Expand Your Fempire Podcast #162 Transcript

Caterina’s Essential Work-from-Home Strategies to Grow Your Fempire,

Part 1

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] Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today because we have a very hot topic… a hot topic that you are probably already good at. And we’re gonna make you even better.

What I wanna talk to you about today is strategies for you to be more [00:01:00] productive, have more soaring sales, and bliss more in your business while working from home.

 Because this is such a big topic, I have so many super tips for you and things to support you to bliss and thrive more in your business while working from home we are gonna take two episodes for this. Today’s the first one.

Now, you might say, ” Hey, I’ve been working from home for years and years. I got it figured out!” And you might be absolutely right.

Here’s the thing I want you to get. We are always upgrading in our business. We are always looking for that next little something that might make a little difference or it might make a huge difference.

We are always upgrading.

While you listen to me today, share with you [00:02:00] these strategies to increase your productivity, your sales, your bliss, working from home. I want you to validate what you’re already doing that is super working for you, while you’re at the same time looking at how you could even do it better.

Also, you may hear some ideas that you’re not currently embracing. Let’s bring in a couple more ways to support you to bliss and thrive working from home. Because working from home …while convenient, we don’t have to commute. We don’t have to get dressed below the waist every day if we don’t want to. We, we don’t have car expenses much. We save a lot of time.

Still, there are challenges working from home.

You can get distracted by your dog or the dinner [00:03:00] that has to be made, or of course, the doorbell. Plus the many other distractions that are already in your home. Your children, the spouse, the washing machine that needs some laundry put in it.

All of these are distractions too. Let’s look together at how we can be even more effective for you working from home. Okay. Bing. Bing.

My friend. You may wanna take some notes. You know what? I am actually gonna put a handout related to this podcast on my links page,

CaterinaRando.com/links. I will add this handout related to today. Also the link will be in the show notes for you.

Because, what I would love for you to do is: print out the handout that goes along with today’s [00:04:00] podcast. Circle the areas where you wanna upgrade. And pick one to start with, and then do another one a week later and another one a week later.

Remember, we are always upgrading. This is what has us continue to be successful in our business. You know, you’ve heard it: if you’re not upgrading, if you’re not focused on growth, you’re dying. We are focused on growth around here.

Number one, have a compelling vision. Have a compelling vision every day for why you are working your business.

Why am I not sitting around watching General Hospital every day from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM because I am a woman on a mission. And how about you?

What is the mission that fuels you every day? Not only, what is it? Remind yourself of it. [00:05:00] Read your compelling vision to yourself every day.

You say, “Caterina, I already know my vision for my business.” I know you know it, but every day I want you to remind yourself of it. Because some days you feel like the queen of your Fempire. There are some days, my friends, let’s be real together, me and you, you might feel a little more schlumpadinka.

And when you feel a little more schlumpadinka, what does that mean? You are not bringing the same verve and energy and focus and “stick to itness” to your business while you are working from home.

So every day read your compelling vision.

The other thing is read your goals. What are you trying to accomplish this month? Working from home, you got big goals. Let’s read those every day.

By the way, I hope you’re doing this. It’s very important that we review our goals. I like to do it in the morning and at the end of the day when I’m planning for the [00:06:00] next day. Because what that does is at the end of the day, has your subconscious start to work for tomorrow. But also when you do it in the beginning of the day, it gives you more momentum for the day.

But please read your vision, read your goals every day. And when I say read your goals, I do mean your sales goals for the month. I do mean how many calls do you wanna book on your calendar this week? I do mean any projects you wanna complete this week.

I do mean any of those people you’ve been meaning to get back to that might not be related to sales. You wanna make sure you are writing down everything, my friend.

And by the way, you do not have a to-do list… that is for beginners. For super productive entrepreneurs like yourself, we put everything on our calendar.

When am I gonna [00:07:00] record my podcast? When am I gonna reach out to the people that were at my speech last week? Hopefully I reached out within 24 hours. If I’m on top of it, then what I’m gonna do this week is I’m gonna circle back to those people.

You put it on your calendar because your brain is not a filing cabinet. Do not expect your brain to remember little things. You don’t need it to do that. You can write it down. And better yet, you put it on your calendar with the time you’ve set aside to do that.

Next, what is your plan? And what I mean by this is you make a plan for how much time you are gonna dedicate to each of your priority areas.

If you want to exercise in the morning, it better be on your calendar. If you wanna exercise in the middle of the day or the evening, better be on your calendar. By the way, I have found [00:08:00] by wearing a Fitbit or wearing my phone to track my steps, I’m getting a ton more steps because you know why? If you have a Fitbit, you know that it makes a little celebration when you get to 10,000 steps.

And I know it’s like, you know, kind of ridiculous, but it’s also super fun when the little fireworks go off on my Fitbit. I encourage you, move your fanny every day and make time for it and put that time on your calendar.

Now, sometimes, here’s where gals say to me, “well, Caterina, I put it on my calendar, but then I don’t do it.”

Okay? This is where I wanna talk a little bit about self- devotion. Now you’ve all heard the term self-discipline. I don’t like that term. Discipline does not sound good to me. Does that sound good to you? No, it does not.

Self- devotion is when [00:09:00] you are committed to your goals. You’re committed to your vision for your business. You’re committed to the body that you wanna have if we’re talking about exercise. You’re committed to the financial goals that you have. You’re also committed to the social and relationship goals in your life.

You know, relationships take nurturing, and one of the cool things about working from home is you can take the afternoon off to go somewhere and do something. Last Monday, I left early to go see a client who’s also a good friend. She was exhibiting at a vendor fair. I was blissing to go see her. I was blissing to leave my office early.

Some of you know my mom has passed away. My dad is 93 at the time of this recording. I’m spending a lot more time with my dad. Guess what? It’s on my calendar. Sunday dinner. Tuesday [00:10:00] dinner. Go take a walk with him. It’s all on the calendar. Why?

Because when you live a calendar- driven life, you don’t gotta remember everything, but also you take time every week to plan for the next week. You take time every month to plan for the next month. So you have time for your priorities.

Then when your girlfriend calls up and she says, Hey, my friend, when there’s a sale down at the X, Y, Z store, you wanna go check it out? You can say, ” thank you so much for the invitation. I am already booked today.”

And you keep appointments that are already on your calendar, the appointment with yourself to exercise the appointment to make some circle backs or have some sales calls. You keep those appointments because you are devoted to your vision and your goals for your business. And then you can be blissing when [00:11:00] you weren’t able to be a yes, not disappointed.

By the way, maintaining your calendar for your life will absolutely help you with FOMO: the fear of missing out.

Now, I’m not saying you never adjust anything on your calendar. At the same time, by having a calendar and having everything on your calendar, then you can say to yourself, “okay, I, I wanna go to that sale with Sheila. Let me go, but then I gotta take this job that I was gonna do during that time and I’m gonna put it somewhere else.”

And that’s okay. Totally fine. As long as you keep those agreements with yourself once you do move it to another time. Are you blissing with me and vibing with me on this? I’m super hoping.

By the way, feel free my friend. Text me, Facebook [00:12:00] me. Don’t email me. I don’t like email. I love Messenger on Facebook. People talk to me all day on Messenger. Totally fine. You’re welcome to reach out to me if you wanna talk about any of this.

By the way, let me also mention here. I do a workshop every single month. One or two free workshops. Usually on sales, or on something to do with public speaking to get clients. We talk about how to do retreats. We also talk how to bliss more on your business. Other topics, depending on what time of year it is.

I’m hoping that you have gone to CaterinaRando.com/links and you’ve checked out not only our free resources, but that will also take you to my upcoming next free workshop. Or you can go to my main page on the events page.

We’ve got a lot of opportunities in our Thriving Women in Business Community for you to not only learn and grow and, and be inspired, but also to connect [00:13:00] with some amazing women. Hopefully you’ve got a lot of amazing women in your life, and if not, we’ll talk a little bit more about that.

Okay? Bing, bing.

You have your plan. You have time on your schedule designated for different activities that you wanna get in. You are taking time for the thinking and planning. Let’s continue.

You also have a dedicated workspace. Do not be on the kitchen table and then every evening you gotta take all your stuffo off because now the family’s gonna sit down to dinner.

If you are working your business from your house, my friend, you deserve and merit and need a dedicated workspace. Find one. If you gotta buy a desk, buy a desk, [00:14:00] working on the couch with your laptop on your lap is fine once in a while, not as a standard operating procedure.

If you are working from home, you better have a dedicated workspace in your home. This is a big, big factor in productivity. Then when you’re in your workspace, you are in work mode. If you gotta clear out a closet, if you gotta take half of a bedroom that somebody’s not in very much. I don’t care what you gotta do.

You are the queen of your Fempire. Do you think the queen of a Fempire has a dedicated workspace? Yes, my friend. She does. And that’s what I want for you. Okay. Let’s not forget -you are the queen of your Fempire

Next one, I want you to ask for support. [00:15:00] I didn’t say hire support. I said ask for support.

What I mean by this is if you are running your business from your household and there are other people that live in your household, I want you to ask yourself, are you doing all the things that a household requires? Or are you having support from the rest of the people that are residing in the household?

And if the answer is yes, they do help, my next question is can they help more? Because not only are you the queen of your Fempire working from home, you are also bringing revenue into the house.

Now, you might be in the early stages of [00:16:00] your business and you might say, “well, I’m not bringing in revenue yet, or a lot of revenue yet.” That’s because you’re doing everything in the house and you’re not able to focus on your business I would imagine, or guess, or I’m asking you to ask yourself.

You cannot be responsible for cleaning the house, making the dinner, paying the bills, doing everything. Also now you’re supposed to have time for your business?

No, my friend. Get support with a lot of those other things because you have to build a Fempire and that takes time. Or you get to build a  Fempire if you wanna build a  Fempire. There’s no “have to” here.

Do you want to build a  Fempire? If you do, then you need time to build your  Fempire. And part of that is asking for support from the other people that are in your house.

Because guess what? You might be thinking, “they know [00:17:00] I’m wanna work my business, why aren’t they helping me more?” Well, guess what? Everybody doesn’t spend all their time thinking about what can they do for you. It’s our job to ask.

It is absolutely our job to ask for what we want every day, everywhere in our life. And sometimes we ask and we don’t get a yes. But then they start to think about how could they be a yes? Especially the people in your household because they love you, my friend. Let’s start asking for support. Bing, bing.

And by the way, don’t ask for support when you’re at the end of your rope, you know? It’s like finally you blurt it out, “how come I’m doing everything?” Don’t do that. Okay? Ask for support in a way that has the other people in your house win.

“Hey, other person in my house. I know that you know that I’m wanting to [00:18:00] build my business. I need more time for my business. I would appreciate if you would do X, Y, Z every day, once a week, once a month, twice a month, so that I can be more focused on my business.”

And guess what? If there’s something that you wanna do for your family or your partner, or your son or daughter that you live with, or five kids you live with, let them know.

Say, “you know what? I really wanna take the family on a vacation. I really wanna put some money away for your college. I really want to, uh, fix the garage door, whatever it is.” And then you say to them, ” and that’s one of the reasons I’m working my business and I would appreciate some help.”

Okay, my friend?

Ask for what you want in a way that empowers others to be a yes for you and makes them feel good about support, not complaining. [00:19:00] Okay?

Queens don’t complain. I, I want you to think about this. Do we hear the good queens complaining? No, they’re not complaining. They’re making powerful requests and they get a lot of, “I’ll take care of that right now.”

That’s what you want. Be the queen of your Fempire. And also, guess what, my friend? You’re the queen of your household too. And if it doesn’t feel that way, then I want you to look at what needs to change so you do feel like the queen of your “queendom”, which is the place that you live. Bing, bing.

Let’s take a deep breath again, my friend. Ah, let it out. We touched on this a little bit earlier, the next one.

Set clear boundaries.

The people in your life, they know you’re working from home. Sometimes though there’s this attitude that if you’re working from home, oh, you got a lot of time. If you’re working from home, that’s no problem [00:20:00] for you to dash out and pick up a prescription or for you to babysit. Let me drop off my kids. Let me drop off my dog. Uh, hey, could you pick up my dry cleaning if you’re out and about? They want you to do all their stuff out because you’re working from home.

My friend, let the people in your life know that you have a work schedule. And if you don’t have a work schedule, we’re gonna get to that in a little bit. Clearly communicate, this is when I’m working and this is when I’m available if you need something.

Next one. I want you to get really good at household time blocking. What do I mean by that? If you’re gonna go grocery shopping or order groceries from Instacart like I do, when every week are you gonna do that?

Because one of the things that we know, that productivity experts will tell you, is when we do the same [00:21:00] thing at the same time every week, we get more and more productive at it.

I order groceries on Sunday. I order my flowers on Sunday. I like to have fresh flowers every week. That happens on Sunday. Now, sometimes it happens in the morning. It usually happens in the afternoon. That’s when it’s on my schedule. If I’m going out, I do it in the morning. Now, if it’s on my calendar for Sunday afternoon and I know I’m gonna be out on Sunday, then I can move it to Saturday or I can move it to Monday morning. But you put the time on your calendar so that you don’t have to try to figure out when are you gonna do these things.

You know, you’ve heard that barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs of big organizations, they have kind of their [00:22:00] uniform that they wear every day, so they don’t have to figure out what their fashion statement is gonna be for the day. Well, I hate that because I’m gonna make a nice fashion statement every day. Most of you know, I’m a big image and style enthusiast, so I’m definitely gonna be taking the time to figure out what’s my look for the day.

At the same time, by putting all this other stuff on my calendar, then I don’t have to figure out when I’m gonna get to that. Are you with me on this?

Do the things that you love to do. Like I love to get dressed fancy every day, so I take time for that. But I don’t wanna try to figure out when am I gonna get to the pharmacy? When am I gonna order my groceries? All that is figured out and it’s on the calendar.

And I want you to think about what are those things that you’re doing that are not business things? When are you gonna exercise, like we talked about. Right now, we’re talking about household time blocking. When are you gonna do all [00:23:00] those things every week that a household requires? Put ’em on your calendar. Bing. Bing

With household time- blocking we can also talk about family time- blocking. When are the games that you’re gonna go to for your children? When are you gonna go on vacation with your family? When are you gonna go to Wisconsin for somebody’s birthday? Thanksgiving, Christmas, your anniversary?

All that goes on your calendar now for the next year, because that way you don’t have the challenge of, oh, I’m already booked at that time when you wanna go away for the weekend with your partner. Really, really important to take time for family time- blocking that is part of household time blocking.

And really, I said family, I mean, relationship time blocking [00:24:00] for all the other relatives and also for your friends. You know, I’m very big on two retreats a year, at least for women in business.

You can have the retreat that’s not too far away. I’m going next week for our Monterey planning retreat. I get together with a few gals and we have the weekend together. We hang out. We have a good time, and we work. We do planning, we do coworking. I’ll be working on my next book while we’re there. We have a good time.

We leave with full cups and having gotten a lot of stuff done. That’s in the neighborhood retreat, meaning I don’t gotta jump on a plane. Then there’s the jump on the plane retreat. I just came back from Italy, one of my fabulous clients, Paola Versano, she does retreats in Torino. Amazing week, fabulous life- Affirming week. I’m doing that.

What are you doing? Are you [00:25:00] having retreats? A couple times a year. I don’t even, I don’t even have time to tell you about all my amazing retreats I’ve been doing lately that I’ve been attending.

Also, you know, we host amazing retreats. We have the Bliss Retreat, we have our Amp Up Mastermind Adventure. We have a retreat on how to do women’s retreats.

Hopefully, you are putting on your calendar as standard operating procedure at least two retreats a year. One in the spring, one in the fall, or one at the beginning of the year, one in the summer.

Whatever time works for you and the rest of your life, please get some retreats that you’re time blocking on your calendar too.

Let’s take another deep breath. Ah, let it out. Okay?

Now I also want you to get great at business time- blocking.

[00:26:00] Remember I said to you a few minutes ago that the productivity experts will tell you that when you do things at the same time every week, you get more productive at them.

So I want you to think about those activities that you do every week. You might have client calls, you might have sales conversations, you might have some content creation.

All of these things do them at the same regular time every week.

For example, I know that right now recording a podcast for you, I can’t do that during the week nine to five, it just doesn’t work for me. Too much going on, too many distractions. Well, if I’m gonna do it, it happens on a weekend. Because then I don’t have five appointments before and five appointments after, and I have more time for [00:27:00] preparing and not feeling rushed.

That works for me. I’m not saying you gotta do that, my friend. You could take whatever time you know works for you. The other thing is, I know in the afternoon, I don’t necessarily have a vitality to do it. That’s why I like to do it on the weekend when I have lots of vitality and I don’t have any other appointments.

But you find what works for you.

I have a friend who only talks to people three days a week. Two days is for filling her cup again because she’s ambivert. She’s not extrovert, she’s not introvert. She’s in the middle like me. I think I’m ambivert. Maybe you’re ambivert, where you need time alone when you’re not with people.

So she’s very highly focused on having certain days where she does all of her meetings, and then on the other days, she’s doing her strategy, she’s doing her self-care, she’s doing her planning. Content creation. That’s what works for [00:28:00] her.

You have to find your own success schedule, and I want you to block out business time.

Now, remember I said earlier that sometimes gals say to me, “well, Caterina, I put on my calendar, but then I don’t get to it.”

Now, I spoke with you earlier about self devotion being devoted to your goals, and that may encourage you to keep those appointments.

Another way to look at this though, another potential strategy if you’re not getting things done, it’s because it’s at the wrong time of day.

For example, if I’m gonna do writing, I gotta do writing during the day. Now again, for me, I find if I can do it in the morning before the appointments start, it will happen. I will keep that appointment. If I do it on the weekend, I will keep that appointment.

If I schedule it for, you know, 4:00 PM guess what, my friend, it’s not gonna happen because my [00:29:00] creativity and my vitality are both not on high alert at that time of day.

This is very important thing I want you to look at, okay? Because sometimes gals get very frustrated when they put things on their calendar and they’re not getting to them, and this is a very important place for you to look.

It might simply be, my friend, that it’s not the right time for those activities.

Like, you know, reaching out to people to book a sales conversation at 4:00 PM they’re probably not gonna be able to get back to you today, and they might be in a different time zone.

That’s why reach outs for booking sales appointments, and those would be reach outs both by the phone and by direct message or by email, all of that is really best earlier in the day so people have a chance to get back to you. But you decide what’s best for you. Okay?

Now we were just talking about business time blocking.

Well, let’s say you put exercise on your calendar for 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM or 6:00 [00:30:00] PM or 8:00 PM and you’re not keeping that appointment. Don’t get down on yourself. Find a better time. Test some other times that might work better for you. Okay?

My friend, we don’t give up. We just try something else. We don’t get down on ourself. We try something else. Remember, you’re the queen of your Fempire. You are super smart. You can figure these things out, but sometimes it does take a few tries and a few tests. Bing, bing.

This is part one. Come back. Next episode is gonna be part two ’cause this is a lot of stuff for us to talk about, for you to bliss and thrive and be more productive working from home.

What I want you to do now is review what we’ve discussed. Go get the handout or download the show notes, and pick a couple things for you to work on.

Because my friend, [00:31:00] listening is one thing. Action is what is gonna make a difference for you. Pick a couple things to work on and get started right now. And then I got more for you the next time we talk. Bing, bing, love to you.

Remember you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Be loud and proud about your massive value. Ask for what you want everywhere in your life. So you can sell more, you can serve more, and most importantly, you can have more impact and uplift more lives with the amazing woman you are. This is Caterina Rando, hope to see your smile on the screen for a live workshop very soon. Join us on a retreat. Check out all of our excitement at Caterinarando.com.

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