How to Start a Coaching Business Q&A with Terry Rice | 4/1/2021

Okay, welcome. We're gonna do some Q and A here in regards to how you can start or scale your consulting business. We had some questions come in in advance, so I'm gonna grab those first and then we're just gonna answer some live as well. So let's get into it. The first question that I got was in regards to LinkedIn and asking specifically, why is it so important to engage on LinkedIn? Not just post, but to engage? And I have a lot of content about engage or about posting on LinkedIn in the course, and I can share that with you here as well. But the thing is, so many people forget to engage, and that will be to your detriment, because if you don't engage with content, first of all, it's a signal to LinkedIn that if you engage with someone's post, they might want to see yours as well. So if you're not doing that, you don't get the reciprocity. But. But then beyond that, people realize, hey, this person never engages with my content, so I'm not going to engage back. But when you do, make sure you leave some kind of thoughtful content. Don't just say, oh, cool post. Do something that expresses your expertise. Right? If they have a post about, you know, how they want a new client, you could say, oh, you know, what was that like, what process did you go through? Normally I go through this, that and that. Or if they have some kind of experience they're sharing, could say, well, one time in my early days as a consultant, this happened to me too. Here's the outcome, here's what I learned. Do something that's more meaty. And also what you don't want to do is respond in a way that would look weird when your network saw it in the feed. And by that I mean don't start the sentence by saying agreed, because that's all people in your network would initially see. Agreed. It's like, agreed. What? So this. Whatever you agree with, just say it. But your comment alone should almost be a post that if someone in your network saw it, they'd be like, oh, well, that's pretty cool. This is interesting. Let me read the rest of it. But sometimes we forget that it's not just that dialogue between the person who posted and yourself, it's everyone else who might see it. So use that as an opportunity to express your genius, your background, your experience. And if you do want to say agreed, do it near the end. So make sure you do that. But the problem often becomes this, well, who do I engage with? Right. Because yes, you can look for certain hashtags that are relevant to your industry. Maybe it's sustainable manufacturing, maybe it's digital marketing, whatever it is. But sometimes there's a lot of junk there, right? I gotta be honest. Like sometimes there's this junk because people are just, maybe they're sharing a post or they're just bragging about their company, like, oh, we just signed five new clients. Like, okay, no one really cares that much. So what you want to do is. Yes, sir. Start with those, those hashtags, you know, follow them. But you're also going to make a list of various people that by design, you're going to check their profiles. And the first list would be top content creators, people that have hundreds of thousands of followers, maybe millions. And every time they post, people just engage with it. Right? They could say, hey, I'm having a day today, hope you are too, and just get like thousands and thousands of comments. You want to chime in and comment on those posts. Hopefully they're more fruitful than that. But you want to comment on those posts because they're getting so much visibility now. On my end recently, I commented on Simon Sinek's post, the guy who's all like about start with why and finding your why. I commented on his post and my comment alone got like 55 likes. And I'm not saying we're chasing likes as the ultimate key performance indicator, but just for math, you know, it's nice to have this, this number, 55 likes, like 13 comments or whatever, just from commenting on his post. So you want to do that, you want to find relevant organizations, usually individuals in your, in your industry that your audience would follow and just make a list of 10 to 15 of them. And then when you are looking for content to engage with, you will just click. What I would normally do is go to their profile, then click activity and go to their recent posts. That way you can just go to the. Directly to the URL for all their recent posts. Check that. Did they post today or recently? If they did, can you comment intelligently? Do so. But then beyond that, don't just engage with that poster, engage with the people who commented as well, because that's your target audience. And let's just pretend you sell like pots and pans. So Martha Stewart would be an influencer for that. Sure. Comment on her post, but she's never going to buy anything from you. But her audience, the people that follow her, that's your target audience. So engage with their comments as well. So that top creator Column is beneficial for two reasons. One is visibility, you'll get more eyeballs on your comment. The other is just mining through those comments and finding really your audience and interacting with them. Finding the excuse to say hey Omar, great thought on this, I feel the same way too because of this. And then maybe start following Omar, right, because the next list you want to make is a list of your prospects. And we go through this in the course, right? We talk about having a list of 40 prospects and just checking even four a day. Even four a day would be enough to see if they posted recently. If not, move on to the next for the next day. But that way you'll never go more than two business weeks without checking in on every single person on your list. So on year end, that's why I always say clarity is the precursor to confidence. Because if you don't know who those top 40 are, you don't know who to engage with. So do that as well. Don't rush this though, don't rush it just to get done with it because then you won't have a quality list and you're still be spinning your wheels. Now the downside of this is this. You might have the perfect prospect, but then you go to your pro their profile and you realize they haven't posted in nine months. Unfortunately you're probably not going to get too much traction out of them because they don't post that often. So it has to be someone who's in your target audience and posts relatively frequently. Otherwise you'll just keep on checking nothing, checking nothing, checking nothing. And it gets old, right? So again we have two columns. One is top creators, influencers, the other one is prospects. And the goal with the prospects? One is to yes, engage with them and eventually build some kind of relationship where you can feel comfortable connecting with them, right? And still going back and forth and eventually saying, hey, it looks like you have this problem. Here's one way I can solve it. Just some friendly advice, hope it helps. And then from there, eventually, if they keep on engaging, could say, well, do you want to talk about this? This is actually what I do, in case you haven't noticed, for a living, if you want, I can talk to you about this through a call. If not, we can kind of just continue the conversation here too. So it's a very low pressure way of growing a relationship organically, but not in a way that feels salesy or cheesy or desperate. You're just communicating and saying, well you asked this question the other day, you know, I'm Happy to help you with that. I can answer it here. If you want to hop on a call, that's cool too, right? Best way to do it. Now, another list you're going to have is just friends or acquaintances, people that you know, like, you're never going to work with them, or they're never going to, you know, need to work with you, but maybe you used to work with them at a previous job or whatever. It is just someone you like for one reason or another. Or support their content too, because you want them to support you as well. Right? And it should be someone who's somewhat like minded. Like, there are people that I'm friends with, but they talk about like contract law all day. And I'm like, I don't care about that. I don't know anything about it. So it's not gonna be interesting to me. It has to be someone where you know you're close with them or you know them, but you can chime in within some kind of intelligent comment. And often if you can't come up with a comment, just ask a question. So my friend Jake Savage is a persuasive communication coach. He helps nonprofits win bigger donations. So he might say something like, hey, you know, often nonprofits are afraid to ask for a bigger donation because of this, like, whatever reason is. And I would say to him, hey, Jake, in your experience, you know, what are the top three reasons why people have this problem? That's not me trying to pretend like I'm an expert on nonprofits. That's just me having an intelligent question based on what he said already. So if you can't think of a good comment, you can still ask a good question. You would try to still phrase the beginning of that question as intelligently as possible, because again, your network is seeing it. So maybe repeat something Jake said at the beginning. Like, 40% of people never ask for donation or whatever, a sale, whatever it is, and then say, well, great point, Jake. And then go in and ask the question. That way, your initial, your initial content that's seen in your post, in your feed is not just a question. Because if your audience, your network doesn't care, they're like, okay, whatever. You're gonna keep scrolling, right? So we're getting very strategic here. But you gotta do that, otherwise you won't get the full benefit of commenting so much. All right, another, another column, another section is potential partnerships. Who do you want to work with? Who do you want to partner with? So on my end, I would love to do a webinar with Squarespace, the Squarespace community, because that's my target audience. People that are creators, these knowledge based experts often use Squarespace. I could reach my audience through that. I can make a list of people who work on the event team or partnership team at Squarespace and keep an eye on their LinkedIn as well. As soon as they chime in, I'm gonna hop in there too and say, hey, by the way, I noticed, you know, you had this post. And I'm gonna like, oh, just have some kind of intelligent comment. Keep on going back and forth with them over the period of could be weeks, could be months. But then eventually I can say, you know, I see you're doing some of these webinars I would love to talk about whatever, right? Whenever it feels right, maybe it's the next day you do it. But the thing is, by design, you're identifying people you want to partner with. Maybe it's the media, right? Maybe your goal is to get featured in Business Insider or Entrepreneur Magazine, right? Follow a bunch of people that write for Entrepreneur Magazine on the editorial team and just keep on engaging with them, right? And then eventually, if you have a good reason to reach out and say, you know, I did this research on best ways for people to push through imposter syndrome, as an entrepreneur, I would love to share it with you if you think it'll be a good fit, right? So by design, we're doing all this stuff, but still every time we comment, these are intelligent comments that make us look good in front of our network, but also build that relationship on my end. I would say if you can, when you're starting out, aim for 10 per day and it'll go a heck of a lot faster. If you have this list, if you're just scrolling through your feed, it's going to take forever. But if you have this list, you should be able to get through in about a half an hour. If that feels too heavy, go for five, go for two, just do something. But I've been talking to so many people who are posting more frequently on LinkedIn, sometimes because of the workshops I teach. And like, I'm still not getting that much engagement. And I would say, well, are you, are you commenting or you just posting? And that's the problem. So please do make sure that you do that. Another question. Oh, actually I like this one a lot. So this is another newer consultant and she's saying, you know, how can you prove an approach that you're pitching will work when you have no data behind it whatsoever? When you yourself have never actually done it and I've been there before, so I can totally empathize with it. The best thing you can do, and this goes back to my days as a digital marketer, is find case studies, case studies of other examples when similar companies did the same thing. So on my end I would do like Facebook ads and I would go to Facebook for business where they have other case studies and say, look, here's another wellness brand that used lookalike audiences and retargeting and whatever I'm proposing and they got a 40% increase in their profit. Or here's another company who, you know, also used Instagram and Facebook stories and here's what happened with them. So I can't say for sure what's gonna happen with you right now because we haven't done this yet. But I can say that we're following the best practice that your peers are doing and they're getting good results from it. And the benefit of us tracking this is we know what's working, what's not working. So we'll iterate more on things that are working and things that aren't working, we'll stop doing. So the best way to overcome that, because this could be a function of imposter syndrome, especially if you've never done it before, because you're not, you're not an imposter, you're just new. Right? There's a difference between the two. But the best way to overcome that is to have some kind of third party data, even if it's not from you, that's very applicable to the situation that your audience is in or your prospect is in. And that way you'll be much more confident in how you can approach them. So hopefully that helps with both those two, both the LinkedIn part and the being prepared when you don't necessarily have experience or data. But what I want to do now is we have Lauren here. I know Lauren was here last week as well and she has some questions that were really great last week. So we're going to bring her up now as a panelist and we're going to talk to her in real time, which will also explain why I have headphones on when often we do these with just us typing. So we're gonna bring Lauren on now and then we'll see how things are going on her end. Hey, how's it going?

Very good. How are you?

I'm good. Hopefully.

Those were great questions.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah.

I have one question, I mean, similar to that, like just to get started, the baby Steps like I really should just get more engaged on LinkedIn. It's like the lowest barrier to entry.

In a way I would say. So just because LinkedIn is a content deficient platform, meaning there's not as many people posting on it as content assist platforms like Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. So you could have a relatively small following and still reach a lot of people is because there's not enough content being produced. Produced per person. So yeah, I would definitely do that. And then also realize, and this is per Neil Patel, about 80% of B2B leads from social come through LinkedIn with I believe 13% coming from Twitter. And you can do the math and the rest. So it's pretty, it's a pretty powerful platform to be on.

No, that's perfect. Because my other question was. So I feel like 2020 was the year that supply chain entered like the everyday vernacular. And so like you as a non supply chain person, what are your questions? Like what? Like do you want to know more about how you can help your supply chain? Are you more curious about the ever given chip?

It's funny, my dad was a supply chain manager at Xerox for like 30 years. But I don't know, I don't know anything about it. I took a class in business school on it. I mean I think most people are just in general, this is my opinion, artists more woke these days and they want to be aware of what their supply chain looks like. You know, how are people being impacted downstream before it shows up on my shelf? Are they being treated well? Are you using, you know, carbon neutral shipping methods? Are using like, you know, cars that are like, you know, polluting the atmosphere? That, that's where I think some people's minds might go. And then for more altruistic way of thinking, I live in Brooklyn and I live in a decent area so there's plenty of like organic food stores and co ops and all this stuff. I didn't realize, and this is my ignorance that some areas you can't get, well, let's call it good food, right? For one reason or another. Because the supply chains don't want to go to neighborhoods over. So I think just even equal access to healthy food is something more people would be concerned about if they thought about it. Just because we think it's so easy. Oh, just order from Instacart. Instacart doesn't deliver everywhere, you know, so it's like that's, that's a problem. You know, if you're in certain areas, they're not Going there so you can't get fresh food. So you are stuck sometimes paying more than you should. Because, like, some, like, bodegas or smaller grocery stores, they might have a higher markup or they're selling, like, smaller containers. So it's like, it's not like you can't buy in bulk as much. So I think, you know, these are just like thoughts off the top of my head. But I feel like more people will be concerned about that, especially if you led the charge in making them aware of it. That's my initial thought.

I'm wondering where my audience for that would be. Because, I mean, what you're saying almost sounds like it wouldn't be a potential client or. Well, it sounds more like the everyday person concerns.

Yeah. What I would say is that can be more of a grassroots thing. And then how do you get enough people talking to. Talking about it so that the people you want to work with care about? And I think about, like, Carfax, and I don't have a car. So that's. That is what it is. But with carfax, the goal is to get a history report on an automobile before you buy it. And they had a very grassroots campaign where their commercials literally said, make sure you ask for the Carfax. So consumers would go to an auto dealership and say, where's the Carfax? And like, what the hell are you talking about? Oh, crap. Now we have to buy this thing because we're asking for it, Right? Indirectly related. If you make it a thing where people are asking, like, wait a second, like, what's the supply chain like for this stuff?

You know, like, yeah, no, I love that idea.

Yeah. Is it ethical, first of all? Like, are you getting it from, you know, a good source? And is it equitable? Meaning this? Do other people get it? Can I also get this in East New York or can I only get it here in Prospect Heights? You know what I mean? So it's like. And then. Yeah, so that's. That's my thought on that one. On your end, when you're talking to potential clients, you could say that's a selling point, is being able to say that you have an ethical supply chain. And I think ethical and sustainable are the most important things because. And this is like a first world problem. But at our favorite restaurant here in Brooklyn, when my wife and I can actually go out, we usually get like a tomahawk steak. And they have very few that they order because they don't sell that many. But during the pandemic, they could not buy the volume to get the discount to even afford to bring in a tomahawk steak. So it's, it didn't make sense. So it's like little things like that. Like how sustainable are your supply chains? Because if they're not sustainable, I'm going to show up there ready to spend 100 bucks on a tomahawk steak. Oh, you don't have it today? Oh, well, let's go home.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So I mean, and this is a narrative you're going to have to write yourself, but it's like these are examples of how you can get grassroots involvement and how you can actually talk to a supplier, or I guess in this case a restaurant, about why it's so important to be sustainable and equitable.

I love that you keep bringing up sustainable because I feel like the idea around what a sustainable supply chain is has changed a lot with COVID because we saw that people's supply chains weren't able to be sustained like in terms of like longevity. And so that's like, I mean, hearing you speak is giving me ideas of like, supply chain sustainability is a huge topic everyone wants to know about.

Yeah. Let me give you one more example. So I'm a advisor for what's this called? A protein shake. Just to make it clear or make it simple. And there's always ingredients that make it high protein and high in good fats. Um, if you're doing a keto based diet. But there is one ingredient that the supply chain just broke, like one minor ingredient, but was so important that they had to stop making it. And it's been off the shelf for about a year. So it's like, well, that's not good. Right? I mean, someone like you, if you could either recommend a more sustainable supply chain or a good, you know, replacement, like that'll be beneficial. Because right now like literally it's not being sold.

Because I've run into situations like that with clients. Like in the real world, back when I consulted for Big four. I mean that's, that's an everyday problem. See, I say it like, oh, you should know. And I guess that's where I'm trying to meet people, where they are is it's so hard to take your expert hat off.

Yeah. And I'm just like this all top my head. So I'm definitely not an expert. But I feel like based on what we're talking about, there's still a need to distill it down to a service. Like I help this audience do this, they can Achieve that and then there's going to be several layers underneath it. Right. You know, however that makes sense on your end. But who do you see as the client that you're trying to sell stuff to? Is it restaurants, is it stores? Like, like who is it?

I need to narrow it down along with my services. I want to say, I mean I would, I would, I want to tailor my services at least. I don't know. See, I don't have the right answer to this question. I'd say it's small businesses within the agriculture supply chain. So whether they be farmers, distributors, but small businesses that are looking to grow and change the food supply chain to better work for individuals as opposed to corporations.

Okay? So the benefit of that is when you know your audience, your services are going to be based on that, you're not going to start with your services. You start with your audience and say, what is it? What are their problems? Based on your research and that's what I think we do in Module 2. What are their problems? What are their problems? Based on your research and then based on your skills and your area of interest or your zone of genius, like we talked about before, what do you actually want to solve? Because you don't want to solve all the problems. Like hey, some of this stuff like not touching it. Like I don't want to talk about like ltl truckload shipping and all this stuff. Like that's boring maybe, but I can't. But that's like the only thing I remember from supply chains management. But, but that's where your services come from. Where are they Feeling the pain that you can create a solution for that'll be valued and have a clear roi. So when you have that clarity, things will fall into place a bit better. I would say.

I agree completely because I think that's what, what got me a little overworked back in January is like I knew who I wanted to work for and they very clearly, clearly laid out what their problem was. Like they needed help with something and I was like, oh my God, I can help. And then I just like I over committed and burned out. Okay, no, that's helpful for the supply chain question. I have this question about do you. How do you. Let me just read what I typed out. What are the ways you like to stay involved with your ALMA material? How does your approach or who you reach out to affect the reception and the result you want? Looking for insight into differences across alumni associations, major field of study associations, or direct to faculty staff. And I know like college students aren't necessarily like a. Maybe a target audience, so it's kind of tough to invest some time there. But I think I recall you saying, like, speaking at your school is a great, great way to get free ad advertisement, free space.

Yeah. So it's interesting because I wasn't doing as much with my college specifically for a long time. I graduated from business school in 2005, haven't done much since then. But literally this year is when I started doing speaking topics for my school on personal branding and LinkedIn, marketing and entrepreneurship. So it literally just started this year, but it snowballed because I did something with one program that another program heard about me, like, oh, you got to bring this guy on, you know, so and so forth. So it's been really good. But what I've done previously is teaching at nyu, for example. Same thing. Once you get in as someone who's a trusted speaker, they'll bring you into other events and recommend you as well. I've done some stuff with Ohio State, like, so smaller colleges and larger colleges. But it's. It's beneficial because you get paid for it too. It's not, you know, just. Just free. What I would recommend is, or where I found a lot of benefit is like, adult education courses, not necessarily kids, because even the stuff. Some of the stuff I'm doing at my college is through my university. But these are grown adults. These are like career changers or people that are, you know, in their 30s and 40s that I'm teaching, and as a result of that, some of them can eventually hire you directly.

So my school I went to is a little, like, slightly different. I went to Rutgers Business School in Newark. And because it's such a commuter school and so close to New York, it actually has a very large, older population.

Yeah, Rutgers is pretty close to me. So it doesn't. I mean, I think either way, I think even Rutgers would be in your situation, may be better because there's such a larger organization that since you're kind of niche, you can say, hey, I want to talk about this. Who's involved in this, who graduated from the School of Agriculture or whatever it is and would want to be involved. So I wouldn't limit it just to your college, to be honest. That's a good start. Just to, like, get some credibility. But then reach out to other schools. It doesn't have to be just your school.

No, absolutely. I didn't even. I didn't even consider that. But Rutgers School of Agriculture is pretty big, and it's one of the better Ones in the country, I think.

Yeah, I went to your campus before. It's pretty cool.

Well, the New Brunswick one, not my campus.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Like any school, you can, like, Google, like, top agriculture schools and then reach out to their alumni association and say. Or whatever, whoever does programming or events and say, I have this talk about supply change in 2021, why this must change, or you're in trouble, you know, whatever it is, and just pitch it right. And just say, here's the key takeaways. And there's a. There's a. If you look at the coaching consulting playbook that comes along with this course, I think it's in, like, module five or something like that. There's scripts there you can use for outreach. But I would just say that. And what you could also do to save time. This is what I've done, is hire a virtual assistant to get the contact information for all these. First of all, do research on the top 50 agricultural schools and then say, okay, get me the contact information for someone who does events or programs like that should be in their title, whether it be their email address or their LinkedIn profile, or both, maybe. And then you yourself would do the outreach in regards to connecting with these people. But here's where it gets interesting. Ties back to what we said earlier. What you could do is look for them on LinkedIn, see if they post regularly. If they do, start engaging with them, and then you start a relationship with them where you're like, hey, you know, I'm really involved with agriculture, and I see you host all these cool events. I'd love to talk about this. What do you say? That actually worked for me, because this woman, she. I can't remember how we. We met, but she's like, you should give talks at libraries. You'd be really good at that. And I saw she worked at a library. I'm like, we're gonna talk about yours. She's like, sure. I was like, all right, well, why don't you offer that in the first place? But. But the point is. Yeah, I mean, by design, what that's. What I would do is I would look for organizations that support agriculture. Not just colleges, but like the Agriculture association of Ohio. I'm making it up. Reach out to them and say, hey, I'd like to talk to your members about whatever. And from there, because things, even if you don't get clients from it, that's fine. You're growing your network. They might say, oh, you got to talk to this organization. Or talk to this person or talk to whoever. And you're growing your network as a result of that.

Yeah, you keep saying Ohio because you've been there. I've done some volunteering in Iowa, and when I was there, a friend I made, she kept talking about the. What are they called? I mean, just the hog farms and how bad they are for, like, just the runoff. And Iowa has a really bad problem with their. Their hog farms, as we saw, I think. Or, oh, where was that Titan such. 2020 was an interesting year for supply chain. Okay, that's. That's really great for. What about career fairs? Just as a means of networking and getting an idea of, you know, what types of services companies are looking for. Like, do you. Does that sound like a waste of time? That's my first thought because I'm trying so hard to get back involved with Rutgers, and I'm just like, yesterday I was in. This was a fantastic event. Yesterday I was in a symposium with the chief procurement officer of Johnson and Johnson at the same time that a big New York Times Johnson Johnson article dropped. I don't know if you saw that about the vaccines. So, like, these are like. Like, that was a super valuable event to go to. I just feel like I need to draw the line somewhere and start doing more productive work.

My first thought on career fairs is. And maybe I'm wrong, but, like, normally I think it's like younger college students talking to, like, HR representatives from various companies trying to get jobs. So that's why I'm saying, like, where do you fit in that equation?

This is an alumni career fair, so it's. And it's huge. It's actually. The University of Buffalo is involved in it, too. It's higher. New York Metro Multi University alumni career fair. It seemed very interesting.

I mean, it's remotely correct. Yeah, tune in. If you don't like it, tune out. I mean, it's worth trying.

Okay, but I think you answered my question of, like, yeah, you really don't mess around with that stuff, because it's really not. You really don't get much on it.

I don't know. I haven't tried that recently. I've done them, like, in person here in New York, but I haven't tried anything that recently remotely. But again, if it's like, that's the upside of doing things via zoom or whatever. It's like, all right, I don't like this. You're done. You know, it's not like, how do I sneak out? Oh, yeah, yeah.

I never thought about that. I guess that really changes. Changes the way people need to put quality into their content all the way through.

What I'm concerned about with, like a more remote session is how do you make these connections if there's like 20 people in the room? I mean, one thing that I normally do is, like, if I want to zoom with a lot of people, I'll change my name to like, my Instagram handle or my Twitter handle. That way, if someone sees me, it's so easy just to follow up later. You have more unique name than I do, so might not be a problem. But like, or even take a screenshot of who's in the room and then follow up with them later. Hey, I saw you were in this room with me about whatever. Love to connect. That's what I see people doing on Clubhouse.

I was going to ask about that because I feel like I do that all the time and I feel like I have all these, like, screenshots of people that I was in zoom with. And it's like, is it. Is it inappropriate? Is it appropriate? I don't know what the word is. It's not weird to just reach out to them, be like, I saw your name in this, this event we were a part of.

I think here's the thing. So what I would do is if I saw someone in this event and their name was, you know, Lauren Tweedle, I would, like, go look at your profile, see what you talk about, maybe interact with some of your content, and then reach out and say, hey, Lauren, you know, I saw you because you were in the zoom room with me the other day, and, you know, I figured we had something common. But I looked at your content recently. I think it's great how you're talking so much about this. I think it's so important not enough people talk about it. That's why I wanted to reach out and introduce myself.

Okay. I love that. I think if it's restricted to people that actually post content on LinkedIn, then it's not that.

Yeah. And you can always just shoot your shot if you want. You can just reach out and say, hey, I saw you in this room. You're less likely to. It's gonna be harder to have a more genuine approach. And then the challenge is this. Like, if you notice someone doesn't post much on LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever it is, it could be months before they see your message. So for me, the pre qualifier is, do they seem actively engaged? Because then I know I'll know much sooner if it's working or not. If they Saw my message or not, as opposed to if they post like once every year, it's like, okay, well, I have no idea if this approach is working or not.

Is there a way? I mean, you just go to their activity and then just scroll down, go to their page, go to their activity and then just scroll.

Yeah, you go to their page, then activity, then recent posts. And that's where you would see that.

Okay, I must have missed that. Okay, I'll do that.

Yeah. And then same thing with Clubhouse, because, like, I was in a clubhouse room yesterday about something about entrepreneurship and there's like 400 people in the room. And as a result of that, a few people reached out to me today saying, hey, I saw you're in this clubhouse room. Just want to introduce myself, so on, so forth. I mean, they didn't have a good reason, so it was like, not as authentic as it could have been. But people do that all the time, especially with your audience, which is more bespoke. If you see any rooms that are a good fit for your audience, I would definitely just show up in order to get those screenshots and learn more about the people that are presenting, obviously with people that are in the room as well.

I've yet to go on Clubhouse at all. I need to.

That's pretty cool.

Okay, well, okay, speaking of tools, I downloaded mostly all the tools that you recommend. I think you may have seen that. And I really need to just focus in on the key ones. And so I'm thinking just scratch all the financial related ones for now. Focus on like, Right. Like, I mean, I have them on. I mean, just focus on my. Right. The Hub. HubSpot is. No, HubSpot is the CRM. Right.

Correct.

Okay, so I'm thinking just focus on HubSpot Asana and then like, what I really like my Squarespace kind of.

I would also say ConvertKit, once you start building up your email list.

Oh, okay. And what does that do again?

ConvertKit is how you can send out your newsletter and it's also how you can do any kind of automation behind someone, like signing up for your lead magnet, like your top 10 ways to be more sustainable. You can automate like three or four emails that go out afterwards to encourage them to like book a call with you or something. Oh, also set up either acuity or calendly so you can schedule calls easier. And I believe both of them have free versions. So until you become like a heavier user of it, just use the free version. Same with HubSpot. Don't pay for it. Right now, just use the free version. Okay.

Does Acuity. Is that the one that has built in video capability or no. Am I mixing up?

No, it integrates with Zoom.

Okay. Because I've only. I've used Calendly. I downloaded Acuity. Maybe just stick with Calendly. Stick with what? I know. So very similar.

They're very similar. I mean, I remember one time I googled the difference between Calendly and Acuity and I landed on Acuity. I can't remember why. So I would say whichever one you feel comfortable with or whichever one you currently have.

Another question. I have so many questions. You kind of. You kind of addressed this earlier when you told me to jump to another module in the course. But given that I'm so stuck on this zone of genius and I'm really letting it get the best of me, would you recommend me jumping ahead to something else? I mean, you did mention a module that would be like, helpful for scripts. Or would you just recommend. Just keep going the way the syllabus is.

I would say this. You need to get clear in your audience first and then look at their problems that you that need to be solved. Because from there you have a clear understanding of what needs to be done. And you can think to yourself, can I? What do I want to do? And maybe they're not all genius level things, more those like things that you're really good at. And that's fine. But you can still find other outlets for your zone of genius as long as you're not. As long as you don't hate your job. That's kind of the way I think about, like people are like, oh, find your passion. Find your passion. I don't know about that. I mean, I think you can find something that'll support you that you don't hate, that gives you more time to pursue your passion. Like people that are selling like widgets or fidget spingers on like Amazon or like gadgets. They don't. They don't. It's not passionate. They're passionate about the fact they can live wherever they want in the world and make a lot of money selling stuff on Amazon. So you're clear already on most what you want to do, which is okay, what audience is it? Which sounds like you're clear on too. What are their problems? Sound clear on that as well. I would start moving forward towards the research part where you go deeper on their problems. And even that part, like, don't feel like you have to go through every single step in module two, the research part because there's a lot. There's. There's surveys, there's interviews I talk about doing in person, events which aren't necessarily possible right now. So really, the. The test to see if you're clear on your audience is this. Can you think of, like, 10 questions that your audience has? Can you? And that's part of the content marketing part, so get to that eventually anyways. But if you can't think of 10 questions that your audience has, for me, that's a sign that you're not very clear on who they are. Another thing is, do you know what websites they read? Do you know what conferences they would attend? If you know this stuff already, then you can kind of skip part of the research part and start moving more towards building out your services as well as your pricing and your marketing. That way you won't feel so stuck on the research part, which can be pretty intense.

Yeah, I mean, with everything, there's like. There's so much you can research. I almost feel like where I'm at, I'm pretty ripe for maybe like a survey.

Go for it.

Yeah. Okay. So that was the tool question, the course question. Okay. My last one is I applied to be in Anna Vatuone. Am I saying that? I applied to be in her personal brand accelerator program, and I have an interview with her in a few weeks. So I was wondering if you had any guidance to help me prepare for the interview and maybe the program if I get in and if based on what you know about me thus far, there are, like, aspects of my personality or personal brand that you think I should highlight.

So Anna's a friend of mine. She's. She's a good person. She actually built my website.

That's how I. Yeah, that's. That was in my application. I was like, it wasn't a direct referral, but I saw your name at the bottom of Terry's website.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. I think you don't have to really prepare much because her goal is to help you find the clarity and how you want to express yourself as a personal brand. So you. Based on what you even said today, like, you. I think you have enough for her to say, okay, cool. Like, there's some substance here. Now let's give it some structure and obviously work on, like, the aspects of, like, you know, your branding, like your colors and your logos and all this other stuff. But I think you don't necessarily need to prepare because I think you're very authentic about what you want to do. I think really the best thing you can do is be clear on the outcomes you're looking for from the program. Because if you're not clear on the outcomes, then you won't know what questions to ask. I'd be more focused on that as opposed to how you present yourself.

Okay. No, I like that because it's. It seems to be a small group, so I would think that individuals desire for, like, the outcome would be taken more into. Into account.

Yeah. And normally it's like, the outcomes, like knowing how to more authentically show up on online and to remove any kind of imposter syndrome you might have. But there are other aspects that I am not good at, like what color palette should you use? And stuff like that. Like, that's not my. My zone of genius or even interest. Sometimes she's really good at that stuff. And, yeah, I think your brand would be more solidified after that.

Okay, cool. I think that was it. Is that everything? Yeah, that was it. Thank you, Tara. Really great, as always. Like, I love. I love the course. I love what you do. I want to do something similar.

Well, it sounds like you're already on the way, so I'm glad to hear that. But, yeah, I mean, we got some action items to work through, but I feel like every week you get kind of closer to where you eventually want to end up. So I think, first of all, you should, you know, reward yourself or at least, you know, acknowledge that. That you're getting clearer on where you want to go and just keep progressing. And I'll be here every week to help out.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Great, great advice, as always. Like, I need to write. I need to celebrate how far I've. I've come in the course, which is. It might not seem that far because I'm still on module one, but I think I'm picking up a lot here. And there's.

Yeah, well, I mean, you're building a brand, and a business is going to reward you for years. So if it takes you three months, four months, it's okay.

True. Awesome. All right, well, I'll probably see you next week.

Cool. Sounds good. Take care.

All right. Thanks, Terry.