Video Category: Business

SEO Articles on Website – Why and How (Search Engine Optimization)

Video Transcript

The question I got today from the client was about SEO. This client is using an intern to work on the SEO of her website. If you want my thoughts on internships Check below and I have a link to about internships. But she is using an intern to work on SEO. The question she sent me this morning was this: "Quick question on SEO. Should he do all the over 200 article pages or just the main pages but before putting the SEO in the website." So this part is about a few things for me. So to answer her question she said: Do you need to do all over 220... Yeah, she has over 220 articles on her site! which is amazing for content, but was really kind of sad is that she didn't have the SEO, so she spent all this time on content but no one was buying it then. So I've been working really hard on that, but I digress. Should you do all over to 220 article pages, or just the main pages, that's one question, but that's not the question she's asking. So you really have to look when you reading people's questions on what actually the questions are asking before putting the SEO In the website. So I'm going to answer both of those but for her put that main SEO, the main SEO done for the main pages. Put that bad boy in. Like, go ahead and start getting the organic reach and start getting search engine used to it. Because it takes a while for the web bot to crawl your site. Now, you can submit your website to be crawled. And you can work with your program sometime to do it to put a little code saying: "Yes, please call this" But you can ask Google to crawl it. Google can actually crawl it. There're so many web pages that it takes a while for them to get to it. So go ahead in, change it because changing it will also change the titles and the description on pages which helps click-through. Now, I did videos on that and I will put links down below to videos that talk about your titles and descriptions and how many characters and all that stuff. But going ahead and changing that is a great thing to do now.

So the answer to the number question: Yes! Please have them implement those change now and then we'll start tackling 220 article pages. Now, do you need to SEO those 220 article pages? Yes! Hell yes! To the nth degree, yes! Because that's where the power is I did a little video about SEO and the bases SEO and I'm about to cover a little bit that I did in that video but if you want a little bit more go check that video out, I'll put it into the description as well. The power of SEO comes in answering specific questions. So Google wants people to be able to search and find the answer to the question. Because long ago Google decided they wanted to be the premier website search engine and they know just like an every other industry that if you give people what they want the more likely they come back. so they have spent so much time and energy getting exactly the algorithm right to serve our people what they want. Now, this algorithm is constantly changing. So this video was done in Spring of 2022 so if you're watching it way later, What I want to say, might have shifted stuff. And Google doesn't tell us they like to keep us on the edge of our seats. Because they don't want us to find ways to work around the system. Right now Google wants every page to have one main keyword and they want keyword variations and they want no more than 20 keyword variations per page. They also don't want you to over keyword stuff which means you want probably only 1% of your content to have that keyword. Unless you have a lot of contents, so it's a huge red end piece, then some people say you can go up to 5 to 10%. So you kind need to make a judgment call on that. You want the content to flow naturally. Last thing you want is to have content that you can tell they try to stuff keywords variations then it just doesn't work. Now, you want to use the variations and you want to use the key words in the content for the SEO. Make it very natural.

One of things that Google really looks at is How long people stay on your page. So if people are going to your website and bouncing off, Google will start lowering you. So that's why 'videos' on sites are good, that's why a long form of continence is good, that is why people would actually land on those article pages instead of landing on your homepage. Because it's answering that specific question. Now, this client has over 220 articles. We're playing catch up on the SEO. I have other clients who have none yet and either way is fine. If you have none, what you want to do is start really thinking about what questions your clients are asking. Because you want to write articles, FRQs, resources, blogs ________ that are related to answering your clients' question. Because you're more likely to pop up that way. So if someone is searching, you know, how many times do I need to tumbl my compost Tumblr. I love composting, I know, It's just a really weird thing, but I love doing my little composting. But you don't wanna tumblr a composter too much or create like little posts. It's not a wheel of fortune will I sadly found out the first year I love going out there and spitting it. Anyway, I digress My point is that if someone has that question __________ compost, then you want to have a page that specifically answering that question if you're selling a solution to that problem, so that there's a lot of solutions to that problem and I'm not gonna get into it. But you really want also look at what problem do your clients think they have and what problem do they actually have because you can do the main keyword to the page, the problem they actually have. But you really want to make sure that the keyword variations are the problem they think they have.

Also I run into problems with clients who use a industry term and customers who won't be searching for that term. So if you have certain material you use for a roof, You're not gonna to be looking for that specific name. They're going to be looking for variations that are more common language. So you do want to make sure that you're using language that people are gonna put into Google or you're not gonna be found. You're just gonna be found by the people who know that big word and industry lingo and that just doesn't using not the clientele _____ if you want to take into consideration. So a lot of times I work with clients first with what pain points do the clients have, what pain points do they actually have, what questions are they asking, what questions you get, and that naturally kind of starts give me the content. And that content can be written and added over time. Google really loves to see things updated and they really love to see new content added to the site because that means the site is living and it's organic and they want to get stuff like that.

Now, if you have an article that specifically answers the questions so well you can show up and snippet. Snippets or the little like question and an answer - those are all organic, they are not paid. So it's really high free advertising so a lot of times I have clients too that are not quite sure which way to go then go check out the Snippets. Because the Snippets will give you a question and then it'll give you variations of that question. Those variations of questions can give you keyword variations they also can give you variations of other pages, additional articles. Because when you have that many articles, you get to the point you're like "What else can I write about?" So having variations that you can do kind of the same thing that Google can attach to is really helpful. So, to wrap back up, you don't need to wait until something's completely done before you implement. Go ahead and start implementing, and it is really important to make sure that you do all the pages that are on your site especially those article pages. If you have any questions or anything I can help, any of the things I mentioned you like "What in the world is that" Let me know and I'm happy to assist by doing a video on it

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Video Transcript We’re going to talk today about one to ones. So a one to one is a “Get to know you” meeting and why they call it one to ones because it’s one person to one person. So when I say one to ones, all I mean is ‘get to know your meetings,’ and […]

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Video Transcript How do you pick a networking group? How do you know it’s a good group for you? And how do you analyze if you’re getting the benefit if you’re getting the profit if you’re getting a good rate of return on all the time and energy that you put into a networking event? […]

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Video Transcript I received a client question in my email today that was great to do a video on, because I get this question a lot. So what happened was that someone went to my client’s website and submitted a contact form. The client forwarded that form to me with this message: “Good morning, Rachel! […]

Title, Descriptions, and Alt Tags for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Video Transcript

Welcome to SEO video! I think number thirty? I recorded some fun videos in between with client questions on SEO All the links to them will be down below in the description. Please find a video that answers the question where you're at. So the first video I did was basics of the SEO and our ___ SEO. So you can check that one now. Then I did one on website text, and there were so much talk about website text that after I did stop the video, I was like man, there was even more I could have said! But I record all my videos just how I would if I talk to a client. So, you get what you get. This video is where we're on title tags and descriptions. So if that is something you're interested in, how you need to do them, Why they're important, you're in the right place!

So title tags are the bold piece which shows up when you search. So the search results page on Google, in the internship we call it "Serps" S-E-R-P with a little 's' Those are:

S - Search

E - Engine

R - Result

P - Page

The Search Engine Result Page. Just some internship lingos give me kind of cool, you know, "On the SURFS page😎" Anyway, so the bold top is your title and the few lines below that is your description. And guess what you get to tell Google what you wanted to say. A lot of people don't realize that but it's so powerful because your text and your keywords and your content is what gets Google to rank you higher. While the other thing that gets you higher is if people click on your link. So having a good title and a good description will get people to click on your link or not. So back in the day when SEO started, the website URL and the title and description so super important. I mean, we worked on it, it's not the case today because Google wants a page that's gonna answer the question so the website URL, the title and description is mostly for your clientele now and to convert them. So I get questions asked all the time: Do I need to buy a website domain? ; Has my key word in it? No, you do not. You want to buy a website domain that's easy to share, that's easy to go to, that is short we can put on things really quickly- that's more important than having it be a keyword. Key word is old school and Google realized that there was only so many website domains which is one reason why that has been bumped down. The title tag usually is the title, especially if it's a Blog and it gets kind of autopolend and then you can't tweak it. So if you don't know what your title should be if it's answering the question like a block page you usually want to be that exact because you want people to know that this page is answering that question. If it's 'About us' page and that kind of thing you can look at what other people within your inter-

Did you just see like the lights get bright? So I'm going to take rest for a second, just a little bit about me: I have a home office that has beautiful windows and so if a cloud passes by, this is what happens. I know I'm going to fix that but I'm not doing these videos with vanity, I'm doing them because I just love giving information. but just if you saw that that just shows the weather just completely changed so I am now bright. I digress.

We're talking about title tags. You want the title, just like Youtube titles, but you want the title to be something that people go: "Yes, I want that!" And that they would be drawn to it and say "Yes, that's what I need to click!" Now someone use the title that interests them then next they can go to its description. And that's ________ Your Title, how long should it be? Your title needs to be 50 to 70 characters long. You don't have much space so if you have a really long title of a Blog you might need to shrink it down to make it between that 50 and 70 characters long that Google likes.

Now Your Description. Your description is what people will read because it's kind of like the briefest to your book, you know, Is it the something that I really want to to read or not? So with that the descriptions, they need to be between 50 and 160 long. Now, I kinda go on the longer side because you want people wait to get what's about and sometimes you need language to do that. So I usually tell clients if you want between 120 and 150. So if you need a number to say - 150 is an easy 'remember' number. You go tiny bit over, tiny bit less without any problem. And that will show up on both desktop and mobile. On desktop you have more room, but so many people are on mobile that you really want to be able to have your description work on the mobile sphere. So you want to put those in descriptions where that would show up really nicely. This description needs be your self-piece of explaining what that page is about, answering the question or start answering the question so people want to click and they want to learn more. Now, one other thing I'm going to touch in this video because I did not touch in the other videos is Alt-tags. So alt-tags or on photos you have an alt tag that you can put in. This is something else that when you're planning out your content you can use alt tags. This is for few reasons.

One - it helps people who are visually impaired that if they can't see the photo they can know what it's about, but also it's a way for Google to be able to know what the photo was about. Because Google does not, at this time, doesn't see the image, so telling Google what the image is about helps a lot. If you do that have it is another good place to put your key words. So let's talk about sneaking those keywords in other places other than content. It is the content I talked about how you only want your key words in your content 1 to, maybe, 10%. You want to make sure that your main key word that you're using for that page is listed in your title. You also want to make sure it's listed once within your description to massively make sense but you want to be entitled, you want to be in descriptions and you want to be in ___ text. Those are few places that you can put those keywords that will make a difference on the site and its outside of the actual content of your site.

So here you go. That was a little bit easier. You have your title tags, descriptions, alt tags. You want one key word going into those. You want to use your main keywords to save your keyword variations for inside the page if you find that you want to use one of your keyword variations and that you can if it makes sense if not then that might tell you that you want to pull that and use that as a different page There you go! SEO, ending that show, we are done! if you have any questions for me I want to expand on anything let me know, I'm here to help.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Writing Website Text for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Video Transcript

You have reached video number two in the SEO journey. So if you have no idea what SEO is and you want the basics to check the link below and check out the video I just recorded. This one is going to be on website text, so using your keywords within the text, what text you write, that kind of thing. So if that's the place you want to be, awesome. If you want something else, check the links below because I'm going to list out all the SEO videos as I do them. It's very important to me that I give you exactly the answer to your question within 10 minutes or less, so I try to divide these topics out for you. For easy reference, and then you don't have to go and look for the video and say, "Where did she say that?" it at least keeps you in a 10-minute space.

So today: website text for SEO. So I already covered what SEO was and the importance of it and that kind of thing and why you want long form. To quickly wrap that back up if you didn't watch that video is that one of the things that google uses to decide if your website is ranked high organically is 1) if you have the keywords, your keyword variations and 2) is if it has a lot of content and people stay on your page. So google tracks how long people stay on each of your pages and also if they go to another page on your site. If they stay on your site longer they say oh this site must be valuable so you get ranked higher. If people bounce off and don't stay on your site then you get ranked lower. If they go to another page, click a link, then they say oh well they must be invaluable enough that they'll go into other places, which is one reason you see sometimes on blogs, resource pages, frequently ask questions, all those I just call a blog. You see other ones you should check out because that helps keep you in that ecosystem web and going from one page to another which just bumps you up in google.

For websites, when I'm working with clients and we're doing either a review of the site use these when this comes up or we're doing content writing, usually this comes up in review or when we're trying to raise seo, what we'll do is we'll have a google sheet usually and I'll have the title of the page, the
Url, the main keyword, the keyword variations, and then we'll have the word count. And this is where the word count comes in. You need at least 300 words on your page to rank and google. There's simple word counts you can use that you can put your url in it will tell you how many. Some people will copy
Their site put into word and it will tell you how many, but you really want to know how many words are on that page, because if it's not a lot google's like well this page doesn't have enough content which is why like images and videos can be a detriment because it's not content that the web bots who only see text can absorb. Now to have a higher chance ranking on google you want over a thousand words. Now I did a lot of research and looked at a lot of case studies and I will say this video was recorded in spring of 2020, so things change over time just to give you kind of a frame reference, but at this time when I did my research and looked at the current case studies, research showed and this is such a specific number that you need: a minimum of 1449 words. So can we just round it up to fifteen hundred? So you need fifteen hundred words per page. And if you don't have it you don't have as big a chance of ranking. So that is adding more content now. You don't wanna just add fluff because then people are going to exit off the site. So it's a balance between being valuable and answering the question and meeting the word minimum.

Now you want to make sure you have the keywords and keyword variations within your text of your page so this is where experts kind of vary a little bit as well. Some say you want one percent. So if you have 300 keywords that is listing your keyword only three times in the page. Now if you have more content it gives you also more chances to have that keyword in there and the keyword variation. Google does not want you to keyword stuff. That means that you just have it all over the place and they'll actually ding you for it. So the maximum I would do is ten percent. I've seen experts say you can do five to ten percent of your text keywords or keyword variations, and I think that's if it's a long form. And I think that's why there's such a range from one percent to 10 percent, because it depends on what your topic is, and how long the content is because you want it to be easy to read. The last thing you want is someone to go to your site and to see random keywords in there. So you need it, it's really important that it is content that is valuable and that it's an easy read for the people that are on your site so that they stay there.

So I'm gonna look at my documentary fast because I have a cheat sheet I created for clients that goes over everything that I'm talking about in these videos and I want to make sure I don't miss an important piece for you. It says keep in mind you don't want to exceed the 20 keyword variations per page. If you have a lot of keyword variations per page, and I've talked about this in a video before, you want to separate them out and do more specific pages. And we also talk about keyword stuffing. You can use singular and plural versions of words, it's what goes into keyword variations. Keyword variations are also not just one word they can be multiple. It can be a string of words, it can be a keyword variation that you use, it's a lot of what people put into google so if someone is typing a multi-word into google that can be one of your variations. You want to pay attention to what people are putting into google. A lot of times I see people make the mistake of using an industry term such as change management. I might not know that I need change management for my company so you really want to put in the words as keyword variations that they will use what they will put into google because that's how you're going to be found and a lot of websites are not found because they're using this industry lingo that their customer doesn't know.

Also, as you know a lot of times what someone says they need, and what they actually need are two totally different things. So if you're talking about one thing, and the problem that leads them to that is this, you either want to do a page that's specifically on that and points over, or you want to do a keyword variation. Again just looking at it, and since you only have like 20 variations you can separate things and move things out. That's what planning either back dating and tweaking things to fit or doing a pre-plan, comes in so handy because you're able to actually look at these keywords in the text and use them.

So let's talk about the home page because usually on the home page the keyword you use is your company name and variations. So let's say it's BNL. BNL was a photography place here that I think has gone out of business, but BNL would be BL, B&Ll, b and l. You want to think of any way someone might try to spell your name. And I came across this when I was doing research for a roofing client of mine and we couldn't find one and because he had two initials and all his stuff just had the two together, but when he was talking they referred to it as this letter and this letter. So those variations really need to be on this home page so you can find them. Again usability and user experience are so important and you really need to look at not as much from your view but look at it from a web robot's view and look from it from your customer's view. If you do that you'll get your keywords
Down flat.

Now one mistake I see is that people will be so stuck on keywords that their content will suck. The best thing to do is to write your content from your heart. These videos I record in one shot and you just get me and at times I go back I'm like oh my gosh I totally forgot to say that, but I want you to have me and that's what people want and they want that in content as well, so just be you. There are different websites you can use that will actually tell you how often you use a word and a page and when you use those you can see how
Many times you've used your keyword. If you find that you haven't used it a lot, then you can go in and find strategic places that make sense to add your keywords and your keyword variations in.

So here's the last thing: be sure to include your keyword and the opening paragraph of your page because that means that it's the most important. So the page subject should be along your keyword. Don't try to keyword something, and your page is different or it's hidden down below. People are going to bounce because people are only going to read the beginning, so the very beginning. Normally they're going to start with the beginning, and if it's good enough to continue but they always start at the beginning. I don't know anyone who picks up and starts a book in the middle. I know some people who will read the ending but that's not websites. Websites people usually start at the top so you want the top to really specifically get to the core of the question and make people want to continue reading. That's one big important thing with SEO.

You can also try adding keyword variants within your subheadings within the site because google will look at your website and the headings, titles, subheadings, and all that so you to use your variations in the subheadings. That will help a lot with your SEO and that kind of thing. Okay, we are over 10 minutes. There is so much to talk about with SEO so check the links below, because I need to get into titles, descriptions, and alt tags, and all that fun stuff. If you have any questions or anything specific you want me to expand on please let me know, I'm happy to do a video on it.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

Video Transcript

SEO SEO SEO we're going to talk about SEO today, that is search engine optimization actually I want to start talking about SEO to you today because I did a video about SEO and it was 30 minutes long and I want you to be able to go to an answer to your question so check the links below and I'm going to link out to other videos I do on SEO. Today it's going to be focused on what is SEO: picking your keywords, planning them out, that kind of thing. I'll do other videos that talk about titles and descriptions, how many characters, words, and all that so just check and find a title that really fits the space that you're in. The reason why SEO is so important is how people naturally find your site cuz you're optimizing your website for search engines so search engines like Google back in the day it was Yahoo and I'm really getting myself old with some of those names. Nowadays it's pretty much Google, and one of the things I love about Google is long ago they decided that they were going to be the premiere search engine, are going to be the place that people go, and they just like every industry if you give people what they want, they're going to come back so they have spent so much time and resources and energy to create an algorithm, an algorithm that's constantly changing, that drives marketing mad, but an algorithm that will show a result that is most likely to be what you watched- to answer your question. So back when I started doing SEO it was the game of if you could have your keyword in your website more than anyone else you would show up first. that is called black hat tricks today and you don't want to do that. if you try to keyword stuff like that you could get your website blocked. Not worth it to do not pass go do not collect 200 bucks don't do it stay away.

How you really want to do it and when we first started seeing was when blogs came if you ever heard people say you have to have a blog you have to have you have to have a blog the reason why is blogs naturally fall on 1 key word they naturally fall on a very specific topic or answer a very specific question. blogs can be at FAQs, resources insider tips case studies white papers all that so when I say blog it is any place where you have a article or a page that specifically targets 1 thing. that's what the power of SEO happens, now if you go on Google you'll something called snippets where they have a question and it pops up like a mini answer those are all organically those are chosen by Google and you can get in those if you're interested in that let me know and I can do a video on it but that is something that's not paid now how Google decides to show your website and to move it up is one is what key words you have on the page and the keyword variations they also take into account to how long someone stays on your page so someone goes onto your page and it bounces right off then like OK that one wasn't valuable and it bumps it down. the more someone can go on your page and the longer they stay the better to Google that is why having like video clips on a page are really good because people will sit back and watch the video. that's also why word count and having good content and long-form content can be important as well. long-form content usually does not land on home pages or landing cells landing pages which is why those kind of blog functions of good because you can have this long-form content and people will usually land in those pages first organically and then go backward about you or something like that, so you want to have one specific key word per page. I know that sounds crazy but you really just want one. now you can have keyword variations and you can have up to 20 keyword variations, so let's say you know you have big business and corporation you know you can kind of do that but if you can take those and pull them out to even more keyword variations so business businesses biz whatever it is then you want to maybe have a page that has

talked about big business and one that talks about corporation it's all a choice and so what I usually do with clients is this: If they already have their site done we'll do an excel doc usually a Google Sheets and it will have the page name the page URL link the main key word keywords variations the title the description and the word count because if a page doesn't have enough word count then we go back and work on that. that's a video for probably another day. I don't think I'll get into that in this 10 minute video so check that out if you're interested in that- Reason why we do that is we want one key word per page so usually the homepage's key word is your company name and then you can put other keywords to other pages and you want to make the best choice. so sometimes you'll be like man this one can go between this one and this one pick the one you think that we have at the answer to the question or convert the most. if you have a lot of variations to 1 key word that's when you can split it up and say I need to create a new page. now companies that are planning out the content and they know they're going to slowly give more content to site and you constantly do want to be updating on your site and giving more content and more pages to it because Google says it's a living organism and the site is active so that's why it is so important to have new content or change content on a site so Google sees that it is not just a stagnant site. they want sites that are being used, and active and alive and up to day

Speaking of today this stuff changes constantly so this video was recorded in Fall of 22 so if you're seeing this years from now you want to do research because these numbers and stuff are constantly changing and Google is constantly changing on us without telling us and we just have to figure it out and see what's working and not, its a game they like to play. so on a page you want in this and this varies some experts say 5 no more than five or ten percent of your content can be keywords or keyword variations other people say 1% so 1% would be. if you had a page of 300 words and I'm going to go into why you need at least 300 words but if you have 300 words in a page that's only using your keyword 3 times so that's something to really consider is the amount of contents. I think that's why that number is so weird compared to what expert you talk to is because how much content if you have more content you can have more keywords in there vs less content and looks kind of funky because you don't want to keyword stuff and Google is really specific on that. you want your key works to naturally fall within the content and make sense because if your content is not helpful make sense it's totally wasteful and it's not going to be worthwhile.

So I'm checking the time because I want to be respectful of the time so we're going to stop here and Imma do start next on the next video on website text and writing your text for your site. one thing I do want to make sure I touch on is that if you I talked about if you already have a website and list out your pages and kind of working on what your key words are and then updating them on your site if you're planning out content the best way you can plan out contents is to think about what your clients are asking so Google wants people to have answers to the questions so if you can specifically answer the question for your client then your page is going to be ranked higher. Let me give you an example of this, if you have a website about Subaru Ford and Chevi, Google's not really going to know what to do with it, but if you have a page all about Subaru and someone's searching about Subarus you're likely to pop up. now Subaru has a function called eyesight eyesight is what notifies you in the lanes so someone searches about Subaru eyesight that page is going to show up more. now Subaru eyesight messes up in construction zones so if you have a page talking about why Subaru eyesight messes up in construction zones that page of the pop up even higher than everybody else so having pages that specifically answer your client's questions we can pop up higher in Google is so utterly important so a lot of times when I'm planning out content or planning out pages that's where I start with clients, we start with looking at what headaches client have, what questions are they asking and where they typing into Google and typing into Google is really important because someone might not know that. Subarus cameras are called eyesight so you want to use keyboard variations in that page about eyesight that has to do with cameras and that kind of thing so you want to look at what words would someone use if they did not know your industry word and I see that mistake all the time where people use some high-end Industry lingo that the common person might not have easy access to or they might not know or if they might type something simpler and so it is worth while to really look at it and see what is your client going to do, the customer that you really really want, what are they searching for, what is their pain point. We all know that a lot of times what people say is their problem is not really their problem or they think the solution is there's actually a better solution, so know that is well you want to lead people from their pain point to that you are the solution to that pain point and that you are the expert about that pain point and that's where this organic SEO really shines and why it's so important to be part of your online strategy and your client customer relations whatever strategy you have online if you want people to come to you, having a strategy and really focusing and growing over time your organic SEO is a game changer.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Business Owner Success – Expansion of Self – Bad with the Good

Video Transcript

Have you noticed in life there is kind of like a safe zone, there's just like a middle zone where it's socially acceptable, you know, you're not making anyone feel bad, you're not making anyone feel stupid like there's a space that, I know, I have felt my whole life that I need to be in. You know, kind of finding that middle ground taking my positives and my negatives and finding that middle ground. One of the things I have seen in people who highly succeed in life, and working with entrepreneurs for over 20 years, what I've noticed is the ones who really succeed are the ones who don't force themselves in this grey zone. We have a polarity to us: we have good thoughts, we have bad thoughts, we have strength, we have weaknesses, and a lot of times what I see is entrepreneurs especially will try to force those bad parts, those weaknesses the things they don't like as far away as they can and then try to hold on and grab on to the pieces that are good. Where the power lies and where I've seen the power expand is when we take on the polarity of ourselves. This is a space where we say: "I am so brilliant! And I'm good at what I do! And I'm also learning". This is the space where you say: "I want to shine my light and I'm going to be bright!", even though it may make people feel insecure about themselves. Knowing that their are these extremes that actually make up who you are and trying to dim them it dims your greatness. This was something that I've worked on for years and I've gone through so many different person developments, meditations, and levels of self, to really open up my shine because I've always been afraid that I would blind people. When I really showed who I was I felt like people just pulled away so it was kind of like "oh no, I can't do that" and being in the... just being with self and in that polarity knowing that I am brilliant, I am really good at what I do with businesses, I'm also dyslexic with a speech impediment and knowing that I'm dyslexic and knowing I have a speech impediment has really made me pull in my brilliance for so long. Until I just accepted that those were two different sides of me. What would it be like in life to be okay with being loved and being hated at the same time. We live in a world where we want people to love us but we're afraid of them leaving us.

What if you could have both?

I really don't think this world is a this or that type of space. It is this and that, you can really have it all. For me, I can be a business owner and I can be a mother. I can be a wife and at the same time being a friend. You know, there is a balance and an openness and the expansion of self that happens when you look at the polarities and instead of making one good and one bad, you embraced them all and when you take on that space in the world, you were able to really shine and glow and expand in the world. My call today is to give yourself permission to embrace the sides of yourself that you maybe don't like or are not your favorite and know that this is part of the polarity of who you are. Can you give yourself the permission and allow yourself to coexist within all the spaces that make you - You. Because if you do, the world will open up and there's so much freedom, so much self expression so much love and joy for self and others then you can ever imagine.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

External Links on Facebook Posts Hurt Your Post Reach

Video Transcript

Welcome to my very first "Answering Clients' Questions within 10 Minutes.” I tried to record this before within 5 and no matter how hard I tried, I would not get it within five. So, you know what, we are just going to do it within magic number 10. This is the question that we are going to talk about today. I got this as a text message from a client. It says, "Hi Rachel, I thought of putting a post on our Facebook business page asking for help spreading the word about a retreat and sharing the link to the event. My question is, is that acceptable within Facebook guidelines. I seem to remember they don't like redirecting people off Facebook. If you have a better strategy or recommendation, I'm interested to learn more."

When I get messages like this, what I can easily do is just look at that and I could just respond back to the main question, but I have found that there is always additional value to be added if you really dissect the message. Let's go ahead and do that.

The first thing it says is, "I had a thought to put a post on my Facebook business page asking for help spreading the word about our retreat." Here's the thing with that. You don't ever really want to put things on a business page asking for help unless it is for a charity, or an event (outside of you), or support someone. The reason why is this. Your social media pages are really your marketing piece. it is your website. It is your first version, kind of, your website or another version of your website. You want the content on there to constantly be for people who could be prospects, current clients, past clients, referral partners to learn more about what you do and why you are the expert. Going on that page and saying, "Hey! help us spread the word about this event" it can come off as either you're not good enough, you can't fill events, you need help. We want to keep that as far away from your business as possible.

Now what you can do is post about your event on your business page and then you can share it on to your personal page and then that is where you can do the ask, cuz you're asking from your network. That is where you say, "Hey, we are at 6 people, and we need 12 (or whatever it is) please help us." You can ask that ask when you have that relationship in the personal network. Now you want to be careful because you don't want to overflood constantly your network like that because they won't pay attention to it anymore. You want to be really cautious of how often and how much you're asking for help in that way.

The other thing that you can do is you can take the post on your business page about the event and you can share that in a direct message. That would look like either to a person or to a group message or something like that. Within the message, you want to do two things. You want to make it super easy for them and you want to give options. People love options. It's kind of a choose-your-own-adventure on how you feel best about helping me kind of thing. This is how that can go. Option 1 can be, "Can you share this link through text message or email with people you think it might help?" And if you do that, you want to make sure you put the exact link to the event. Again, make it easy for them. Two, is you can say to them, "Can you please go to this post and tag anyone that you think might find this beneficial?"

Then, again, you want to make sure that you put the link so it's really easy. And this is the link to the post that you talked about that event on your business page. When you click share on a post you can pull the link and then you want to copy that link into that message. The third option is really important. This option is, "If you are not sure who to invite or are unclear what this event is, we would love to answer any questions." Then you want to give them ways and times to contact you. A lot of times people will not contact because they are afraid that it is a bad time, or is after hours, or it is the weekend. You really want to make it easy for them. Contact me anytime. I'm up late. I'm doing this. Give them options on ways they can contact you and make him feel completely comfortable in contacting you. A lot of times that's what happens is that we as the person who's putting on the event or the person who has a business we just assume everyone understands it but a lot of the times people don't. Giving people the option to be able to learn more, is a way to open stop, and get more referrals. That talks about the first thing he talked about which was spreading the word and asking for help.

Now, again, if I would have had gone and answer the main question I would have missed everything that I just shared with you. Which is why is important to really go section, by section, by section. The question is, "Is it acceptable within Facebook guidelines, I seem to remember they don't like redirecting people off Facebook" A hundred percent right Facebook does not like people going off of Facebook. They like the little Facebook ecosystem. If you post out about 5% of your content, you are usually completely fine. So 5% of your post are links out - totally acceptable. I have not seen Facebook penalized for anything like that. Now how you can get away with having less link out, is by doing events within Facebook and then when you go to that it has the link out to the event. You can have to look depending on what you are doing if you can use anything within Facebook to then link to your post and then links out. Just something to kinda consider on that. Now, some people right now are going, "Oh my gosh Rachel! I blog. I vlog. I write articles. I want to link them out!" You really need to decide what is time versus effort and where that breakpoint is. If you are posting articles and you want to post the links out to all your articles and it's easier that way just it. Don't worry as much about the algorithm. If you want to, you can do a little synopsis of it with an image and then in the comments put a link out and say, "In the comments is the link." You can do things like that if you feel so inclined. Some people have done it where they have said, "Click the picture to get the link" and they put the link in the description of the photo. There are other things you can kinda do to play around and it just depends if you have the time and it's worth it the input to do all. What I mean by the input is the by time you put in you going to get that money back because of the value. Now, doing research of client's post, I will tell you that usually post with photos let's say if one got 11% if I added a link in there it usage drops down to about 6%. So you're probably losing half of your organicness by putting a link in because the Facebook likes the ecosystem. Just something to think about. For me, I have noticed that if I post a YouTube video, like if I record a video like this and then post on Facebook I'll hardly get any interaction. But if I record it and upload it straight to Facebook and it gets more. Again, you just have to figure out where that balance is and what works for you.

"Any other strategies or better recommendations of how to do this?" The biggest recommendation I have is that you really want your page to have really good content. You want to be helpful. You want to have information. And then have your website set up to where if someone goes to your site to check you out because now they're interested in you, it shows right away your events. Right away the next steps. Right there upfront. I know this client that sent me this doesn't have it all set up yet. But we haven't really started working together yet. We are set to start in a few weeks but who I am, I start to give value right away. I'm answering these questions now even though we're not technically started yet. That's one of the first things that I am going to be looking at is that flow because when I want you to the site I really didn't get all these events until he sent me a direct link and when that happened it took me to a subsite on a sub thing. Those can be integrated and there's probably reasons that they are using it and so we're just going to integrate what they have just a little more seamlessly. You also can put links to like your events and stuff within your description on your Facebook page Instagram that kind of thing They make a little mini kind Link Pages where you would have links to all your stuff. You might have seen those on Instagram. People sometimes use them. If you are interested in that - how you have one short URL then when someone goes to it. It goes to a list of how they can contact you and quick links, let me know and I'm happy to do a video on that.

That is another way. Is that you can put in all of your about the information or the link straight to your event and then on your posts you can talk about it and say, "The link to sign up is in our about." That is another way that you can link out without putting the link in the post. Direct them where it is. "It is on the front page of our website." "It is in our about information." Whatever it is. So yes, it does take them an extra little step and that's okay. Also, on Facebook there's a Facebook button. You can change your Facebook button to sign-up and that can go to your event page signup, so a lot of people have it as going to their website or something like that. You can change it as many times as you want. So, if you want to change it to be a signup button, you can do that as well. It's being a little creative of where you can put the links and also looking at the flow of how people will get from you to the event. Helpful information to wanting to work with you to sign up for your event. We are right at 10 minutes so I gotta jet. I hope that has been of value and help. Please let me know any thoughts you have.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Losing Clients Over Social Media Posts

Video Transcript

I wanted to talk about something just a tad controversial today and before we do I want to backtrack about 10 years. When I had my advertising agency in our conference room we did courses. I've always loved education. One of the reasons why I do these videos for fun is because there is an expression of myself and knowledge that just has to be expressed. At that time, Facebook was going from a college platform to a social platform and business profiles were showing up. And business owners had no idea what to do with this. They were really worried about their reputation and what they might say, how they're going to say it, about posting. Which is kind of funny looking at today and how people are. I digress. Let's get to the message that my client sent me.

"Good morning. In our next session can we discuss social media posting and the impact it can have on your business. I'm thinking of firing my insurance agent after seeing something they posted."

I don't know about you, but since this pandemic started, I have lost so much respect for people. I'm talking about people who I held in high regard or people I felt like I wanted to get to know, now I have no interest in whatsoever. And it wasn't because of their opinion, it was how they handled their opinion, or the disrespect for others. Now, you have to figure out what your non-negotiables are in life, and one of my non-negotiables is respect for others. So for me, that's just a turn off completely from someone. Another interesting thing is when this all started, I did a little survey of my 10 best friends and out of my 10 best friends 9, get this, 9 of them had completely opposite views than me. You're talking about things on masks, vaccines, even political party, and it just really shocked me and I wonder: How can these be my best friends when our views and beliefs are so opposite?

Well the reason why is we were there for each other as humans. You know, respectful of each other, we're there for each other, if different views came up we just kind of passed over it I guess. Well 2 years later, I did this study again but now with my 15 closest, because I've gained some more close relationships in my inner circle over this pandemic, and 13 out of my 15 are completely opposite views than me. So it really has nothing to do with opposite views, it really has to do with respect of others within these opposite views. Now I'm really curious with this client what happened, what was said because if it was something that landed on that disrespect and that is a non-negotiable for this client. then that might be a reason to say, "Okay, I can't work with his agent because I completely have lost respect for them." As you know, having that rapport and respect is very important in any type of relationship. Now, if it was just something that was said and they got triggered by it, then it's looking at what that triggering happened. So usually when you get triggered by something, the first thing you want to do is look at yourself and see what was it that you got triggered by, because it could be telling of you more than what the post said.

Now going backwards to that class I did on Facebook, one of the things I had was a few slides and it said what you should post and what you shouldn't post, because that was on the biggest questions I got. On the shouldn't post, I said you want to follow the dinner party rules. I have a little bit of etiquette background, and the dinner party rules are: You don't talk about sex, I know no fun, politics or religion. Now, get my me and my friends on a Friday night, all fair game. When you're talking to people you don't know in dinner party setting with strangers, it is a good idea to kind of watch those topics. We still do it in person, just some reason when you have that screen in front, people don't follow that as much. I think you really need to figure out where you are on the spectrum.

If you're someone who's like I don't want to trigger anyone, I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't want to hurt my reputation. If you're in that space, then follow the dinner party rules, and when you post something, ask yourself does it fit one of these. Now if you're in the other side of the spectrum and you're like, "I don't give a damn!", then post. It's all about expression. If that's the expression of self you want in the world, then do it completely. Now, be aware, other people will too on the opposite side. The part that bugs me is when someone says, "This is who I am! And this is this!" and then they get really mad when someone does it back to them. If that's your choice you pick, then acknowledge the people are doing it as well on the opposite side. You know, you can respect even with those completely opposite opinions.

Now if you land in that middle, and you're like I want to be authentic but I also want to be careful, then there's a few things you can do. One is you can join groups. In the groups, you can do all your venting in that group. Now, this does put you in a silo with all the same opinion, and Facebook does that kind of anyway. Facebook's really good at showing you posts that are related to the post you posted and it's in the same opinion thread. What I do, especially during political seasons, is I will post on an opposite viewpoint just to mix the algorithm up some so I can get a better full view. But most people don't do that. Another thing you can do is you can segment your audiences off your post. So you can have certain people who see certain posts and certain people who see others. If you want to know how to do that, let me know, I'm happy to do a quick video on how to do that. That's the way you can make sure that you are doing your posts per your audience. You just have to make sure you remember to change it as you're posting. Other people will just make their profile private. Which means that anything they post that they don't want private, they can make it public and then people on the outside can see it. But you have to be a friend of theirs to see most of their posts. You can do that if you're not friends with prospects, clients, referral partners, so some people do it that way.

I know other people who have two totally different profiles, and one of them is a self-expression, kinda their avatar, and one is their business. I think that's a lot of work, and you can do that and there's ways you can quickly switch between profiles now with social media. You really just need to figure out what's going to work for you. If you haven't noticed already, I do more of a education, consulting way of talking and working with clients where we figure out where they're at, give options, and figure out the best option for them and I think you need to figure that out for you as well. Now an important piece is for you to think about what are your non-negotiables and follow those non-negotiables for others. So me, like I said my non-negotiable is treating people badly or being rude so when someone is that way it's harder for me to get over it. I can get over a difference of opinion, not in treatment of others. But that's me, you have to figure out what that non-negotiable part is for you.

I am a fight for what's right person and especially in parenting groups there has been times I have stepped into the fire I am known to be completely fine stepping into the fire for something. Now it's stuff that I'm very passionate about, so picking your battles is also important. If it's something that you are so headstrong, like this is it, then step in that battle. Just know with every battle there's always some fallout. If you're going to do it, know what could come from it and just be okay with it.

Another thing you want to think about is the fallout from posts you post from people who are commenting. I'll give an example of this. When it first kind of started, I did a post that was just kind of in the middle, mutual. But what happened was that my comments went haywire, like completely haywire. And people were just being so rude to each other it was horrible. Well then a few weeks later I posted on a guy's post and his response to me was, "Blah blah blah you are the worst person I met this year!" I was like, "What!?" So I did some digging, and he had commented on two of my posts and that was the first post I commented on his. We've never met, had any other interaction, never talked. So I engaged him and I had a conversation with him to figure out really what was there. What had happened was he was one of the people that was getting hit and he was getting triggered And they were triggering each other and arguing on my post. Because I was the original poster, he attributed what was happening to me because it must have been my opinion because it was my post. Even though it wasn't, it just had some backlash to me. Just know that some of the residue from what people comment on your post can fall back on you. Just be cautious of that and what's going on in the comments on what you post.

With all that being said this is something that is very personal to you. So really kind of look at, again, what are your non-negotiables, what triggers you, what might trigger other people and make a plan of attack and give yourself your own little guidelines that you can double-check yourself when you're posting and if there is any fallout from that, you're okay with it because you made that choice. It is all about choice.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

Interns? Should I Have Them?

Video Transcript

One of the questions that I get asked a lot, especially when a company is in a growth phase, is if they should take on interns. The number one reason I hear when I ask, "Why do you want interns?" They say, "Free labor." Well, it's not really free labor, and let's talk about why.

I did internships a long time ago when I started my marketing agency, and it did a few things for me. At that time, I had a lot of time on my hands but not a lot of resources. I was able to dedicate my time to interns. To teach them to educate them. to give them feedback. If you have a lot of time and can put together an internship program, do proper onboarding, create tasks, spell out what the tasks are, followup on the tasks, answer questions, mentor, and direct, then an internship is a great way to go.These are individuals who really want to get to the next step in their careers. Giving them ways and places to play, explore and learn different skills is a benefit to them. But that does not happen on its own.

If you think you can take an internship, especially an unpaid school internship, and say, "Okay, go do this task" and then let them go, it really shouldn't be that way. You want to think about it as if you're going to get cheap or no-cost labor. There's something that energetically has to give back. and then there is usually an educational experience piece or a piece of your time. My interns did not focus on client stuff. They did internal fun things. They reported to the art director and to me. Then they might do some entry-level stuff, and then the team member takes over and finishes. All my team members, I can tell you, came from my internships. Without a doubt.Hands down. It was great because I got to know these individuals and then bring them on. A lot of my interns I'm still close to. I went to one of their weddings last month. and this is from when he was my intern over ten years ago. I've been to baby showers and I have one that's for a good friend of mine. I have others that are still doing some subcontract work for me. The relationships I built with those interns, a lot of them, have been really long-lasting. which has been amazing.

When you think about taking on an internship, you really want to look at how much time you have to dedicate to it. Time is money. I had a lot of time and little resources at that point in my business career. I was able to dedicate my time. But if you're at a place where we don't have much time, an intern is probably not the best plan for you. You better spend the money that you have, that resource, to hire someone who already knows what they're doing. Because an intern, you're going to have a little bit, because it is an apprenticeship pretty much, you're going to have a little bit of education and teaching them and energy given to them. If you don't, you're setting yourself up to fail. It is either they are going to have a bad experience or I've also seen interns go and badmouth people on Google reviews and Open Door, the company site that talks about how it is to work within a company. I have seen it go really wrong. My suggestion is to really ask yourself the question, "Is this something I have a lot of time to dedicate or, if I don't, do I have the money to hire someone appropriately to do this? You're going to be wasting more money spending your time trying to teach them.

One of the things that I do in my consulting is help manage interns. I am always aware of how much of my time is spent setting up the internship, giving directions on the internship, and ensuring they know where to go. A lot of times, a business owner does the day-to-day management, but the "what do you need?", the strategy behind it, the education that they need, a lot of that comes from me. What I do is I look at what my time percentage is of that and then I look at how many hours interns are giving and if it would be more beneficial for the client to hire someone else to do that than for me to give the advice and education. What's really cool when I'm doing it, that I take into consideration, is what the business owner learns. They can learn about SEO, and they can learn about ads, and they can learn about newsletters. They can learn about all these pieces as I'm working with the interns on it. It is a benefit to them. I'm always conscious of that balance of money versus time and if it's worthwhile. If you're here and you still say, "You know what, I have the time, I can give that time to an intern." Then internships can be a great great thing.

I would make sure that your job description is completely with the tasks that you want and really think that through and then try to attract someone that's going to be in a career path where that's going to be a great space. Make sure what you're asking them to do you know, and if you don't know, then hire someone that can help guide them. Even if I spend 30 minutes guiding and that person spends 20 hours doing it, it's still more valuable than hiring an expert in that space. You want to do that cost analysis to see if it's valuable. I do not believe in ever taking on an intern in a space that you do not understand or do not have a consultant that understands, because if you are not, you are doing the intern a disservice.

Their job is not to bring you knowledge. If you want that, then pay someone. Or do a low-paying job to bring someone on that can do that work. If you're going for a true intern, you're going more for an apprenticeship, you're going more to have someone have educational experience with you, then set it up that way. I've had great experiences with interns. I probably have interns again someday. When I have the space to really dedicate and give value to them, Some of my interns in the past have become my best employees and some of my best friends. There you go. That was a lot really quickly. I know again, you might get tired of it. I don't give you a black or white, yes, or no, answer. It really does depend on where you're at in your business, how much time you have to give and how much support and direction you receive.

Make The Most of Networking – One to One Networking

Choosing a Networking Group & Quantifying Results

Guest Website Article, Good or Bad?

When / Why You Should Hire a Coach / Consultant

Video Transcript

We're going to talk today about coaches and consultants. What the differences are, what you can hire them for, when you should hire them, and what you should look out for. First, what's the difference between a coach and consultant? A coach is usually within the person's development realm. That's when you see them the most because they're coaching you through something. Mindset, physical fitness, nutrition, health. Consultants usually bringing a big knowledge base which makes it odd because coaches do that as well. That's why there's this overlap and I really think it depends on what the individual wants to be called and what motivates you to call someone. In consulting it can be financial, marketing, operations, general business. I feel like I land more in the consulting realm because I am bringing a knowledge base and we consult about it. You ask me a question and we have a problem, you and I work together on it and we come up with a solution. There is people that are coaches, consultants that have a system and you go through their system. I honestly don't think that that should be called a coach or consultant. I think you're buying a program. This is something to kind of watch out for and I'm really attuned to that because there's been one time in my life that I've hired a coach and it was a growth coach and it was a system and it didn't work for me and I realized that just going through like a workbook or going through set stages and touching on stuff is just not conducive. It doesn't make a big difference. What makes a big difference is what people are dealing with at that moment. That was a great experience for me because it showed me how I did not want to consult and got me more in tune with how I did. I said I like consultant but I have clients who call me their coach and I get it because I do a lot of mindset coaching and getting people through stuff and the process because in businesses a big part of success vs. failure is the owner.

There's certain people that I work with and certain people I won't. If you ask to work with someone and they just blindly take you, red flag. You want your coach, and I'm going to use coach when I say coach I mean coach/consultant, you want your coach to be picky and the reason why is that they know who they are good working with and also they have a limited capacity and that shows that they want to dedicate time to you. I do not like, one so just blindly take. I really would have to ask the question what's your non-negotiables or what do I need to be at to work with you and if they say anyone, again, red flag. For me there's 3 non-negotiables. Two of them I think you should take as a non-negotiable no matter who you work with. The third one is specific to me.

The first thing is you have to like them and they have like you. Why is it so important? You want them to like you because you want them to be invested in you. And if you're just a number or they don't like you they won't be that way. I love my clients. I get really good close relationships with my clients. I think about them when I wake up in the morning I wake up in the middle night thinking about them. I think of them when I take a shower. I know, odd. But I have been known to reach out of the shower, take a note, and go back. because I love my clients and I'm constantly wanting the best for them. and you want someone that's going to do that for you. You want to like a person in exchange for the big reason that rapport is so important. If you don't like your coach you're not going to listen to them and when they push you against your wall or push you against your ceiling you're going to push back and that does not work. You have to like your coach enough that you listen to them and know that they've got your best interests at heart.

The second nonnegotiable is you have to be open and honest. If you're not willing to be open and honest with your coach then it's not going to work either. They need to know everything that's going on and everything that's pulling on you to be able to fully give you a solution to your problem. For example if you don't tell someone that you eat donuts at 2AM in the morning and they're trying to health coach you they can't do it. You want to give the right inputs for them to be able to give you the right outputs to really make the difference.

The third one is specific to me, and this is you have to be ready to rock and roll. I move fast as you can tell. I talk fast, I move fast, I do everything fast. I need someone who's ready to go. If someone's coming up against themselves, or they don't have time to dedicate to their business, I'm not a good fit - at that time. I've had a lot of clients who have come back around who I talked to for years who are finally ready to rock or finally went and did a little program and now they're ready for me. There are people with multiple coaches. I talked to a lady yesterday who has like four or five coaches. She's a coach herself and she has all these different coaches for different areas of her life, and I have clients who have coaches for different areas. If you have coaches, I do believe that your coaches need to know about each other and they have to have conversation or at least the open ability to do that because if something is affecting one area of your life, it's going to affect another. You're one person so these areas all flow together. Something interesting about me is that, I have never, besides that one coach already told you about, I don't have a coach. I've never had a coach and I've never had a consultant. When I'm sitting there and I hear people say your coach has to have a coach who has to have a coach, I'm like that's not me.

For a little bit I was like is this something that I need to be concerned about. But I looked at it. I have done so much personal development and professional development over the years. That has really filled my space for I need a coach because I've been able to push myself forward and push me into new areas and get knowledge from different coaches without being within their coaching program. I'm not saying I'm never going to do it because I can tell you At some point there's going to be a coach that I'm just like You're my person. But so far, I've been able to get myself through. I mapped this out a little bit to see how much I have invested in myself and my development. Seriously, don't tell my husband this, it blew my mind. I have spend about $500,000 on my development. What is that like half a million dollars on my development and I'm only in my late 30s. Giving to my end of my life I'm probably going to spend a million dollars on investing in myself. That brings me to another point. If you're looking to hire a coach and their price entry point is so low that's a red flag as well. And the reason why is because if their price is so low either means that they're really hunting for people to work with them which you don't want someone that's like that or they have never invested in themselves to have the tools to really help you. Every tool that a coach gets in their toolbelt is another thing that they can use to help you. When I do any type of personal development, or business development, or educational pieces, I'm getting another tool that I can pull into a situation. It's an investment in myself, an investment in my clients, an investment in my business. All that has to be paid through something. You see a lot of high-level coaches are paid more. Not just because of their high-level they've been around for a lot. A lot of times if you ask them they invest continuously in themselves.

So things that I've done— you know what, it doesn't really matter. I'm going to do a page on my website and list everything I've done cuz it's been everything from— you don't really care. Point being is that it's really important that your coach is really invested in themselves. That's a really good question to ask them. Do you have a coach and who's your coach and if they won't tell you who their coaches are that's another red flag, who's your coach and what are you investing in yourself or what have you invested in yourself because if you're going to invest in them, you want someone willing to invest in themselves. Which one do you pick to work with? I really think that we've gone over some some tangible items but I think the biggest one is your emotional. I think you know. I think you will see someone you like that's the person I want. There is something magical that happens when you say yes. When you enroll in a program you invest in yourself things start moving in a way you can never expect. I'll give a really simple example of this. I hired someone to come into my house and help me around the house and what I did is I said all the time that they are working on my house I have to work on my business.

One thing I would do is I would distract myself by working on my client stuff. This gave me dedicated time and putting the money on the line is really what moved it forward. A lot of times what I've seen is just people taking the action of enrolling in a program and saying I'm going to invest in this It does the thing that unsticks them from the wall where they now are in action around things that really mean a lot to them. I'm not seeing any business that has grown or any person who has grown without investing in themselves. Jim Rohn has a really good video that talks about how people get from this figure to this figure and how much money can you actually hold onto. If that interests you let me know and I will do a video on that or give a link because it's really fascinating but it's true. We are over 10 minutes so I'm going to jet, but that is really the basics of consultants and coaches and trust your gut, I'm just going to say that. When you are going to hire one really trust your gut and no matter what the label is no matter what they're working on if this is someone that you say I just feel like I've got them have them in my space find a way to make it happen.

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Does Waking up at 5am = a Successful Business?

Video Transcript

One of the things that I really like to do is listen to thought leadership and some of the top business minds. I've read the books. I've watched the YouTubes. I start my day this way. It's a great way to learn from those that come before you. Now, one of the things I've heard over and over and over again is that you've got to outwork, you've got to out hustle. you've got to outwork, you've got to wake up at 5AM, you've got to outwork. And believe it or not I'm just about to totally disagree with that idea. I have a client who thrives on these thought leaderships. He's taken the courses from the top people and paid tens of thousands of dollars for a single course or a single weekend He loves being in this space and he's a big believer of like I'm up at 4AM, I'm up at 5AM. When I work with him, it's a constantness of this is what I'm doing and this is what I'm doing and there's a dadadada to it. It works for him, and what it does is it just drives and pushes him and pushes him. And he gets more energy based on having those accomplishments of getting up early and working hard. It's a way for him to kind of rev his engine and his battery by being that way.

I have another client who this topic comes up in my conversation with him. He was messaging me. He's like Rachel, I've been trying to wake up at 8 AM every day I just can't do it. There's something about the mornings and it doesn't work for me And he was making himself so wrong and feeling so bad because he was listening to the same thought leaders saying you need to be up by 4 AM, you be going to the gym, and all that. It was actually making him feel so small and making him feel like he just could never achieve because his body, his systems did not function that way.

I actually completely disagree with some of the big thought leaders in business that it's all about the hustle and all about the constant pushing and working. What I do believe is you need to find out what works for you. If you're someone who's a night owl and you find that your brain works better after the sun has gone down, and you have a little bit of vampire in you, then do that. Everyone has the same amount of time. We all have the same amount of hours in the day. The question is what do we do with them. If someone's waking up at 5 and they're working for 10 hours straight, it's the same as someone who wakes up at 10 and works 10 hours straight. The best suggestion I have for you is really listen to your body. Pay attention to when your brain works the best. Pay attention to what you need to put in place for you to be at your optimal work. If you're sitting at a computer forcing yourself to work your productivity and the amount you're going to output is going to be so much lower. Versus if you take care of yourself care and you take care and you do the systems that you need when you sit down to work you're going to be so much more productive. and I actually believe that's the key. The key is to be productive and to find those systems that are productive for you. We all know those people who sat at a computer all day and you're like what in the world did you do. And we all know those people can sit at a computer for two hours and it feels like they got tons done.

For me, it's not as much about when I wake up. I have little kids so I right now have un-snoozeable alarms so I wake up early. I've always been an early morning person. As I've got older, I've stopped setting my alarm and I'm letting myself sleep because what I found is that if I get a certain amount of sleep, I'm more productive the next day I could force myself to get less sleep and I could buy myself more hours but I can tell you I'm not going to be as productive in those hours as I would have been if I would have got my good night's sleep. That has taken me twenty years to figure out. That's something just to watch in yourself because all of us have a certain rhythm and certain amount of hours we need to sleep and all different based on us. You need to be careful not having this as an excuse.

I've seen people, and I work with people, who always use the self-care as an excuse. I need to do my self-care, or I can't do that until I do my self-care. Be very conscious, there is a fine line between self-care you actually need and using it as an excuse or a crutch. And I have no patience for using it as an excuse or a crutch because self-care for mental and self is super important. To me it's not something to be throwing around just because you can. For me it's all about my rhythm and I do believe we all have rhythms and finding your rhythm is important. For me my rhythm consists of doing certain things throughout my day. I'll do an entire different video at some point about how I create flexibility in my day which if you are interested in that let me know because I am very proud actually. And I would love to share that and see if if it makes an impact for anyone else. There's certain things I do and doing it what it does is that it mentally preps my mind for the day. One of the things I do is I listen to a thought leader and I do that every morning when I get dressed. Every morning I do my makeup. Every morning I... You see my videos, sometimes I'm in yoga gear but I still get up and do my hair and that kind of thing because it's a ritual. It's a time for me to be quiet in self and it's a time for me to listen and set the tone for my day. So the importance of it is not the looking good. The importance for me is the time to focus on me and focus on the vibration I want for the day. Some people do that with exercise. Some people do that with meditation. Some people don't need it at all. Again, I don't believe there's one thing that fits everyone. It's really figuring out what works for you.

Another part of my routine is I work with my compost. I love composting don't get me started on that topic. And then I feed my birds. Outside birds, we don't have birds in the house, but we have a feeder on the window I feed them in. There's a prepping point. Getting my office prepped for me is part of my setting the stage. Opening my windows, setting my oils on, that type of thing. What I'm getting at, in this little bit of a rambling, is that finding what those little trigger points are for you is important. Finding little things that you can anchor yourself with to get in productive mode is important. If I dig into anyone who is really successful, really productive I can guarantee that they have systems and triggers like that. They have certain patterns. If it's getting coffee, if it's doing this, that really gets them in the state of mind they need to be in to be super productive. If you find yourself as someone who's sitting on the couch or laying in bed or you can't seem to get yourself out of bed then that's the time to go get a coach. I am not the coach for this and I can tell you it's time to get a coach. There's a video I did I'll put it down in the links where I talked about how you can pick a coach or consultant and what to look for and what red flags to look for. I would go check that out because if you're a space where you're like "I don't want to get out of bed today" or you're not motivated to do stuff or you find yourself on your phone and you're just going through YouTube or Facebook or Tik-Tok and all you're doing is spending time on wasteful things like that then there's something else that needs to be tweaked. What this video really is about is that you can pick when you're productive and that there's not a one-size-fits-all. And that saying I have to be up by 4 a.m. and forcing yourself to do that is probably not the best solution for everyone.

Video Category: Business

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