On today’s episode of Monetize the Mic, Margy and Jess discuss why your business isn’t sustainable and why that’s not entirely a bad thing. After a coaching client came to the realization that her business wasn’t sustainable, she began to panic. But your business not being sustainable is just a part of the growth journey. There are always parts of your business that aren’t sustainable, but entrepreneurs should constantly be evolving their businesses and consider those areas places to grow rather than a death sentence for their companies.

On today’s episode of Monetize the Mic, Margy is sharing her top five CEO lessons from 2021. Margy and Jess talk about the importance of asking questions to advocate for your own clarity, being a stand for your own excellence (even when it’s annoying), giving yourself a bird’s eye view (even when you’re in it), getting really honest with yourself about where and how you’re showing up as a leader, and not crumbling. Learning all of these lessons over the past year have not only made Margy a better leader, but have also improved the results and performance of the entire team.

Email us at support[at]interviewconnections.com to let us know what you’ve learned as a CEO this year. Follow us on Instagram @interviewconnections

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Margy and Jess are talking about the power of just taking the leap and implementing something, even if it's not perfect right now. "Do it, even if it's sloppy" is not universally good advice for every situation, but for some systems and strategies, you can implement now and clean up later without any major repercussions. You do need to be mindful and able to distinguish what advice is right for you in your business. Margy also shares some common dangerous truisms that you should be mindful of.

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Margy and Jess are talking about why you shouldn't make a vision board...because you should make a presence board instead. For some people, vision boards are helpful to guide you towards your future, but it's also helpful to be grateful for all the things you have now and everything you've accomplished thus far. If you're more future-focused, making a presence board can be the grounding you need. 

Email us your presence board to support[at]interviewconnections.com

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy talk about how to improve your call to action. The call to action is how you convert the audience of the show into clients, so you want to be intentional when creating their journey from listener to client.

Mia Hewett - Business coach has closed over $52k in high ticket sales from listeners who heard her on podcasts. Again, these are leads who come NOT needing a ton of nurture. They come ready to buy.

-Hosts will give you an opportunity to share with the listeners how they can connect with you online after the interview

-This is your opportunity to share your call to action 

-Your CTA MUST: 

1. 1. Be Free (or extremely low priced, like a book) 
   2. Be ONE THING (not a menu of options or a list of all your social media handles) 
   3. Be valuable to the listeners 
   4. Be the next intentional stop on the journey a client makes from when they first hear about you, to when they become your client 
   5. BE DIRECTIVE IN YOUR DELIVERY 

Simple CTAs that work 

-Consult Call

1. 1. 1. Mark Willis has closed 32 new clients from podcasts! After his podcast interview, his CTA is inviting listeners to schedule a free consultation. From those consults, he’s converted dozens of high end long term clients resulting.

-Free Book or Chapter

1. 1. Client Chris Prefontaine offers his book for free on podcast interviews, and 50% of those who receive the book convert to Chris's program!

-Facebook Group

1. 1. Here at Interview Connections, we send people to our Facebook group, Guest Expert Profit Lab. We offer free valuable information to group members, and are able to nurture and educate leads about our services!
   2. A Quiz
      1. Client Stacey Brown Randall sends leads to her Referral Ninja quiz! She says that quizzes are easy and engaging because the quiz taker is taking action while answering the questions. You are able to customize their results which allows the quiz taker to know where they are starting from which connects them to learning more from you!

Audit your current call to action?

1. Is it free or very low dollar?
2. Is it easy to spell and remember?
3. Is it clear and concise?
4. Are you delivering it with confidence? 
5. Are you sending the listener somewhere where you are moving them through your funnel?

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy discuss how you can close high ticket sales outside of a launch by guesting on podcasts. Your interviews will help you develop high trust with podcast audiences and you will be able to leverage your relationship with the hosts who interview you and chances are, they'll sign up to be your client. You'll need a lot fewer touch points to close someone who hears you on a podcast and when you focus on your energy and mindset, you will naturally be in a state of providing value and abundance and this will translate into sales.

On today’s episode, of Monetize the Mic, we’re answering the frequently asked question: What does success look like with podcast guesting?

After establishing who this strategy is and isn't for, Margy and Jess go over the measures of success in the podcast guesting strategy including listeners getting value from what you shared, creating relationships with the hosts that interview you, and more!

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy are talking about how to deliver a brand strengthening podcast interview so you can skyrocket your visibility (because you don't have a brand if nobody knows who you are).

There is a difference between building a business and building a brand and you should establish both. And building a brand isn't just about colors and logos, it's about the storytelling behind it. And that storytelling starts on your podcast interviews.

Margy gives some great tips and strategies for how to be brave, get out there, and get stronger as you go.

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy! 

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess shares 17 tips for maximum success as a podcast guest:

1. Respond to the host and express your gratitude!
2. Connect with the host on social media
3. Listen to their podcast and leave an honest review 
4. Share about getting booked on social media 
5. Research who the host is, who their audience is
6. Be camera-ready 
7. Use a microphone and a ring light 
8. Restart your computer 
9. Get water 
10. Schedule in buffer time 
11. Ask the host green room questions 
12. Over-deliver value
13. Share stories 
14. Give a great CTA 
15. Chat with the host in the green room after the show 
16. Show about your interview after it goes live 
17. Repurpose the interview into social media content

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy! 

On today's episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy are talking with Interview Connections client, Melissa Houston. Melissa Houston is a CPA, a Financial Strategist for CEOs, a columnist at Forbes.com, and the host of The Business Society podcast. Melissa helps successful business owners increase their profit margins without having to increase revenue so that they keep more money in their pocket while increasing their personal wealth.

In this episode, Melissa talks about profit vs revenue, personal vs business finance separation, why your business needs a reserve of cash, coming out of debt, and gives her top money management tips for scaling a business.

Connect with Melissa at melissahoustoncpa.com and check out her show, The Business Society Podcast.

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy! 

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, we replay a session of our Virtual Conference featuring a conversation with Mark Willis. Mark discusses how he didn't want to be away from his family and pour thousands of dollars into speaking events that didn't convert, so he began podcast guesting and it has definitely helped him with his number one goal for sanity. He also talks about his call to action and relationship building with podcast hosts, joint venture opportunities, and how to add more value to a show's community.

Connect with Mark at lakegrowth.com

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy! 

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, we replay a session of our Virtual Conference featuring a conversation with Ana Raynes. Ana discusses how her background in the fashion industry led to her becoming a part of the agency world and how establishing yourself as an authority in your industry (with SEO and podcast guesting) can lead to you building an online community.

Check out Ana's website: simplifiedimpact.com and connect with Ana on Instagram @_anamariaraynes

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, we replay a session of our Virtual Conference featuring a conversation with Dan Mangena. Dan and Jess discuss visibility, quality, content, mindset, and how to engineer your celebrity and create an unstoppable brand!

Learn more about working with Dan at dreamwithdan.com

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, we are doing a special feature of the first episode of season one of Margy's podcast, "We Get It, Your Dad Died." Season two of Margy's show will be airing Fall 2021! You can listen to the entire first season of "We Get It, Your Dad Died" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Libsyn, and Amazon.

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Interview Connections’ booking agent Riley Baez-Bradway is in conversation with client Louise Bedford, co-founder of the Trading Game. Louise talks about her experiences as a guest expert and how some of the shows that Riley has booked her on don’t have anything to do with trading, but she still saw the benefits in going on those shows and has gotten an ROI and has grown relationships with the hosts, so she still encourages podcast guests to stay open minded with the type of shows they’re willing to go on. She also wants people to not be so buttoned up on interviews and really be themselves and connect with people on a personal level in order to really make an impact. Louise also discusses some health issues she has had in the past and present and how that influenced her becoming a trader in the first place and how it impacts her work as a guest expert now (and how to “speak from your scars, not from your wounds”). 

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Trading Game website: https://www.tradinggame.com.au
• Talking Trading website: https://talkingtrading.com.au
• September Masterclass (Riley's affiliate link): https://bit.ly/septembermc
• Riley's email: riley[at]interviewconnections[dot]com

In this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy are talking about Margy’s podcast We Get It, Your Dad Died. Since the last Monetize the Mic episode about WGIYDD aired in April, Margy has released her podcast and it has also won an award for Best Podcast at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. Margy gives some insight on how she schedules and batches her interviews for the show, why she does pre-calls with her guests, and what questions you should ask yourself when you decide to start your own show. Jess shares that she believes Margy’s podcast is so good because she approaches it as a piece of art rather than just marketing material.

You can listen to We Get It, Your Dad Died on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon.

In this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy talk about reading. Margy recently joined fellow entrepreneur Lisa Larter’s group Thought Readers, which is a Facebook group for business books. Margy is a very avid reader/audiobook listener and proud owner of a Kindle Paperwhite (not sponsored) and highly recommends it for anyone who reads consistently. She also recommends listeners of Monetize the Mic read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz (and implement it!), and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. If you have a book that inspires you, purchase a few copies of it and leave them around at Little Free Libraries or donate them to a regular library to pay it forward!

Lisa Larter’s group Thought Readers: https://lisalartergroup.isrefer.com/go/TRFeldhuhn/MargyFeldhuhn (This is an affiliate link so we will get a commission if you sign up through our link)

John Briggs (Profit First accountant): https://profitfirstformicrogyms.com/

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy talk all about your success equation!

For Margy, two important aspects of her success equation are a positive mindset and playfulness. Margy discusses how important it is to cultivate a positive mindset and the right types of thoughts. This is something she’s always done for herself but she didn’t really ever think about it. Now as a coach, Margy is learning how to vocalize it and help others on the same journey. And for Margy, it truly has been a journey! 

Margy came from a place of being really miserable for a really long time. When she was younger, she found the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. This book helped Margy realize that maybe the story she had been telling herself about her life wasn’t the whole story. At first, she really didn’t want to read this book. Margy didn't want to change, and she was afraid of the truth. Sometimes when you create this world that is so small and so negative, there is a big part of you that just wants to defend it. 

Margy’s transformation was not like flipping a switch. It wasn’t as if Margy read this book and then stopped being depressed. She wasn’t transformed in that moment of reading that book, but that was what started it. After reading, Margy became much more open-minded and more open to personal development. It has been and remains a lifelong journey. 

Learning how to be present is transformational and it doesn’t happen overnight.

Jess asks Margy, “How do you relate to the thoughts in your head?”

24 hours a day, Margy is watching her thoughts. She never stops. This practice took a lot of time to get into. She started noticing both her thoughts and her feelings. It’s really hard to watch every thought, so a really good indicator is to watch your feelings. For Margy, your feelings are much more important to your positive mindset than your thoughts.

Margy recommends that we get acquainted with who we are. Ask yourself, “What stories do I tell about myself? Are they 100% true?” Find those, dig those out. 

Jess asks Margy how she incorporates fun and playfulness into her positive mindset.

Margy feels like her most true self when she is having fun and being playful. It is so important to her to be able to still work and have fun. When she is working on projects alone, she can feel very isolated. Margy really likes the energy of collaboration and playfulness while working with other people. 

On the note of playfulness, Margy recently experienced her first Disney trip. She was always a Disney skeptic. But when she went and experienced it with an open mind, Margy absolutely loved it. She loved that you got to play as an adult. Three or four days of play as an adult just doesn't usually happen. She was able to fully immerse herself in play and really enjoyed it

Margy reminds us that you can look back 10 years and see that you’re a different person. But we can’t look 10 years ahead and know what we’ll be like. We think we’re done. We know we’ve been growing, but we always think we’re in our final state. We don’t know what’s possible for us because we can’t imagine it. 

If you’re in a failure right now, it feels like that’s the end of your story. But it isn’t! Don’t get discouraged. You can always come back. There’s nothing you can’t come back from!

On this special episode of Monetize the Mic, Booking Agent and Team Lead Riley gets the chance to sit down with Scott Schober to talk all about podcast interview strategy!

Scott is the President and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, a 48-year-old, New Jersey-based provider of advanced, world-class wireless test and security solutions. He is the author of three best-selling security books: Hacked Again, Cybersecurity is Everybody’s Business, and Senior Cyber.

Scott is a highly sought-after author and expert for live security events, media appearances, and commentary on the topics of ransomware, wireless threats, drone surveillance and hacking, cybersecurity for consumers, and small business. He is often seen on ABC News, Bloomberg TV, Al Jazeera America, CBS This Morning News, CNN, Fox Business, and many more networks.

Scott also serves as the CSO and Chief Media Commentator for Cybersecurity Ventures and sits on several cyber advisory boards for various companies.

Riley asks Scott about the preparation process for all of his media appearances and podcast interviews. How does Scott create a structure around such a busy process?

Scott’s first piece of advice is, it’s never good to be too comfortable. Once you feel like you’re in your comfort zone, you should try to get out of it. It’s great to be confident but you still want to have some butterflies. If you’re too confident, sometimes you won’t know what to say. 

He also highly recommends spending the time to educate yourself and prepare. Before any media appearance or podcast interview, Scott always reads a few articles about the topic he wants to discuss. He then digests it and meditates on it. When he goes on a podcast, he always likes to make it a goal to have three stats that he can remember off the top of his head. Scott will weave in a statistic to bring home the point in his interviews!

Most importantly, Scott explains that you have to be true to yourself and be authentic. While doing this, you can apply practical tips that are not too complex. By doing that, people will walk away and have learned something that they can apply in their own lives. It’s so important to always share something, impart some knowledge, and teach something. That will make your interviews more effective and it will help grow your brand!

Scott has an incredibly busy schedule and busy life. Riley helped Scott right away by recommending that he start tracking all his interviews. Scott has over 50 interviews in his Interview Connections package, so organization is key. Scott encourages everyone listening to track their podcast interviews! 

He also recommends preparing for an interview 24 hours in advance and keeping it topical. For Scott, education is key to being the best expert he can be.

Before going on a podcast, Scott always listens to who is going to be interviewing him. He listens to the show and gets a sense of their style. The more natural the interview, the better it is. It may seem obvious, but Scott always thanks the person who interviewed him! He likes to write a little thank you note, and point out something specific and positive about the experience. 

Hosting a podcast isn’t easy work, and a host will appreciate it! Scott also always shares and promotes the podcast episodes he’s been on. It’s not just about you, sharing your interviews is also about thanking the host and building a foundation with them.

Scott also reminds listeners to make sure that they have decent quality equipment before their podcast interview. Don’t show up unprepared. About half of the podcasts Scott does are video, he’s always ready to potentially be on video. He reminds us that if you fumble on the technical side, you lose your focus. You want to focus on the interview! Scott also keeps a physical checklist of everything he needs for the interview. This helps to frame things, and makes him a better guest. 

Riley asks if Scott can speak to the importance of improvisation and staying on your feet as a podcast guest. 

This skill is fundamental, explains Scott. He stresses the importance of being able to read the audience. To be a great podcast guest, you have to know your audience and have the flexibility to pivot if necessary. Put yourself in their shoes! 

Scott reminds us that a podcast host is giving you an opportunity to speak and share your expertise. They’re giving you the power of the mic, and you should be gracious. Thank them for the privilege that you’re there!

He also recommends that if you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t try to fake it. That breaks down your credibility and hurts the podcast. Stay true to yourself and do the research!

A fascinating effect that Scott has noticed is the more podcasts you do, the more opportunities you have. As he’s been doing dozens of podcast interviews, Scott has now received opportunities for radio, speaking, conferences, TV, and more. Scott really believes in the service mindset of a podcast guest. For Scott, the more you do for other people, the more it comes back indirectly. Whatever you give away will come back to you twofold. Put yourself out there, you don’t know what’s going to happen!

You can find Scott at his website, scottschober.com, and on his podcast, What Keeps You Up at Night!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess got the chance to speak with Dr. Joli Hamilton about trust and non-monogamy!

Joli is a research psychologist, an AASECT certified sex educator, TEDx speaker, and a sex + relationship coach. She holds a doctorate in depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has spent many years working directly with clients helping them improve their relationship skills and is also a professor of human sexuality. 

Over the past two decades, she has started a dozen business ventures ranging from clothing design to personal training to providing birth and lactation doula services, all while managing her own relationships, pursuing her graduate degrees, and raising and homeschooling seven kids. 

Joli has felt those wild highs and terrible lows that come with business ownership, marriage, divorce, and reinventing love from the bottom up. She is committed to helping people create sustainable, soul-nourishing relationships without sacrificing their business dreams.

Joli shared how she wasn’t raised to trust herself and that it took serious, conscious work to change that. It wasn’t until she recognized a pattern of starting a successful business, and then bailing four years in when business was booming. Once she noticed the pattern started to affect other aspects of her life, she made some changes.

“I was able to commit myself to a Ph.D. program. I was able to commit to my marriage. It really has been a process of learning to trust me in love and say yeah, I can show up for myself.”

Listen to this episode to hear Dr. Joli Hamilton tell us all about:

• What Tall Poppy Syndrome is, and how to avoid it.
• Why you need to trust yourself and commit
• What re-parenting is and why it’s so important

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess got the chance to speak with one of our favorite clients at Interview Connections, Jyotsna Ramachandran about purpose-driven authors!

Jyotsna is a bestselling author, book publisher, TEDx speaker, and an international Author Success Coach who helps coaches, trainers, speakers, and experts to build a super-profitable author funnel with the help of their book.

She founded Author Success Academy to help aspiring authors finally finish their book, get it professionally published, market it into a bestseller, and use that position to grow their business. So far, Jyotsna has helped over 400 authors from 35 different countries through her global publishing agency, Happy Self Publishing. 

Jyotsna is both an agency client and a coaching client of Interview Connections. Jess and Margy truly love, admire, and respect how much of an implementer Jyotsna is. She is always ready to take action that she needs to take to scale her business. Jyotsna is the first to admit that she doesn’t take advice from just anyone, but after seeing Jess and Margy grow Interview Connections to where it is now, she knew that she could trust their advice.

One of the things that Jess and Margy helped Jyotsna with was her company’s vision statement. Like many other entrepreneurs, Jyotsna didn’t have a vision statement initially. However, now her vision statement for Happy Self Publishing is:

To elevate the consciousness of humanity one book at a time and be the leading book publishing agency for purpose-driven authors.

At Interview Connections, Jess also aims to help purpose-driven entrepreneurs. Our clients are driven to have an impact on the world and achieve their purpose. Both what Jess and Margy do and what Jyotsna does are very similar. Interview Connections gets people on podcasts and amplifies their message. Jyotsna helps people get their books published so she can amplify their message as well.

A common objection that happens to service providers like Interview Connections and Jyotsna is, “That sounds amazing, but I have all these other things to focus on.” So then all the books, the podcasts, etc never get high enough on the priority list. “I'll let you know how things are going next month, I'll circle back to this next quarter.” Jess wants to know, what is going on there? Why does message amplifying services so frequently get low priority?

In the past, Jyotsna used to work with all kinds of writers, and a lot of them were passionate about writing. They would just write every day because they were truly writers. That is a totally different category than who she works with now. Now, Jyotsna and her team primarily work with service-based entrepreneurs. 

These are busy people, and writing is not at the top of their priority list. They are busy with the day-to-day activities of their business. The book that they have been wanting to write is always getting pushed to the back burner.

Jyotsna recommends that entrepreneurs differentiate between the important things and the urgent things. We need to take out time for the important things. These are investments that may not give results in the next 30 days but they will give results in the next year, two years, ten years, etc. 

A book is an evergreen marketing tool. 

If you invest in Facebook ads, you might get some leads right away but then it’s gone. A book is a marketing tool that you can keep using for the rest of your life! Once you’re an author, you will always be looked upon as an author. 

Why do so many entrepreneurs focus on short-term investments instead of looking ahead at the long-term benefits of something like a book?

Jyotsna explains that many people aren’t able to focus on important tasks. What she tells entrepreneurs is, “If you're naturally good at writing and you want to do it, you will create time to do it. If you’re not able to do that, it doesn't mean that you can never become an author, you can just ask for help!”

Even if you’re not struggling but you just want to get better, it’s always good to hire a coach, Jyotsna tells us. Her team is built with author success coaches. These coaches will hold you accountable, hop on calls with you every week, and give entrepreneurs clarity on what their book topic should be that week. They help with things like identifying your target client and your target reader. They go over how to pick an angle so your book will stick out, how to make a book outline, remove roadblocks, review your work, and help you stick to your writing plan so you can finish your manuscript in 3 months!

Still, some entrepreneurs do not have the time. They have the intention, but they still have so many other things to manage. In that case, Jyotsna would recommend going with an angel writer. An angel writer will interview you on your subject and do the writing for you. They ask you questions based on your book’s outline, and you, as the expert in your subject, can speak at length about your topic. The angel writer would then take what you’ve said and write it. These are the two options that Jyotsna would give to an entrepreneur who wants to leverage their expertise as a published author!

Jess wants to know how angel writing is different from ghostwriting?

Jyotsna asks us to imagine it this way: you have a fantastic story, and a Hollywood producer wants to turn your story into a movie. Would you take the risk of writing, directing, casting, acting? You would not do all of that right? Your job is to provide the story which is the crux of the movie. All the other things are handled by other professionals. It’s still your story, but other professionals are doing what they’re good at. 

Jyotsna also reminds us that if an entrepreneur happens to be a great writer, they should absolutely try writing the book themselves. However, if you’re not able to get the results you’re looking for, you should hire an angel writer.

Typically, a ghostwriter client gives a topic and vanishes. A ghostwriter is expected to do all the research and put together a draft without any collaboration. An angel writer does not put their thoughts and ideas into the book. They ask you the right questions to extract information from your head into writing. They ensure that your voice and tonality is maintained. An angel writer is excellent at asking questions and excellent at writing without losing the voice of the author. They pay close attention to the way the author speaks and will ask for writing references, so they know what kind of voice the author uses.

Jess points out that people might not know how many successful authors work with a team!  So many top-level, very well-known experts, use a team to write their content. Jyotsna has an incredible team. She mentors and trains her team to deliver an excellent quality of service to her clients.

She admits that she made all the mistakes of working with freelancers. Jyotsna soon realized that her team is the biggest strength in her company. She invests a lot of time in picking the right team members and training them. 

Jyotsna does not look at her business as a publishing agency. They specialize in business and self-help books because these are the genres that entrepreneurs are interested in writing. She helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses and amplify their message as authors! Not only does Jyotsna’s team offer these services, but they coach their clients on how to use that book to grow their business.

Jess wants to know, how does Jyotsna help her clients become bestsellers?

Jyotsna predominantly works with first-time authors. She explains that if you’re a first-time author and you’re using a book to grow your business, the Amazon best-selling chart is where you should be focusing. Becoming an Amazon bestseller will help you gain credibility with your audience. Her team understands the Amazon algorithm very well, and getting you on that chart will help you create visibility, traction, and momentum. 

Her team is able to monitor what category your book is in, and make sure it’s in the right category. Jyotsna makes sure that her client’s books reach the #1 position. Even if it’s only #1 for a few days, you can always call yourself a bestselling author. This has a huge impact on the minds of someone visiting your website. If you’re on a stage as a speaker and you are introduced as a bestselling author, it gives a completely different impact. 

You can connect with Jyotsna at her website happyselfpublishing.com/apply or you can join her free bootcamp at happyselfpublishing.com/tribe!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess was thrilled to speak with Interview Connections client Alexandra Stockwell about uncompromising intimacy.

Alexandra Stockwell, MD is a Luxury Love and Intimacy Mentor, known as “The Intimacy Doctor.” She specializes in showing couples how to build beautiful, long-lasting, passionate relationships. She is the bestselling author of Uncompromising Intimacy and host of the highly acclaimed The Marriage Podcast. 

A wife of 25 years and mother of 4, Alexandra believes the key to passion and fulfillment, intimacy, and success, isn’t compromise--it’s being unwilling to compromise--because when both people feel free to be themselves, and know-how to love and be loved for exactly who they are, the relationship is juicy, nourishing, and deeply satisfying.

Jess first asks, “How did you go from being a medical doctor to a relationship coach?”

Alexandra explains that whenever we make important transitions or evolutions, we can tell different stories about it and they’re all true. Alexandra has a few different perspectives on her own story. When she was in her mid-30s she owned a small holistic medical practice. Alexandra worked really hard to get where she was in life. All her ambitions that had propelled her forward had all come true. She was married, she had three kids, she had paid off medical school loans, and yet she didn’t have the feeling of having arrived. Alexandra wasn’t satisfied; she didn’t feel enthusiastic to live that same way for another three or four decades.

People ask her, “Were you burnt out?” Alexandra feels that she wasn't experiencing burnout, but she just knew that she would end up burnt out. She was able to take a sabbatical and gave herself room to do things for no good reason. Alexandra did things because they felt good, not to achieve a particular goal. This experience was radical for her. 

Alexandra was still running her household with 3 children, so it wasn’t as if she was sitting around doing nothing. But she was still able to do things like taking a dance class and just sitting by the creek. She didn’t need a reason to do things! This made space for other aspects of her soul to emerge which eventually led her down the path of becoming a relationship and intimacy expert. That’s one story about Alexandra’s journey.

Another story about her journey is that her daughter had just turned nine. She saw that her daughter was so vibrant, so full of joy, and so happy. On the one hand, Alexandra had felt so grateful to have mothered her in a way where she could just feel so wonderful. On the other hand, on the inside, Alexandra was freaking out. When she was that age, Alexandra’s parents were getting divorced. Looking at her nine-year-old, Alexandra saw that she had disconnected from her own joy. 

She had disconnected from an aspect of herself that she really wanted to reconnect with. She also felt a motivation to change because if Alexandra didn't figure this out for herself, her daughter would also dial down her own vibrancy to match Alexandra’s. She had a personal wake-up call and a professional wake-up call that she needed more. This took her down a path to where she is now!

Jess sees a lot of service providers and coaches come to their businesses after having a personal breakthrough. Jess asks Alexandra, “How did you start finding your clients?”

Alexandra knows that in the entrepreneurial world and in the world of coaching, mindset is really important. She explains that her unconscious mindset really helped her get clients. Alexandra ended up in a training on sensuality and sexuality, and she enrolled because she wanted to have more gratifying sex and intimacy in her marriage. She was motivated by her own growth. However, this training also doubled as a coach training. 

Alexandra didn’t know what the coaching aspect was all about but she had a student’s mindset. She thought, “Well let me just go to the teaching lab and see what they’re covering. And what is a coach anyway?” 

She went to this lab and absolutely loved it. Alexandra felt like she had come home. So much of what she loved about medicine would be possible for her as a sex, intimacy, and relationship coach. She started to meet classmates and people just organically started asking her to coach them. These people didn’t know any of the details of her life; they didn’t know her expertise. People responded to who she was without having tangible information about her. There wasn’t any push or any effort at all. People asked her, and she coached them. There was so much ease in the whole process.

When Alexandra started coaching, it felt fun and engaging. She didn’t have any specific financial goals at the time. Her joy was in expanding her skills, finding out what people needed, and doing her best to be able to give it to them. Alexandra built her coaching to low multiple 6 figures before she even had a website! By illustrating her care and skill, she built her business solely on word-of-mouth referrals.

If her expertise were in website design and you met her at a party, and you connected, you wouldn't have any idea what her website design skills are. But in Alexandra’s niche and area of expertise, it’s about connecting and building trust. Her expertise is relevant in that initial conversation she has with people. If people like that initial conversation they have a lot more information about what Alexandra does. She has a skill that is so apparent during conversation, which makes Alexandra an amazing person to utilize the podcast guesting strategy!

Jess asks, “How does your medical training come up when you’re doing intimacy coaching?”

Alexandra answers that her medical experience is both a benefit and a hindrance. The benefit is that she is used to having intimate conversations with people. No client of Alexandra’s will ever say something that shocks her to a level of discomfort where she can’t be there with them. As a doctor, she has such a wide spectrum of experience and an authority that comes from years of clinical practice.

On the other hand, as a physician, when she listens to someone speaking, Alexandra is, in a way, discarding everything that doesn’t feel relevant. She is focusing on what she needs to, in order to make a diagnosis and have a plan for treatment. When she started relationship coaching and focusing on intimacy she felt a real limitation and restriction at first. Her sessions with clients were focused on an incredibly emotional area. Initially, Alexandra would be too directive and too mentally engaged. She really needed to learn to be present and a lot less controlling in the conversation. For Alexandra, this was both very challenging and also very healing.

You can connect with Alexandra at her website, alexandrastockwell.com, and download a free chapter from Uncompromising Intimacy!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sat down with Interview Connections client Jean Atman to talk about clearing limiting beliefs!

Jean is a Soul Evolution Coach and Energy Medicine Specialist and is a leading expert on how to break free of negative life experiences - for good. She is well known in her industry as the go-to girl for helping people heal from toxic relationships and past traumas so that they can live a life filled with potential and ease. 

She has assisted over 20,000 people up-level their lives in her 21-year professional career and remains fiercely dedicated to that cause. Jean believes everyone can live a life of their dreams, and she thoroughly enjoys helping them tap into that potential! 

Jess is often asked, what sets people apart? What makes certain people so successful? Jess and Jean know that it all comes down to their beliefs. Jess asks Jean if she could talk a little bit about clearing limiting beliefs!

Limiting beliefs are a huge part of Jean’s work. Jean knows that we subscribe to these beliefs long before we know that we subscribe to them. A lot of our beliefs are tucked away and hidden in our subconscious mind. People that are having challenges and struggles in life can always find some limiting beliefs that are preventing them from living a life full of ease. 

Jean explains that limiting beliefs create an obstacle that says “You don’t deserve this, this won’t work for you.” There’s some underlying cause of that. But what is so cool about it is that when we can see those things, we can choose something different for ourselves. Once we unearth those limiting beliefs we can easily unpack it and create an improved way of living!

Jean recommends that we take control of our beliefs and thoughts.

When you think about your beliefs or thoughts, it evokes an emotion. How you feel creates your energy body. Jean’s work is all about energy, and she has seen how limiting beliefs show up as energetic congestion. People have trouble moving through their old belief systems because it’s part of their energy. 

Once people clear that energy body they don’t have as much struggle with changing. Thoughts create emotions, emotions create energy. Once you clear that, you have a path to choose more easily for yourself!

Jess remarks that energy and beliefs can seem so abstract. Jess asks Jean, “Do you have any actionable tips that people can use?”

First, Jean recommends that you recognize that you’re not in a place that you want to be. If you are in a state of suffering, worrying, etc you’re working through a limiting belief. Awareness that this is going on and the wisdom that it doesn’t have to be is extremely important. When you know it, you can see it, and you can start to unpack it. Awareness is key.

Jean then explains that intention is a powerful assistant for us. We’re suffering and we don’t want to anymore, so we choose not to. You need to start to feel into what you would prefer to feel instead. As humans, we tend to find all the evidence of why things can’t work. We get caught up in the hows, the whys, and the what-ifs. That stops forward movement. 

If we can stunt our over-excessive thinking, we can feel into what feels right and true to us. Jean asks that we tune into our authentic source. We have ease, and we have abundance. We have everything we need already within us. 

The only thing that keeps us from those things is the belief that we don’t have them. Jean tells her clients to silence the lies and limitations and feel into what they want to be feeling. This will change your energy and change your vibration. If you’re vibrating at a place of fear and worry, then you’re cultivating and creating more of that in your life experience. So if you can stunt that, and think “I’m going to choose to not feel that way” you will see the results you want to see.

Jean teaches that we can change our thoughts and our feelings instantaneously. The outcome of that might take a little time but if we have patience knowing that we changed our thoughts and emotions, the rest is coming. We just need to be patient and wait to see the results of that.

Jess knows that changing thoughts is easier said than done. There’s always an old version of us that tries to pull us back into the fear and lack mentality. Jess asks Jean if she has tools that can help us quiet that fear side of the brain and focus more on the future?

Jean responds that it’s tapping into what we want. Too many people focus on what we don’t want. It’s so important to take a step further and think about what we want. Until we know what we want, we have a harder time moving in that direction. 

So Jean asks that we get clear on where we want to go. What happens with fear is, it ignites the nervous system and we stay in a contracted state. Jean reads emotional energy, so she can see exactly what is happening in someone’s energy field. Jean and her clients start to move through what’s going on in their energy field, and it gives the clients the experience to feel things differently. 

Jean thinks that meditation is an effective tool. She teaches people how to get into their own inner worlds. If you can understand what’s happening inside yourself, you can make changes. People try to make changes externally but Jean emphasizes that change will not happen there. Change has to happen within. The more you understand yourself and what’s going on inside, the easier you can make change. 

The other important part of this change is consistency. Jean recommends that we take one thing and work on that one thing. Dedication and consistency to moving in that direction will pay off very quickly. Jean was feeling overwhelmed when her daughters were very young, and she felt that she didn’t have enough time. She said to herself, “I am creating this. I have plenty of time.” 

She felt into that and very soon after, she was getting everything done that she needed to get done with time leftover! If she had only sprinkled that in, it would have taken longer. She had to consistently give that one thought and feeling a lot of time and energy to make it happen quickly. Jean teaches to focus on one thing that is very important to you and dedicate some effort in that direction.  You will be surprised at how quickly things can shift for you. 

Jess asks, “What changes can people expect when they are diving into this inner work?”

Jean explains that the old ways of deep transformational work used to be a purge. We now don’t have to walk through the trauma to heal it. She is a huge advocate of energy clearing. When we clear our energy, all the emotions that were attached to our past trauma flow out as well. We don’t need to do talk therapy and get into all the trauma, the hurt, and the pain. We can remove the energy. The emotions around it become neutralized. What used to take months or years to heal, we can do much more efficiently. 

The awareness of something can radically shift the energy around it.

Jean notes that it’s so important to set intentions and recognize what you want. It starts offsetting all the old energy and trauma. Energy clearing accelerates the process. It doesn’t have to be all the old trauma purging, it can be much happier. Jean laughs with her clients all the time! Laughter can be just as powerful as a cathartic cry. 

You can connect with Jean at jeanatman.com and check out her free training about how to stop sabotaging beliefs from sabotaging your future!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess got to speak with Interview Connections Client Hilary DeCesare about relaunching yourself!

Hilary DeCesare is an award-winning entrepreneur, host of The Silver Lined ReLaunch, and is featured on many major networks including ABC's The Secret Millionaire. Hilary just launched the much-awaited 6-month business program The Fired Up Entrepreneur from The ReLaunch Co. This business program helps female entrepreneurs looking to launch or relaunch their business in 2021 take the right steps, in the right order, towards lasting business success.

The program stands out because it not only takes away the confusion and overwhelm on where to start, and how to start but outlines what actually works or is not working for female entrepreneurs in the changing business landscape. It's ideal for those that have a well-formed business idea or are tired of the one-win here and there approach or handful of fast fails that's keeping their already existing business small. 

Hilary specializes in launching or relaunching businesses by giving the proven foundational elements and steps needed when navigating the start to finish of building a business according to her Make, Grow, Keep Method.

Hilary firmly believes "Now is your time", and partners with women that are ready to go all in and hit the reset button. This starts with covering the 6 main pillars in her program: Clarity, mindset, time management, marketing, sales, and leadership. 

She saw a need to quiet the white noise in the business space that seemed to only cater to those that wanted to tell how, and created the program to show how to give any female entrepreneur the fast-pass to launching and relaunching a business saving them time, energy, and wasted money.

The ReLaunch Co. takes away the overwhelm and gives the simple A-Z steps to women entrepreneurs bridging the heart to the head to one's higher self, so that not only can they have success in their business, but also have a lifestyle filled with possibilities inside the acclaimed new program The Fired Up Entrepreneur.

Hilary is incredibly passionate about helping people in midlife. Jess asks, “Where does that passion come from? What was the moment where you said my purpose is to help people relaunch midlife?”

Hilary explains that midlife has become a massive area. It can be anywhere from age 35 to 55. She hasn’t talked to anyone who isn’t going through some kind of relaunch right now. People ranging from college graduates to 60-70-year-olds are realizing they aren’t where they want to be. A lot of people feel as if they need to love their lives, love their jobs, and the reality is that they’re not even at the like stage. They keep it to themselves and they don’t share that with others because there are a lot of feelings of guilt and shame associated with not completely loving your life. This kind of midlife identity crisis can happen at any age.

What Hilary realized is, we all are looking on the outside asking ourselves, “How can I get happier? What's wrong with me? What can I do?” We all are searching for the silver bullet. “If I find the right guy or, if I get the right job” etc, then we think that we will be happy. That feeling is only fleeting - that man or that job is not going to give you what you need for long-term happiness.

Hilary’s ReLaunch program works because it takes you through a process. Her program is not a “take a pill and everything is better” type of program. It is built on transitions that lead to transformations.

Hilary reminds us that we can’t look back on the things that have happened to us and ignore the silver linings that got us to where we are. After 100+ interviews on Hilary’s podcast, there hasn’t been one person who she’s interviewed that would change some of the most horrific relaunches and transitions they’ve been through because it was those transitions that got them to where they are now. They are where they are because of what they’ve been through, not in spite of it.

If you’re going through a transition right now, it’s so important to hear Hilary’s messages. She is so passionate about helping people to understand how they can relaunch themselves and find the silver lining of their obstacles. 

Hilary has seen incredible success, but it’s the hardships she’s endured that really help inspire people. Her failures have brought her to be a better coach, better business leader, and have helped her to share more and teach more.

At one time, Hilary was working with an online security company focused on children's safety online, and this company’s mission was very close to her heart.

Hilary was fundraising for this company and was pitching the product on a very large stage in front of a crowd. She had a 103 fever and felt like it was a total bust. After she got off stage, her phone rang and a man said he could help her raise two million dollars for that company.

Hilary was amazed. The man wanted her to fly to New York to meet up with his business partner. Immediately upon meeting him, Hilary had the intuition that this man was not good. She ignored her intuition, sat, and listened. Hilary decided she couldn’t work with him. 

Eventually, after going back and forth, she did end up having to work with that man. Her gut told her that it was not a good idea, but she continued to ignore it. Five years later, the entire company just combusted. The day it was all done, it was found out that the man was being investigated for a Ponzi scheme, and went to federal prison for 3 years. 

Hilary asked herself, “How do I relaunch out of this? I’ve been coaching people running other businesses. How do I become the entrepreneur of me?” Hilary began to still do what she knew to be true about business but she allowed for that higher self to come in. She allowed for that emotional connection of the heart. Hilary uses a 3H model: the heart to the head to the higher self. 

Hilary knows that if you’re not leaning into all three of those areas,  you’re never gonna scale the way you want because you are not where you should be. You’re not in that place that you know you’re supposed to be. Would Hilary go back and change anything? No, she would do it all over again. 

Until you start knowing what you don’t know, that’s when things really start to happen. You reach a point like, “Why am I not happy? Why am I not able to create more wealth or freedom for myself?”

For people going through a relaunch and they’re coming up against fear and breakdowns. Jess asks Hilary if she can speak to the importance of feeling those emotions?

Our world is starting to value emotional intelligence in a way that it never has before. Emotions are no longer being viewed as weaknesses. Hilary used to work in corporate where it wasn't okay to be emotional. You had to show up very masculine every day.

There’s so much going on in that resistance to feeling, feeling like you have to be happy, or you have to be fearless. You have to feel the fear to get on the other side of it.

Hilary recommends that we ask ourselves, “Is it showing up in my body?” Our bodies give us every indication - and yet we often ignore it. When you realize that your body is really telling you something and you ignore it, that’s when things start to build up. 

Hilary asks us to think about instead of pushing it off, ignoring it, and putting walls up, you instead think about why am I having that feeling in my chest? Why is it that I'm uncomfortable right now? Take a pause, because your higher-self intuition is literally trying to get to your head, and trying to give you some really important information. Try and listen to it. 

She explains that so often we are being given a signal, and our bodies are telling us something. If we can acknowledge that something is going on, we’ll build this muscle. That’s when we become powerful and we really can move forward! 

People tend to ignore these signals because they just don’t really want to deal with them. But Hilary explains that they’ll just keep showing up somehow. Hilary calls them BUGS: Beliefs Under Ground Surfacing. At night you see that one ant on your kitchen counter, and you kill it. Then when you wake up the next morning you see hundreds of ants because you didn’t really deal with it!

We keep pushing down our BUGS and then all of a sudden these limiting beliefs end up just saying, “I’m tired of knocking, you’re not opening the door. I’m gonna blow your door off!” That’s when you’re in that state of crisis. But you don’t have to be there! You can instead be in a state of relaunch which is going to take you out of crisis mode and get you on that path to get you to your next chapter.

You can connect with Hilary at www.therelaunchco.com!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sat down with Gabrielle Dolan to talk about the importance of storytelling on podcasts.

Gabrielle can tell you a story or two. In fact, it was while working in senior leadership roles in corporate Australia she realized the power of storytelling in effective business communication. She is now a highly sought-after international keynote speaker and educator. 

Her impressive client list includes VISA, EY, Amazon, Vodafone, and the Obama Foundation, to name drop a few ...and she got to meet Barack Obama while undertaking that work. Gabrielle holds a master’s degree in Management and Leadership and has studied at Harvard. She is the best-selling author of several books including Real Communication: How To Be You and Lead True, a finalist in the Australian Business Leadership Book Awards for 2019. 

Plus, Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling (2017), which reached number one in Australia’s best-selling business books. Her latest book Magnetic Stories: Connect with Customers and Engage Employees with Brand Storytelling is due to be published in March 2021.

She is the founder of Jargon Free Fridays. (Don’t ever say the word ‘pivot’ to her unless you are talking about basketball.) In 2020, her dedication to the industry was recognized when she was awarded Communicator of the Year by IABC Asia Pacific. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, Steve, and two daughters, Alex and Jess.

Jess and Gabrielle are big believers that storytelling is an incredibly important skill to have as a podcast guest. Jess asks Gabrielle, “What are the components of an effective story?”

It may seem obvious, but Gabrielle emphasizes that stories really need a beginning, a middle, and an end. In business, it’s gotta be succinct. You really don’t want to be sharing a 5 or 10-minute story. Your story should be 1 or 2 minutes and be very specific. Being specific helps people visualize something, and helps the listeners feel something. And ultimately that’s what a story does, it taps into emotion. 

Jess knows that facts tell but stories sell. Jess was recently coaching someone in the Interview Connections community and asked them to practice telling a story. Jess realized that their story wasn’t dropping people into the moment. 

How do you start a story in a way that has people really engaged?

Gabrielle teaches that the worst way to start a story is to tell people, “Let me tell you a story.” People are hardwired to listen to stories, but in a business setting when someone says “Let me tell you a story” the reaction is going to be something along the lines of, “Oh no, this is going to take forever.” 

The most effective way to start a story is with time and place. There are an infinite amount of variations of time and place so you can really make it your own every time. If you start with the time and place, people are now set up to listen to you differently. 

In a business setting, where things can often be all about data and facts and figures, and someone says “You know that reminds me of the time I went camping with my friends and...”

There’s a pattern interruption that’s going to make people want to pay attention.

Jess asks, “How do you end the story?”

Gabrielle knows that the ending is the hardest part. You don’t want to be ending your story with “The moral of the story is.” In a business setting, you want to be linking it back to the business message without it being directive. You could say something like, “The reason I’m sharing this with you is that it reminds me of what we’re going through right now, and imagine what we could achieve if we all…” There you can link your story back to the business. 

Gabrielle reminds us that you don’t want to be going on and on and on. That’s the biggest mistake people make! Gabrielle notices that people sometimes keep reiterating the point over and over. 

Once you’ve finished a story, it’s so important to always pause. Remember to stop talking for one or two seconds because that’s the real power of the story. That’s the moment where the listeners are really taking it in. But as humans, we generally don't like pauses so we tend to just keep talking.

Why do you think it’s hard for people to pause?

Gabrielle thinks that we just get really uncomfortable with the pause. Sometimes at the end of the story when people pause, the speaker might think “Why is everyone quiet? Maybe they didn’t get it.” But Gabrielle reminds us that people are just processing, and that pause is incredibly important.

Jess wants to know, how do you start building up this arsenal of stories that you share?

Gabrielle recommends that you don’t start with the stories at all. Instead, start with the messaging that you want to communicate. Ask yourself, what is it that you want to communicate? What are you trying to communicate on the podcast or interview or speech? You need to be really, really clear on what messages you want to communicate. 

Once you are clear on the messages, then you can ask yourself, “What are the stories that I can share?” Gabrielle recommends that you should think of two different types of stories. The first is your own personal stories. Ask yourself, why are you passionate about what you’re doing? In most cases, that’s starting from a personal value that you have. 

The second kind of story you can tell would be work or business-related story. Either way, you need to be clear on the message you want to get across. When thinking of your messaging, constantly ask yourself what story could I share to illustrate this?

People sometimes think that their stories aren't interesting and that people won’t care, but Gabrielle wants you to know that your stories are interesting! Telling stories creates a human connection. 

Someone doing a podcast interview is clearly passionate about what they’re doing, and they know what they’re talking about. That passion started from somewhere, so ask yourself, where did that start? Then you can tap into that. Be prepared to share those stories because they show your passion and credibility!

Gabrielle has worked with some huge names, like Amazon and VISA. Jess asks what she’s learned from her experiences working with such large companies?

What Gabrielle has found is that the vast majority of corporate leaders really want to do a good job. Those leaders really want to lead well and they want to communicate well. They’re human just like everyone else and they need to learn those skills. What Gabrielle has been surprised about is that very senior leaders still experience impostor syndrome and have said things like, “I don’t have the courage to do this, I have self-doubt.” 

Jess asks Gabrielle why she has decided to start podcast guesting? What drew her to be a speaker on podcasts?

Gabrielle released a book right at the start of lockdown, and she had done a few podcast interviews before. Since she couldn’t travel to promote her book, she decided to start speaking on podcasts as a different way to build momentum around the book. 

Gabrielle loves working in crowds! She runs a half-day virtual workshop, she works with major companies, she runs storytelling workshops and presenting with impact workshops. Gabrielle has also written six books! Ultimately, Gabrielle helps people hone their storytelling skills. 

You can read Gabrielle’s newest book is Magnetic Stories: Connect with Customers and Engage Employees with Brand Storytelling!

You can connect with Gabrielle at Gabrielledolan.com and get a free 7 Day Storytelling Starter Kit right here!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess gets the chance to talk with Interview Connections client Spencer Snakard about confronting visibility blocks!

Spencer Snakard is an executive transformation coach, trainer, and speaker. She works with visionary entrepreneurs and transformational leaders who are on a mission to make a major impact, helping them to break through barriers to their next level of success while loving life every step of the way, and without giving up what matters most to them.

She has trained and coached in personal and professional development for nearly 25 years. Her transformative programs cause profound and lasting shifts in participants' lives by getting to the heart of what drives us, what holds us back, and what it takes to be truly fulfilled as spiritual beings having a human experience. 

Jess asks Spencer, “What are people confronted with when they get visible consistently?” “Sheer terror, my friend.”

Spencer explains that a lot of fear is at play when you become visible. We’ve all witnessed people getting torn down when they put themselves out there. Spencer knows that it’s a practice. You have to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Every time we put ourselves out there we’re stepping into this bigger audience, a bigger platform, and a bigger way of being seen. You will be facing and confronting fear when you grow and that’s just part of the process.

Jess wants to know, what is the fear that people are confronting?

That fear is unique for everyone. Spencer talks about the fears of looking bad, saying something wrong, and the feeling of being out of control. When we become visible, we’re giving up a perceived sense of control. Once we put ourselves outside of our bubble, we’re exposing ourselves to a lack of control. 

As you get visible you start to think, “What do people think of me?"

A difficult block that people run into when they’re becoming visible is comparison. “Comparisonitis” is an extremely human thing that we all fall victim to from time to time. Asking ourselves, do we measure up? And having that feeling of not being enough. 

Spencer recommends being vigilant about your mental state and what kind of energy is coming into your space. If someone is disempowering you, let it go. Stop filling your mind, heart, and soul with it. It’s so important to pull away from comparisonitis and feeling like a fraud. When you’re visible, you can feel someone’s energy if they’re standing in their power, or if they’re not.

Jess asks Spencer for some tips on how to show up powerfully for your podcast interviews?

Spencer recommends first having some clarity around how you want to be showing up. You don’t want to be showing up in a fake way, by putting on a show and wearing a mask. Ask yourself, “Do I want to be showing up real, vulnerable, and authentically? What is my message and how am I bringing it?”

Spencer loves being able to interview on podcasts because they are long-form and she can really have that space to go deep. Interviewing on podcasts can help you find some clarity around the question: what is the gist of what I want to say here?

Both Spencer and Jess remind listeners that you know so much more than the people you’re sharing with and you really should own that. Spencer argues that you are everything you need to be. You are perfect for all that you are and for all that you are not. You are everything you need to be right now. Stand in that and own that. All those fears and doubts wither away when you own that. It’s a very different way of looking at being visible. Everything you need you already have, so own that!

Spencer helps her clients to get to the root and the heart of their identity and who they think they are. Then, Spencer, has her clients ask, “Is it true?” Your thoughts are not facts. People tend to fall into these doom spirals of everything that could go wrong. Spencer asks, “What if we start going up spirals and think about what could go right?” Start looking at all the great things that could happen, the potential and possibilities. 

We are so quick to look at negatives, what if we start celebrating successes and wins and what we’ve done great?

Jess then asks Spencer about some breakthroughs she’s had in her business since becoming visible.

Spencer realized that she needed to start tapping into her strengths. She was able to recognize that the execution of tasks is not one of her strengths. Spencer is all about vision and potential and possibility and relationship building, not about the carry-through of the nitty-gritty. 

That’s part of why Spencer hired the team at Interview Connections to book her on podcasts. She knew that she needed to get on podcasts but she also knew that her strength is not in the carry through of that task. Spencer wanted to let someone else who is masterful at that task do it for her and she’ll just show up powerfully on podcasts.

If you want to learn more about Spencer and how she helps entrepreneurs and leaders overcome mental blocks, you can head to transformingmillions.com for a free one-hour Masterclass!

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sits down with Lee Caraher to discuss women’s visibility!

Lee Caraher is the CEO of Double Forte, a national independent PR/Communications agency. An acclaimed communication strategist, Lee is known for her practical solutions to big problems. 

Lee has a reputation for building cohesive, high producing teams who have fun together at the same time and has authored two top-selling books about positive and profitable work culture. She is a straight talker who doesn't hold too many punches, although she does her best to be pleasant about it. Her big laugh and sense of humor have gotten her out of a lot of trouble. 

Her company works with some of the top consumer lifestyle, digital life, technology and wine brands in the country. Double Forte’s “Get on The Map” service is a foundation-building program that helps small businesses and individuals build authority and visibility to drive business success. Working with Lee and her senior team, small businesses and entrepreneurs learn how to “Show Up” and “Level Up” their footprints and influence to compete and grow their businesses. 

Jess wants to see more women investing in their visibility. 

In Jess’s experience, she finds that a lot of women feel like they’re not ready to increase their visibility. However, a lot of men have confidence at the start. Jess is passionate about seeing more women invest in their visibility, become featured in the media, and really become leaders of their industry. 

Jess asks, what is Lee’s perspective of women being featured in the media?

Lee explains that 70% of people quoted in the media as experts are men. 90% of people quoted in the first page or first 15 minutes of the media are men. Those statistics are even worse for BIPOC women. These numbers don’t reflect the number of actual business experts either. There are much more women running businesses than you’d think based on the number of women business experts quoted in the media.

Lee argues that you have to put yourself out there as an expert, and you have to be found. You have to make it so easy to find you, so that a reporter who has 2 seconds to find an expert can find you really fast. In Lee's experience, companies tend to invest more in men. Business owners who are men invest more time, money, and effort in putting themselves forward as experts. Because of this, the media can find men much easier than they can find women.

Reporters need to find people fast, and so if you're not able to be found quickly online you will not be found. This tends to diminish women in general, women’s authority in their categories, and women’s ability to implement their agenda. 

Lee introduces us to a concept called the Say Gap. The Say Gap is the difference between how many times men are quoted versus the amount of times women are quoted in the media. 70% of quotes are from men, and only 30% of quotes are from women. That is a gap of 40%!

There are things you can do to be known as an expert. There is time you can invest. But the most important thing is to change your mindset over who is an expert!

Lee was deciding whether she wanted to continue writing her second book. One night she was on the couch thinking about it, and watching the 2016 presidential debate. This debate was the one when the former president called the former secretary of state a “nasty woman.” After that moment, Lee immediately knew she was finishing this book. 

Lee knows that one thing she can do is make sure there is another book written by a woman CEO on an important topic. At that moment in time, Lee thought “I have something I can do to change this, to at least be another option in the world.” 

In Lee’s experience, she finds that women owned businesses typically underinvest in themselves. Her company helps put small businesses, with a particular focus on women owned businesses, on the map. She helps businesses achieve their goals through communication, messaging, and confidence.

Jess asks Lee, why is it so important that more women are leading and being visible?

Lee reminds us of the assumption that you can’t be a wife, mom, and run a successful business. That assumption is completely false. We should be declaring ourselves as women business owners! 

By declaring you’re a woman owned business, you’re not making the assumption that people don’t know it, you’re declaring the value of it. That declaration helps you in terms of authority and quotability. The more normal we make it to be women experts, the more normal we make it to be heard, the more normal we make it to be featured and visible in the media. It is not the norm to take our authority and declare our expertise. And that is doing ourselves and our industries a disservice! As women, we need to make sure the value that we have created is attributed to us.

Lee also discusses how podcasting can help anyone increase their visibility. By being a guest on podcasts, you’ll start appearing all over the internet. This increased findability drives authority through the roof. Lee recommends that you guest on as many podcasts as possible with several but specific topics. If you search Lee’s name, you will find hundreds of podcasts that she’s been on!

These podcasts are easy to find and easy to reference. By increasing your visibility online, you’ll start being known as an expert in your industry!

You can find Lee at double-forte.com!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy discuss the power of masterminds.

As a listener of Monetize the Mic, you probably know that Interview Connections helps their clients increase their visibility as a guest on podcasts. Every time a business experiences growth, there are new challenges to overcome. Clients of Interview Connections grow their business rapidly with their new visibility and find that they need more support in other aspects of business, like sales, marketing, pricing, etc.  

That’s where Monetize the Mic Mastermind comes in! 

This program is a group coaching and mastermind exclusively for Interview Connections clients. Jess and Margy have grown a successful, multi 7 figure business and they have a lot of experience with overcoming challenges in growing your business. They also have a great arsenal of coaches and mentors in their network that they’ve been bringing in as guest speakers for this mastermind!

Jess and Margy realized that they wanted to offer up-leveled support for their clients long-term on their journey of growing and scaling their business. They know from experience that a mentor and a mastermind can help you avoid so many mistakes that Jess and Margy themselves made. 

Having those mastermind mentors saves you so much time in the long run. A mastermind can also offer you a sense of community with people who are going through exactly what you are going through. You can connect and network with people who have goals that are as big as your goals! The masterminds that Jess and Margy have been a part of completely transformed their businesses and their lives.

An important thing that both Jess and Margy have realized is that you have to change yourself to reach goals. Business is a vehicle to transformation. They find that it’s so invigorating to help their entrepreneur clients whose businesses they really believe in. Interview Connections clients embody authenticity, integrity, leadership, and kindness. Jess and Margy put their voices and their stories on podcasts to give them a stage, a spotlight, and visibility. Now, Jess and Margy are offering their clients support with their infrastructure so their business can scale and grow from all that visibility!

How does this mastermind work with the consistent visibility and networking that clients get from podcast guesting?

People tend to not realize just how important visibility is. Jess was recently talking to an entrepreneur who said that she had spent thousands of dollars on coaches and systems but she wasn’t getting any sales calls. Jess knew immediately it was because she wasn’t visible.

Without actually getting on the court and putting the spotlight on you, you’re just not going to grow. If you don’t have the visibility, all of the marketing strategies and the coaching are pointless. Jess and Margy realized that when growing from 6 to 7 figures, the name of the game was lead generation. Where does lead gen come from? Visibility. 

Visibility is the first and most important thing, but joining a mastermind can help amplify your visibility as well. After Jess joined a mastermind, she had a network. The people in that mastermind would offer support, they would share Jess’s podcast episodes, increasing Jess’s visibility. 

The biggest gap that Jess has seen with entrepreneurs is between their true gift and vision for what they’re doing and why they’ve started this business, and then what they’re talking about on podcasts.

When entrepreneurs have space on mastermind calls to go deep, they tend to find that the tactical topics that they talk about on podcasts are a lot different than what their vision is. Their vision is more about why they’re running this business and what their gift really is. Masterminds allow people space to infuse this vision into their podcast interviews. Once that vision becomes part of your podcast interview, that’s when there’s magic created. Listeners are so attracted to you and that energy.

Why is it so hard for people to go deep and tap into their inner vision? 

When you go deep, that’s where you see the good, the bad, and the ugly. The surface level is all about looking good: “I’m an expert and I have a successful business.” When you go deep, that’s when you see the insecurities come out. Often there will be some doubts about worthiness, and that’s uncomfortable to face. We don’t want to admit that. You have to go through that muck and clean it up for you to be authentic.

When there is inauthenticity, that will come through in your energy and people will not be attracted to that. It will come through in your messaging, in your body language, and even in your pricing.

What is the structure of the mastermind?

Every Wednesday, there is a group coaching call. Jess and Margy alternate between trainings and implementation. They strongly believe in focusing on both vision and implementation. Some masterminds are all about the vision but there’s no space for implementation. 

Every other Wednesday, you’re held accountable to implementing what you’ve learned the week before. Every other Thursday, they host a mastermind call where you can have a hot seat coaching session and share what’s going on in your business. Plus, there’s a private Facebook community for you to connect and network with other amazing entrepreneurs who are reaching for big goals.

If you’re interested in joining the Monetize the Mic Mastermind, send Jessica an email at jessica@interviewconnections.com and she’ll hop on a call and talk to you about the mastermind!

This Mastermind is for Interview Connections clients only. If you’re not a client, apply for a consult call at interviewconnections.com/apply so you can get in!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy talk about the why behind setting high goals.

At Interview Connections, Jess and Margy love to set crazy high goals and go for them. Something they like to acknowledge is that their goals a few years ago seemed incredibly high, and now those same goals seem so small! Compare your goals now to your goals two years ago and you’ll see how much your business has grown.

When talking about setting high goals, Jess remembers a specific moment after attending a Landmark course. She was walking back from the hotel to the seminar and had an amazing lightbulb moment. Jess started opening herself up to new possibilities and increased her goal of what was possible.  Margy has always been the one to set the really, really high goals. Jess tends to set lower goals, and they usually end in the middle of those two goalposts.

Sometimes when business owners and entrepreneurs set high goals for their team, they’ll see that their team feels triggered by these expectations. It’s important to remember that your team is a mirror of you. Look at what exactly gets triggered with your team when you set high goals.

Triggers are necessary. They are what you come up against with high goals. The day after Interview Connections launched, Jess was working on closing spillover sales. Margy asked Jess “How many sales are you closing?” Jess responded that she was going to close three sales. Margy said, “How about six?”

That moment was so triggering for Jess. Margy was telling Jess that she can do more than that. But, what Jess heard was, “You didn't do enough.” Jess sees this trigger in her team as well as in herself. 

Jess and Margy have experienced a drive to hold people accountable but also a fear of triggering them. What it takes to get your business to 2.5 million, versus what it takes to get to 10 million is huge. Margy’s unwillingness to be direct with people and holding them accountable was holding her back. Jess and Margy couldn’t get to 10 million if either of them were holding back on their gifts and who they really are.

Margy felt like she was holding back on her aggressive vision casting for high goals. Those high goals seemed like they were a lot to ask, but they would never happen if they didn’t set those goals.

Jess feels like she wants someone to be accountable to as she reaches for these big goals. Margy helps Jess stay accountable to those goals! 

For Jess and Margy, it’s been interesting to see when they’re being their most powerful selves, and being their possibility versus reverting back to their small selves with triggers. The reason Margy loves giant goals is that they require so much transformation. As their goals got bigger, they required new teams and new systems. Every new level you hit, you have these new opportunities. 

When someone holds us accountable to the person they know we can be, it can feel like they’re being mean, or like they’re withholding love and connection. That’s when triggers happen - tantrums, shutting down - you feel that child start to kick up. Whatever those sirens are that your inner child sets off when you feel like you need that love and connection, that’s what comes up when you go for these high goals.

It’s not all being badass when you level up in business. There’s triggers, there’s crying. You’re going to confront things that are dormant that you haven’t dealt with before that could go really far back. If you are going for a high goal and it’s a shitshow, that’s good news! That means you’re on track. Going super deep is where the breakthroughs are. When you work through your own triggers, you can help others work through them as well!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess had the chance to talk with Interview Connections client Jennifer Chapman about work-life balance as a leader!

Jennifer used to be a workaholic, known as the go-to person for getting things done and managing the most difficult customers or clients at a Fortune 500 consulting firm. She thrived on challenging situations and proving to others that she was invincible. But when her mental and physical health began to take a hit, she began a journey to create a work and personal life that aligned with what she most valued and wanted most. 

Now she has created and has the job she wants, an independent confidence from within, and the ability to bring her authentic self into everything she does at work. She’s more successful—in terms of happiness, financial security, and her ability to help others—than she’s ever been. 

Jennifer is an expert leadership coach who works with clients who want to be more confident, more authentic, and more successful. She especially enjoys helping leaders who have been promoted through functional expertise embrace their roles as people managers.

Jess asks, with everything Jennifer has going on, how does she find time to relax? What’s her secret? 

Jennifer admits that it’s a struggle - it’s a practice. Sometimes she starts to feel like she is invincible and she can do it all and then her body reminds her that she’s not. Mother’s Day is a great example. Despite the well wishes of Mother’s Day, that day can often be more stressful than relaxing for mothers. This year, Jennifer wanted to make it the day she wanted it to be. 

So she planned a Mother’s Day party. She invited 6 friends, they all had a great dinner, and Jennifer hired two massage therapists and everyone got massages. Afterward, they had a gift exchange and topped off the night with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Jennifer and her friends had such a great time, they’re already planning one for the weekend after school starts, which is another crazy time for parents. 

Jennifer has to plan things in order to achieve work-life balance. She has a super supportive husband but Jennifer realized that she just needs to ask sometimes even though it can be hard to ask. Jennifer realized that you can really take ownership by knowing that you can have what you want by making the time and planning for it.

Jessica agrees that as mothers, it’s not that our spouses aren’t okay with us taking time for ourselves - it’s that we ourselves have a hard time.

Jennifer recommends to flip it around and ask yourself, “What advice would I give to my friend?”

People ask Jennifer all the time, “Do you coach yourself since you’re a coach?” Yes, all the time, Jennifer says! She asks herself, “If I were my client, what would I be saying to myself right now? How would I be comforting my friend?” Like many women, Jennifer is a lot kinder to her friends than she is to herself. 

Jessica wants to know, why is STEM in the industry that Jennifer specializes in? Why does she feel called to support them in their leadership?

Jennifer always felt like she got along with people in the STEM field. Those people tend to be very task-focused and very logical. She feels different from a lot of coaches, who are more interested in the people-side and gravitate toward people in those industries. Jennifer discovered she has a gift working with task-oriented and focused people. She thought, why not specialize in it. 

Jennifer has found it incredibly rewarding. She works with type A personalities who want to get stuff done, and the people-side of things is an afterthought. Her clients typically reach a point where they realize that they are getting stagnant, and they won’t move up unless they figure out how to do the people-side of their business.

A recent study showed that 78% of HR leaders said that they had become focused on finding technology employees with soft skills. The thing that is gonna differentiate you is “Can you work with people? Can you have difficult conversations? Do you know what to do when there’s conflict? Can you mentor effectively?” People Jennifer works with say, “I want to get better with this but I don't even know where to start.”

Jess asks for some examples of soft skills that Jennifer helps her clients improve.

One of the biggest skills Jennifer helps her clients with is how to get influence or how to get buy-in. She shares a story about how her husband noticed at his new job that a software that they were using was archaic. They had used it for a long time and loved it. Her husband noticed that it was inefficient, and they were doing double the work. At a meeting, her husband raised a hand and said “We need to do something about this system because it’s completely inefficient.” He met with stunned silence. 

The people in the room were the ones who advocated for that software program in the first place. He said to Jennifer, “I don't know why they didn’t see that my way was better.” Jennifer helped him see that he just stood up in a room and basically called everyone there an idiot. He responded, “I am who I am, and I am direct.” Jennifer asks, “And how is that working out for you?”

People say feelings shouldn’t matter but Jennifer insists that they do. The key is figuring out what issues are getting in the way of you getting what you want. Then you need to figure out how you can authentically develop those relationships with people, and build that trust so they will get on board and get excited about what you have in mind. 

Jess asks, “What’s your process when you coach? How do you help them see the difference between their intent and their impact?”

Jennifer has observed that a lot of task-focused people don’t have a lot of empathy. She explains that empathy isn’t letting someone cry on your shoulder. Empathy is the ability to step out of your own shoes and try on someone else’s shoes and see it from a different perspective. When you think about the best leaders, they’re the ones who can step into so many different shoes. They ask, “How is this going to impact everyone?” Empathy is a key attribute to success in any industry. Stop and think, “What is my objective? What am I trying to accomplish?” And then flip to being in their perspective. What are they trying to accomplish? 

Sometimes when you think about it that way, you find out you’re aligned on the same thing. That’s when you can have a real conversation about how you can collaborate and work together so you both achieve what you both want. 

Another piece of advice Jennifer has for our listeners is that your example speaks volumes. She would tell her team members that she wanted them to have work-life balance. Yet she was sending emails at 11:00pm, or working on a Saturday. 

Actions speak louder than words. After Jennifer started modeling a better work-life balance and being more clear in her expectations, she noticed that her team did a much better job of maintaining their work schedules. When she made the well-being of her team a top priority, she saw that when she needed them, her team was there and came through for her. 

You can connect with Jennifer at ambitionleadership.com! 

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sits down with Interview Connections client Shawna Schuh to discuss leadership blindspots!

Shawna Schuh is an eccentric thought leader, a skilled executive leadership coach, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a lifetime adventurer. In addition to her hard-earned Master’s Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Shawna has three decades’ experience working closely with top organizations such as Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Fashion Group International, and the National Speakers Association. 

She knows leaders thrive with an advocate who questions their thought process, and her unconventional perspective gives her some unexpected questions to ask. Shawna shares a unique perspective so that the information and ideas she promotes stick and work. 

Jess asks, what are some of the blindspots that exist in leadership?

Shawna begins by discussing one of the biggest blindspots that challenge leaders, which is relying on your team to tell you what’s wrong. Your team isn’t going to tell you what your leadership blindspots are because their job is on the line! A big mistake a leader can make is assuming that their team is 100% on board with every initiative in the company. 

Another blindspot that she’s uncovered is that most leaders are just telling. Leaders will say to her, “Well, I told them this. I told them why.” But it’s not actually communication. Some leaders also sell ideas and initiatives, instead of really having a two-way conversation about it.

Shawna also discusses that some leaders have a blindspot in allowing certain things. If a leader allows frequent bad behavior from an individual, it affects the entire team.

She is thrilled to see that many leaders are educating themselves, talking to other leaders, and strategizing. Shawna emphasizes that leaders need to ask questions to become better leaders. She also notes that sometimes leaders know their values, but they don’t actually feel them. They’re not committed to them. Leaders need to absolutely commit to and feel their core values.

Most leaders do not know what’s wrong with their business. They don’t have any idea of what’s being said or being done under them, even though they think they know.

Jess asks Shawna, “When should leaders ask questions, what kind of questions, and with what context?”

First, Shawna recommends that leaders figure out their intent. Shawna believes that a check-in is just an interruption. Leaders should ask themselves, “What am I trying to accomplish here?”

She has had leaders come to her and say, “I do check-ins with all my people.” Shawna asks, “What if you stopped and said - ‘I’m calling you to find out what one good thing happened today already?’” You’re going to be asking them something they’re not used to giving. Another example might be, “Rate the meeting you just had with that client on a scale of 1 to 10. What could you have done to make it a 10?”

Most leaders are checking in to make themselves feel better, but they might be triggering the team, or just interrupting them. 

Jess asks Shawna to dig deeper about check-ins. 

For Shawna, check-ins are about leaders feeling anxious that work isn't being done, or not being done well enough. Instead, she recommends having a pre-scheduled time to meet with a purpose. Instead of a check-in, maybe do a progress report: “What’s your progress? What’s preventing that progress? Tell me the process and share with me the steps you are taking.”

The best leaders are the best questioners. Don’t ask, “What were you thinking? Why would you do it that way?” 

“Why” questions are usually the poorest questions. That question doesn’t give you the answer that you want. Shawna asks, “What if you just shifted it to, how could I do that differently in the future?”

You can connect with Shawna at Shawnaschuh.com and take a free quiz to uncover your leadership blindspots! 

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess speaks with Interview Connections client Dr. L. Carol Scott about the bridge between personal and professional success!

Women on the rise seek out Dr. L. Carol Scott and her “Seven Self-Aware Success Strategies” to help them remove invisible barriers, ignite self-confidence, and implement immediate action for their personal and professional evolution. 

As a trauma-informed developmental psychologist, she shares how the first 2,500 days of our lives determine our skills for relationships—ALL our relationships…for the rest of our lives. She achieves her life's mission to improve the way we treat each  other, by teaching us what we have always wanted to know about  “what makes people tick.” 

A TEDx speaker and author, Dr. Scott is also a nationally respected thought leader in early care and education. As a  keynoter, trainer, and coach, she supports teams and individuals,  anywhere that relationships are at the heart of success. 

Her first book, Just Be Your S.E.L.F.--Your Guide to Improving  Any Relationship, provides the framework and the tools for  Development Do-Overs on your earliest years of life, for better relationships now, at home, and at work. She holds an MA degree in Early Childhood Education and a Ph.D. in Developmental and  Child Psychology, both from the University of Kansas.

Jess wants to know, why are the first seven years so crucial to relationships? What is happening in those first seven years that is impacting us today?

Dr. Scott explains that in those first seven years, we are being wired for life. We are born with a whole lot of loose neurons. There are billions of neurons floating around that are not connected. Our job over the first three years is to wire those together. The way those neurons get connected is how we process the world. 

We are wiring our brains by experiencing the world at the rate of one million neurons per second, and 85% of the brain gets connected in the first three years of life!

Jess then asks, what does self-awareness have to do with success? 

Dr. Scott knows that success is all about relationships. If you’re going to do well with those important relationships, you have to be able to trust people. We, as humans, learned how to trust when we were 6 months old, and that affects us forever. When Dr. Scott works with adults, she has them look around at the trust in their lives. How is trust working for them or not working for them in the relationships that they have? She then uses that as her backward assessment to guess how things probably went for them. Dr. Scott helps them rewire that part of their brains. 

Naturally, Jess wants to know - how do we rewire our brains?

Dr. Scott explains that as infants, we know that trusting is about needing things. Infants learn to trust because they need fundamental caretaking. At that very basic level, if the infant learns that if they need something and nothing happens, that’s going to affect them. She wants people to unpack trust relative to needing things. They can work on looking at their needs. Generally speaking, we are often told that we have too many needs. Pretty early in life, we learn that needing something from someone else is to malfunction. 

Dr. Scott knows that we need to rethink that. Adults can learn that needing things is a normal thing. After facing that, people can really look around and be honest about what needs are being met, and what needs aren’t. 

We can identify our needs and we can identify people who can meet those needs who are in our lives. We can also identify people that we know who won’t meet that need. If someone doesn’t have the skill set to meet those needs, that doesn’t mean they cannot be in your life. You can teach them! People in your life want to help you but they might not know how - but they can learn.

Something that Dr. Scott does not want you to forget is: we need to put more time and energy into fostering and building relationships. They’re living things and that need to be fed!

Some people might be wondering, what does any of this have to do with success as an entrepreneur or business owner? Dr. Scott believes that it’s not possible to separate the personal from the professional. We cannot hope for professional success without personal success, they are completely intertwined. 

Jess completely agrees. Vulnerability is the greatest gift you can give someone. Podcasting is an especially great medium because it’s a long-form platform where you can be vulnerable, share your story, and create those deep connections. 

Jess also asks Dr. Scott, who typically works with you?

Often Dr. Scott works with women around the age of 35. She works with people who thought they were ready to launch into the world, and manifest all their possibilities. She works with people who had recently made a big change that feels like freedom, and yet freedom isn't there. Something isn’t right. They want to rise to the mountaintop but it feels like they have chains on their ankles. Dr. Scott is the person who says, “I know where those chains come from, they come from the first seven years. Let me show you how to unlock them so you can rise.”

Although Dr. Scott’s work resonates with a lot of women, she works with all gender identities. She helps you find success in the way you define your success.

You can get to know Dr. L Carol Scott and start a relationship with her on Facebook!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sits down with Interview Connections client and certified relationship coach, Roy Biancalana!

Roy Biancalana is a nationally recognized expert in the field of attraction and conscious relationships. He is the author of three #1 best-selling books, the latest of which is Relationship Bootcamp: Hard-Core Training for Life, Love & the Pursuit of Intimacy. For the past 15 years, Roy has been supporting single people in the art of attracting healthy, sustainable, intimate relationships. His experience has taught him that getting in “relationship shape” is the key to attracting lasting love. 

Jess first asks Roy, “What goes into being fit in a relationship?”

Roy is the first to admit that he has made every mistake you can make. One of the biggest mistakes is to focus on strategy. People always ask Roy about the strategy of dating. Questions include, “Where do I go to meet someone? How do I find someone online? How do I approach someone? How do I flirt?”

If you were going to run a marathon, you could ask questions about how to be successful in a marathon. You could focus on questions like “What should I eat that morning? When should I drink during the race?” You could ask all kinds of questions about what to do on the day of the race, the strategy. But no matter how great your strategy is, if you’re not in shape you’re never going to go the distance. 

The biggest mistake people make is focusing on the dating strategy. What Roy has found is if you are not in great relationship shape, even if you have a great strategy, it’s not going to go the distance. The success of the relationship is more about your internal relationship health. You can never be in a relationship that’s healthier than you are.

Roy likes to turn questions about “them” into questions about you. Instead of “Where can I find someone?” ask, “Am I ready to create something real? Do I have something blocking me? Do I have limiting beliefs? What might be going on inside of me that is either going to inhibit the evolution of this relationship?” Roy wants to reorient people toward looking at themselves, rather than looking for a person.

Jess remarks that trust is one of the things that can hinder someone in a relationship. What does Roy tell people who have been hurt and betrayed and are having a difficult time trusting?

Roy reminds us of the fitness metaphor he uses for relationships. He has identified seven important relationship “muscles.” These muscles need to be strong so we can have healthy relationships. Something that Roy recommends we ask ourselves, is “What muscles do I need to get stronger with?”

One of the muscles that Roy talks about is your relationship to the past. Trust is really your relationship to the past. It’s important to ask, are you holding on to it or are you letting go of your past? Everyone to one degree or another has some baggage. What that does is, if it remains alive in us, makes it difficult to trust. It makes it difficult to meet the next person with an open and available heart. It makes it difficult to meet someone to get to know them. 

Roy coaches his clients to understand the past, and then let go of it. It’s not about forgetting it, it’s about framing it, and making peace with it. It’s something that happened, not something that is happening! Walls will keep you safe, but they will keep you single. 

Roy has identified three levels of trust. The first level is: I trust you. Your ability to trust is based on the other’s person’s character and behavior. You never can really feel secure if your trust is based on their behavior and character. Roy recommends reframing this trust to be, “My heart may get broken, but it will never break me. People are unpredictable. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don't know what they are going to do, but no matter what, I’m okay. I’m going to learn from the experience.” 

Now, your trust is based on something that you know that you can control. Then you can be normal, you don’t have to protect yourself. You can be free, relaxed, and authentic. That’s when you’re the most attractive! Roy wants listeners to make sure they do not get discouraged if they find out your muscles need some work! It is not only possible, but life-changing, when you start to train and strengthen your relationship muscles!

You can connect with Roy and take his free relationship fitness quiz at Coachingwithroy.com!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess and Margy talk about the importance of content marketing.

Jess and Margy agree that content marketing should be resources, information, and other content that provides value. Margy finds that she doesn’t identify with marketing. For her, it feels cold and it feels out of alignment. Margy comes from a place of always wanting to give valuable information and having important conversations. 

If you feel like Margy does, her number one tip is to find what makes you different. Don’t just parrot what other people are saying in a crowded online space. It’s so powerful to hear someone saying something different in a sea of online noise. 

When Jess and Margy coach their client, they really dig in on their client’s messaging. They focus on the client’s company vision, and how they can infuse that in their interviews. When that happens, their marketing and their content messaging is something that makes people listen. 

People always ask Jess if content marketing should be paid or free. Jess feels that if it’s paid, it’s no longer content marketing. It becomes a product. The reason content marketing works so well is because it’s free and anyone can access it. 

A lot of people will respond with something like, “I put a lot of work into my content, I want people to pay for it.” Jess reminds us of the power of reciprocity. If you put a lot of work into your content, your podcast, your launch, your videos, etc, people feel that gift that you’re giving to them. This will make people feel more likely to want to work with you!

Nobody will want to pay for you until they’ve seen what you can do. And the best way for them to see what you can do is content marketing! You should also keep in mind that it’s strategic to create content marketing in multiple different ways because people learn in different ways.

1. The number one content marketing strategy Jess and Margy recommend is, of course, podcasting. Podcasting is a great way to reuse content, increase visibility, and get in front of a trusting audience. Podcast guesting is easier to start with, rather than creating your own podcast and hosting. Guesting will get you out there. It gets you familiar with the space. It’s a really easy way to create a content machine with podcasting as the center of the wheel.
   
   From one podcast interview, you can create written blog posts, videos, audiograms, emails, etc. You can also accomplish this by hosting your own podcast, which is an amazing thing to do, but it can be overwhelming especially at first. Jess and Margy definitely recommend starting with guesting so you can get your feet wet in the podcasting community!
   
   
2. The next content marketing tactic Jess and Margy discuss is videos! People love consuming content visually. There are so many ways you can utilize videos, whether it’s pre-recorded videos, Instagram reels, or Facebook lives. There is definitely a different energy with live videos when you have people interacting with you in real-time.
   
   In any video content marketing, hearing someone’s voice is a great way to connect with someone! Videos allow you to do that. A viewer will really get to see you, your body language, your voice inflections, and everything that makes you, you. Video can leave a lead feeling much more connected with you than other content marketing strategies.
   
   
3. The final content marketing piece is written content. Jess could devote a whole episode about writing a book, and if that is something you’re interested in doing, a book can be a fantastic way to get your content out into the hands of your leads. Some people will gravitate toward books, especially if they feel like they need to take a break from screens. Other great written content includes LinkedIn articles, episode descriptions, and blog posts!

Margy’s recommendation is don’t do nothing if you can’t do all of it. The most important thing is consistency. If you’re overwhelmed by all of these different strategies, just start with one!

Entrepreneurs who are really good at content marketing know they are playing a long game. They do not expect to do one video and reap all the rewards of content marketing. When you really want to give value and when you understand that this is a long game, that is when you will see success. 

Another recommendation from Jess and Margy is to block out time for content. Jess and Margy pick one day and plan their entire month’s content. Just start showing up and keep going. You’ll get better with consistency. You may feel like you’re screaming into the void but people are watching. A lot of people are lurkers. They just look, they don’t interact. Once they’re ready to buy, they’ll reach out. Margy herself is a lurker, so she can attest to that!

Immature entrepreneurs give up if they don’t see success right away. Mature entrepreneurs are consistent. This is a long game, you have to keep going and be consistent. Jess reminds us that you can’t stop just because you don’t have “fans” yet!

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess puts Margy in the guest spotlight to talk about Margy’s new podcast We Get It, Your Dad Died.

Jess first asks Margy, why did you decide to start this podcast?

In 2015, while Margy was living in Taiwan, she learned that her dad had died by suicide. As an only child, Margy was incredibly close with her parents and this was a life-shattering moment. Now, six years later, it still remains a horrible loss. However, Margy realizes that a lot of the things she has in her life she would not have if she hadn't been through such a challenging struggle.

Margy started doing some research into high-achieving grievers and the relationship between loss and success. She wanted to start a show where she interviews high-achieving entrepreneurs who have suffered a serious loss. Margy wants to talk to them about what that experience was like, how it shaped them, and also what became possible in their life because of that loss.

Margy wants to prove that there are ways to turn the setbacks into positives in our lives.

A seed of her idea for this podcast came from Iconic, an Ali Brown event, in Miami on the beach, just days before lockdown in 2020. Margy started talking to a friend and fellow entrepreneur, Brandi Bernoskie, about the death of Brandi’s mom. She was really moved by Brandi’s story and felt like these conversations could be incredibly powerful on a podcast.

Margy decided that her podcast would focus on interviewing 7-figure + entrepreneurs who have a story of loss that they are willing to share.

Jess also wants to know, what was the process like of producing this podcast?

Margy came up with the concept and she started posting in mastermind groups and the Interview Connections client network group to find people who would be interested in sharing their stories. She knew that she had entrepreneurial friends who were at this level who had incredible stories to share. The interviews gave the show the momentum that it needed. Margy just started recording the conversations and took it from there. 

The next question Jess has for Margy is, who is your audience?

Margy didn’t make this trying to please anyone in particular. Her goal was to share important and powerful conversations and to make a show that she herself loves. She feels like this podcast has a wide demographic. Margy’s hope is that this podcast will resonate with anyone who has experienced grief or loss.

Secondly, Margy is interested in reaching entrepreneurs who are interested in how high-achievers approach setbacks. After giving interview after interview, Margy realized that her podcast gave a kind of blueprint for how to thrive through the most negative events.

Finally, Jess asks, how do you monetize a show that is seemingly not related to your business?

Margy explains that when you're a guest on podcasts, you're sharing your story and that is what is going to resonate with people. It’s not really an infomercial for your service or your product, you’re trying to get the listeners to resonate with you personally.

All of the content that we create, when we genuinely want to be of service and do great work magnetizes clients to us no matter what industry we’re in!

Search "We Get It Your Dad Died" wherever you listen to podcasts on April 29th to listen to the first season!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess sat down with Interview Connections client Heather Steinker to talk about leveraging Instagram!

Following the crumbs in the chaos is a full-time job. As a busy mom of three, a wife to a traveling hubby, and keeping it weird in Austin, Texas, it’s safe to say that Heather’s life is far from boring. Running a household with three young kids takes strategy and a system to keep things moving, like a well-oiled machine. 

After many moms came to her asking “How do you do it? I swear you have more time in the day than anyone else,” Heather wanted to show them the way! She created Chaos n’ Cookies to help busy mompreneurs stress less and save time through helpful tools and systems to increase productivity in their lives. Heather teaches her clients to be more efficient in their homes or running their businesses, working smarter and not harder.

In addition to running her coaching business as CNC’s CEO, Heather is a certified coach for a premier virtual fitness and nutrition program helping others feel better while sustaining a healthy lifestyle. Heather gained 10+ years of experience as a Director of Marketing, building multiple court reporting companies.  

Oh, and if she wasn’t busy enough, she maintains her own column called “How-to with Heather'' for a local neighborhood magazine, where she teaches her community fun hacks to be more self-sufficient with common household tasks. You can catch her weekly on her Chaos n’ Cookies Podcast, which ranked #80 in Parenting on the USA charts. Heather is helping mompreneurs chip away, one problem at a time.

Social media and Instagram became a tool that Heather started to use when she became a wellness coach. Heather had a sales and marketing background, but when she went into the online space, she knew she had to start using Instagram. At first, Heather didn’t know anything about it!

She sat down and decided to learn all the ins and outs of Instagram so she could use it well. Eventually, people started asking Heather for help with their own social media, so now Heather teaches mompreneurs and entrepreneurs how to best leverage social media, especially Instagram!

Jess first asks Heather about Instagram reels. Reels are funny, entertaining, and can be of such great value to a business. How can entrepreneurs be using them?

Instagram reels are king right now. When these platforms roll out something new, it’s like their new baby, and the algorithm really favors it. Heather explains that if you’re not using reels, you need to be. Heather knows that a lot of entrepreneurs feel intimidated by reels. She sees a lot of pushback because it can look goofy. Entrepreneurs will say, “That’s not me, I’m not going to do that.” But Heather explains that Instagram reels are getting pigeonholed. You don’t have to do goofy dances to leverage Instagram reels.

As an entrepreneur, you could use reels to show a demo or tutorial that demonstrates your value!

Heather goes on to explain the differences between stories, reels, and IGTV. Stories are 15-second clips that stay on Instagram for 24 hours. Stories are for your nurture sequences. They help nurture people who are already following you.

Reels are between 15 and 30 seconds. Reels are more of a viral strategy to get new followers. Reels tend to convert people to become your followers. If your video is between 30 seconds - 1 minute, it goes on your grid. If it’s over 1 min, it will become an IGTV video. Reels are a strategy for video content between your stories and your grid.

Jess then asks Heather what she can tell us about the algorithm. How do you get more of your followers to see your story?

Heather emphasizes the importance of hashtags! You can use hashtags on both your grid posts as well as your stories. Hashtags will extend reach with your stories because hashtags are basically neon signs saying, “Look at me, check me out over here!” Hashtags don’t create engagement, but it gets people to your content. Content is what will get your followers to engage.

Jess asks Heather, how do you choose what hashtags to use?

Heather recommends searching a hashtag to see who is using it and get inspiration that way. Use ones that are specific to your brand. Then you’ll want to use ones that are specific to your niche. In addition, you’ll want to do a series of relevant hashtags just to the post itself. 

You can add hashtags in the comments or in the post. If you have a really long post, you’ll need all that character space. If you don’t have space, add the hashtags to the comments. Other people put it in the comments to make it look cleaner. The other strategy of putting hashtags in the comments is that FB or IG doesn’t know it’s you, but it knows that you’re getting a comment. They see it as engagement. It gives it a little bit of a one-up!

Heather reminds us that we have between 10 to 30 minutes to get some kind of impression or the algorithm is going to see it as boring and not continue to push it. It’s really important to get on and engage right away. Get the algorithm to notice!

Finally, Jess wants to know the dos and don’ts for your Instagram profile!

Heather’s first tip is, if your Instagram handle is your name, don’t put your name as the bolded type underneath the photo. We know it’s you by your handle! Put something else, like what you do, or what you’re known for. 

You should answer some important questions in your bio, such as What’s your business? Who are you? What do you do? Who do you help? How do you help them? Heather’s last tip is to make sure that your bio has a great CTA! If you use a linktree or a website in your bio, make sure people know what they’ll get when they click that link!

You can connect with Heather at her website chaosncookies.com or follow her on Instagram @chaosncookies! You can click the link in Heather’s bio for a free Lead & Social Tracker Sheet, among other amazing resources!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess has the opportunity to speak with Interview Connections client Tracy Litt about believing your worth.

If Brene Brown and Tony Robbins had a baby, it would be Tracy Litt. Tracy Litt is a proven powerhouse of transformation. As a leadership expert, mindset coach, and spiritual advisor, she helps people across the globe to break the patterns that bind them so they can become the highest versions of themselves to create the businesses, relationships, and lives of their dreams. She does this through her powerful and practical process, The Choice Method, which elevates prosperity, fulfillment, and happiness to new and incredible heights. 

Tracy is the celebrated author of Worthy Human, a book featured as a best-seller on Amazon and in major media outlets such as Thrive Global, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Fast Company. She has been praised for her outstanding TEDx talk and was recently awarded the Social Good Entrepreneur Women in Business Award in 2020. Her impact is undeniable, and her power is highly sought after for keynote presentations to leaders and entrepreneurs. 

Tracy is leading a major movement in self-worth, empowerment, and wild success for visionary leaders. One by one, they are stepping into the reality of their highest selves. They are becoming extraordinary leaders in their vision.

Jess asks Tracy about her concept of being a worthy human, and how we are our own problems and our own solutions.

Ultimately, Tracy explains, you are the only block you will ever have. The reason that we struggle taking ownership and responsibility is that we aren’t willing to say “I am the problem and I am also the solution.” We are suffering from the lie of unworthiness.

That lie is that you are only worth what you do. The fundamental truth is, your birthright is your enoughness! If you woke up today, you’re worthy. Tracy believes that when you decide that you’re worthy, what you desire is available to you because you can take the responsibility necessary to get out of your own way.

Jess agrees and says that you have to believe in your heart and your gut that you are enough. Jess asks, what are some tips for people to really embrace the power of themselves?

Tracy explains that it is your responsibility to know your worth. You are not broken, you don’t need to be fixed -- but you have wounds. it is your responsibility to heal those wounds so you can grow into your greatest potential. For Tracy’s clients, that is the first step in their worth work.

To illustrate this in another way, Tracy says, “If I only love myself an inch worth, but my partner loves me four feet worth, it doesn’t matter how much love they give me, I can actually only absorb, believe, and let in that inch’s worth.”

The next step on your worth work journey is to go back in time. Ask yourself, “When was the first time in your left that you felt worthless, unsafe, unseen, unheard?” Identify that, and go back into those moments. Tell yourself that truth. Then, construct a new belief system that begins with: I am enough. I am worthy. I always have been, I always will be. My worth is my birthright. It is not negotiable, it can never be influenced.

For you to have a different result, you must change. For you to actualize every ounce of a vision that you desire, it lies in your ability to heal and transform and to become the version of yourself who lives in that vision! Tracy reminds us, you are not your mind, you are the director of your mind.

Tracy and Jess then talk about forgiveness.

Tracy explains that there is no forgiveness without rage. There is no forgiveness without letting out the suppressed emotion. But ultimately, forgiveness is a gift to yourself. When you don’t heal, your power is still with that other person at that age where you were wounded. It depletes you! You’re still giving your power away to that person.

Finally, Tracy talks about the joy of knowing nothing. Let yourself absorb that, and then you can start doing the work. She recommends the shift to “I love not knowing what is going to happen next!” Then you’re open to seeing everything. That will clear away biases and assumptions that you’re constantly functioning in.

If you want to connect with Tracy, head to whatwouldshedo.net for her free audio training!

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast to teach you how to transform your business and life with the power of visibility and strategy!

On this episode of Monetize the Mic, Jess talks with Interview Connections Client Aimee LaLiberte about being future-focused!

As the owner of My Virtual CFO, Aimee is a trusted profitability advisor to six and seven‐figure business owners who are tired of being behind in their books and are ready to uncover blind spots, course correct, and ultimately get more profitable.

Aimee also is a certified life and money coach and works with business owners who seek greater confidence and unwavering drive to attract and build wealth in their businesses and lives.

After working in non-profit and finance for over 16 years and helping more than 75 business owners since starting her own business, Aimee knows how important it is to have steadfast trust in the person looking after your books.

Jess was immediately interested in Aimee’s ideas about the importance of separating your self-worth from your bottom line.

In your business, when you create really incredible results, it’s easy to attach that to your self-worth. “I’m worthy because I’ve made such mind-blowing results in my business!” But Aimee warns that the opposite can happen too. When those amazing results aren’t achieved, it can turn into “I’m not worthy.”

Aimee reminds us that we are inherently worthy!

Regardless of our money or our results, we’re all worthy.  Aimee asks, “Why would you put your worth, that is just foundational as a human being anywhere other than at the foundation?” This completely resonates with Jess. 

Jess recently had to do a lot of work disconnecting financial results in a launch from her own self-worth. Aimee explains that we want those good results to mean that we’re enough, but in fact, we’re always enough.

Jess then asks, how does Aimee’s business as a virtual CFO work?

Aimee realized she really enjoyed the organizing and bookkeeping aspects of running a business. While speaking on a panel, Aimee began to understand that because she is so future-focused, she is much more like a CFO than a bookkeeper.

Once Aimee made that shift, things really started to change. The clients that Aimee was attracting really started to change as well. Her advice for business owners is, they should be spending money on outsourcing or hiring someone who is future-focused! 

The money should be spent on someone who can show you how to get to that place you need to get to. That’s the skill that’s not as readily available in terms of what you can buy on the market.

Jess wants to know, what are some of the biggest money mindset pitfalls that Aimee has seen?

Aimee has seen a lot of mindset issues about debt and shame around spending money. The biggest mistake she has seen is that people think there’s a one size fits all approach to money. Aimee believes that this is not true at all!

However, Aimee insists that you need a relationship with money. People tend to avoid their money and their relationship with money because they think it’s about their self-worth. Aimee wants us to ask ourselves, “How is my psychology around money affecting these decisions?”

Jess asks Aimee about her experience working with Profit First.

Aimee explains that Profit First is a cash flow management tool that sits on top of your bookkeeping system. It’s essentially the creation of bank accounts that are intended for certain places so you can allocate money to specific purposes. These include income, operating expenses, owner’s pay, tax, and profit. 

Those accounts create smaller plates of money, it allows and embraces the notion of restraint, which is what business owners need. If business owners see all this money, they think they have all this money available to them. But then they are confronted with a tax bill that they didn’t save for, or they want to hire someone but they don’t have the funds available to them.

Profit First drives scalability as well as profitability in businesses.

This method is ideal for being future-focused in your business when it comes to your finances!

You can connect with Aimee in her Facebook Community, Confident Money Matters, where you’ll be supported in achieving your money goals! 

We wanted to let all of our amazing listeners and subscribers know that we are going to be changing the name of this podcast. Starting in April, we will be called Monetize the Mic!

Our focus truly is on the strategies behind monetizing your visibility on podcasts. We’ve had this show since 2014. We have been called Rhodes to Success, Interview Connections, and Rock the Podcast. We make those shifts because our business has evolved. Right now, we are focusing so much on monetizing your visibility, not just getting booked and being a great guest.

We can’t wait for all the episodes ahead under our brand new name Monetize the Mic and we are so thankful for all of our loyal listeners and supporters!

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness.

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Margy talked with Interview Connections client, Stacy Bahrenfuss!

Stacy is the owner of a 7-figure real estate company, Founder of The Truth Teachers™ and Ultimate Break-through Accelerator™. Her customized results-oriented approach to personal development is reflective in her unmatched intuitive 1:1 consulting, intimate group coaching, and exclusive certification program. 

She began her entrepreneurial journey in the real estate industry at the early age of 19, sustained through the housing crisis of 2007-2010, and continued to build the business to be a 7-figure operation and one of the top real estate teams in the state of Idaho. In 2018 she personally funded and sold a development project consisting of 11 upper-tier luxury homes while still operating her real estate team. Her husband runs the operations of the real estate team today, while Stacy resides in an Advisory role. 

Now, along with her certified consultants known as The Truth Teachers™ Stacy is on a mission to smash the shackles of suffering by shining a light on the truth so that her clients can achieve everything they want. Her programs serve as a catalyst for deep inner transformation to create lasting whole life success, and how to do it all from a limitless, beautiful inner state.

One day while Margy and Stacy were chatting, Margy helped Stacy realize that she went from helping people find their homes, to helping women find their internal homes. Stacy is also kind of a  utility company, helping them turn on all their powers! She is driven to help people on her team connect to their power.

Stacy likens this to identifying leaks in the boat and then sealing those leaks. All of the power that is being drained in the boat can be redirected to build 8+ figure businesses! Since June, that is where Stacy has really been refocusing her work.

While Margy was looking to buy a house, Stacy was able to offer Margy an incredible mindset shift that changed everything. In her house-shopping experience, Margy found it to be incredibly emotionally draining. Margy had made an offer on a house that she felt very confident about, and the offer was rejected.

It was really a crushing blow for Margy, who had already been imagining the house as her own. Soon after, Margy found another house and put in another offer. She was talking to Stacy about it and said, “I hope this offer is good enough to win.”

Stacy then said to Margy, “What about focusing on the highest and best good for everyone?”

Stacy’s piece of wisdom was, what if you shifted that perspective of winning to “My offer is good enough.” What if you consider that it be for the best for everyone involved. Focus on that win for you, win for the seller, and win for the collective.

Margy was having these constrictive and isolating feelings associated with a winning and losing mentality. Her mindset went from “I don’t want to make my offer too high” to “I want the sellers to be psyched about this offer too. I want the realtors to be psyched about this commission. I want to be so happy.” That shift to considering everyone involved not only made Margy feel a lot better, but her offer was also accepted.

Once you operate in the space of the highest and best good of everyone involved, you start to play on a different level completely. A ripple effect is created. That constricting piece, that separation can hold us back subconsciously. Once you move away from constriction and fear, you’ll move to possibility, abundance, and expansion.

Margy also brings up that mindset plays a huge role in the success that a guest has on a podcast in terms of their ROI. Stacy agrees: you’re either in contribution, or you’re in fear and in lack. She explains that you have a choice and you can make it in the moment. The choice is tied into two internal states that we all have access to, fear and love. A beautiful state or a suffering state.

For podcast guests, Stacy recommends making that shift and setting that intention for who you want to be. Set the intention for how you want to show up and the internal energy that you want to bring to the table. That mindset shift can be transforming for both the host and the audience!

You can connect with Stacy at thetruthteachers.com!

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy talk about top-line revenue and profit!

When Margy came on as co-owner in 2018, her number one goal was to grow the top line revenue of Interview Connections to 7 figures. Even though Margy didn’t quite understand profit margins yet, she knew that she wanted the revenue to reach that 7 figure goal. And it worked! In 2019, Interview Connections hit 7 figures, and the company is currently scaling to 8 figures. 

It wasn’t until recently that Jess and Margy shifted their focus to healthy profit, as well as top-line revenue growth. The first step that they took was to address their pricing structure. When Jess started Interview Connections in 2013, there was no other podcast booking agency on the planet! This meant that Jess had nowhere to look when she created the pricing structure.

Way back then, Jess had implemented a month-to-month pricing package for clients and raised prices every few years. In 2017, Jess and Margy had a coaching day with Ali Brown, and Ali helped them completely restructure their pricing packages. Not only did Jess and Margy restructure so that the team and the business were being compensated fairly, but they also ensured that the clients were getting everything they needed from the package!

Interview Connections prices their services based on the value they are providing. The entire package, which includes so much more than guaranteed podcast bookings, offers clients an opportunity for a massive ROI. When we price our services, we do not compare to what other podcast bookers are charging, because we are offering so much more than just podcast bookings!

As an entrepreneur, it’s so important to ask yourself, “What is the value I’m providing?”

It’s crucial to make sure that you are charging what you’re worth. As buyers, we often assume the more expensive service is the better one! When you charge what you’re worth, and when you have a high ticket offer, you are perceived to be of higher value. But of course, you need to back that up with your value and your service delivery!

Don’t inflate your price to where it would not be a good investment for a business owner. But we find that most people price their services too low. First, you need to look at your service and look at how you can increase your client’s ROI. Once you can improve their experience with your service, you can justify higher prices!

The next part of growing your top-line revenue is growing your sales infrastructure.

If there is only one person in your organization who can close sales, especially if you’re selling high ticket services, you’re hitting a huge ceiling to your top-line revenue growth. Growing a sales team is critical because allows you to multiply your sales results. At Interview Connections, we have a strong sales team engine that is propelling us forward. As an entrepreneur, you should be out there on podcasts working on your visibility to obtain leads, and then having a team come in and work on actually closing those leads!

Margy goes on 4-6 interviews a month, creating content, developing her thought leadership, and building up brand and company! From this, qualified leads come in and meet with our sales team. You need to build your visibility for the leads to find you. We needed more salespeople to handle the leads we were getting from podcast guesting! 

The next important step in growing top-line revenue is tracking your progress. 

It’s imperative to set goals and to look at what you’ve accomplished so far! Margy has a spreadsheet that is incredibly near and dear to her heart. That spreadsheet tracks revenue, expenses, and profit for each month. Jess and Margy find this tracking to be so helpful for planning, setting goals, and celebrating successes.

When Jess and Margy have felt disappointed that they didn’t hit a goal, they can look back to their May 2017 sales of 30k and compare that to May 2020 with 300k sales! It really hits you in the face with everything that you’ve already accomplished.

The work you did 6 months ago is why you are here today! What you’re doing right now is going to determine where you are 6 months from now.  If you are not getting interviewed on podcasts right now, you cannot expect growth in your visibility 6 months from now! Start now because this long-term strategy really does take time to grow. 

What you do right now is going to determine what your spreadsheets look like a few months down the road.

Jess and Margy find that they themselves, along with many entrepreneurs, are generally impatient. This can be a difficult concept to master, when you allow yourself to be patient and track your results, you’ll be able to see the fruits of your labor.

Turning the focus to profit, Jess and Margy started tracking profit in 2017. In Margy’s spreadsheet, they could see every year lined up with income expenses and profit. You should be focusing on profit from Day 1, but it becomes even more important as you grow.

Jess and Margy didn’t really focus on profit for a while but then their expenses started to catch up with them. As they started tracking expenses and revenue, they found they could drive growth and profit in a way that is strategic and sustainable!

Another one of Margy’s obsessions is org charts.

Org charts are incredibly important for your revenue and profit growth because they help you plan as you grow for the team that you will need! You can look at what that structure needs to be and what the different teams and departments will look like. 

Jess and Margy created an org chart so they could look at what payroll expenses would be at 10 million top-line revenue. This helped them create the growth trajectory of various roles, teams, and departments in the company. 

The clarity that org charts bring can help you lead your team and be intentional with your profitability. 

The bottom line is to be mindful of what you’re investing in for your business. You should separate the “nice to haves” and the critical drivers. Things that really drive profitability like visibility, coaching are smart investments. Avoid things that aren’t actually going to move you forward and they’re going to cost you more!

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess had the opportunity to speak with Interview Connections client Nancy Murphy! Nancy is the founder and president of CSR Communications and creator of Intrapreneurs Influence Lab. Her passion is helping leaders of change within established organizations (intrapreneurs) influence and persuade others so that they can realize their vision for change faster, with less frustration and resistance. 

From challenging stereotypes of girls in her Catholic school more than 40 years ago, to her first job after college convincing nonprofits to engage youth volunteers or her role as board chair of a global nonprofit transforming the way we do international development, Nancy has experienced the challenges of leading big change within established organizations. And she’s willing to share all the mistakes she made – and all the solutions she discovered – so that you don’t have to learn them the hard way!

First, Jess asks Nancy what led her to a business where she helps companies with intrapreneurs?

Very early in Nancy’s life, she realized she was a status quo challenger by always challenging perceptions. She found herself often being hired to lead change, or once she was hired she would always find a way to start leading change. 

Once Nancy started working in consulting, she found that her clients were often also people who were leading change in organizations. Nancy realized that she had lessons and techniques to share, so she then started CSR Communications! 

Jess then wants to know, what is at the root of people’s fear of change? Why do people resist change?

Nancy’s mantra is “Leaders don’t respond to lizard brain with lizard brain.” Well, what does “lizard brain” mean!? Our brains are very good at pattern recognition and this helps protect us. Lizard brain is the ancient part of our brain that is designed to protect us. It’s the part that triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response. Particularly in times of change, that part of our brain goes into overdrive, and our brain is trying to protect us from that change.

As leaders, we can’t get into letting our lizard brains take over in response to other people’s lizard brains! 

She does, however, urge leaders to not always view resistance as a bad thing. Resistance can make us stronger, it can illuminate our blind spots, and it can make us better.

We don’t always want to see resistance as a negative. We want to get curious about it and see what’s going on underneath it. We want to find out what we can do to use that resistance in a way that improves and advances the change!

Nancy tells her clients that they need to become credible leaders. The first step in doing this is looking in the mirror. Jess loves this because the mirror concept is something that she and Margy talk about all the time. Your team is a direct reflection of your leadership! 

Nancy agrees and explains that the only thing we can control is ourselves. We can, however, influence others. Everything really starts with what can we do to become credible! She also recommends being open and being curious as a leader. It’s crucial to have empathy and to appreciate when someone is freaking out or feeling anxious about change.

Once we know something we can’t un-know it. Nancy knows that it’s really hard to explain something you already know to someone who is hearing it for the first time. She recommends that leaders ask themselves, “what curse of knowledge do we have for our vision of change? What are those gaps we forget to fill in that really make all the difference?”

Jess and Nancy both stress the importance of patience. Nancy discusses the power of pause. As a leader, if you’re about to train someone on something new, ask yourself, “How can I pause before I go into this training or teaching scenario? How can I actually put myself in a scenario when I was learning something new? What did that feel like and how can I imagine what other person can be feeling on the opposite side of my teaching or training?”

Nancy also asks her clients to think of themselves as campaigners. People on the campaign trail give the same speech over and over, but they still have to make it dynamic and interesting every day. When people ask questions, the campaigners have to act as if that is the first time they’ve heard that question. 

When people challenge them, the campaigner has to act as if this is the first time they’ve heard an opposite point of view. Nancy asks her clients, “How can we adopt the campaigner mindset?:

Jess then asks Nancy if she has any tips for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

She brings up a key point that she uses in her consulting frequently, and that is the concept of artifacts. If an organization has been around for a long time, what are all those little things left behind that show people what that organization really values? What really matters in terms of how things get done in that organization?

When we go through change, look across all aspects of the organization and ask, “What do those artifacts convey? Are they aligned with the change that we’re leading?” If they don’t, you’ll have to address those head-on and challenge what they mean for your organization. That will be imperative to being an effective leader of change wherever you are!

You can connect with Nancy at csrcommunications.com and be sure to head over to the freebies tab for loads of free resources, including a Meeting Makeover Kit, a Quarterly Momentum Maker Worksheet and more! 

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy dispel the myth of the visionary entrepreneur.

There is a really prevalent idea that all founders of companies and all entrepreneurs are huge visionaries. Not only is this a stereotype, but it’s also a glamorization of being a visionary entrepreneur. Not every entrepreneur is a true visionary, nor do they need to be in order to become a successful entrepreneur!

When Jess started Interview Connections, it wasn’t really her idea. She had started working as a VA for her dad, Jim Palmer, a business coach. As his VA, her dad had started asking Jess to book him on podcasts. Soon after, Jess decided that she wanted to be a business owner. Her dad coached her and helped Jess see that she could create a podcast booking company.

Even though it wasn’t her idea, it was Jess’s implementation that made Interview Connections possible.

To be successful as an entrepreneur, there is no one thing that you need to have. You can bring on team members or partners that help balance what you’re missing. A lot of founders really embody incredible implementation. Even though Jess didn’t have a grand vision, she took massive action and that is what made everything happen!

So many people out there are not taking action because they’re overthinking and they’re not getting on the court. These entrepreneurs are paralyzing themselves in their minds. It’s important to understand that when you are starting your business, it’s 10% visioning, and 90% implementing.

It’s crucial to build momentum in the beginning. Once you are a little more established, then you can move on to evolving and developing strategy. That’s where Jess sees a lot of people get stopped. They’re so focused on being the visionary that they don’t implement.

Jess and Margy came to decide where their strengths really wore only a few months ago. Margy has brilliant ideas and visions, and Jess rolls up her sleeves and implements. Jess is a “doer” or an implementer, and Margy is a visionary. Both of these are equally important in a successful business.

Everyone can have a great idea, but the real success lies in implementing it. Jess and Margy see this a lot in entrepreneurs that have a gorgeous website but no clients. You can have amazingly curated social media, you can have a great high-tech website, and you can have a great idea but if you’re not picking up that phone and dialing for dollars, that stuff is useless!

Jess and Margy don’t recommend that you invest a bunch of money in your website and other shiny objects like that, because that is not the driver in the beginning stages of your business. You need to get clients! And you do have to make mistakes. You won’t know what makes a good sales call until you pick up the phone!

Jess and Margy hope that they can inspire you to be brave. If you truly want to build something you have to have the faith and the courage to start sprinting and going for it. 

It wasn’t until recently that Jess and Margy had a conversation about their titles and what they should mean. After discussing what each of them really does in the business and where their strengths lie, Jess took the title of President because she is really the implementer. Margy took the title of CEO because she has the bigger vision.

It’s so imperative to know what your strength is, know where you belong, and know what your lane is. Once you know this, you can really thrive and grow in your strengths as opposed to getting better at something that you’re not really great at.

Margy observes that it really does take true leadership to put your ego aside and stay true to what your strengths are! At Interview Connections, it’s so important to stay in the lane that lights you up. While Jess is focused on the process in the business, Margy is focused on ahead of the process and that is where they both thrive!

Jess and Margy both recommend that if you’re an entrepreneur, you should ask yourself: Am I an implementer or am I a visionary? Where do I really thrive? Where do I need help? Who can help balance out what I lack? Plant the seed by asking these questions to find out if you are a visionary or implementer!

If you don’t have 100% clarity on what you should be doing, don’t worry yet. You’ll figure it out on the journey! As we mentioned before, Jess and Margy only got full clarity on their visionary and implementer roles this year. 

We are running a Podcast Guesting Masterclass from March 15th - 19th (with bonus sessions until March 23rd)! If you need to take action on your visibility and build your authority with podcast guesting, you need to attend our free Masterclass! Head to interviewconnections.com/livemasterclass to register!

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness. On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy talk about their partnership origin story!

Jess started Interview Connections in 2013, but it wasn’t until Margy came into the picture that the current iteration of the company was created. Margy came on board as co-owner in 2018, but she had a bumpy road to get there! Margy loves telling her story because she wants listeners to reassured that even if it doesn’t seem like things are going the right way - keep going! 

Margy graduated college with dual degrees in art and Latin, but she felt like she didn’t know where to go with her degrees. She ended up finding a job on Craigslist, in a door-to-door fundraising company. Jess was the canvas director for that company, and interviewed and hired Margy herself!

An opportunity arose for Margy to travel to Austin to help open a new office for the company. When it was time for Margy to return, she called Jess and said “Sorry, but I’m staying here in Austin!” Margy was at a place where she didn’t know what she wanted to do and was following her impulses. 

After living in Austin for a little while, Margy traveled to Taiwan and lived there for two years working as an English teacher. She loved traveling, but she never felt like she could find her calling. While living in Taiwan, Margy received the life-changing news that her father had died by suicide. 

Among the many other things that come up during a close family member’s death, Margy had to frantically find a new home for her dad’s cat, Kitten. She had posted on Facebook to see if anyone could foster the cat, and even though Jess and Margy had mostly lost touch over the years, Jess commented on the post and volunteered to foster Kitten. 

Kitten was the catalyst to bring Jess and Margy back together again. About a year later, Jess started working from home as a VA. Soon after that, she created her first business, Interview Connections. After a few years, Jess began hiring 1099 contractors for Interview Connections, and Margy was at the top of her mind for people to hire.

Margy started working at Interview Connections as a booking agent contractor. She started to become obsessed with entrepreneurship and business, even though she had absolutely no background in that whatsoever. The more podcast episodes she listened to, and the more she got to know and understand her clients, the more Margy felt drawn to the world of entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, Margy began to deal with some more trauma in her personal life. She had a bad breakup that forced her to pack up all of her stuff and move from Colorado back to her mom’s house in Rhode Island. She really felt like she had hit rock bottom.

What Margy didn’t know yet, was that moving back to Rhode Island was the first step in her journey to becoming CEO of Interview Connections.

Jess had decided to switch from 1099 contractors to W-2 employees, and she asked Margy to be her first-ever employee. At the time, Margy did not want to relinquish the freedom she had as a 1099 contractor. She was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, and Margy felt like becoming an employee was a step backward. However, she accepted the offer anyway.

There were so many moments in Margy’s journey that seemed like nothing was going to plan. Even though she felt like everything was going wrong, she was actually on the right path.

Jess was Margy’s boss, but it truly started to feel like a partnership. They cried together, they celebrated together, and they rose to the challenges of a new business together. By the end of 2017, Jess and Margy felt like they were starting to get the hang of things.

In 2018, Jess was starting to feel really burnt out. The weight of running the business alone was beginning to weigh on her. She knew that Margy should be her business partner. They began to discuss the options available for Margy to become an owner in the business.

Margy knew that she wanted to have 50% equity in the business. She wanted to feel like she had just as much of a stake in the success and failure as Jess did. Jess initially offered less than 50% equity, and Margy was fully authentic in her decision to graciously not accept that. Margy was firm that she wanted equal risk and equal reward.

Jess trusted her intuition and her gut. She offered Margy 50% equity in the company and they became equal co-owners. It has been such an incredible journey for Margy to start as a 1099 contractor and end up as the CEO. There is so much possibility when it comes to collaboration, and the partnership of Jess and Margy is one of the reasons they were able to grow the company to multiple seven figures!  

Jess and Margy are the co-owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness.

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess (virtually!) sits down with Precious L. Williams, also affectionately known as the #KillerPitchMaster!

Precious can help you slay all competition with her “killer” elevator pitches, media pitches, and investor pitches! Precious is a world-class master communicator who works with successful entrepreneurs and speakers and helps them take their professional pitching and speaking skills to the next level. 

With over 25 years of experience in creating unique speaking and public speaking techniques, Williams is also known for her innovative training programs and services to her clients and sales teams at Fortune 100 companies. These companies include Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and eBay!

As a 13-time national business elevator pitch champion, Williams has been on top television shows and publications for her pitching, branding, and professional speaking skills. She was featured on Season 8 of ABC’s Shark Tank, Forbes Magazine, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, the movie, LEAP, as well as several others around the world.  

In 2019, Precious became a best-selling author of the #1 business book, Bad Bitches with Power Pitches: For Women Entrepreneurs and Speakers Only, and has been featured on time square billboards, top podcasts, and stages around the world!

The philosophy of her “killer” pitch is evident in the strategic and personalized creative communications and presentation solutions Williams puts forth. As a serial entrepreneur, international professional speaker, and corporate trainer, Williams is equipped to bring life, authenticity, strategy, and boldness to all your oral and written communication needs!

Jess wants to know, why does Precious love pitching so much?

Even though pitching scares most people, Precious, who has been a professional speaker since age 16, doesn’t feel any nerves during her killer pitches. For Precious, pitches present endless possibilities of where they can take you. When you think about it, you’re pitching every day. Every time you attempt to get someone to be interested in you, or your ideas, you’re pitching yourself!

Precious has had so many different opportunities because of pitches! She has been on Shark Tank, she has worked in corporate, she has been offered numerous speaking engagements, she has been in movies, and has been featured in massive publications like CNN, Forbes, and Wall Street Journal!

Not only has Precious been able to seize these opportunities for herself, but she is also now working to help her clients achieve these results as well! 

Jess then asks Precious, what are the elements of a successful pitch?

First, Precious recommends that you get clear on the basics. Ask yourself, “Who am I? Who do I serve? What is my secret sauce? What do I do better than anyone else?” Once you know the basics, continue asking yourself questions like “Why should someone hire me? Why should they consider me? What stands out about me from everyone else?” Precious also explains that in order to have a killer pitch, you must have a killer call to action. 

Precious then emphasizes just how crucial storytelling is to your killer pitch. She explains that you have to tell a compelling story. You absolutely have to be a master storyteller. For your pitch to be killer, you have to wrap everything up in a great story that is emotionally compelling to others.

As a Black woman, Precious has had to face incredible obstacles in the entrepreneurial world. Precious asks, how do you win a no-win situation? You have to re-write the rules. She explains, once you change your language, you change the game. The question is: how do you do it in a bold and unexpected way?

An example of one of Precious’s most exciting opening pitches is: “Ladies, raise your hands if you want to be a bad bitch with a power pitch!”

That pitch not only grabs your attention, but it is 100% authentic to Precious as a person. You don’t have to have Precious’s personality to create a killer pitch. The key is to embody your authentic self in your pitch and have it come across in a bold and attention-grabbing way!

Since telling a story is so imperative to pitching success, Jess then asks Precious, what are her top tips for storytelling?

Precious explains that you have to set a scene in the audience’s mind of where you really want them to go. As an example, Precious discusses her killer pitch for Curvy Girl Lingerie on Shark Tank! She sets up the story to take place on Valentine’s Day. Even if you don’t have a boo, you have an emotional connection to Valentine’s Day in some way, so you are immediately drawn in.

Precious asks, “What is Valentine’s Day to a woman who is not seen or heard? You’re a big girl in the city, trying to find lingerie for Valentine’s Day, and no retailer has what you want in your size.” Precious explains that there are 14 million women size 14 and up, and they all want cute underwear!

In this killer pitch, she is illustrating that there is an ignored population. Precious is demanding that this population of women matter and they want to buy! It is both a sizeable and underserved population of buyers. She explains that your niches can make you riches.

When you’re putting together your killer pitch, you have to show why the population that you’re serving needs you - even if they don’t know it yet. Did we know we needed the iPhone before we got it? Of course not!

Another tip Precious offers is to start off your killer pitch with a question, statistic, or quote that is bold and unexpected! We highly recommend that you consider Precious’s advice, because after the first 6 months of Curvy Girl Lingerie, Precious had already crossed the 6 figure mark!

You can take Precious’s free killer pitch quiz at pitchingforprofit.com!

You can connect with Precious on her website, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram!

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess speaks with Interview Connections client Tim James! Tim is one of those guys that will leave you feeling younger and more energetic just by hearing him speak. 

After suffering from multiple health issues, including chronic acid indigestion and surgery to remove one of his organs due to serious digestive issues, Tim knew something had to change. But it was only after watching his closest ones die of cancer and the untimely death of his younger brother that he finally decided to take action. Tim’s journey led him to a shocking discovery that helped his friend beat cancer and transform every area of his life. 

Feeling charged with a duty to help others he started sharing his knowledge with anyone that would listen. This led him to produce his own chemical-free food products. Chemical Free

Body was born. Tim’s inbox is constantly flooded with people singing and dancing about how his products have given them a life they couldn’t believe was possible. His story will have you laughing, crying, and gasping but most importantly he will give you the recipe to a longer, happier, and healthier life!

Since Tim owns a product-based business, Jessica asked him why he chose podcasting to promote his business and increase his visibility. With products, many other entrepreneurs will choose more direct advertising.

“Why are you passionate about going on interviews to tell your story and educate the market?”

Tim had been selling mostly over the phone. He built his business over the phone, but then the Covid pandemic shut everything down. Tim didn’t really have any tech skills and had previously invested money with the wrong people.

But, Tim had been invited on some podcasts. Every time he went on a podcast, he saw that some sales would trickle in, however, Tim never really put a lot of thought into podcasts. 

Tim decided to call up a friend to get on some podcasts. He guested on three shows and did an enormous amount of sales. Tim thought, “This could save me.”  Within a few months of podcast guesting, Tim tripled his sales.

Once Tim began working with us here at Interview Connections, he created half a million dollars in sales.

Tim loves podcast guesting because he gets to do what he does best: tell his unfiltered story and educate people. Podcast guesting is simplifying the business for Tim, so he feels like he is getting his life back while still expanding his business! 

For Tim, podcast guesting is a no brainer. As a guest, you just get to show up on someone else’s podcast, who has put in all this work to establish trust and build an audience. Tim explains that it’s like getting in front of a stadium of people and having their attention for an hour

It’s a fantastic organic marketing strategy --no ads necessary-- and it’s just your unfiltered story doing the selling for you. Tim also points out that these podcast hosts need good content! They need good guests or they don’t have a show.

If you’ve got a story (and really, don’t we all?) Tim recommends that you get really good at telling your story. When Tim really started focusing on podcast guesting, he doubled his business.

Jessica asks Tim to expand on what kind of shows are giving him those amazing results. 

Podcast guesting was uncharted water for Tim. He just tried to get on as many different types of shows as he could. Tim would also track sales from podcast interviews by giving out a unique discount code on episodes, and tracking if that code was used. This would allow Tim to see exactly what podcasts were creating momentum for him.

Tim was interested in reaching audiences that he could relate to, and offer solutions to. These audiences excised in a variety of shows, so Tim went on a large number of different shows! Tim tracked his results and had a clear understanding of his client avatar, which was incredibly valuable for his podcast guesting strategy.

Tim understands who wants and needs his product, and understands his ideal client’s mindset.

If you’re thinking about doing a show, you have a great message but you are scared about how you are going to share it, Tim explains that you’re really getting in your own way. A friend of Tim’s paid $25,000 for a coaching program, and the first piece of advice the coach gave was to go live every single day. 

A lot of people would respond, “I don’t have my message yet, it’s not perfect!” Tim explains that the first 45-75 lives are not for the audience, they are for you to find your message and to refine your message! You will find your message and you will start getting comfortable sharing it.

The best way to hone your message is to start going live, hire a booking agency to get you on podcasts, and just go on the shows. You don’t have to be an ad expert, you don’t have to know how to build a website. You just have to have a message and a way to connect with those people who resonate with your message. You just have to be really good at telling your story!

If you’re saying, “I really want to do this, but I’m not ready. I don’t have my message right.” Tim argues that you just have to start!

You can connect with Tim at Chemicalfreebody.com and listeners can also use discount code “IC” at checkout!

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Margy (virtually) sits down with Lisa Larter! Lisa helps businesses navigate modern entrepreneurship so that they can increase sales and profits. She works with her clients on everything from business strategy, understanding their numbers and measuring what matters, to online marketing, social media and the best way to turn connections into paying customers!

Lisa believes that business is all about the numbers and that you need to take lots of action in order to make things happen. She is known for her no-nonsense approach to helping business owners get results. You won’t get fluff from Lisa, only the facts and an expectation that if you really want your business to grow, you will dig in and do the work!

Margy and Lisa bonded over their love of numbers! They both agree that if you don’t have a grasp on your numbers, you will not be able to pay yourself and you will not be able to have the lifestyle that you want as an entrepreneur. Everything that you want as a business owner-- the freedom, the impact -- if your numbers are a mess your business will ultimately fail.

Margy and Lisa both loved the book The Ultimate Blueprint for an Insanely Successful Business by Keith Cunningham. That book emphasizes the importance of really understanding the numbers in your business and looking at numbers in a way that can benefit you and can benefit the people that work with you. 

Every new coaching client of Lisa’s receives this book. Lisa has held mastermind retreats  and spent entire days looking at and discussing concepts in The Ultimate Blueprint. A concept that Lisa loves to implement is comparing historical data year over year in your business to look for trends and exceptions. Lisa also ensures her clients are getting clear on their expenses.

Lisa explains that we have a tendency to throw money at problems. If you have enough money to solve the problem, then you don’t have a problem. The issue is that sometimes the money you’re throwing at a problem isn’t actually fixing the root of the problem. This is when you have to look at numbers and be able to understand what they mean in your business.

Lisa asks that her bookkeepers and accountants send her the numbers every month, so Lisa can unpack. Lisa knows that she needs to look at them and know exactly what is going on before she gets to the end of year, so she can make smart decisions based on that data. 

Margy asks Lisa what advice she has for entrepreneurs who tell themselves the story of “I’m not a numbers person.”

People hire Lisa for marketing strategy, and she almost always ends up working on their numbers! Her clients don’t have a marketing problem, they have a numbers problem. Lisa will work with them to get to the root of their issue: Are they having a pricing problem, an expense problem, or perhaps a billable hours problem?

Lisa notes that her clients always think numbers are going to be very complicated, but really it’s just basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. If you can calculate percentages and you can look for outliers, that’s all you need to be able to do. 

Lisa also observes that business owners often make a lot of emotional decisions to spend money. Business owners and entrepreneurs rationalize when they need to spend the money, but the logical side of the brain wants to avoid that, and that creates a lot of shame surrounding your numbers.

Instead, Lisa argues to look at your numbers up front. She tells her clients that they can reverse engineer what they want in your business, and together, Lisa and her clients can create budgets and forecasts to make that happen. That way, as an entrepreneur, you can spend the money the way you want because you’ve planned for it! You can still pay yourself and have a profit.

Margy has seen first hand how much emotional decision making comes with your finances. Margy really loves being analytical and looking at her numbers, but she also believes in intuition. When something feels right or wrong in your business, you shouldn’t ignore that feeling. But you should look at your numbers to either validate or disprove your assumptions and feelings.

It’s not “Never trust your gut.” It’s more “Marry numbers and intuition together.”

Lisa explains that many business coaches are doing their clients a disservice by not looking at the numbers. Business owners need to be able to interpret data to have successful businesses. The Ultimate Blueprint is all about tracking your numbers, what numbers to track, and tracking them over a long period of time. This allows you to see a comparison of month to month and year to year. 

Margy asks Lisa, for somebody who wants to implement tracking their numbers better but is overwhelmed by all the spreadsheets, what do you think are the key things that they should be tracking every month in their business?

The first action Lisa recommends is to track your revenue weekly and monthly. It’s imperative to track sales MTD on a weekly basis, so you can find patterns and trends. She also recommends looking at your profit and loss statements, looking at your cashflow situation, and if you have receivables to look at those. She explains, you want to pay as late as you can, and you want to get paid as early as you can. The longer the receivable sits, the harder it is to collect it.

Lisa is also a huge fan of per unit measuring, she loves slicing and dicing numbers in as many ways as she can to support a hypothesis that you have about how to make the business perform better. Lisa also points out that if you have a team and you are able to gauge revenue per person,  then you can create a factor capacity model. 

Another idea to consider as a business owner is per uniting the cost of acquisition of a new client. If you decide to spend $7,000 in facebook ads, how much are you generating in revenue as a result of that spend? How much did it cost you per lead? What did you get for every dollar spent?

When you can drill the numbers down that way, you can actually replicate what you’ve done that has produced results. You will also have a baseline measurement that will tell you if something is no longer working.  If you only measure it one time, and you don’t look at what the trends are, you won’t be seeing legitimate results in your business.

Lisa breaks business growth into 5 steps:

Attract

Convert

Retain

Expand

Refer

After you are able to both attract business and convert to clients, you need to then keep your client or customer, and expand the amount of business you do with them. This will have a huge impact on the lifetime value of your business. If they refer people to you, your cost of acquisition goes down; buyers are selling for you.

You can’t maintain a strong business with luck, you need to know your back-end numbers. Lisa and Margy agree that even during the good times, entrepreneurs need to be prepared and get everything in order in case they have a tough month ahead.

Lisa asks all her clients, “How much money do you have in the bank? What is your burn rate? How long will that last?”

Thought Readers is Lisa’s newest venture, the online Business & Book Club community. Lisa came up with the idea when someone had reached out to her explaining that they were always trying to keep up with what Lisa was reading. They asked if Lisa would start a business book club. They said, “Send me the book you're reading every month, tell me what you’re learning and I will write you a check.”

She thought, nobody is gonna pay me to read books with me! However, after the first year, 75 people signed up.

Lisa chooses a book, reads it a month before, and picks out all the important “ahas!” She then shares them with the group, records videos about her own takeaways, and she does a “Books and Business Q&A.” People can come to the call and ask Lisa any question they want about the book or just business in general!

Lisa is now entering her fifth year reading books together with this community! You can join the community and she will ship you the book, or join and be a digital member and buy the book yourself. Either way, you still get wisdom from the discussion that happens inside the community. It’s a great shortcut to reading the entire book.

A recommendation from Lisa is to pick books that are aligned with where your business problems are - read something that resonates with you, read something that will help you.

Margy’s big focus is on implementation, so she is drawn to books like Profit First and The Ultimate Blueprint. It’s incredibly helpful to have someone to talk it out with and get some bullet points on what you’re struggling with or want to learn more about. Thought Readers helps community members translate these books into their lives and their business to take action.

A final recommendation from Lisa is when you’re looking at business books, pick the lever that is going to lift you the highest with the least amount of effort. Don’t get stuck in the weeds of tactical implementation, instead stick with the one thing that is going to give you the biggest ROI on your time.

You can connect with Lisa at thoughtreaders.com!

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Margy talks to Interview Connections client and great friend, Nikki Nash! Nikki is a marketing expert, Hay House author, and the creator of the Market Your Genius Brand. After a decade-long career marketing Fortune 100 brands and tech start ups, Nikki set out to help women build profitable online businesses.

Margy and Nikki discuss the buzzword “thought leadership” and what it really means. Nikki talks about how she decided to leave behind her career of working for other people, to start her own business. Nikki’s genius is building a personal brand, and helping people turn their experiences and expertise into a business where they are making money and feeling fulfilled.

Through Nikki’s business, podcast, and book, she helps people share what they know so they can make an impact in the world.

One thing Margy sees frequently, is entrepreneurs and business owners using reused ideas with no substance. However, Nikki is a true thought leader. She has great, original content, and she is consistently committed to her content.

Margy asked Nikki, “What really makes someone a thought leader?”

Nikki feels that thought leadership gets collapsed with influencers, or someone with a large following. But thought leadership is really about how can someone take people to a new level? A thought leader has to have a new way of thinking to bring their clients or followers into a new idea.

According to Nikki, thought leadership is living in the inquiry of “What could this be like? Let’s explore. Let’s learn and become experts.”

A thought leader is also someone who is a leader, and to be a great leader you have to do some self work and personal development. Understanding yourself allows you to understand others and be present with others.

What makes someone a thought leader?

Nikki recommends that you start with the questions: “Who am I? What are my gifts and talents? Why am I here? What do I believe that I can contribute?” How can you challenge a way of being or a way of thinking? You also have to be okay standing out into the spotlight and doing it in such a way that people will follow, listen, grow and develop for the better because of what you’re putting out there.

It’s not about reinventing the wheel, and it’s not about discovering something that no one has ever heard of. It’s going deeper within yourself that actually gets you to thought leadership. If you’re always looking externally, asking “what are other people doing?” -- that’s when content gets stale.

Margy and Nikki recommend that you go deeper within yourself by telling your story. Ask yourself, “What makes me unique? What have I learned on the journey that I've been on that no one else has been on? How do I apply that to help others?”

Nikki’s experiences and journeys led her to the realization that all the stages of her dating life can be applied to marketing! In marketing, you need to build relationships with people. To do that, it’s just like dating. You meet the person, capture their attention, get their phone number, and spark a conversation. 

By going out into the world and “dating” their potential clients or customers, changes the way Nikki’s clients think about marketing. By asking your potential clients if you can date them, you’re asking how you can show up for them. You may not be teaching a drastically new concept, but you’re teaching it in a way that changes the way people take action or move forward.

To anyone who wants to build their thought leadership, Margy explains that you have to get out on the court and you have to make content. She warns against giving into impostor syndrome. It’s crucial to get out there, make the content, and to have a goal to serve and put out quality content.

The best thought leaders are the ones who aren’t trying to be thought leaders because they’re not focused on being one -- they’re focused on other people and what can be of value to them.

The road to thought leadership starts with creating content and by asking “What do people need, what does my audience need, what do my listeners need?” Being present and listening to what is a great way to spark a conversation and to teach something. You don’t need to feel like you’re a thought leader or tell people that you’re a thought leader, it’s about how you can show up consistently and lead.

When you genuinely are curious and enjoying that process, you become a thought leader without trying to become one. 

People’s perceptions of your brand and company are going to shape your brand and company. If you have someone who is really mean answering the phone, people aren’t going to think that you’re a nice and friendly brand. So, how can you become the person who deserves that title of thought leader?

Margy, of course, recommends podcast guesting. One of the reasons Margy loves podcast guesting is the ideas and conversions that come out from sharing your story long-form on this platform is powerful content, especially compared to what you get from a social media post. 

An unexpected benefit that Margy has experienced with her own podcast guesting was the way that Margy’s content has evolved. By going all-in on connection, curiosity, conversations with all these different hosts who have their own different perspectives, Margy’s own content was shifting and evolving with every new perspective she heard.

Podcast guesting is one of the easiest ways to get started building your thought leadership because you don’t have to create infrastructure yourself. You don’t have to create a podcast, a blog post, or a youtube channel - it already exists. 

You are showing up on someone else’s platform where they have already built a relationship with their audience. By default, people are trusting you more because the host is putting you in the spotlight. The audience then feels that you must be worth listening to.

When you have these conversations with people, you start discovering and refining your own thoughts and ideas and values. When you want to be a guest on a show, it really broadens your ability to have conversations on related topics that then give you a holistic perspective and viewpoint because you’re curious. You’re having conversations with different people with different points of view, changing and shaping the way you think.

You will then start to see fans and a following, just by being out there and being visible.

Nikki herself, is going all in on podcasting in 2021. Podcasting gives you someone’s undivided attention and places you right in their ear. Not only that, but podcasting allows you to have a long-form channel to share your story in a meaningful way to your potential leads.

You can connect with Nikki by listening to her podcast, Market Your Genius, or heading to freemarketingbootcamp.com to check out her (no surprises here) free marketing bootcamp!

Today's episode is a special solo-Margy episode to talk about a concept that she coined, called “The King of Mediocrity.” What Margy means by that is, you can be a king of a mediocre life, or you can be a student of a great life. 

In other words, you can be right or you can be successful. The most successful people Margy knows care more about learning and being a student, than they do about being right. They don’t care as much about saying “This is what I know, I’m not open to other perspectives, I’m the expert on this.” Those are not the people Margy sees living lives that Margy wants to live!

Margy came to this statement while she was thinking about leadership. The leadership at Interview Connections always views their team as a mirror of the leadership. If we’re seeing results we don’t like in our team, instead of complaining about it, we look at ourselves and ask, “What does this say about us? About our leadership?”

Looking at results you don’t want and seeing it as a reflection of your own leadership requires humility. But this is the only way to develop as a business owner and as a leader! Practice looking at those results and saying “What is this telling me? What can I work on as a leader?”

When Jess and Margy wanted to grow to 7+ figures, they knew they needed to get in rooms and masterminds with entrepreneurs who are at 7, 8, and 9 figures. A common theme in successful entrepreneurs that Jess and Margy witnessed was kindness and humility. What are the chances that all these highly successful entrepreneurs just happen to be this nice and this humble?

There is a strong correlation between success and humility. Before Jess & Margy hit 7 figures, they went to Ali Brown’s Mastermind and met the incredibly successful entrepreneur, Michelle Bosch. At the Mastermind, while Michelle was talking about her multiple businesses, Margy felt like small fish. Michelle was so high-level, and that felt so beyond where Interview Connections was at that point.

Jess and Margy started chatting with Miichelle, and they were stunned by how Michelle was so humble and kind, even though Margy knew she was so successful and intelligent. Michelle said “It’s so great to meet you, I have so much to learn from you.” This absolutely blew Margy away. Margy said, “You are so high-level, what could you learn from us?”

Michelle said “But you are experts in podcasting, and I don’t know anything about podcasting so I am so excited to learn from you!” What Margy realized in that moment was that there was something else in that humility, it’s curiosity. The most successful entrepreneurs are students and are hungry to learn more.

If you are a genuine student and you want to learn, by default there is humility in that. You are admitting that you don’t know everything, and that curiosity is what leads to humility, and that is what leads to these incredible levels of success. 

There has been a myriad of studies that show the correlation between success and curiosity. These studies show that curiosity prepares the brain for better learning. Why does curiosity matter? Curiosity makes it so that you will be less likely to fall prey to confirmation bias, and you’ll be less likely to see what you’ve always seen. 

We need to stay curious, so we can be innovative and reach new growth while creating better results! When we’re curious, we view tough situations more creatively. In business, things are constantly going wrong. Breakdowns happen and it’s important to not fall apart.

But when we’re curious, studies show we are able to view difficult situations in a more creative way and that allows us to innovate and to overcome the issues and breakdowns. It also helps you see other people’s perspectives and have more empathy.

Curiosity makes you more focused on other people’s perspectives and less focused on your own, and this leads to connecting with other people better. And we all know that relationship and connection are the root of a healthy business!

You can be the king of a mediocre life or the student of a great one. Margy invites you to look at your life, look at your business, ask yourself - are you being a king or are you being a student? If you’re being a king, Margy implores you to make that shift to being a student and staying curious!

Today is a special client feature episode of Rock the Podcast with Melanie Weller! Melanie is the world’s leading expert in opening the door to health, performance and innovation through the vagus nerve, the bridge between our narratives and our physical experience. A storyteller for the human body, Melanie has an extensive background in stress management, chronic conditions, and people with who haven’t yet found success. 

She now focuses on strengthening the leading edge in businesses, speakers, entertainers, athletes, artists, and medical professionals. Melanie is a Physical Therapist, Board-Certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist, Certified Athletic Trainer, and Certified Exercise Expert for Aging Adults. 

Jess had her own personal experience with Melanie’s healing that was incredible! Back in November, Jess was positive for Covid-19 (luckily, a very minor case). However, she was suffering from horrible headaches. Melanie, often referred to as a magician or a body whisperer, offered to do a healing session with Jess! Melanie tapped into Jess’s energy and found that her head energy was in her foot.

Melanie was able to take Jess’s energy and move it back from her foot, into her head. Melanie was able to create a biofield form of Jess to understand what Jess’s body was trying to say, and help address the issue. Coming from a medical background, Melanie is able to balance her clinical expertise with her intuitive healing skills. 

Melanie’s work focuses on the vagus nerve, and treating that nerve as if it were a pinched nerve. The vagus nerve is incredibly important in our body. It is connected to stress, pleasure, your heart, and your digestive system. It is the reason you can absorb Vitamin B12, and it is involved with digestive enzyme secretion. The vagus nerve mediates sweating, and gives lots of sensory information from your body to your brain!

Melanie came into this field when she herself was having something of a midlife crisis. Her blood pressure was very high, she was having a lot of foot pain, and having emotional stress in her personal and professional life. One of the things she started to learn is to see patterns in the world and in our body. Story is really just a different way of writing about science, for Melanie.

Traditional medicine and even alternative medicine didn’t work for many of the people that Melanie works with! The vagus nerve, Melanie teaches, is the bridge between our bodies and our stories. When the vagus nerve gets compressed in physical structures, it becomes compressed in energetic structure too. 

Melanie works with her clients by helping them solve their problems, and opening up the space so they have the big “Aha moments!” with their own expertise. Her goal is to open up her client’s own creativity and genius! 

People have the knowledge inside themselves, and they have the answers. The genius of Melanie’s work is untangling the things that are keeping them from seeing the answers.

Melanie explains that when our heroics and our desires are at odds with each other, it impairs our vision. When we’re the hero in someone else’s story at the expense of our own story, or we’re satisfying someone else’s desires at the expense of our own - those manifest themselves physically in our bodies, often as head and neck issues.

Melanie asks her clients, “Where are your heroics and desires at odds with each other?” Are you too busy being a mom hero or a business hero? If we’re busy being the hero in someone else’s story, we’re not working towards what we want.

If you’re an employee and you’re making money for someone else and not for yourself, or you’re in a field that’s not really lighting you. You feel like you’re putting in a lot of work, but you’re not feeling the compensation and the return.

Your passion and your profit are not in alignment!

If you’re taking care of everyone else, ask yourself “Who is taking care of you?” Women in particular, very often don’t have a clear answer for what they desire. They’ve been so busy satisfying everyone else’s desires, they haven’t slowed down enough to think about what they really want. 

Melanie helps people get to the central story. She explains that we all have a physical expression of our internal narrative and we have an internal expression of our physical narrative. What we are experiencing inside of ourselves and outside of ourselves is really the root of all compression points in your body. 

The body is our conscious mind and it’s always talking to us. We’re just not fluent in its language most of the time! 

Melanie works with entrepreneurs and business owners who are trying to up-level and uncover their genius. She helped a business owner have breakthrough with hip tightness. In terms of vagus nerve compression points, that’s where your inspiration and structure are at odds with each other. Her client had an inspired idea she wanted to do, but she didn’t think the structure of her life would allow that. She had some limiting beliefs on whether her inspiring ideas would be possible.

Melanie and her client were able to dismantle that and as her hip got better, she had a huge “Aha moment!” for her business and less physical discomfort as well!

Bodies are expressions of our businesses and our lives. Melanie contends that we don’t talk about what stress really is, and that’s what Melanie is bringing to the table.

As humans we connect more with story than we do with process. Chronic pain gets locked into our limbic system which is where our emotions are, and you cannot logic yourself out of your limbic system. You have to have an emotional key to get it out of there.

You can connect with Melanie by heading to Embodyyourstar.com, where you can find a free vagus nerve decompression course!

Check out Melanie’s podcast, Weller or head to her website melanieweller.com!

Today’s episode of Rock the Podcast is all about getting your financial house in order with founder of Incite Tax & Accounting and Profit First professional, John Briggs! John has learned that achieving a highly profitable business can be overwhelming, particularly with all the barriers and unknowns that new owners are forced to deal with.  

Entrepreneurs can quickly become stressed and burnt out, and often sadly give up on the mission that they set out for.  In much the same way that the body needs blood to survive, a business needs cash, the lifeblood of the business, to stay healthy and to grow more resilient.  

John is a man on a mission to give entrepreneurs an actual work-life balance so they don’t get burned out. He helps them increase their cash immediately so they can have confidence in their choices and become financially resilient. 

He talks the walk by battling against the traditional CPA culture of “overwork, underpaid, pay your dues and suffer while you’re at it” mentality by providing his team a healthy work life balance even during busy tax seasons.

John is a Profit First professional, and many entrepreneurs and business owners may have heard of the method without ever really implementing it. Jess read Profit First when she started Interview Connections in 2013, and shelved it for later because it can seem very overwhelming and scary to new business owners. 

Margy’s one piece of advice to new entrepreneurs is: Trust it, and set up Profit First. Interview Connections hit 1 million in revenue in 2019, and more than doubled that in 2020. Even though the business was doing better than ever, Jess and Margy were taking home less and less every year. They were working harder than ever before, but could feel themselves inching closer and closer to full-on burnout.

Once Jess and Margy worked with John to implement Profit First, they realized that they could simply fix this problem with better cashflow management. John worked as an accountant for a door-to-door sales company. This company had made over 30 million dollars in revenue, but their commission checks for their sales people were still bouncing.

How did this happen? John did an analysis to figure out why this company was having huge sales, but wasn’t able to pay their salespeople. For every sale the company made, they kept about 1% (which was $8 in this case). As their revenue increased, their expenses increased alongside. 

John told the company that they were spending too much, and the company replied that they would just sell more to make up for it. But John knew that this just fell into Parkinson’s Law: the demand for something will match its supply. The more money they made, the more money this company would spend. This would increase to a point where the company was no longer profitable. 

If you have one bank account as a business and all your money gets deposited into it, and all your expenses get paid out of it, what you have sitting there is a gigantic pile of supply. The demand for it --the expenses, the cash outflow-- is going to continue to increase to match the cash available to spend. 

Spending will get out of control if you’re not putting any boundaries on what you’re doing with your cash. Profit First requires that you set up additional bank accounts for different cash obligations that you have, including money for the IRS, money for your team and employees, paying for yourself, and money for profit. 

Margy always felt like budgets were restrictive, but with Budget First she feels like the money in Interview Connections is abundant and flowing. 

With Profit First you’re setting aside money for your tax obligations a couple of times a month.

Compare that to a scenario where as a business owner, you do your taxes and you owe thousands of dollars! You’ll ask, “Where am I going to find that money?” It was spent because the demand for that cash expanded to match the cash that you had.

Business owners, do not undervalue enjoying what you’re doing and having a little extra for yourself! You have to see the reward for your work so you are able to stay excited about it. There’s such an energetic block when you’re working more. You’re getting run down, you don’t see the expansion that you feel like you’ve been working for and earning. 

For Jess and Margy, working with John has been transformational - not just about having more money, but the way they feel about their cashflow management. Service-based business owners often feel fulfillment in the service that they are providing to their clients. However, these business owners need to feel fulfillment in other ways, such as in their income and freedom, otherwise they will become burnt out.

Profit doesn’t have to be about getting rich. You have to have profit to continue to be passionate about who you’re serving. You have to have profit to keep your doors open!

Service and sacrifice are different things - you cannot serve from an empty cup! You are in the service industry, not the sacrifice industry. Some entrepreneurs that Jess and Margy meet don’t know what their numbers are, or what their revenue is, nevermind goals for how to manage their revenue. Profit First gives you very clear direction: “You can spend this, or you can’t spend this!”

It gives you clarity on what you can invest in and where the money is. Profit First also allows Jess and Margy to be creative with their money and find creative ways to keep the business going. 

John brings up the point that when you use Profit First, whatever dollar amount you see in your account now, that’s the money you have because everything else went into different accounts for different obligations. This gives you freedom and allows you energy from being financially organized.

This makes you become innovative with your money, which will put you ahead of your competition! That will keep you always doing something new, which in turn, is making your business better and stronger. 

You can connect with John at incitetax.com! 

Today is a special client feature episode of Rock the Podcast with Wanda Toro Turini! Wanda, also known as Dr. Wanda or The Nerdy Girl Entrepreneur, is a seasoned entrepreneur and a natural inventor. 

She has spent the last 15 years creating first-in-market solutions for multi-billion dollar companies but decided to use her brains to change the lives and businesses of fellow entrepreneurs. Wanda has a Doctorate in Pharmacy and served patients in the critical care and emergency medicine setting before venturing into the business world as a marketer for oncology treatments. 

In 2005, she left a high paying executive opportunity in the pharmaceutical industry and leapt into the world of entrepreneurship. As a Rock Star in marketing and audience engagement, Wanda invented Ketchwords.com, which is destined to be THE Gold Standard Lead Gen Tool for all experts who love to share their knowledge with audiences. 

Ketchwords was first developed to solve her problem of collecting those Anonymous Fans in her audience. After creating a texting platform to deliver robust content to her audiences, she used her skills to master the tool and boost the ROI of every appearance. 

She grew her consulting business to $4.2 Million and was able to jump into entrepreneurship to help others do the same! She loves to share the solutions she creates and the stories of her challenges with the desire to inspire people to NEVER say never.

Wanda’s mission is to help other service minded entrepreneurs finally connect with anonymous fans in their audience. When Wanda was running her consulting firm, she was speaking very frequently and learned that in order to be seen as an expert, you have to show up and speak up. She knew that she needed to figure out how to guarantee a ROI on all the time, energy, and money she was spending on speaking.

Wanda created a texting platform, eco-files, that she first started using to share her presentation slides with her audience. Right away, she had 25% of her audience texting and engaging with her! After working on the technology and further developing, Wanda averaged 76% of her audience texting her!

While running her consulting firm, Wanda spoke at two conferences and was able to reel in over 200 hot leads. These leads easily led her to grow her business to 4.2 million in revenue!

After growing her consulting business, Wanda knew that she wanted to share her knowledge with other entrepreneurs and experts, with a quality, concierge experience. She then launched Ketchwords, specifically for speakers who spoke at conferences.

Then, the pandemic hit. The Covid-19 pandemic ended up becoming a mixed blessing for Wanda, because she realized that she was missing out on a huge spectrum of folks who were sharing their knowledge on other platforms. Ketchwords helps these entrepreneurs connect and engage with their anonymous fans.

Ketchwords combines both technology and strategy to help entrepreneurs, business owners, speakers, and experts capture leads and ensure an amazing ROI! Wanda helps her clients with strategy: how to optimize the technology, and gives the technology to deliver the message in a unique and effective way.

Anyone with a sales background will know that follow-up is key to closing sales. If you don’t keep in touch with your leads, they’ll forget all about you. Ketchwords helps entrepreneurs maintain engagement with their hot leads. 

Wanda understands the importance of staying in your zone of genius. Ketchwords allows you to stay in your zone of genius, while letting Wanda and her team use their genius on your behalf. Wielding the power of technology is transformative for experts and business owners, and the team at Ketchwords will lead you along the way, while focusing on your results and your impact.

If you’d like to learn more about Wanda and Ketch, text “leads” to 411321!

Global listeners can text “leads” to 19097411321

You can also head to ketchwords.com and as a listener of this podcast, you’ll receive 20% off of Wanda’s services with promo code: “Podcast 20”

Jess and Margy are the co owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness.

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy ask the question - “Who knows you?” We all know the saying, “it’s who you know.” But Jess and Margy disagree! Instead of asking who you know, ask yourself “Who knows me?”

In this episode, Jess and Margy dive deep into what it means to be known and seen by your target audience. Before Jess started Interview Connections, she was a virtual assistant. Being a VA, Jess started to meet some people and get into a small circle of entrepreneurs, but she still wasn’t really known. 

When she first launched Interview Connections, it was pretty much crickets for a while! Jess really needed to make a conscious effort of being visible and putting herself in the rooms, on the stages, and virtual stages in front of her target audience. When Jess first started speaking at podcasting conferences, and getting interviewed on podcasts, she struggled with imposter syndrome, but ultimately she didn’t let it hold her back. 

Jess knew that the organizers of the conference, or the host interviewing her, invited her for a reason. They saw specific value that Jess could give to their audience! You might not see your value, don’t let that hold you back because other people see your value!

Podcasts are a particularly great medium to gain visibility, because when we listen to a podcast we feel like we know the people talking! Often we feel like the host is already our friend. When your ideal clients hear you on a podcast, they’re going to feel like they already know you - making your visibility all that much more valuable. 

It’s imperative to allow yourself to be seen by those who you need what you can do! And that visibility needs to be consistent. What does it mean for someone to know you? Even if someone sees your facebook posts, gets your emails, or follows you on instagram - do they really know you? When they hear you share your story on a podcast, that connection is so much deeper.

When you’re brave enough to share your story in your own voice on podcasts, you’ll create a much more dynamic image of yourself to your target audience. Because podcasts are conversational, people will know your story, your background, your why, tough things that you’ve been through, and then they really know you.

Take a look at your marketing and ask yourself, “Am I spending time and money on mediums that truly allow me to be known?” Once you start getting interviewed consistently every week and creating those deep connections, you’ll see a huge increase in the quality of your leads. When your leads hear you and know you, when they reach out it will feel like you’re talking to a friend.

Visibility will allow your leads to really know you as a person and know your company for what your company is and stands for in the world. Sharing your stories on podcasts not only creates a better connection for your leads but also with the host. When Margy goes on podcasts and shares her story, she has stayed in touch with and connected with many hosts. These relationships lead to becoming referral partners, creating joint ventures, and many hosts have become clients!

One of the best ways to monetize your podcast interviews is through high-end networking with the podcast host. Sharing your story with the host is a great way to create a special bond and network more effectively. 

If you aren’t allowing yourself to truly be seen, but you want to start prioritizing your visibility and unlocking possibilities in your business - then you need to register for our next Podcast Guesting Masterclass!

This 5-Day Masterclass is completely free, and will teach you the A-Z of monetizing the microphone on podcast interviews! Head to interviewconnections.com/masterclass to register, and get in the facebook group - Guest Expert Profit Lab - where this Masterclass will be held!

Today is a special client feature episode of Rock the Podcast with Intermittent Fasting Coach and author, Laurie Lewis! For Laurie, menopause dealt a crushing blow -- brain fog, lack of balance, memory loss, and the sudden gain of 50 pounds of stubborn hormonal fat. She tried everything she knew to feel better, and the methods that worked in the past made no difference.  

After four years of struggle, Laurie stumbled upon Intermittent Fasting and started fasting that very same day. The menopausal fog lifted in less than one week, she had more energy and felt more “like herself.” She lost 51 pounds in 15 months and has kept it off for years! 

Now, at 57-years old, Laurie has turned her personal success into the premier thriving Intermittent Fasting coaching business. As a certified health coach (Institute for Integrative Nutrition) she combines her knowledge of nutrition with deep research and practice of Time Restricted Eating. Laurie guides her clients with a dream come true -- eat the foods you love and enjoy the rest of your life feeling vibrantly well.  

Laurie knows that for entrepreneurs and business owners, focusing on growing your business and your brand also means a need to focus on your body and your health! While Intermittent Fasting may seem overwhelming, Laurie assures you that anyone trying this method can overcome hunger waves. 

Thinking about fasting may also appear to be another stressor in your life, but ultimately it becomes one less thing to worry about. As Intermittent Fasting frees up space mentally, Laurie feels that it will relieve your stress and anxiety. Laurie explains that as we burn fat, we become more alert, more focused, and more vibrant.

Laurie also explains that weight loss is often a hormonal issue. By burning body fat, we are also warding off insulin issues, and possibly even Alzheimer’s. Fasting puts our body into a condition of repair, both metabolic and hormonal repair. 

As a coach, Laurie helps her clients in a two-fold way. A Zoom pioneer, Laurie has been holding group coaching sessions for years over online video conferencing. Laurie leads a group class on how to be a successful Intermittent Faster, and how to avoid weight gain during the holidays. 

Laurie also offers one-on-one coaching sessions for those who want a more customized coaching experience. We as humans have immediate access to an abundance of food that has never been experienced by human beings before. This can be very challenging for many of her clients, and Laurie helps them overcome that stress. She also helps her clients maintain compliance and create a sustainable Intermittent Fasting practice in their lives.

Many of Laurie’s clients focus on the bad - their mistakes. Laurie chooses to focus on the gold, and help her clients piece together the good news instead of honing in on all the bad news. Laurie’s program also stair-steps her clients into an Intermittent Fasting Practice. Over three months, she will help her clients learn to eat in a pattern of time, settle into their fasting sweet spot, and troubleshoot and tweak their practice based on their goals.

After settling into a fasting practice, your body will inform you what foods it wants and doesn’t want, and when it has had enough food. Fasting repairs your appetite system and will allow it to better communicate with you. 

Laurie works with a variety of clients of all ages, both men and women. In particular, Laurie loves awakening women who are going through the massive hormonal shift that is menopause. She wants those women to know that Laurie is right there with them - they’re in this together!

You can find Laurie’s book Celebrating Your Vibrant Future: Intermittent Fasting for Women 44 to Forever on Amazon, and you can connect with Laurie at her website!

Jess and Margy are the co owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness.

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy what to do when you feel like you just don’t have time to commit to your visibility. We are asking the question - where is your time going?

We know that there are entrepreneurs out there who know that consistent visibility is incredibly important, but they feel like they simply don’t have time. We at Interview Connections recommend getting on podcasts at least once a week, every single week. Many entrepreneurs that we talk to think that it sounds like a great idea, but they can’t see how to fit it into their schedules.

The first thing Jess and Margy recommend is using a calendar system. Unless you start putting tasks down into a calendar, how will you keep track of your commitments? The second step Jess and Margy discuss is then auditing that calendar. As an entrepreneur, you need to ask yourself, “Is my calendar reflecting my vision and my highest priorities in the business?”

Are you spending time where you should be spending time? Visibility is being seen and heard by more people, so you can get more leads, more clients, and more speaking opportunities. Visibility is a major domino in changing the game for your business and getting to the next level of where you want to be. You don’t have time not to do things that raise your visibility consistently!

Look at your calendar and ask yourself, “Am I spending time on tasks that are not important? Am I doing tasks that someone else besides me could do and should do?” 

Jess and Margy also stress the importance of putting those important tasks on your calendar, because if they’re not on your calendar, they likely won’t get done (or at least get done in an acceptable timeline). 

Margy is an expert in protecting her time. Both Jess and Margy love using scheduling blocks, and batching tasks in specific blocks of time. Margy has a specific block set aside for podcast interviews, so she never feels overwhelmed with other tasks interfering with her interviews. Podcast interviews don’t have to take over your schedule! Try and create blocks specifically for them, even just one hour a week for interviews.

If you don’t have time to work on your visibility, it points to a bigger issue of how you’re spending or organizing your time. It’s something that we’ve all been through - how many entrepreneurs and business owners have complained about not having enough time?

The key to solving this is being really proactive and not reactive. Set time aside for your highest priorities.  Showing up the way you need to be and building the momentum that you need, should be at the very top of your priority list as an entrepreneur. 

If you feel like you don’t have the time to do the legwork, you’re right. That’s why you can hire an agency, like us here at Interview Connections, to book you! While we recommend that you outsource the heavy lifting, you need to make the time to show up and connect, give value, share your story, and make those listeners want to take the next step with you.

By objectively looking at your calendar, you can compare your story of what you’re doing and what you have time for, with what is actually happening. You can see if your actions are in alignment with your goals! 

Another important tip is to stay  in your zone of genius! Do not waste time on tasks that drain you if there is someone on your team who can do that task - and oftentimes those team members are much better suited to do that task than you are.

Be specific about your zone of genius: it’s the things that you are both good at and that you like doing. Do more of those tasks and less time doing tasks out of obligation, or “I should just do it because it’s easy.” Spending your time on those tasks could really be draining you of the energy you need for the tasks in your zone of genius.

If you're an entrepreneur you probably want freedom. Does calendaring make you feel constricted?

Before Jess started really using her calendar, she would come in to work every day wondering, “What’s today going to be?” Margy suggested putting tasks in Jess’s calendar, which Jess initially resisted. But Jess ended up feeling that she was much more productive and effective when she laid out her tasks for the day and committed specific time slots to them.

Jess also brings up the idea of having integrity with yourself. If you look at your calendar and you have dedicated 30 minutes to a task, you need to do it to maintain that integrity with yourself. And most importantly, when you look at your calendar you need to ask, “What am I going to be doing that is moving the needle for my business?”

When you actually calendar out all your tasks, you can actually work much less. If you just do whatever needs to get done, you will never run out of tasks. Instead, if you dedicate your day to specific tasks and time slots, you can work fewer hours because you’re focused on high-value tasks. Things expand and shrink to the amount of time you give them.

What is in your calendar is what is prioritized in the business!

If you’re saying, “I need more visibility, I need more people to know who I am, I need to get on podcasts” but you look at your calendar and there’s nothing on there that’s helping you get more visible - there’s a misalignment, and there’s a lack of workability. You have to change something in your calendar. 

When Jess transitioned from closing sales herself to managing a sales team, she struggled with “I don’t have time to train the sales team.” In reality, she didn’t have time not to. If visibility is the thing that your business needs, nothing else on your calendar is more important than that. 

You are planting seeds with your calendar. If you’re focusing on visibility, it’s going to be a few months before you start to reap the rewards, it’s not overnight. Is your calendar reflecting where you want to be? The direction you want to be steering the ship with? If not, it’s time to reevaluate and recalendar!

It’s crucial to ensure that your calendar reflects the priorities of your business!

Today is a special client feature episode of Rock the Podcast with finance expert Tracey Bissett! Tracey is on a mission to redefine the world's economic future by increasing the financial literacy of entrepreneurs, also known as financial fitness.  With over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Tracey can help entrepreneurs in all industries, both on and offline.

As the founder, President, and Chief Financial Fitness Trainer at Bissett Financial Fitness, Inc., Tracey helps her clients understand and improve their level of financial fitness with a goal of increased confidence using their financial skills so they can be successful in their financial life. In addition, Tracey is a professor at Centennial College’s School of Business program and regularly leads speaking engagements to increase financial fitness awareness.

Tracey starts the episode by talking to us about entrepreneurship and cashflow. Most early entrepreneurs are looking at their profit and loss, and their sales and expenses. Tracey notes that depending on your business, just because you make a sale does not mean that you necessarily have the cash in the bank. There can be a disconnect for business owners between sales and cashflow.

Cashflow is money coming in, money going out, and the timing in which that happens. If you’re in a coaching or service business, you’ll often have payment plans for your clients. As the owner, you might track the sale as it comes in, but you’ll get the money monthly. That’s where this disconnect between what the sales says and what you have in the bank occurs.

Cashflow is the lifeblood of any business. Cashflow dictates whether you keep going or you don’t. Tracey has seen companies go under in as quick as 90 days when they don’t have cashflow coming in! 

Another issue Tracey addresses with her clients is billing and collection. Tracey worked with a client who had over $300,000 in sales, but lost $100,000 because she billed them too late and was unable to actually collect the money. Collection is critically important to understand in your business. Entrepreneurs need to understand what is normal for their industry, make sure they have good billing and collection practices, and that they’re actually keeping track that the money is coming in.

Jess had a similar experience starting out as an entrepreneur. After Jess’ first sales call, she told her brand new client that she would bill him at the end of the month. He gave her a great tip, which is “collect the money up front.”

Tracey encourages entrepreneurs to talk to other people in their industry to find out the best practices in billing and collection, because it varies in different industries. It’s important to find out where the boundaries are and to be transparent with your clients about your billing practices. Many business owners will offer a discount if their client pays up front as opposed to in monthly packages, which can be very helpful for entrepreneurs who no longer have to reach out every month for payment.

Tracey also notes that mindset plays a huge role in payments. The main driver if someone is going to pay you is not if they have the money, it’s their character. If they have the willingness to pay you, they will. 

On the topic of mindset, Tracey and Jess also discuss the problems entrepreneurs face when they are pricing their services. According to Tracey, service providers are typically bad with their pricing-- they often don’t charge enough! When deciding on your prices, Tracey suggests factoring in expenses and profit margin as well as doing some research into your target market. You’ll want to ensure that your target market wants to pay for what you’re selling.

Tracey also recommends that entrepreneurs and business owners take a regular salary from their business, and factor that into their pricing. If you want to apply for a line of credit, you’ll have to prove that you have the money to pay it back! That steady income will also be imperative for you to meet your goals. Increasing your prices will also give you more freedom to hire a team to take on more clients and invest in marketing and visibility to help you grow even more.

Jess and Tracey agree that oftentimes entrepreneurs face mindset blocks when it comes to their pricing. Tracey believes that we get our mindset about money when we are very young, about 5-7 years old. This mindset comes from our family and our emotions toward money. People need to be observant with how they react when things pertain to money, and if you don’t like your reaction, you can change it.

The bulk of the population comes from a place of scarcity, and therefore has a scarcity mindset with money. It’s okay if you feel that way, but you don’t have to feel that way! Observe your reactions, then make some changes. It’s not going to happen overnight but one thing you can do is practice gratitude to change your money mindset.

Most of us have heard that we are a function of the people we spend time with. Tracey recommends that we spend time with people who are grateful and people who are looking at money in a different way in order to improve our money mindset.

Look at what you’re offering, validate it in the market by looking around at your competitors. If  yours is better and has more value, charge more! Tracey is a firm believer that you need to spend time on your finances monthly in order to grow your business!

You can head over to Cashcoach.biz for a free money meaning agenda from Tracey!

Jess and Margy are the co owners of Interview Connections, the first and leading podcast booking agency. This is the podcast where you will learn all about podcast guesting and how to leverage podcast interviews to grow your brand awareness.

On today’s episode of Rock the Podcast, Jess and Margy discuss the importance of defining your company vision, and their experience of creating the company vision for Interview Connections. Jess and Margy always had goals that they set for themselves, and for the business. It wasn’t until recently that they decided they needed a larger vision statement for the company.

Many entrepreneurs have personal goals that they set when they begin their business, but when you start to build a team and bring your company to new heights, it’s important to cast a vision separately from what you want in your own life. Jess and Margy admit that they often collapsed “goals” with “vision,” but they knew they needed to create a vision that their team could rally around.

The Interview Connections Vision Statement is in three parts: 

• Our vision is to continue to lead the industry as the highest quality and most innovative podcast booking agency in the world 
• Our vision is to transform entrepreneurs lives by transforming their business with visibility and strategy
• Our vision is to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs who embody integrity, authenticity and leadership

Part I: Our vision is to continue to lead the industry as the highest quality and most innovative podcast booking agency in the world.

Their first draft of the Interview Connections vision statement was that the company would be the best booking agency in the world. Jess and Margy decided to get a bit more specific, and indicate their ambition to being the highest quality agency. Interview Connections goes above and beyond with a specific podcast show research department, an in-depth discovery process, weekly check-ins, and a dedicated client success strategist.

Interview Connections also aims to be the most innovative booking agency. We’re constantly asking, “Where is the industry going? What is the role that podcast guesting plays in an entrepreneur’s life, and how can we optimize that in their business?”

Part II: Our vision is to transform entrepreneurs lives by transforming their business with visibility and strategy

What you get with Interview Connections is more than just bookings. What lights us up is when our clients have incredible experiences that change their lives on podcast interviews. It’s really about the transformation that happens to business owners as they increase their visibility as they share their story. Podcast guesting transforms how they do their business and it transforms them as people. They are having these incredible conversations, allowing themselves to be seen, and really developing themselves as both people and entrepreneurs.

We want to be taking people through a journey. Asking them, “What is possible when you make this leap in your business? After a year of being interviewed every single week, increasing your visibility, and having a strategy in place to convert leads from this visibility, what does your life look like?”

More than creating profit, a visible entrepreneur can actually step into work knowing that people see them as the expert that they always knew they were. There’s a huge transformation in confidence when you can show up to work knowing where your leads are going to come from.

2020 was the first year that Margy truly committed to being on 4-8 shows a month. She had never been this consistent, and it has totally changed Margy. Not just as an entrepreneur, but that visibility has transformed Margy as a person as well. It’s changed how she’s showing up every day in her life. Margy has been transformed from having these consistent conversations with fellow entrepreneurs on their podcasts. 

Part III: Our vision is to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs who embody integrity, authenticity and leadership

Several months ago, Jess and Margy put out an episode on how to be exclusive with your client base. At Interview Connections, we are booking our clients on podcasts, we are helping get their message out in the world. We cannot work with people, when we do not believe in their message! For us at Interview Connections to continue to grow, we have to feel connected and aligned with entrepreneurs that we’re working with. 

We have three important values that our clients must embody: integrity, authenticity, and leadership. When you first start out in business, you’re not putting as much thought about who you are working with. Because you’ve just got this service you’re providing, it’s easy to say great let’s work with anyone! 

Ask yourself, “What is my legacy? What is the impact I’m having on the world? What is the impact that my company is having on the world, with or without me? Who is this business in the world? Who am I serving?” And when you’re serving people who you believe in, and who you’re aligned, you will grow so easily.

For 2021, Jess and Margy set a goal for Interview Connections to grow from 2 million in revenue to 10 million, and growing to that height while maintaining our vision and our core values of who we are as a company!

What is your vision statement for your company?

Join our Facebook Community, the Guest Expert Profit Lab, to share your company’s vision and goals!