Transcript
A (0:00)
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B (1:12)
Success often looks easy from the outside, but on the inside it can be a real test to your self confidence. It's all about getting knocked down 14 times, then picking yourself one back up for lucky number 15. Don't give up too soon on you. Come on this journey with me each week when you join me. We are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus Confidence Classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hung hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Thank you for being back here. Okay, so I've been receiving a lot of messages on social media lately asking me, hey, can you give me an intro to someone to launch my speaking business? Hey, can you give me the shortcut on how to get ahead in business? Hey, how do I get my business to the next level? Hey, how do I break into the speaking business? Okay, here's the thing. Number one, if there was some magic bullet that just worked, you know, in a mystical way for everyone, Wish I had it. I don't. I'd be a multi billionaire with a B, which would be freaking phenomenal. So we aren't there yet kids. So that. So I don't have that magic bolt for myself, much less the ability to monetize it and sell it to you. Right. Because I would, I definitely would. Here's what I know, and I can just tell you from my experiences is in most businesses you need to brand yourself, right? So you need some credibility, some name recognition, some level of expertise that you're perceived as an expert or as a brand in some regard so that people know what you stand for and they know what you offer, they know what problem you solve. Then you need to devise some type of a customer acquisition strategy that's repeatable. Right? You want to lather, rinse, repeat, and this happens. It doesn't mean you have to know exactly what that is today, but you do need to test and try to innovate. Right? I'm always trying different things to see what could work, what could be better than what I'm currently doing, what competitors are doing, what people are doing in different industries to acquire clients or up level clients, or sell them more products and services, or raise your rates. You know, there's so many different ways to grow your business. Having teams of people sell your products, new distribution points, right? There's so many different ways. For me, one idea that I came up with was selling autographed books because personalization is big and a lot of people aren't doing that. You know, the majority of my competitors do not sell autograph books. So I went out and made a deal with a local bookstore, Books and Books in Miami. And anyone that wants Overcome youe Villains or Confidence Creator, autographed or even personalized, written out to you, you go to the website, you fill form, you request personalization, you request an autograph copy and books and books takes care of it for you. So I worked out a deal such that I go there every other week and they print out the list of the requests and I sign them all there while I'm in the store. I literally signed 500 books last week or two weeks ago when I went over to the store. So, you know, it's a different model. Am I saying that's going to be the biggest differentiator for me? No, but to me, personalization is important. I get a lot of messages about that. So pay attention to the feedback you get from your customers, you know, your team members, and start saying, hey, how can I show up a little differently? Maybe it's a little bit more work, but maybe it brings a lot more value, right? So. So those are some of the differences that you can bring into your business model. And again, test and try, test and try until we can find better, more innovative ways to acquire clients. Up level clients, add more distribution points, et cetera. So I keep getting these messages and it just reminds me that on the outside looking in, things look easy to other people when in reality they're probably not. It's probably a lot of work. That doesn't mean there aren't times where literally mystical occurrences happen, right? Like you meet that one person that opens the door to so much opportunity for you and they open the door for you, right? They invite you onto their show and it's a huge show. And then that show leads to so many others. Or you know, this partner invites you to a meeting with Walmart and your products get added at Walmart. Right? Those are game changing moments. They, in my life don't happen every day. So what I've learned to do is to do the work so that I can establish the credibility, do the work so that I have the experience, the understanding and the know how to start building and repeating, building different businesses, opening different doors and moving into different opportunities. So I'll start with. I'm going to give you a couple of different examples of this. The first one I'll go to is when I first got into podcasting. Right. And again, these can apply to any business model. It's not just about podcasting, right. This is about getting into business and achieving some level of success. So you know, when you first start looking at a business. I remember I was first looking at podcasting. The reason why I looked at it is when I wrote my first book, confidence creator in 2018 and I was googling how to sell books, it said to speak and it said to go on podcasts. And I hadn't done a lot of podcasts, right? So you have to start somewhere. So I knew it wasn't gonna be an overnight, you know, magic pill for my book, but I thought I might as well start now. I wish I had started 10 years ago in podcasting, but I hadn't. So I started going, pitching myself as a guest to different podcasts. I started on small podcasts first, right? Cause those were easier to get on. And I figured the more that I would show up and do it, the better I would get. And then I'd understand, how can I add more value to larger shows? How can I better be a better guest, add more value to their listeners and start to understand not only how to pitch myself, but then once I landed the shows, how could I add value so people would want me back or refer me to other people or so I could convert those opportunities on the show when I'm in front of a new audience, their listeners, into book sales or into my email program, which is driving their data back to my website so that I own their information and then can communicate directly with them. That's all about conversion, right? So to me, podcasting was going to be an opportunity for me to grow my brand, for me to sell my books, for me to reach a larger audience and begin being realized or recognized as an expert or a credible business person. Those were kind of my initial thoughts. So I was doing these shows initially in 2018, I was getting some success and I was learning, okay, if I don't have an offer, it's a wasted opportunity. So put some kind of an offer out there, a free ebook to drive people back to your website. I'm gonna do an autograph book giveaway today for, you know, five listeners. Bring some value so you can separate yourself from other guests, number one. Number two, you can offer something to the audience to get them engaged, to remember you, and get them really reaching back out to you because you want to bring them into your fold. So over time, over a year, really, I. I did more and more shows, hundreds of shows, and I started landing bigger shows. I went on the James Altucher show, I went on the Dr. Drew Show, I went on Lady Gang. I went. You know, I started going on some really much bigger shows over a year. Now, I will also say this. For 25 years, I was in the media business, the radio business, right? So I had a lot of contacts and. And I had been at thousands and thousands of audio events, shows, podcasts. I knew this business. But the funny thing was, I knew it from the other side, right? So that was an advantage to me, is that I knew the business. I knew what the listening audience patterns were like. I had some ideas on how to grow audience, how to pitch myself, because I'd been in this business for a long time. I was a chief revenue officer, so I was in charge of driving revenue to the shows. And now I was sitting on the other side. I was getting behind the microphone, completely uncomfortable, by the way, right? Anytime you put yourself in a new situation, I didn't know how it would turn out. I thought, I've got to give this a shot, and I'm going to be frustrated if I don't do it and miss this opportunity. I'd rather just go into it messy, give it a shot and see, hey, I'll know Eventually, if it's working or not, and you will, too, you'll start seeing, okay, there's some signs this is, I'm getting some traction, or you're going to start saying, I think I'm starting to waste time. These are the things that I learned along the way. I did waste a lot of time. I didn't convert a lot of audiences. I didn't add a lot of value at first. And I started learning through doing it wrong, how I could do it better, and learning by looking at people who are ahead of me and listening to their shows to see what they were doing differently. Right. So again, a lot of work. I mean, literally thousands of hours in on this. And then I'll never forget, I ended up out in la. A good friend of mine from the media business connected me to a few people at Podcast One, where she had a great relationship and she had a lot of credibility. She said, listen, this woman, Heather Monahan's a great friend of mine. She's an amazing talent, really smart person. I think you should put her on some of your shows. She'll add big value, and she's unique and different. They said, yes. That's how I ended up on the Lady Gang show, which is a really, really huge show for female audiences. Millions of listeners, millions of downloads to every episode. And that's really important because you want. The larger the audience you're gonna reach, if it's the right demographic, the more opportunity you're gonna have to bring those people into your fold to get them to follow you on social media, get to them, engage with your free products on your website, so you get their email address or get them to buy your book. Right. I want to do all of those. So we did a book giveaway. We did a free product giveaway for my free ebooks and something else and a social media contest. So we were engaging at all different levels. The Lady Gang was super appreciative because I was doing book giveaways just for their audience. So I was adding value for them and for their listener base. And it ends up they released a show right away. I was still in la. I was out there for a week, and I saw that it hit the Apple itunes chart. It was like at number eight on the society and culture. And it was next to Oprah Winfrey had an episode that dropped the same day. Her show was like, number seven. We were number eight. And I thought, oh, my. Okay, wait a minute. That's a sign, right? That's noticing. Wait, something's working here. Because we Just hit, you know, top 10 on society and culture next to Oprah. Ding, ding, ding. This is a sign. So I got into my business mind and I thought, how can I leverage this moment in time, right? When you see a sign that something is like, woo. Wait, this worked. Something's good here. Leverage it. How can I leverage this for a new opportunity? How can I leverage this for more opportunity? How can I engage more? How can I take this one micro event and turn it into a macro event or a series of other micro events, like a domino effect that I can benefit from? So I took a step back, I went to my hotel and I thought, wait a minute, this is a podcast. One show. I'm in la. They're headquartered here. I called my friend that helped me to get the opportunity. I said, I just want to let you know how well this episode did that you got me on. I sent her the screenshot, right? To give her the proof. She said, holy cow. She said, you should really go in and meet with the CEO right now since you're there and since your episode went top 10 on the Apple itunes chart, I mean, this is huge, Heather. I said, great idea. That's what I'm gonna do. So I called his office. I got on the phone with his executive assistant, who was so sweet, by the way. And it's always so important to, you know, treat the gatekeeper with care and be nice and treat them like human beings. And so that's something that I've always done in business. So I'm speaking to her for a little while on the phone, telling her about the episode. Right? I was getting her super excited. I'm sharing my story of what happened, how I went out to LA and I went on her show, Lady Gang, and we went top 10 and we're next to Oprah. And she was so fired up and excited for me, too. And, you know, I was sharing with her that I had been fired and I didn't know what I was gonna do. Anyways, we end up on a call for like 10 minutes. And at the end, I said, make a long story longer. I'm calling to speak with the founder of your company. Is there any chance he's in town this week? I'm here and I just like to come in and thank him personally for the opportunity he provided me to go on this show and, you know, and make top 10 on. On the Apple itunes chart. And she said, hang on a second. And she said, could you get over here this afternoon? And I said, yes. She said, then come over as soon as you can. And I'm gonna find a way for him to see you. And she was just so, you know, so wonderful and so charming and so cool and just, she was great. So I literally jumped at a cab. I went right to their offices, which were 10 minutes from my hotel. Luckily or serendipitously, I got into a meeting with the founder. We hit it off immediately, and within 10 minutes of me being there, he said, well, you need your own podcast, Heather. And of course I had thought about it because at this point I had been doing podcasts. This was now the beginning of 2019. I've been doing podcasts now for a year. I had gone on some really big shows, had some good signs that it was working. I had learned enough about behind the scenes on how to add value and differentiate myself. And so when he brought that up, I just went for the close. Right. You're never going to get another opportunity to be in front of the ultimate decision maker and have them give you buying signs. When that happens, you've gotta go for the close. So I said, you read my mind. Exactly. Absolutely. I pulled out my book, I showed him my book. He loved the COVID He said, this is the COVID art for your podcast. Let's do a show together based off confidence creator. Let's call it Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan and let's do this show together. And I said, done. And it was all because this lady gang show, his show, had done so well with me on it that it opened his mind to the possibility that I could have my own meet a different guest each week.
