Expand Your Fempire Podcast #157 Transcript

Seven Tips to Act Authentically and Attract More Clients

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:27] Caterina Rando: I’m so excited to be with you today. Today we are gonna talk about amplifying your authenticity to bliss in your business more, and also attract more clients. I was giving a talk this last week to some wonderful women in business, as I enjoyed doing several times a month, both virtually and live and in person.

I said to the gals, one of the things I love about having my own business is I get to 100% be myself , I get to wear my big tassel earrings when I want. I get to send fun gift packs to my gals that I custom curate. I get to put hearts on a Zoom screen 50 times in an hour, and I get to say, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing anytime I want.

I don’t have a boss other than myself. That allows me to be myself and to work with people and attract clients and opportunities that resonate with who I am, that resonate with my mission, which is to uplift women through entrepreneurial success and that includes massive monetization.

In our time together today, we are gonna talk about some ways that you can amplify your authenticity in your business to be more alluring to the potential clients that are a great match for you. And also the people that are not resonating with you.

That’s okay.

Because as I like to say, there is enough pie for everybody. By you being yourself, you are going to attract a lot more people who are going to want to be served by you.

 Now you might be thinking, Caterina, I’ve been in business a long time. Of course, I’m totally myself in business. Great. Remember that we’re always moving more towards mastery.

Caterina Rando: You might be very great at [00:03:00] being your authentic self, and we’re gonna look at some opportunities for you to be even more authentic.

Now, some of you may not really feel that you’ve mastered the art of being yourself, and I’m gonna tell you why. Because if you started your career in a corporate environment, in an institutional environment, in an academic environment, every professional environment has its own culture. And sometimes women tell me, they were told, “don’t be so loud.” They were told, “don’t, don’t laugh so loud.” They were told “keep it down” when they’re in their cubicle.” Women have told me, they were told, “don’t be emotional. Oh my gosh. Never cry at work. Don’t get too personal to your clients and oh my gosh, never hug [00:04:00] your clients.”

Now let me start right here and pause and say, you get to make your own set of business guidelines. You get to run your business any way you want. That is your prerogative as the queen of your Fempire and as the master of your destiny.

This is also so important because you might be doing your thing. You might be dimming your light and not even be aware of it as residual of what you were told in your twenties or thirties or even forties before you became the queen of your Fempire, the entrepreneur you are today.

And here’s what I also wanna say, the more we’re our authentic selves in our business, [00:05:00] the more our people are drawn to us, the more the clients that resonate with us will step forward.

Again, we’re not for everybody. My mom used to say that’s why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors. We are not everybody’s flavor. That’s okay. The more, though we can amplify who we are, the more our gals will step forward.

And by the way, sidebar, aside from authenticity, confidence is alluring. I call it certainty. Certainty that you have massive value to bring. Certainty that there’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Certainty that your work matters, that your mission matters. Certainty, that you have the solution [00:06:00] for your ideal clients. Certainty is highly alluring.

Okay, we’ll have to save that topic for another day ’cause today we’re talking about authenticity.

Number one, know your values. This might seem obvious. Sometimes we pick up guiding principles and values that other people told us mattered and that were important. And now you get to decide if that matters for you.

For example, I value accessibility.

What does that mean? That means I value my clients being able to reach out to me whenever they wanna talk to me. They can text me, they can call me, they can Facebook me. I tell them, don’t email me. That’s the [00:07:00] lowest communication method on my totem pole.

I’m available for my clients. Now, other people, “Hey, don’t call me after five o’clock. Hey, don’t call me on the weekends.” Let me tell you something. These days we have anywhere between 75 and a hundred clients at any given time in our variety of programs. Speaker Mastermind, our retreat programs, our Amp Up Adventure, our Thrive Sales Program and our Expand your Fempire mentorship program.

This is my policy. I’m accessible. I never, ever, ever feel like anyone is taking advantage of me or taking advantage of my time. Now, I’ll be very clear. If I’m on a cruise ship or I am away from the [00:08:00] office, or I am in my yoga class, no, I’m not answering my phone. This works for me.

I’m not saying you have to have this as a top value for you, but it works for me. You get to set up your business any way you want, and what are the values that matter to you?

I remember when I was a greener entrepreneur and I had questions and I wasn’t sure what to do or a difficult situation came up, I always super valued when my coach made themselves available to assist me. And I know that feeling of needing answers and not wanting to wait till next week or not being able to wait till next week or the week after, or the week after for a scheduled time or to book a call.

You get to decide, my friend, what works [00:09:00] for you. I do wanna make a few suggestions. Okay?

Integrity. I’m hoping that you’re operating your business with massive integrity and what does that look like for you in your business? Keeping your agreements, of course, doing what you said you’re gonna do. And there’s other things that you hopefully are modeling in your business.

And by the way, I wanna be also very clear talking about values: your personal values, and your business values. They’re the same.  You’re not yourself one way at work and a different way in your personal life. Now you can have a personal life. You can keep your personal life as private as you want, but my point is you are the same person and trying to be a different person in certain parts of your life, that’s tough and that’s definitely not blissing.[00:10:00]

Take a minute, reflect on the values that matter to you. I got one more though. I just thought of it. I wanna make sure.

Under promise and over deliver, especially for those of you that are doing coaching programs and retreats, group programs, classes, all of this. Never promise something that’s not delivered.

I remember the first program I took with a big time coach. This coach said, “Hey, we’re gonna give you this. We’re gonna give you this. We’re gonna give you all these templates. We’re gonna give you worksheets.” All the things a young coach would be so happy to get. Never got them, never got them, reached out, didn’t get ’em, reached out, had ’em.

I heard them say, “oh, did I promise that?” Yeah, you did. [00:11:00] doesn’t feel good. And why? Because when we underdeliver, even if someone got massive value, they’re not gonna reinvest with us simply because it doesn’t feel good.

Generosity looks good on you, it looks good on your business, and may be one of the values you wanna amplify. Only though if it’s authentically you.

Number two, be honest and transparent. Tell the truth if you forgot to send that email. If you, if you got distracted and there was some challenges du jour, and you’re not able to meet a deadline, tell the truth.

It’s okay. Perfection’s not required. This is something, you know, I talk about a lot. Perfection is a flaw. Nobody wants to work with perfect people. It’s okay. Be your amazing self [00:12:00] and you’re human.

Let your clients know about challenges to whatever degree you want. Of course you’re not gonna be giving ’em the full report, telling ’em everything. But if you’re going through something in your personal lives, when you love is having an illness or there’s a, a situation that needs your attention, tell them, “Hey, I gotta reschedule. I got X, Y, Z going on.” That is fine.

The more you’re transparent and honest, guess what? The more that builds trust and has people lean in, because trust means they’re gonna keep coming back to be served by you.

I was sharing with the gals in my Thrive with Women’s Retreats class I was teaching last week about how early in my business when we had live and [00:13:00] in-person events, we would have sponsors, big sponsors, big dollar sponsors.

I found, that when I did that, not only was I working on filling my room with participants that were great for our community and great for being clients, people that I knew we would really do a great job of serving, but I found that I was also trying to put derrieres in chairs to fulfill my agreement with my sponsors.

That didn’t feel good, so we stopped doing it because you know what? My highest priority is always to my clients. Now I’m looking at sponsors for potentially something in the future, and I’m gonna make sure we do it very different, because the way we did it before didn’t feel good.

You [00:14:00] know you’re being your authentic self in business, when what you’re saying, what you’re doing, the way your business looks, how you’re interacting with your clients, when it all feels good. Feeling good is a great indicator that you are being your authentic self.

Not feeling good is a great indicator that something needs to shift. When something’s not feeling good, ask yourself, “how come this isn’t feeling good?” Take a moment to reflect. Sometimes you might have a client that’s not really the right match for you. Sometimes you agree to try something that others have said is awesome, but it’s not resonating for you.

Feeling good is how your business is supposed to feel. The more authentic you are, the more you will be blissing [00:15:00] in your business.

Number four, share your stories. You’ve lived a lot of life. You’ve got a lot of stories. The ones I really want you to write down and consider sharing are the ones that will be lessons and inspiration for your clients and your potential clients.

I recently did a virtual zoom get together. I had a guest speaker and we had breakout sessions. I had Marla Sofer as our guest speaker. You may have heard a podcast interview with her. If you haven’t, you’re gonna wanna listen to it. She’s the founder of “Knomee” which is an app for women around personal finance, to help them get clear on their [00:16:00] values.

I invited her to speak because I wanted her to talk about women and money and… because the biggest challenge I’ve seen with women over my many years that has them not bliss in their business, is financial stress.

And I’m always wanting to build women’s money confidence, and help them to shine the spotlight on their numbers more so that they can massively monetize and be thriving financially.

Well her speech and everything that people shared, it made me think about my personal money story, and I’ve talked about it in other podcasts. It’s about when I was married, my husband inserted himself in my business finances, and I had that be okay because I really wanted to [00:17:00] have my business with my partner.

Unfortunately, my partner wasn’t good with money and he mismanaged everything and all the money went away. I still don’t know where it went. Not only in my business, but in my stock account and my personal account.

Today, I’ve totally recovered. I have surplus. This is the short version I’m giving you. And I talked about it with my my VIP clients. And I got many comments and many notes from clients after saying how much they appreciated my authenticity and my transparency, and that they were inspired by my story.

You have a lot of stories and you know what? We don’t have to be the Shero in all our stories. We can be the one that wasn’t winning. Then we can talk about the lesson that we learned and that will inspire [00:18:00] others. Don’t worry about looking great all the time in your stories.

Again, vulnerability and imperfection and lessons learned along the way are a big part of the authentic you, and we wanna share that with our clients and potential clients.

Right now, think about what might be a story that you know would be of service to others that you haven’t been telling. It’s time to start to tell it.

Next. Number five stay true to your brand. There are so many opportunities every day for trying new things and going different ways. And it’s okay to explore new possibilities, of course, all the time. But just [00:19:00] because Mary, Jane, and Sheila are doing something in their business or in their life, doesn’t mean you gotta do it too.

What feels authentic to you? That’s what you wanna do. For example, I have colleagues that they use robocalls to leave messages. Haven’t tried that yet, but I’m not quite sure if it’s on brand for me, because you know what? I’m all about high tech and high touch, so I’d probably rather hire someone to make some real voicemail calls to each individual person. Now, certainly not as efficient, but it’s definitely more on brand.

Stay true to your brand and think about when you do something or you’re gonna post something, is this on brand for me? And again, what is brand? It [00:20:00] is the reflection of your values through your appearance, your behavior, and your communication, and that of your business.

Okay, my friend. I got two more for you.

Number six, cultivate community and engage with your community. I remember once I went to this seminar, then I signed up for this group program with these very successful folks, and every time I wanted to ask a question of the person at the break or have them stay after for a few minutes to chat about whatever challenge I was having, could never find them.

It was like they operated on stage. There was [00:21:00] never an opportunity to speak with them privately or even for a moment. It did not feel good.

When I do my calls, 95% of the time, I always say I’m gonna stay after for any questions. I stay after five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, doesn’t matter.

I put time in my schedule to hang out after any classes to answer questions. We have time to get together for sales blitzes and getting booked for speaking blitzes and just getting together to be co-working together. With the gals that come on My Bliss Retreat, we meet every month on a Zoom call and we’re in community ’cause they’re all over the country.

I love to get the ladies together and I like to create social opportunities for gals to get together. Because you know what? Community is one of the most [00:22:00] hugest gifts of our life. And when you’re in a community through your business and when your clients are in community with you through your business, and they get to be with other amazing gals up to something similar like them, it makes them bliss and it uplifts their whole life, not just their business.

Let me encourage you. Don’t be the celebrity coach or consultant or leader, be the community leader. Lead an amazing community. And also look for how you can shine the spotlight on others in your community, so that they can engage with the community and be visible and showcased even more.

Number seven. Show appreciation. Be loud and proud and authentic [00:23:00] in your appreciation of your clients, your vendors, your team members. You do that with words. You do that with gifts or bonuses. You do that with quality time. You do that with extra consideration when they need it. Show appreciation.

And guess what? Showing appreciation feels great. And remember, your whole business is supposed to feel great all the time.

Take these super tips I’ve shared with you today. Reflect on them. Take some of them as guiding principles for you and your business so that you can amplify your authenticity more, to bliss more, to thrive more, and to uplift the lives of others through your authenticity and your amazing business.

My friends, this is Caterina Rando. I am always blissing [00:24:00] to be with you. Please join me for an upcoming free virtual info- packed workshop. Every month I do them. Make sure you have connected with me on Facebook, that you’re in our Facebook group.

And please listen to some of the other info-packed podcast episodes at Caterinarando.com. Click on podcast to see all our episodes. And by the way, you can also get a link to many other free resources.

Remember my friend, you have massive value to bring. Go bring it even more.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.