes to like standard operating procedures and all those things, they're so important to have in place so that you don't have to do all the things when you can just document and outline certain processes, certain checklists, even use loom video to record and then have say your VA create a checklist out of that or some sort of simple process. Right. And so the more we can pull ourselves out of the day in and day out of our business, the more we can focus on content, the more we can focus on being the face of our personal brands, the face of our companies, where we can focus on really making that impact while someone else is doing the day to day. So how can you go about doing that? Well, so in the scaling phase, you have a team. So you typically are going to have some sort of virtual assistant is more than part time. So maybe a full time virtual assistant, you'll have someone helping you with ops, you'll have someone helping you. Like you'll have dedicated designers already, maybe even just one on your team, possibly two. You may have video editors, videographers, a web developer. Like these are all go to individuals. And you still might have some freelancers that you're working with, say Facebook ads, agencies or other freelancers for other things. But you have that internal team. And now once you have that team, what does the team need? They need to structure. They need you to say, hey, this is exactly how we're going to get from A to Z. And this is what we need in place. So what we did is we, we have an OPS manual. And Lori, I will say when I first started hiring a team, I didn't do this. I didn't know how to do this. I didn't know any of that sort of stuff. So in Google Docs we have an OPS manual, we have it broken down into eight different categories. We have our Google Drive, which houses all of our documents. We have that broken down into eight different categories. So that and like, say like on in our timesheets, we have all of our project codes broken down into eight different categories. So whole business is broken down on the op side. So number one is offer creation. So these are offers that we haven't brought to market yet that we're just thinking of, that we're creating. And oftentimes we have a couple different ideas in the offer creation or we have a couple of different offers that maybe we've even started on. Then we're like, no, that's actually not a good idea. We're not going to go forward with that. So offer creation and then you're going to do you have to lead gen. So how are you going to sell that offer once it's complete? And then you have lead nurture for number three. How are you going to nurture those leads to get them to the point where they hand you their credit card to purchase from you? Okay. And then from after. So it's offer creation, legion, lead nurture. Then you have sales. So who's doing sales? Most likely it's going to be the individual, the entrepreneur that's doing the sales. Okay. And then you have the delivery and the fulfillment of your product and service. So this is say if, say like for us, for example, like our six week personal branding system that we have, it's us actually delivering that to the client. It's the onboarding all the way to the delivery, the end of the project, the client. Okay, so that's the delivery. And then from there we have other internal stuff in terms of brand management. So our website, our logo, just all of the brand stuff. Then we have team management. So this is different things from hiring job descriptions. It could even be different, like hiring SOPs that we have in checklists, time sheets, project strings and all that. Okay, so again in the internal side, we have brand management, we have team management and then we also have operations. So just different things that we do operationally. So we have those eight different categories. So we break up the Ops manual into that, we break up our Google Drive into that. So any team member that accesses our Google Drive, they know exactly what folder to pull from or where to go. And then if they have questions in terms of okay, operationally, let's go to the operations section of the Ops manual. Let's find things from within there. And then within each of those we create different SOPs and checklists and things. So for example, something that will be helpful for the audience. Say you are selling a product or service right now. And let's just say it's one on one coaching. You probably have a lot of coaches that listen to this, right Laurie? Okay, so let's say you want to create a checklist first. You want to document what it looks like to work with you. Let's just say it's a 12 week program. Okay. Outline what it looks like to work with you. What do you need to do for onboarding? Do you need to send them emails? Great. Can you write an email script that can be copy and pasted for each client? Is there anything, do you need them to add? Do you need to add them to Monday.com or any sort of project management system that you're using? Do you need to send them a welcome email with, with links to different agreements, to different folders that they might have to different documents they might need when they're starting to work with you? And then from there, what does each week look like? And for each coach, that's different though, but what does each week look like? And then when you get to the offboarding of the client, what does that look like? Do you send them a welcome gift in the mail? Do you send them an off boarding email? Okay, can you write a script for that and those sort of things? And so it could even be a simple standard operating procedure that you create just for the delivery to the client. But, but guess what? When you create a documented outline of this, guess what you can do? You can give it to someone on your team to do it for you because they have a process to follow. And maybe all you did for each phase of that, those 12 weeks from onboarding to the different things that you're offering within your course to the final offboarding, maybe all you did was record a loom video and then your VA takes that and turns that into some sort of like brief written one to ten steps to, you know, do the onboarding for the client? And it really doesn't have to be that difficult, but if we can just get in the habit of documenting it, it's going to help us remove ourselves from the day to day of the company so we can focus on what matters and that's impact.

Oh man, this is so important. We're in this process right now and in the beginning sometimes there isn't necessarily like processes that you're going to be documenting because sometimes in the beginning they're just kind, they kind of are one time things but then as your business gets up and going, you start seeing the repeat patterns. That's when you can even make a little note of it to go back and go and do that thing. That's kind of where I'm at right now. Is this the one time setup thing or is this something that I'm going to continually need to do and trying to also, you know, future predict what processes and emails and scripts and things like that we're going to be needing? So sometimes you can't necessarily do it till you're in it for some things, but this is the second that you notice that you've done it two or three times. That's when you're like, oh, okay. And it's crazy because in the past I literally wasted so much time. I'm not kidding you, like, because my brain does not work linear like that. So I just want to help everybody out and make you all feel better right now and tell you I probably took a year of my life repeating the same thing over and over, over or re coming up with the same responses over and over. It wasn't until a year into network marketing that I realized I could come up with a pretty like copy paste response that worked wonders. I just took a lot of time on that one response and then I used it for years after that. So I'm so glad you're talking about it because it probably seems so basic to you, but to me it was like, why wouldn't I just sit and make myself do all of these processes? And it really does. It makes you love your business because it now doesn't feel like you're getting stuck in the details that you don't enjoy. And I think that's half the battle of being an entrepreneur is how do you get back to the things that you love faster? And processes are such a huge, huge part of that.

And that's where the team helps a lot too, by following those processes. And one thing. Well, there's two things I'm really glad that you mentioned that. It's the things that are repeatable, right? That's very important because when I'm replicating something like, okay, how can I outsource this? How can I delegate this to someone else on my team so I don't have to do it again? So I think that's very important. So that's when I do come up with that, the SOP and that at least that initial idea where I try to catch myself, okay, if I'm doing this at least two times, I need to document It. But from what. What do we do with that? Again? When I. When I go back to the OPS manual, I just put those links back in the OPS manual. I put the. I put the zoom link. Not the zoom link, the loom link. I put the loom link in there. That walks the team member through that process. I put the. The SOP and again, this could just be like a simple one page little sop and we'll hyperlink that in the OPS manual. So again, all they have to do is refer to the OPS manual manual or search in the ops manual for how to do something, and then from there, there's all these links that go out. But guess what? My OPS manual didn't start out to be a ton of pages. In the beginning. It was only about four pages. And I'm like, oh, well, am I really running a company? Like, this is my ops manual. But it has grown and evolved as my team has grown and evolved.

Mm. Mm. So good. Is there somewhere that we can find what you just chatted about? The offer creation all the way through operations. The list.

Offer creation all the way through.

When you were talking offer creation, lead gen lead nurture, sales. Is there something somewhere that you have that list?

I don't have that list.

Well, they're gonna have to listen again.

So maybe what we'll do is we'll have to just create a link somewhere on my website and actually, Lori, maybe that's what we'll do.

Have a.

About this. We'll do Kalani, Michelle. So C A, L, O, N, I. Michelle. With two l's dot com, forward slash. What. What should we. What should we do to slug?

We can do. Oh, yeah.

Okay. We'll. We'll create that by the time this podcast goes live. And then it'll just be a simple list outlining those eight different categories that you can literally organize your entire business in.

And you said it was Kalani, Michelle, do that one. Do it one more time.

Michelle.comforward/adminulations.

KalaniMichelle.com operations. Everyone is going to be so excited. Okay, all right. Anything we're missing that you want to add on? Scaling?

Scaling? No. I mean, really, some of those other things are like Facebook ads and that sort of stuff, but it's really hiring a team. Actually, Lori, how about this? When we. A lot oftentimes we. What happens with entrepreneurs is we're in this game, if you will, to make an impact. Right. And how do we make an impact? Well, we have to be making enough money to grow the company big enough to have team to create the content, to spread our message, to have that impact. What happens a lot of times is people don't know who to hire. So who can you hire first for help? I would say a virtual assistant. And again, this can be someone in the U.S. oftentimes they're going to charge at least $20 an hour, which could be a lot to the new entrepreneur that's not making a to. And I'm going to tell you something that I started doing over five years ago now as I started hiring internationally. And the country that I fell in love with hiring the most out of was the Philippines. Okay? And you can find Filipinos that have amazing English, that will work US hours, that are honest, that understand the online space, who can act as that virtual assistant or anyone else on your team for that matter. Now, one thing to remember is if you are hiring people, remember you could hire someone in the US That's a bad apple. You can hire someone out of the Philippines, that's a bad apple. That doesn't mean that the entire US is not a good country to hire out of and the same thing out of the Philippines. And so oftentimes when you do hire, especially when you're not experienced with it and things are going awry, or say the virtual assistant isn't doing what you wanted to do first, look inward, take personal responsibility and accountability and say, what could I have done differently? What could I have done better? Could I have given better instructions? So instead of oftentimes what we do is we like to blame others first. Oh, well, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do this? And it's like, well, Kaloni, you didn't give me good, good enough instructions. I'm like, oh, you're a hundred percent right. So if I just look inward as it is, it will help me being able to be a bit better leader for my team and give them better instructions on things that I need to have to have done. So when you're hiring that team, don't be afraid to look at countries like the Philippines. And there are people in there that can fit that, that can fit the parameters that you have that you need to, when you, when you're hiring, say working hours, part time, amazing English. I have Filipinos right now interacting on behalf of my agency. They're doing the emails and all that sort of stuff because their English is amazing and you wouldn't even know that they're from the Philippines and they're amazing people. So, so we just love hiring out of there. And, and that's just a little secret because you can save about 75% on employee wages, hourly wages, just by hiring out of the Philippines.

Oh, God. So it's huge for everyone. Who wants to scale? So helpful. Okay, so I know that you have an offer that's going to help everybody and you guys, it's free. So I hope that you go right now while you're still on here, where's your 10 step blueprint at?

That's on KalaniMichelle.com forward/blueprint.

Okay. So grateful for you, you guys. It's in the show notes. We'll link everything. Just beyond grateful.

You are.

I love your brain, like I said, because I'm an opposite brain of yours. So when it comes together, it just feels like, oh, completeness. And if you guys are the same as me and you're seeking somebody, I know that you can also work with Kalani. I know that you can go to her website and check everything out. So if you're like, oh, my God, this felt like an answer to my prayers today. Not only can you take this and run with it because she gave you so much value and so much free stuff, that this could definitely build an incredible business. But if you need that extra step, if you need somebody to really help, you know, get you through some of these processes, I know that you also have some, some offerings on your page that they can all check out. So beyond grateful for you, any last words that you want to share with everyone?

No. Just take action. Get out of your head and just take action. And sometimes you have to write a check to go faster because would you rather start, say, making $100,000 in six months because you hired the right coach or the right mentor or the right agency, or you joined Lori and Chris's mastermind, or would you rather not make that, say, 100k for two years because you decided to go at it alone? So hire a mentor. Do what you need to do so you can get results faster and you can start impacting more lives.

Oh, my gosh. So good. All right, you guys, one of the biggest things that we can do for our guests is to tag Kalani. Can you give us your Instagram handle, Kalani Michelle? Very. See you guys what she does. All right, so tag Elani Michelle. Let her know what your biggest takeaway was. It's always so fun to see the, the impact that you were able to make as a guest and be able to see who was listening as well. So make sure you give her a tag. Let her know what your biggest takeaway was. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.