Transcripts for Episode 131

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Kirsten: For us and our clients, and even for us individually, I think Jeannie and I would both say we are creators. So we love creating new things and we like new challenges. But we often talk about, do we really have space for this? Do we have time for this? Are we marking enough time off on our calendar for vacations and for downtime? And it’s just having that conscious decision that you want to have a healthy life and a healthy business and that it is always, I think, a balancing act, right? Because there’s always something new to launch or there’s always something new to learn. And I think most of us love learning. So when it comes to burnout, I think it’s always asking yourself, do I really need to add something else to my plate? How can I delegate, outsource and get support?

Kirsten: And then asking ourselves often, are we taking enough downtime for ourselves? Are we actually giving ourselves time to enjoy friends, enjoy family, take a walk on the beach, the things that actually recharge us.

Stacy: Welcome. I am so excited about this week’s episode because we get to dive into a topic that my clients and students ask me about all the time. It’s actually two kind of topics I get asked about in one that we’re going to cover today. I get asked a lot about marketing and I get asked a lot about virtual assisting.

Stacy: And I think especially as authors get a little bit further along in their journey, they’re starting to learn about the author platform. They’re starting to consider all the things that they need to do to get that book out into the world. They’re starting to realize that there’s a lot to do. And I would say this applies beyond authors as well. So if you have a business that you are trying to grow, if you have a mission or message, a brand you’re trying to grow, these are really important. And an important next phase of business and brand growth is outsourcing. And we’re going to be talking about outsourcing today. I’m going to share a little bit a little later on in this episode about all the different things that I outsource in my life because I think people are shocked.

Stacy: No, not, I think people are shocked when they learn how much I outsource. And that is the answer to the question, how do you do all the things that you do? So we’re going to dig into that a little bit more today. So let me introduce you to this week’s guest. Kirsten Graham loves helping business owners create evergreen value based video content that showcases their authority to build know, like and trust, knowing that time is our most valuable asset. Kirsten and her team pair each client with a trained marketing VA who takes care of video, audio editing, social media and email marketing. This frees them up to focus on making money. So, Kirsten, I’m so glad to be with you today. Thank you for joining me.

Kirsten: Stacy, thank you so much for having me. We always have the best conversations, and I’m really looking forward today’s, too.

Stacy: You know, I mentioned at the opening of this episode the word outsourcing, and to me that’s such a loaded word because I think especially in american culture, we have this sense that we are an island that needs to be self sufficient and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do all the things all by ourselves. I would add, I think also for women, we carry an additional layer to this in just feeling like we have to be all of the everything. Then you layer on maybe having kids, running a business, any, all of the above. There’s so much to that. And I think that a lot of the answer to surviving in this world that we’re in is truly outsourcing.

Stacy: So I would love to hear a little bit from you on a concept that you shared with me, which is that outsourcing can be a form of self care. Tell me about that and why you say that it’s a form of self care.

Kirsten: Sure. I think as women especially, we tend to think we have to do everything ourselves. And we’re very hard on ourselves. We beat ourselves up often. And the reality is there’s just not enough time of the day. Whether you’re caring for aging parents or you have children or you’re trying to run your business, what happens is we beat ourselves up because we just can’t do it all. And that’s not good for our physical health, our mental health. And that’s why I think you see so many women burn out. And the reality is most business owners, because as a business coach for the past 20 years and prior to that, I owned a mortgage company and I did a lot of loans for self employed people. So, understanding business finances, most business owners can afford to outsource overseas because it is very affordable.

Kirsten: And when you get help in your business, when you get somebody who’s there to support you and do the things that you don’t have time to do, it makes a difference, not just in the fact that tasks are getting done, but that you feel better about yourself. And these are literally things we’ve had clients say to us. I feel like a real business owner now. I had no idea how isolated and lonely I felt in my business. I love collaborating with my virtual assistant, or I had no idea how much I was beating myself up because I was comparing myself to other people who were getting their marketing done and they were showing up on different platforms and they never looked stressed. And I always feeled frazzled. I felt frazzled. And now that I have a virtual assistant, I understand it wasn’t me.

Kirsten: I just didn’t have the support that I needed and that I deserved. And that’s why I think outsourcing can be a form of self care, and that can relate into having your house cleaned or having groceries delivered. There’s lots of different ways that you can outsource parts of your life to free you up to do what you really love doing. And I think that’s the other thing. We’re always happier when we’re doing what we love doing, where we’re actually doing what really helps our clients and impacts the world, and that we’re able to be there for our friends and family.

Stacy: All of that. I so align with that. And I was just thinking about, you mentioned housekeeping. And I did say at the top of this episode, I was going to share some of the ways that we outsource in our life. So we do have housekeeping twice a week, including folding and putting laundry away, which is like the greatest thing on the planet. We have twice a month gardening they come in, we have a zero escaped yard. So it’s not like grass mowing and stuff, but they come and clean up the yard, make sure that it looks nice and tidy. I have a personal assistant who does all my calendaring and all of the other random tasks in my life. I have a marketing person now. That team has grown a lot, so actually I have much more than that on our team.

Stacy: But even just those core elements of housekeeping, gardening, and a personal assistant is such a life changer. And I think it was interesting because recently were looking at our financial goals and considering we have some goals that we want to meet this year, where can we cut back? Where can we reallocate money for our. We have this big savings goal that we’re working towards. And I, for like 2 seconds looked at the cleaning budget and I was like, absolutely not. I am not cutting that budget. That is what keeps me sane. But where I’m at today, it took a while to get there into really understanding the value that brings into my life, that I can play with my kids on the weekend and enjoy, rather than doing laundry or cleaning, having that space.

Stacy: But I think that’s such a big mindset shift for people. And I do think that the first step toward that is just hiring that first thing that feels most important to you. What are some of those barriers that you find that people hit up against when they know they need the help, but they’re struggling with the financial commitment or the mindset of, like, I’m not doing it all myself. What are some of those things that you see and how do people overcome that?

Kirsten: Well, I think the first step, even before making the decision to hire, is understanding that it is a form of self care. Right. We as a culture spend money on massages. We have energy worked out. We tend to spend a lot of money on things that are self care, beauty products, hair products, things like that. So when you can start thinking of outsourcing as just another form of self care, I think it takes a lot of the resistance away for a lot of people. So I think that’s most important is understanding that not only is it going to help you grow your business, it’s going to help you serve your clients more. But like you said, you get to play with your children. You get to spend quality time doing the things in your life that you love by having that support.

Kirsten: So as far as looking at your budget, I think for a lot of people, budget is a dirty word. And I love the fact that you and your husband are looking at your finances. I talk to a lot of people. There’s an app called you need a budget.

Stacy: I use ynab. I love ynab. I love it.

Kirsten: I cannot tell you how many people I’ve help set up. I mean, just for any of you who are listening, there is a fee to it. But you can set up your business budget, your personal budget, you can set up your kids budget. So it’s worth every penny.

Stacy: I do all of them on that one platform and I love it as well. I’ll be sure to link to that in the show notes.

Kirsten: Perfect. And here’s something that’s really important. Budgeting is different than bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is tracking what’s already happened. Once you’ve spent that money, you can’t get it back. Budgeting is making conscious decisions about where the money is going to go that’s coming in the door today, tomorrow, next month, and then you get to prioritize what you want to do. And one thing I know about, especially about Americans, we find the money to do what we value. So if you want to afford a virtual assistant, especially because it is so affordable, you’re talking about two hundred and fifty dollars to five hundred dollars a month to have either part time support or full time support in your business.

Kirsten: So we spend a lot of money on things that don’t necessarily move the needle, but nothing is going to move the needle in your business more so than having people work for you. If you have working 20 hours or 40 hours a week for you, doing tasks that really need to get done, especially marketing, it’s going to change your business and it’s going to change your personal and business finances.

Stacy: I agree with that so wholeheartedly. And I think it’s also, as a business owner, we just think we’re the best at everything. We think that we are absolutely the best at every single thing in our business. And how could we possibly bring someone in? We don’t often say that aloud, but surely we’re thinking it. What I’ve found actually is that when I hire people who love the thing that I struggle to get the energy for, they knock it out of the park. As an example, Rita, who produces this podcast, she does the podcast, she does all the design. She is incredible. And everything has up leveled with her support. Could I do a lot of what she does?

Stacy: Yeah, but not to her level because she is so passionate and so good at it and pays attention to things that I just don’t have time for. Right. And so there’s that piece of that value add that not only are you taking it off your plate, but honestly, you’re not the best at everything. Other people could maybe deliver better than you are.

Kirsten: Stacy, I love the fact that you’re talking about the fact that we think we have to be the best or that we are the best. And I actually have the opposite mindset. I like to focus on either. So many things I’m terrible at and that I don’t want to get good at. I couldn’t even log into my canva account if I needed to, because we’re doing that. Right. But it’s understanding that in order to grow a business, not create a job for yourself, because there’s a big difference between being self employed and having a business. If you really want to grow a business, you have to accept the fact that not only do you not need to do everything, the reality is you shouldn’t do everything.

Kirsten: You should spend as much time in your zone of genius as possible, because that’s where you’re going to help the most people. That’s where you’re going to have the most impact in the world. And my dad used to joke, he used to say, I would be fantastic in the military if they would start me off as a general.

Stacy: I resonate with that.

Kirsten: Yeah. Right. So I just think that it’s so interesting, and I think, again, it goes back to our cultural. That hustle, that grind. You should be able to do it all yourself, but you really do not have to know how to do something to delegate it. And I always say, if I’m watching a video that’s been edited, even though I don’t know how to edit a video, I can tell my virtual assistant what I love about it and what I don’t like about it and what I want it to look and feel like when it’s finished. I don’t have to be able to sit there for hours and hours and learn how to edit videos, learn how to use that software, I can clearly state that I love what you did here. I love this transition. I love this. Zoom in.

Kirsten: I don’t like that, broll. It doesn’t represent my audience. I can do that without knowing how to edit a video.

Stacy: You can give feedback, right? Without knowing the technical skills needed to implement that feedback. Yeah, that’s so good. Let’s talk about some of the practical aspects of that. Kirsten. I think sometimes when people move into this next phase of marketing and they’re realizing, like, oh, I’m wanting to grow my business, or I’m wanting to grow my brand or I’m launching a book and there’s actually a lot of active marketing that I need to start stepping into. It feels really overwhelming and I think they don’t even really know where to start. And then there’s other people that are maybe at a different level where they have some consistency in their marketing, but they know they need to up level it. What are some of the practical things?

Stacy: Just like, let’s get super practical for a minute that a marketing VA can do for somebody that will help them grow their audience, get those leads in the door and really grow their business.

Kirsten: Sure. So when we’re hiring and training virtual assistants, marketing virtual assistants for our clients, we’re hiring virtual assistants that are great at video editing, audio editing, social media marketing, email marketing and blogging. So we’re looking for someone who can really take great content. And I think that’s where it starts, right? If you want to build your brand, you want to build your audience. It starts with great content because you have a unique voice. You and I are two very different people, Stacy. So we can bring the same message to the world, but it’s going to be in a very different tone, a very different perspective, because we live different lives. So when you bring original content with your story involved, that’s how people begin, that know, like and trust. That’s how they learn to connect with you.

Kirsten: And that’s when they ultimately decide if they want to work with you. So having a marketing virtual assistant who can consistently take a great podcast that you’ve hosted or a great talking head video that you’ve done, and they can take care of getting it edited and produced, and it consistently goes out every week, and you have social media that’s going out consistently. I think that’s when things really change. And also, a marketing virtual assistant can help with things like creating lead magnets so that you’re getting content out to your email list or you’re growing your.

Stacy: Email list, yeah, all of those pieces are so important. And I think that where people get a little overwhelmed is they think that all of those spaces need unique content created. And actually, with our marketing, the foundation of everything we do is the emails that I write to my newsletter, which you can join at stacyennis.com/join, by the way, we’ll be sure to drop that in the show notes, but I pour my heart and soul into those emails. I do this podcast, I write a blog post, typically monthly, and those are the seed bed of all of our content. And that’s where I’m able to show up in my excellence, which is the content creation. And I’m so glad to hear you say that. Great content is the foundation of everything. It absolutely is.

Stacy: And I think we’re in this interesting space where people are starting to play with generative AI and they’re doing some things that I think eventually the pendulum is going to swing back around. We’re going to value really great writing and really great content over everything else. Eventually. That’s a whole other conversation. So I’d love to hear from you because I think just to get even a little bit more granular and practical, is there an example you can give us of a client or a case study where a VA was brought in, marketing VA, and it was able to help them free up some of that time energy and be able to show up in a bigger way in their business?

Kirsten: Sure. We have a client who was a dietitian, and one of her goals was to write a book, but she was so busy with her regular day to day marketing and getting clients in the door. So when she hired a virtual assistant, she was able to consistently start getting videos out. From that one video a week came all of her social media marketing, her email marketing, that freed her up to write a book. And so the book is off to the publishers now. I know it’s so exciting for her, but what happened was, as she was writing the book, she realized that she wanted to start connecting with other experts. So she started a podcast where she’s interviewing experts so that her podcast will launch just a few weeks before her book.

Kirsten: But she’s getting all of these great people and great relationships for people who are like, oh, yeah, I’ll read your book and I’ll have you on my podcast to talk about your book when it launches. So it’s really having someone who, when you know, okay, all I’ve got to do is show up and do this great interview, and then I can hand it off and know that it’s going to be taken care of so that I can get back to work and make money until next week’s episode when I have to show up and do a great interview, and then I can hand it off. But when we first started working with her, writing a book was just kind of a thought. It was something she wanted to do, but it was something that she’d never had time to move into taking action on.

Kirsten: So once she realized the support that a virtual assistant could give her, she was able to think, okay, well, then I can write a book because I will have a strategy for marketing it. And then that led to the podcast. And so it’s exciting. It’s exciting to see people jump on things that they’ve always wanted to do but have never had time to do, or we often hear from people. Once I started having someone take all these tasks off of my hands and I had more money, I mean, more time on my hands, I realized, and.

Stacy: More money and more money.

Kirsten: Right, more money and more time. But once someone took task off my hands, I had this additional time. It made me realize that I could get back into the vision of my business, and I could bring on new products or services or find different collaborations, and I could grow my business exponentially, a lot larger than I’d ever thought I could before, because I didn’t know what it was like to have someone actually do things for me and free up that time. And I think most business owners, when you first start out, you’re kind of in that place where you have time but you don’t have money, and then eventually you end up at a place where you have money but you don’t have time. And both of them are terrible places to be.

Kirsten: And one of the things we advise people to do is always hire before you get to the point where you have more money than time, because once you hit that point, you’re hitting burnout. So if you can get support in place before you hit that point is really ideal.

Stacy: I’m glad you talked about burnout, and we did have a guest on a while back talking about burnout. It was a really good episode, so we’ll be sure to link to that in the show notes. But one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking about this making more money, which is obviously something we all want. Yes, we all want that. But for me, the greatest value that comes from getting support is space and time. And now this week for me is not a great example because we had the Internet go out and all this stuff go wrong. But I took my kids to the dentist this morning. On Friday, I’m going to a school play for the whole morning.

Stacy: I have this freedom of movement and choice and time in my life that could not exist without the support that I have. And I think a lot of times it’s easy to make very logical decisions based on numbers and data points and stuff like that. And yeah, we should absolutely use that in our decision making. But I think that extra benefit, that’s actually the greatest benefit, is that space. What I think is a little dangerous, though, is that sometimes people get that space and then they’re like, oh, I can go even harder. And then they lean in harder, and they’re just, like you said, creating a job for themselves, not actually creating a business that supports their life that they actually want.

Stacy: So anyway, I’m curious your thoughts on that, because I know one of the things that we talked about going into this episode before we even hit record is that idea of burnout. Is that something that you, are you helping people prevent that, or do you see them come in with burnout when they get to you? And what have you noticed about that?

Kirsten: So, yeah, we do have clients who come in who have really hit a really hard stop of burnout where they thought they were going to give up on their business. So we do have clients like that. We have other clients who come in and they’re so overwhelmed or anxious. And it’s so amazing to see that shift once they start to get that support in their business. I think for all of us, and I know you and I both, one of the things we both value is being able to live anywhere, right? Having location independence, because I’m in Virginia right now, and the whole reason I came was to see one niece play lacrosse and another niece has a big show choir concert coming up.

Kirsten: But being able to have the freedom to go and do these things and to live our lives the way we want, I agree with you. We don’t always want to fill the time with bigger goals and other things that you have to chase. It is that balance for us and our clients and even for us individually, I think Jeannie and I would both say we are creators. So we love creating new things and we like new challenges. But we often talk about, do we really have space for this? Do we have time for know, are we marking enough time off on our calendar for vacations and for downtime? And it’s just having that conscious decision that you want to have a healthy life and a healthy business and that it is always, I think, a balancing act, right?

Kirsten: Because there’s always something new to launch or there’s always something new to learn. And I think most of us love learning. AI right now is something that I like. You think it’s going to be interesting to see how it turns out, but there’s just so much to learn about it right now in so many ways that can help us and impact our businesses. So when it comes to burnout, I think it’s always asking yourself, do I really need to add something else to my plate? How can I delegate, outsource and get support and then asking ourselves often, are we taking enough downtime for ourselves? Are we actually giving ourselves time to enjoy friends, enjoy family, take a walk on the beach, the things that actually recharge us?

Stacy: Yes, 100%. All the things. I agree. By the way, you’ve mentioned Jeannie, but she has not been introduced. You want to tell listeners who you’re talking about when you say the name Jeannie.

Kirsten: Jeanie is my business partner, and we own six figure business coaching together, and we creating content and helping business owners. And we definitely have different skills and different strong points. Like, Jeannie’s great with the structure. Like, a lot of business owners are not fantastic. And I’m one of those business owners at creating standard operating procedures, documenting everything using a project management software. And that’s where she really shines. And that’s one of the things that we’re able to give to our clients, is all of our standard operating procedures for managing virtual assistants and content creation, and that’s all her.

Stacy: That’s a special skill, for sure. Okay, I want to loop back on an earlier topic when were talking about all those practical pieces and you told us that story about your client that got booked onto podcasts. This is a big area that a lot of people that I work with, especially with book launches, or they’re trying to grow their brand awareness, their business. We know, especially for authors, that people that listen to podcasts, the data shows us that they’re also buying books. Okay. So they’re probably also listening to books, would be my guess. A lot of nonfiction, since they are audio consumers, but we know that those audiences are one and the same generally. And so that’s a really great area for authors to focus on when they are trying to promote their work, and certainly for business owners to spread that brand awareness.

Stacy: So I’d love to hear from you. I know this is something that your company supports people on. I’d love to hear some of the practical elements that you help people to actually land those opportunities. Can you talk a little bit about that as, like, a process from. Hi. I am a new person on this podcast scene. I haven’t done a lot of interviews, and I want to get out there and land some of these opportunities to. Now I’m booked. What does that look like?

Kirsten: Yeah. So, we actually have two podcasts, and by having a lot of different guests on our podcast, we’ve had people ask, know, I love being interviewed, but how do I get booked on more podcasts? So, that was something that Jeannie and I, we have a structure for getting us booked on podcast, and we are actually going to have a program to help people do that coming out in April. So we’re excited about that. But the reality is getting booked on podcast. First of all, you need to have your digital assets together. So your bios and each person that you apply to be on their podcast, they want different links of bios. So you kind of have to have your bio under 150 words and 200 words and 300 words. There are other things that they want, obviously a headshot.

Kirsten: Some of them want a one sheet. So having a nice one sheet that has your headshot on it, your bio, your topics. And that’s another thing, making sure that you have a good variety of topics that you can speak on different podcasts. So once you have your assets together, the things that you need to provide to the host in order to apply to be on their podcast, I would say the next thing that you really want to think about is what podcasts do you want to go on, right? What podcasts are ideal for you? Does that host have your ideal client? Are they talking to the exact same audience that you want to talk to? Is it someone? Do you really like their interviewing style? Do you really connect with them?

Kirsten: So really deciding on the podcast that you would like to go onto and figuring out what the criteria is for that, and then after you know those things, then it’s just a matter of showing up and applying for different podcasts. And there’s lots of great things that you can do. There’s lots of Facebook groups like need a guest, get a guest. There’s groups like that you can actually have kind of like that dream 100 list of maybe it’s the top 1% podcast that you want to go on. Those are harder because it requires a lot more reaching out, following up. And a lot of times those podcast hosts, if you haven’t done a lot of podcasts, they’re not going to take a chance on you.

Kirsten: But once you have a ton of podcasts under your belt and they can see that you’ve done a lot of interviews and that you actually show up as a good guest, that’s another thing I think it’s important is realizing as a guest, you want to bring value to the audience. You want to be grateful for the host. The host is spending a lot of time not just interviewing you, but also getting that content produced and put out there. So there’s a lot that goes into it. And I would say the reason why I have a virtual assistant who does this for me is because there’s a lot of follow up and it’s a lot of back and forth via emails, a lot of filling out forms. So it can be very monotonous, I think would be the word that I would use.

Kirsten: But the great thing about it is you can really get booked on podcast, I would say fairly easily. It’s just time consuming. So get your assets together, know what podcast you want to go on, and then join some Facebook groups and you can start applying. And then there’s other paid services that you can use to help get booked on podcast as well.

Stacy: I want to add a couple layers to that. I thought that was all such good advice. Well, layer one is what I found to be the most successful for me is when I’m on podcasts with parallel audiences. It’s the same audience in a sense, but it’s a parallel service or industry, I should say. So as an example, being on a podcast for speakers, or being on a podcast for consultants or people who are interested in financial independence, because location independence, financial independence are very connected. That has been, for me, reaching new people that want to come into my world here. Those have been really successful for me. On the other side of that, as a podcast host who gets a ton of pitches all the time from know our process is we have a pretty quick vetting process.

Stacy: Now, I forward those all to Rita, the producer of this podcast, because I trust her decision making, but I always glance at them, at least when they come in, and then she kind of makes the decision and sometimes follows up and schedules pre screening interviews. But there’s a couple things. One is, if it’s a standard pitch that’s clearly not customized, it’s an absolute immediate no, we don’t even consider it. And it doesn’t even take that much, like literally the first paragraph. If the first paragraph shows me that you know what the podcast is about, even if you haven’t, you should have listened to it, in my opinion. But if you haven’t, at least you have a sense of the audience and what it’s about, and then you give some specific points of how this person can serve my audience.

Stacy: And then if I also have a good, strong social media link or platform of some kind of website and a one sheet with that, those are the ones that we consider. It doesn’t mean that somebody has not like we’ve had other ones that we’ve accepted that haven’t fit all those criteria, but we really don’t accept the vast majority that come in, not for any reason other than there has to be deep value and service to my audience, and I’ve had those situations, and now we’re so much better about vetting.

Stacy: But I’ve had a few of those situations where I’ve had a guest on and there’s value, but then at the end of it, I’m like, oh, man, they were great, but we should have vetted that a little better and made sure they’re a good interviewee, because that can be very tough as a host to carry that conversation. Right. So we’re looking at that, too. Like, is there good energy? By the way, love all my guests. So not saying anything negative about the guests, but certainly there are guests that I have on that have the right they understand how to be interviewed and how to have a conversation, and then there’s some that just need more practice. Right. But also, you can only get there through practice.

Stacy: I say that with also knowing that some of my early interviews were, I’m sure I would cringe so bad if I listened to some of my earliest interviews. Oh, man. But anyway, those are some of my thoughts as a host, and you’re a host, too, so what are some of the things that you’ve noticed as well when you get pitched?

Kirsten: Stacy, I totally agree. I look back to when we first started hosting. We were probably the worst host ever. You don’t know until you do something right. Being a guest. Sometimes you feel like you get off of an interview and you’re like, oh, I really rock that. And other times, you feel like you didn’t do a great job. So I always try to assess what I felt like I did really well at and what I felt like I could improve on. But when you talk about guests, we had a guest not long ago. We asked her the first question, and she talked nonstop for 35 minutes.

Stacy: Oh, man.

Kirsten: You’Re trying not to be rude and interrupt. And again, I always look at that as, like you said, lack of experience or just being totally excited. She’s a wonderful, lovely person, just very excited about the opportunity to speak. And I think for anyone who, whether you’re starting a podcast or you want to go on podcast, it’s a skill like any other. You just have to practice it. But when I’m listening to other people’s podcasts, I’d be curious to know if you do the same thing. Stacy is, I’m like, oh, I love the way they did know. I want to kind of incorporate into my interviewing style or, oh, wow, that person is a fantastic host. I mean, even for us, sometimes we’ll have a host or a guest on our podcast, and I’m thinking, they’re brilliant. I love the way they did that.

Kirsten: I want to emulate that when I’m a guest next time. So I think it’s also just constantly learning and being aware of how we can get better as a guest and as a host. And you’ve got to start somewhere, right? So if we have someone on our podcast and it doesn’t go the way we hoped, we always just think, okay, that person’s learning, they’re growing. But that is something we do a lot around. Coaching, how to be a great guest. Like you said, take time to know the audience of that podcast. Take time to write a review for that podcast, take time to listen to that podcast, do those things, invest that time, especially on the podcast that, you know, you really want to get onto. Invest the time.

Stacy: All of that is so great. That was such gold because I think that mindset of continual learning is so important and what authors will find as well. When they’re writing their books, they become a student of the books they’re reading. Sometimes that’s a little annoying because you just want to enjoy the book, right? But you can’t help but kind of study the medium. And if you want to be a great guest or a great host, you have to do the same thing. I love also that you brought up leaving a review. That also means listen to the dang podcast before you get on the podcast. I think that’s like just basic courtesy to the host.

Stacy: If you have pitched them, you should have listened to minimum of one episode to really understand the format and the host and be able to show up with excellence in that interview. And then one other piece. I’ve said this before on the podcast, but it’s normal to feel nervous, right, when you’re getting into that. But to your point earlier, Kirsten, go back. Listen to the first. Go back to my podcast. Listen to my first episodes, man. I recorded on like an. Like, I didn’t know what I was doing. So I think that’s so important. I do that when I need a little boost to just be like, just do it, Stacy.

Kirsten: Just get out there. Yeah. And it’s interesting because I always talk really quickly, and I do know that if I’m nervous or excited, I have to constantly remind myself to slow down, right? Because I do speak very quickly, and when I get excited, I get tongue tied. And I know those things about myself, so I just try to keep myself in check. And I think none of us are perfect, right? And there’s never a time that I get off a podcast, whether I’m a guest or a host, and think, oh my gosh, I rocked it. I usually think, oh, well, I did a fairly good job there, but I want to improve here for sure.

Stacy: And I think that’s that continual learning and growth that you mentioned earlier.

Kirsten: Rather.

Stacy: Than it became like a negative self talk or that rumination that I think all of us want to do, just really looking at it as a growth opportunity. Not that I don’t ruminate from time to time, but I try to interrupt those thought patterns and go, okay, rather than ruminating on this, what can I do to grow and better? And I love that mindset. This has been such an amazing conversation. I think my hope is that listeners will come away with some practical information, but also real encouragement, whether they’ve never hired before or maybe they have, maybe a team member, but they know they need more support, whether it’s in their life or in their business, that this is giving them the encouragement to make that step, get that support, and then to use that new space.

Stacy: Yes, to earn more money, but also to earn more life. Right? To really be present in their life. Kirsten, I’d love for you to give our listeners, our viewers, what are you most excited about right now? Where can they learn more about you and what you have to offer?

Kirsten: Sure they can. Check us out@sixfigurebusinesscoaching.com. And that’s six figurebusiness coaching. And that’s our YouTube channel as well. So we have lots of educational videos there and podcast episodes on YouTube as well as on Spotify and Apple. So what I am most excited about right now know we’ve been helping our clients with marketing virtual assistants for the past four years. Love that. But now we’re really excited about helping our clients have a well trained virtual assistant who can consistently get them booked on podcast. Because I really do believe that being on podcast is a smart strategy. Whether you’re a coach, an author, a speaker, a consultant, it really is a great way to get in front of your ideal clients.

Kirsten: And I feel like you said, people who listen to podcasts read books, and they will click and buy that book, or they will reach out and book an appointment with you if they think that what you do could truly help them. So I’m excited about helping a lot of our clients hit their goal of getting on 50 podcasts a year or 100 podcasts a year, whatever goal they set for themselves. So that’s my excitement right now.

Stacy: That is a big goal. 100 podcasts. That would be like an incredible. I mean, I think even getting one a month is quite investment in your business. Like, it’s going to support you, right? And getting your message out there. So I love that. And thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and time today. This was such a great conversation. I appreciate you.

Kirsten: Stacy, thank you so much for having me. I always enjoy our conversations and I’m looking forward to having you on our new podcast soon.

Stacy: Yes, I very much look forward to it. Thanks, Kirsten. And thank you to you, the listener, the viewer, for being with us today. I hope this was really valuable for you and I hope it also helped you do what I needed to do and still need to do from time to time, which is check in on where I really need support and then having that permission to get that support, whether it’s in my life or in my business. I want to thank, as always, Rita Domingues for producing this fine podcast. And you heard the mention of reviews earlier. If you have a moment to leave me, hopefully a five star review, rate this podcast. Leave a review. It makes a massive difference for me in being able to reach more people with the message of beyond better. That’s it for today. I will be back with you before you know it.