0461 | Kate DiLeo

Hi, my name is Kate DiLeo, author of Muting the Megaphone and founder of the brand Trifecta. And you are listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews episode 461, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority effect interview. Expert Authority World. Have you ever wanted to connect with your audience more? Have you ever wanted to obviously sell more and get some benefits out of what you've been doing? Well, maybe you should be having more conversations and stop just yelling at people and telling them what you think they want to hear and maybe ask them about what they are really most interested about. And that's why I'm excited to have Kate DiLeo on today's episode. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's EA publishingmethodbook.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Kate DiLeo. Kate, how are you feeling today?

Great. Thank you so much for having me on the show today.

Oh, it's my pleasure. I can't wait to just jump in because you have so much information and knowledge to share with people about having the conversation and I when we're getting ready, I thought it was surreal because I could tell how eager you were to have the conversation and that's exciting to me because.

There'S people in business who I found just want to share information or like being a author and speaker, they just want to talk to the audience. And I'm very much in your vein. And it's one reason I wanted to have you on the show, because I'd rather have an actual conversation. So what's your take on it?

Well, it's a great question. You know, first off, I'm a two time founder and serial entrepreneur, to be honest with you, but I wasn't always one. And I think what I've learned in my practice of helping companies around the world build brands that win more work, this idea of moving away from shouting at people and telling them everything we think they need to know in order to be compelled to buy and instead creating a message that actually engages them in a conversation is really at the heart of what I teach. I believe that buyers today, Mario More than anything, are tired of being inundated with messaging that's not even remotely in their wheelhouse. They're tired of what I call megaphone marketing. Just so much information. And what people really desire is to engage with brands in such a way that they feel heard, they feel deeply understood. And so that's really the power of how brand can impact your organization is through a compelling conversation that really leads to a conversion.

Why do you think so many companies think the secret is to go rant, rant, rant, rant, rant, and just talk at people?

Well, I think that there's two things, actually, there's two pieces to this. I love. Whenever I teach a room full of marketers or founders about this, you know, everybody raises their hands when I ask, how many of you have been guilty of.

Megaphone marketing? Where we've got those long click funnel pages, you ever have that where it's like, feature, benefit, feature, benefit, call to action, button, button, button, button. And we've all been there, done that. And so there's two things to keep in mind. Number one, I think that this is very common because the industry really set the precedent about five to 10 years ago that click funnels and these long funnel pages were the way to go. We've since learned that they're really not. But secondly, and this is really at the heart of the matter, I think that the reason that we're so tempted to do this type of what I call megaphone marketing is because we have a serious case of fomo. I think many of us worry that if, Kate, if I don't tell them all of these details and all of the amazing things that my products or services offer, then they're not. They're not going to understand it and they're not going to see the full value and they're not going to buy.

That's why we do it is fear at its core.

What's the solution to it, then?

Well, candidly, the solution is to stop telling stories and start having conversations. That's really the whole thesis of my book. Right? And what we do in order to have that happen is by creating a brand message that is systematically layered in such a way that your message actually provokes that person, whether they see it on the homepage of your website or. Or they hear it in the zoom room, in a conversation or at a local event, when they hear the pitch, they continue to go, now that's interesting. Tell me more. Now that's interesting. I want to go deeper. Now that's interesting. How does it Work. So the idea here, at its core, Mario, is to really create a brand message that actually compels people at every step of whatever they see, read or hear to understand.

Wow, what's in this for me? Why should I go deeper?

But what if they're missing out on the 37th bullet point that your last customer just loved?

Then are they the right fit for you? Oh, you know, it's interesting. If we take a step back. Let's take a step back for a second. Because if we talk about brand, by the way, and I'm totally a pragmatist at my core, because when most people hear the word branding, they're like, wow, that's fluffy. That's super creative stuff. I don't really care, Kate. I'm here for revenue. Okay, well, let me back up and let me just explain that when I talk about brand, I'm talking about your go to market messaging. That's ultimately your path of least resistance to revenue. So let's get that straight. What do you say to whom, where, in order to get more of the ideal prospects to the right table at the right time? That's what brand is. That's what message your core message is. But the thing is, is that in order to have that message work, Mario, we have to take a step back for a second and ask ourselves, well, who the heck are we targeting and why? And what do they even care about? What is the deepest level heart pain we're solving for them? Because maybe that 38th bullet point doesn't even matter. We're spending so much time thinking it matters because we built the thing and we're so into the weeds of our products and services. Right, but hold on. Have we really gone back to the beginning and thought about what do our customers care about most and speak to that?

Have you ever found. Let me rephrase this. How many times have you found the things you think they want to hear are nothing that they want to hear? And the stuff they tell you wasn't even on your radar?

I'll tell you, I've worked with 300 companies. It's probably a 50, 50 split. Half of those, I like to say, they were in the ballpark. They were at the ballpark. They had a pretty good sense. They're like, well, we see this pattern among our customers and we think it's on these areas, but they didn't really nail down what is the bottom line pain that they solve the other half completely off. Now, by the way, I love. I have to tell you, I have a secret Passion for working with what I call technical founders and super, like, you know, analytical thinkers, because I am one. And a lot of times we're so in the weeds of the thing that we built and the thing that we're doing that we miss the memo that sometimes, to your point, it's not a left field with the people actually care about, but we're so caught up in these amazing other cool features and benefits of the product or service. We're like, but yeah, but what about this? And the customer's going, I don't care about that.

Or, I don't care about that as much as this over here.

So candidly, that example is from my own experience. Around 2012, I launched a software, software builder to build WordPress websites automatically in under five minutes. Very technical. And I'm like, oh, we need this, and we need this, and we need this, and. And there was over two dozen things no one really gave a crap about. And there was like, maybe four or five that were like, here were the actual pain points. And I learned that from doing surveys. And it was like. And I just looked. I go to, you know, how much money I spent in investing to build that. And no one cared. But it was so cool because I go, all we have to do is like, it's not that we didn't care about these moving forward. It was okay. We don't put so much effort and focus on them. But those main ones became like, how do we double and triple down and make these through the roof? We don't need 478 different options. We need, like, seven really, really good ones that are, like, preempting what you're thinking. So I always love asking people that because it's like, oh, you wouldn't believe what happened. I did this survey. Or like, when we do books for people, the covers, it's like, oh, I need this on the COVID And it's like, no one cares. What about this? No one cares.

I think for us as entrepreneurs or as business leaders, it's very tough for most of us, and rightfully so, because we care so much.

Or we're so personally invested in so many ways. It could be financially, your career, whatever it is, right? It's very hard for us to hold it loosely. A loose grip versus a tight grip. And that's one of the biggest lessons I've learned is, you know, doing this for over 10 years is how do I hold the product or the service offering that I deliver loosely enough to allow room for customer feedback, for that voice of the customer. To come in and actually inform how I need to iterate and improve upon what I originally created. Because it's really in my best interest to continue to innovate based on true customer feedback. Not from what I think that the market's demanding, but actually feedback from prospects and customers live today.

Yeah, and that's good because so many people.

I would say so many business owners, entrepreneurs, they don't ever stop long enough to go, what should I be doing? It's just like I saw this commercial, I saw this ad, I saw this thing, I listened to a thing, maybe I ran into a funnel with a webinar and this, that, and it's like, I need all of this. And it's like, slow down. Did you follow up with your existing customers this week? Did you say thanks or give them a gift basket, whatever? It's like, what's your thought on that? Do you think people are always searching for the shiny object or do you think there are people that really are going, I just want to know what is a better way to go deeper with my existing clientele.

I think at our core we all hope and pray that the less is more approach truly could be a winning recipe for success for any business. And actually I do believe that it can be. It's funny because whether I've served an independent solo entrepreneur that came to me and said, I have a coaching business, I'm one person, Kate, all the way to very large, mid size or enterprise company that's got thousands of employees and all the things. One of the most important questions we ask in the branding process, just like we ask, well, who are we going after and why is okay, well let's say we defined the perfect buyer.

The question then is, well, hang on a second. What rooms are those people already in.

Digitally or in person? In other words, for many companies we have to almost reverse engineer it a second and think smarter about prospecting. Because really what we're asking ourselves is, well, if they're not on Facebook, why do I feel this expectation that I'm supposed to even have a Facebook profile or run Facebook ads? Well, hang on, do I even need to do that or is it in my best interest to show up into a CEO, mastermind or roundtable group once a month and give some value there? And that's where I'm going to get my client lead. I think it's ultimately about where do people already gather to solve problems and to network and to grow. If you can get into those rooms and become a value adding participant in those rooms and Deliver your authentic brand pitch 99.9% of the time. That's going to be a recipe for success. Now, by the way, one final caveat is certainly that does mean sometimes those rooms are digital. Okay? If they show up in forums, if they show up on blogs, if they. If your particular user base or your audience happens to like ads of certain formats and they happen to search on Google, that's their preferred method. Not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. What I am saying though is you need to think smarter about what are the one or two face to face and the one or two digital levers you need to be pulling from a prospecting approach to actually make more sense of your marketing budget and see a higher roi.

I loved everything you said there, except one thing. What you said, the last caveat or the final caveat? I hope it's not. I hope there's like 30 more I want to ask you. So what I'm hearing is maybe double or triple down on Facebook instead of trying to hit all social or Instagram or LinkedIn or YouTube.

Yeah. And specs, it's really funny because I always have, you know, I practice what I preach, right? So you rewind back to 2019 and by the way, probably like many people listening in, I was kind of like a. I was a professional side hustler for many years. I had a corporate career, I had my business on the side. I was doing fine. And then in 2019, I went totally rogue and went out full time on my own. And then Covid hit. Oh my God. Okay, so, you know, here's the thing though. In 2019 and 2020, for about 18 months, I did a test. I hired a team to build content for social media that was a blend of informational posts, live videos of me, pre recorded professional videos. We then did branded informational with photography and then personal posts about my. I mean, we did all the types, right? We went out and we tested it across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Okay?

18 months, seven days a week, push the same exact content and work to build audience spaces. And my job was to go and engage on all those platforms every day with people. Right.

Where do you think being in the world of business and branding, my audience was.

Oh, part of me wants to say LinkedIn, but I'm feeling like Instagram too, just because it's so visual.

I got nothing on Instagram. Now you could say that's because you were doing it wrong, Kate. Okay, well, I hired experts to help me.

It was only LinkedIn and I had to take a step back and actually ask myself, maria, in order to get to the next level of my business, I need to cut the fluff. I had to lean up where my time and my energy, my dollars were going. What that meant is I made a very big, risky decision to go all in on just LinkedIn. So that's actually the only place I show up now. And it is proven to be one of the most successful things ever. I think my audience base like tripled within a few months when I made that decision. Wow. You know, I'm not. I don't have a hundred thousand followers. I've got tens of thousands. And that's great. But it was because I was audacious enough to say this is where people show up for my type of value, adding information. They don't go to Instagram to learn about brand. Typically they're going to show up on LinkedIn.

Yeah. And I would also say it depends on the industry because I know like health, wellness, food, athletics. I don't know if I'm just repeating the same stuff, but certain ones, like if you have a picture of a great looking salad. Yeah, Instagram's gonna be great.

Absolutely. And I remember thinking to myself too, what kind of photos am I supposed to come up with to put on Instagram to compel these people? Right.

The reason I said Instagram is because there's people I've seen that, that are brand, that do branding and they have killer graphics and fonts and since you can do video, they might have the text pop in a little bit and I'm like, okay, so part of me, you know, business wise, I'd say LinkedIn, but maybe it's more professional in the creative side, I feel gets lost flat out. However that up. What's that?

It's great that you bring that up. If I were a graphic designer, yeah, you better believe I'd be on Instagram.

But should you? Because there are more business. If you're a graphic designer, you should still be on LinkedIn because it's business professional.

The thing with YouTube offers is viral ability that LinkedIn doesn't quite do and for people send photos.

Yeah. And the thing with YouTube is it's really. Are you polished enough to be confident on LinkedIn and Instagram and have animation or movement or something? I shouldn't say animation because people think I'm talking about drawing Mickey Mouse, which I'm not, but I just mean my background's in video and special effects and animation. So whenever I see something, even if it's A cool picture. I go like, even the logo here, I'm like, I see that. And I go, well, it could be popping in and sort of the thing and spinning and like, I see it with the movement. So if, if, and I know when you're doing logo design, if you can design in black and white, it'll work in color. So I look at graphics as if it, if it's solid here, it'll probably lend itself to video. Well, regardless of what avenue you go down. So I, I would. I still think, yeah, that's interesting. I'm sorry it didn't work for Instagram because I still think it could.

Could it work?

I think so.

But here's the question, though. What's the cost benefit analysis? If you're a small business, how much money do you have in your marketing budget?

Did you define a marketing budget?

There you go.

Well, I got a. I was just joking with someone last night. Well, I got a hundred dollar Google Ads thing in the mail for the postcard and it didn't work. Really. And my analogy to that is, imagine paying for your books the first semester, not year, first semester of college. You spend a thousand bucks on the two books and then you're like, well, where's my degree, really?

Exactly.

Why do entrepreneurs apply the same logic to okay, I'm going to do ads now, and you spend, you spend less money than you do on lunch and then you wonder why you're not making a million dollars a month. It's illogical and delusional.

It's also kind of a. It's also kind of what I call like that, you know, spray and pray approach. Throwing spaghetti at the wall. It's not really taking it.

That's an Italian joke, isn't it?

It is, totally is, yes. You know, throwing spaghetti at the wall. It's a Minnesota saying. That's all I'll say.

Bolognese.

Yeah, yeah, Bolognese. There you go. But I think again, if we go back to the heart of this, your brand at its core, which defines the promise of who you are, what you do, how you solve people's problems. It also defines who you're going after, who you best serve and why. If you have that down, that should dictate, then what are the right digital platforms where you can have the highest roi? That's ultimately what we're trying to say here. Could Instagram work? In my case, absolutely. But when I took a step back going, I don't necessarily think I want to be on Instagram, so not really my personality. I Know a lot of. By the way, I know a lot of introverts that are like that. They're like, no, what about TikTok.

Scares a lot of them. Sometimes TikTok's great, though. Sometimes TikTok's perfect. This is all getting back to what's your comfort level, what's going to work and how much money do you have? Because you're going to have to actually spend time. I spend four to five hours a week just working with my team around content. How much time are you putting?

Pretty good amount. And you have a team who's doing the content. How much time do they spend executing it?

10 hours a week.

So, okay, so you.

When you think about, oh, I want this to magically happen on Instagram, back yourself into it. Look at your schedule. How much time do I have? So if your lowest hanging fruit is LinkedIn and you're comfortable on LinkedIn as an entrepreneur and you know the space and you have real connections and you know how to operate it and you don't have to hire a big team, start there.

That's the biggest thing. See what you can manage. And more importantly, what can I basically outsource to others who can take a bit of that administrative burden off of my plate?

Yeah, I know a lot of people, oh, I'm working on content. I'm working on content. And I'm like, but when do you do client stuff? And has this even generated you? Client stuff?

And that's actually a very big concern for a lot of people is how do I. I feel this pressure that I have to jet. Be content marketer. Well, says who?

I didn't start doing content marketing until a year ago, and that was only because I had written my book, which, by the way, three. Muting the microphone, muting the megaphone. Yeah. If you had told me, oh, you should write a book, I would say that's the worst idea ever. I have no time for that. And I'm happy to sit down finally, after people pushing me so hard. Can you write the formula of how you help people write brands? Can you just put it on paper? I love it. I love your process. I'm like, sure, I'll write the process, but I'm not going to write some ridiculous business book that nobody's going to read. I'll make it 100 pages. I'll just. I wrote the darn thing in a week.

And had I not done that, I would not be doing content marketing. But even in that, I made some serious decisions on what I was willing to do. And what I was not willing to do based on my. The authenticity of my brand. One of them being, I'm not gonna be on Facebook. That's not me. Don't care about TikTok right now. That's not me. Don't like. There's certain things that I go back to and always ask myself, is that in line with who I say I am, where I'm trying to take this organization, does it even match who I'm trying to be? Or am I getting back onto that bandwagon and having that FOMO that, oh, if I'm not blogging every week so that I'm going to lose sales?

Not at all.

I've had people even say now with podcasting that the, like, you should be podcasting over blogging because you still get all the benefits and it's more fun and easier.

It is. And it's also then a question of do you host your own or do you just guest on everybody else's podcast?

What's the answer? What's your answer?

I'm never gonna host a podcast. At least not. Not for the next few years. Why?

Why?

Why not say that? Because the time and energy it would take for me to build that audience pulls me away from what I do best, which is being in the room with the clients and building brands. And that's where I want my time to be spent. And, and that's my money maker. That's where I make money. So why would I take time away from my schedule where I actively am bringing dollars in the door? I have to protect my time and energy to a point with. I have four young children under the age of eight. We have a big blended family. I only work from 8am to 3pm and I'm growing, you know, high six figure business. In order for me to continue down that path, no way am I going to put my efforts into anything that's going to pull me away from immediate roi. Not at this stage. If I had a team, that might be a different discussion. If I had a larger marketing budget, that could be a different discussion. But again, it's the principle of go where the room already exists.

If the audience already gathers over here.

Go there versus trying to compel them all to go over here.

You're going to have a much easier time getting your message heard by showing up where everybody's already gathered versus trying to then go hunt them down, gather them, build the audience, build consistency, brand loyalty, and then try to deliver the same pitch over and over again. Do you see the difference?

A Lot more work I do. But I could make a case for say since you're doing all the other stuff, this would only amplify it and you don't need to go gung ho full on with it. You can, you know, take that time instead of trying to do it in six to 12 months, you go, I'm going to do this in 24 to 36. And they'll work synergistically growing each other. Because with what you're saying now about. And I totally get it, I've told my clients the same thing. Like if this is your bandwidth and team, don't try be pulling all this other stuff off. However, question when you're saying, you know, I don't want to take away the time or energy now, if it's like savings money, if you never do it, if it's never a good time now, when is it going to be a good time? And you have to, I think of it like a screw. If you were to turn it sideways and you just slowly did it because you will have a synergistic effect and you're already doing what most people aren't. There's so many hosts that you know. And just for the record, no matter what you said, I have devil that as advocate answers because there's plenty of people that come on my show, they're hosts, but they don't do enough guesting or they're guest and they don't host. And it's like no matter what you do, there's something I'm going to poke at.

But of course, but see, now you say, okay, they don't host enough. So let's talk about that. Do I want to host my own podcast? No. But do you know what I do? I teach. So I show up in two accelerators globally and I teach through tons of accelerator programs to teach workshops and helping these companies for free in the room where they experience me, where there's brand loyalty. That's my method. Anywhere I can show up and teach and have an actual conversation, I want to be there. I teach through at conferences around the world through marketers and founders and SaaS leaders. That's where I show up. That's where I teach for up to four to eight hours at a time. People are coming in for these master classes. That's awesome to go very deep and wide. Well, why do I choose that? Because what I learned early on with my brand is that a 20 to 40 minute to an hour podcast can add some value to me. And I sometimes get leads. But where the magic really hits is when somebody's in the room actually applying principles hands on to their brand.

Absolutely.

So my job is to find those rooms. That's my top priority. If I get into those places, that is far worth it, where I'm walking away with two to five clients every time I speak or teach.

That's why I'm not worried about hosting my own podcast right now. Could it work? Sure. But what's my fastest sales cycle? What's the easiest buy? Who has the highest probability of turning into a highly qualified lead?

Yeah, people you're in front of. You spend the day with anyone? Of course. That's why events and masterminds are so effective, because it's like, oh, I get to know this person. And it's not just, oh, do I like them for a few minutes, did they give information? It's like you actually get to know them.

That's right. But it's also then you ask a really. So this brings us to a good point though. What if podcasting could work for you? There's scenarios where hosting your own podcast can work. I think it depends also on the psychology of your buyer. My particular buyer likes hands on tactical applications. So the moment that they're in a room with me and they learn from me in 10 minutes, like, I love this lady, right? And they're going to want to talk to me. Okay, but what if your buyers aren't like that? What if your buyers prefer to just consume information? They're avid learners, they're, they're more passive, but they listen and they tend to consume a lot of data and details before they make any sort of intentional decision. Podcasting could be great then, but again, it's going back to who are you going after and why? Where do you need to reach them?

And I love that you talk about that and more importantly, know it. Because so many people, it's like, oh, well, I hear this is good. And you, you know, we're talking about the podcasting and this is, again, I know some of the top level podcasters, guests, whatever, and I love just going, how come you're not doing video? And if they are doing video going, how come you're not doing it live? You know what I mean? You can go as far deep or as little as you want, and there's really no wrong answer. Like you said, it's what, what's best for you and your audience. But you better believe all my podcast friends. I'm like, how come you're not doing it on video? And how come it's not live. And there's very few that do it like we do. And then I think at that point I'm like, how come you're not using special effects or whatever?

I think it's important to ask those questions. But it goes back to who am I authentically? What's remotely going to rub me the wrong way? By the way, I'm a firm believer that if you as a business owner to test something, don't do it.

Right.

Oh my God, do not do it. Secondly. So you either outsource it or you don't do it at all. And the second thing is, what do your audiences actually care about? How do they learn? What's their psychology? What's their behavior and buying behavior patterns? How do they consume information? When do they come to the point of readiness? Understanding the buyer psychology of who you're trying to speak to and be in the room with is going to again, dictate the couple levers that you should pull face to face and digitally all of that information and sums up. I have clarity on the order of operations I'm going to take with my marketing based on a brand that completely sounds like me, feels like me, and is going to come deeply resonate at a heart level with my ideal prospects.

Yeah, you have it so dialed in and it's awesome to see because I'd say it's the biggest problem. I've been telling people for over a decade, they're like, well, should I do this? And even before Facebook, social and all these different things, podcast, whatever. I mean, you could take it to brochures, business cards and a website.

Yeah.

And it's just like, well, which one should I start with? I go, who are you trying to attract? Who is this for? Well, I like the logo because my sister's brothers, cousins, like this, the websites. I mean, I can't even tell you the stories with websites we've encountered. We had to like search that one of them. We had a search. Well, dozens of them, truthfully. But this one I always tell it's like the website name was in two previous owners.

Cousins son's name because he's the one who set it up.

And I'm like, more common than you think.

Oh my gosh. You're worried about like, what kind of spaceship? What color the spaceship you should buy. I'm like, dude, you need to just like get your house in order and like put a sheet of paper and take inventory of like, do we have this password? Do we have their email? Can we call this person?

Do you Know, when I started my business, all I did is I had a Google sheet, okay? I had a Google sheet and I tracked every call that I did that was a very high worth networking call or prospect call or client call. And I had all their information. And eventually I grew into the point where I was like, oh, I've got 500 people here, maybe I should buy a basic CRM system. And so then I made that step and I progressed into that. I think it's really okay to have give yourself permission to progress into things, okay? And then I added some automation to the CRM. And then somebody asked me and I remember this conversation, it was August of 2022 and I was on a call with one of my best friends, Aaron, and I was driving to meet somebody for lunch and he was driving me nuts because he kept telling me, and he's brilliant, I love this guy. And he goes, kate, you need to do email marketing. And there's all these tools and you can send an automated email to people with a welcome video and this and that. And I stopped him mid sentence, the poor guy. I blew up at him and I just, it came out of nowhere. And I just said, I did not get into this business to be a content creator. I got into this business to sit in the room and build brands that are the path of least resistance to revenue. And I'm not going to allow content marketing to get in my way of the thing that I know I'm called to do. So if that means putting content marketing to the side, then that's what I'm going to do. And he just like sat back and he got really quiet and he just goes, I love it. There's your answer. Like, he didn't have any problem with that. And I finally realized I had to also like reiterate to him and to others who had influence in my life, say, hang on a second.

I have choice of what I do, what I don't do, who I go after, who I don't go after, what I say, what I don't say. And again, it's coming back to who you really are and deciding what is the ultimate value that I deliver.

Yeah. What do you want your business to be known for?

How do you want to be perceived in the marketplace? And you know, what are you building? I think so many few, so many, so many few far in between. Not enough people take a deep dive like this. And I'm so glad you're talking about it because it's just again, they read a book, see a webinar and you know, and I think that's all good. I'm not putting any of it down. I mean, shoot, we publish books, but it's like, why are you following this? Is it, you know, get the thing that lines up with your game plan and it's going to help you not go, was this just one more thing I need to do? Because you're absolutely right. There's only 24 hours a day, 168 in a week, and you can't do all of it at once. Not one bit.

Can't. You know, I constantly get asked, but Kate, am I leaving money on the table? But Kate, you're leaving money on the table. You could do this and this. I built websites for years, but it.

Sounds like what you're doing with diving deeper with them, you're doubling and tripling and probably even more by going deeper here. Instead of going, well, I'm going to pick up, you know, this extra five bucks here, this extra 50 over here.

Yeah. To be a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

There you go.

So do I want to be known as the master of branding in my space for who I serve and have referrals come through the door that I don't have to actively even target and market because I built the expertise and the knowledge base that people just go, oh, you need to call Kate for that.

There you go. And those referrals are priceless. So now you go, you know, well, I'm not running ads here, here and here, but I'm getting so many more here. Yeah, double down on it. I mean, if, you know, something's working for sure. So I have a, hopefully a fun question for you. This is what I was hiding from you early on.

What is this?

It's the wheel of whatever. Yellow or black?

Yellow.

Okay, let me stop it on there and make it yellow.

I get to ask you whatever I want here. It's the wheel of literally whatever. So I think I gave you a couple hardball ones. I was just playing around earlier, but.

What'S your grand plan with your business and family over the next five years? Would you still want to keep doing exactly what you're doing? Are you building this up to be able to take time off and travel more or something?

You know what, it's a great question. When? I'll tell you on a personal note. So I had this as a side business for many, many years and I actually got divorced and took my business full time within a six month window.

Oh, wow.

And people thought I was crazy. I Was a single mom at the time of one daughter, now eight years old. And now I'm married and have four kids. You know, big blended family, but.

And they're young ones, too, right? And in the process of all of that, I almost had a heart attack when I was 35. My health deteriorated severely with multiple autoimmune issues that I'm still fighting and still overcoming. And I remember when I took a step back, this was even before a lot of that hit. And I had to ask myself, what's this all about? Is this going to be all about my ego and making millions? What is. What's the good? What's the money going to be for? When's the last time an entrepreneur asked himself that? What's the money for? And I sat back and I just thought, you know, my ultimate life goal is to work 20 to 30 hours a week from anywhere in the world.

And have my family with me. Now, at the time when it was just two of us, my daughter and I, the number was smaller. Now with six of us, those kids are very expensive travel companions. Oh, my God. So flights cost a lot of money for six people. Here's the thing. The goal for me is very simple. To continue to do what I love and help people through branding from anywhere in the world, and to continue to have time to show up at the soccer games or the football games, to be home when my kids get off the bus, to be able to take care of my body and my health through. I'm going through rehab as we speak, physically, like, you know, about six doctors I'm working with at the moment to get my health back on track and prevent severe issues. That's the goal. All the money in the world ultimately comes back to nothing if we don't have our time and we don't have the people that we love. So for me, that's the most important thing. And how I'm going to get there is I've continued to scale down my consulting work, taking clients one by one. And I have now built a SaaS version of my consulting practice, which will launch in September of 2023. It'll be a much better price, using all interactive videos and AI to be able to bring people through, through my process and allow them within about four weeks time, to come out the other end with their brand written.

That's fantastic.

That's really what I'm up to at this point.

I'm happy to hear that. I mean, you're. It Sounds like you're 100% honoring your goals and Values. And still getting to help. Still, still getting to help people. But I'm hearing help even more people.

Yes. And without compromise.

Yeah.

Because it's. That's always it. Am I leading, am I leading my life from a place of desperation or invitation? Am I understanding how I can say no to the good things and say yes to the great?

Yeah, it sounds like by invitation. Congratulations.

You have to make powerful choices and sometimes that means some sacrifice along the way. As entrepreneurs, you feel like you're going up a mountain three, four times before you get to the top.

You don't need to do it forever because it is worth is.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm going to, we're going to thank the sponsor and I'm going to come back with the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishing method book.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and.

Right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com.

And we are back with the imperfect action round. Kate, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Yes, sir. Let's do it.

All right. Three questions for you. Rapid fire answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the cash.

Building a brand that authentically speaks to the deepest problem you solve for your customers?

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Trying to be everybody for everything and the number one thing that they need to do is make a decision on who they are and make firm decisions on going after the few that are the right buyers.

Love that. Number three, my favorite, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane and do really good work. You're going to maximize the value there without trying to be everything for everybody.

Love that. I've been telling people, I just telling people yesterday like double and triple down for sure.

Both of us being authors, what books would you recommend to people?

Well, I'd love it if you checked out mine. If you're curious on how to write a brand specifically, you can take a look at my book which is called Muting the Megaphone. It's available on Amazon. It's an international bestseller. It's only 100 pages and it's the tactical principles of what we just covered. And I walk you through every single step of how to come up the other end with your message written very quickly. Other books that I highly recommend actually is you can also take a look at Donald Miller's story brand. Great book for you to understand at the principle of how do I shift the paradigm and make my customer the heart of everything that I'm about. And outside of that, you know there's a book that I love called Never Split the Difference and it's one of the most profound books that I've ever read that really teaches us as entrepreneurs how to sit back and ask the right questions, speak to the right things that are going to get people compelled to want to have a conversation.

Great recommendations and congrats on your book.

Thank you.

Where would you like people to learn more?

Honestly, you can check out my website for a ton of details. Www.KateDeLeo.com that spelling will probably be in the show notes the other places. If you are Following Mario on LinkedIn, feel free to follow Connect With Me on LinkedIn as well. If you've got a question after you listen today, please feel free, reach out, send me a personal message. I do respond to all of those. Would love to hear from you.

Excellent. Well Kate, it's been a pleasure. Wish we had more time but thank you for sharing everything you did.

Oh thank you so much for having me. Mario. It's been a blast.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24? 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishing method book.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it. If you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.