Expand Your Fempire Podcast #169 Transcript

Bold Leadership Principles to Create More Bliss, Impact & Freedom in Your Business

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

Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. I’m your host, Caterina Rando, and I have got something really special for you today.

As you probably know, I do a lot of speaking on topics related to women in business to support you to bliss and thrive more in your business. Today, what I’ve got for you is a talk I recently [00:01:00] did called “Bold Leadership: Principles to Create More Business Impact and Freedom.”

I’m very excited today to share this with you, because there are many things in this episode you will find helpful for your business.

I’m hoping that you also have some “ahas,” that you gain some new insights, and that you take what we talk about today, and you embrace it to move forward to bliss and thrive more in your business while having more impact.

Caterina Rando: Let’s take a deep breath, my friends. Ah. Let’s take one more. Ah.

You probably started your business ’cause you [00:02:00] wanted more freedom, you wanted to have more impact. Maybe you wanted to bliss more in your life. Yes, my friends?

Maybe you wanted to be more of service around something that you’re super passionate about. But then you start your business and the impact gets side-barred for the marketing to-dos. And the revenue gets askew with the admin and compliance. And the bliss gets put away because of the challenges du jour.

Have you had days like that, my friends? Sometimes it’s not challenge du jour, [00:03:00] sometimes it’s challenge, challenge du jour.

And in our time together today, what I wanna tell you is that in order to have more bliss, more impact, more time freedom in your business, more financial freedom as a result of your business, what is required is more bold leadership.

And I’m gonna share with you right now, A few, we’ll see how far we get, of my guiding bold leadership principles in order for you to bliss more in your business. Does that sound good? Yay. Bing, bing, bing.

Here’s the first one.

I want you to make sure that you have a bold vision [00:04:00] that inspires you every day. A bold vision. Some of you, two years ago were on a ship with me, cruise ship, ’cause y’all know I do lots of retreats on cruise ships. And we’re on a cruise ship, and it was a b- it was a retreat on how to do retreats. We just did another one of those. Some of you were with me for that one that we just did.

This one was a couple years ago, and we’re on the ship, and I said to the gals, “Hey, come to my suite.” I like to get a suite because it has more room, “So that we can all hang out and we can mastermind, and then we’re gonna go to dinner after 90 minutes.”

What happened was not a 90-minute mastermind session, was not a two-hour mastermind session, or a three-hour mastermind session. We had a seven and a half hour [00:05:00] mastermind session. Never ever experienced anything like it before. You know why?

The ladies were blissing, sharing ideas, sharing resources, asking each other’s opinions, just getting to know each other.

And after that day, I created a bold vision in my business, and that bold vision was to take that best part of the whole retreat and make it its own whole retreat, which is why we created something called the Amp Up Adventure, which is our mastermind cruise for women in business on a mission.

And last year, that bold vision came to life. And I remember standing in the dining room where we were doing some masterminding, [00:06:00] standing there looking at all the round tables with all the gals blah, blah, blah-ing with each other and blissing.

And that was the bold vision that was a result of an idea. And this year we’re doing it again. We’re going to Alaska this time on our Amp Up Alaska Adventure. Some of you are coming. Some of you are sponsoring. Thank you, my friends. And that event, I made a even bigger vision. I made myself a little picture with all the round tables, with all the smiley faces of all the ladies.

And that vision has me jump up every day And be blissing to get in action.

Next year, some of you know, I’m gonna take a group to Italy for a retreat, [00:07:00] and that vision of seeing myself with the ladies sitting in the piazza, sipping espresso, with the Italian chatter all around us, that makes me bliss.

I’m gonna ask you right now, do you have a bold, compelling vision for your business that is fueling you to be in massive action every day?

And if not, I want to invite you, that is your first bold leadership principle.

You know what is so exciting? I didn’t get to do this before. You can now create, with ChatGPT, you can create that compelling vision. I’m gonna tell Charlie, Charlie’s my ChatGPT. I’m gonna say, “Charlie, create me a picture of me and six amazing women sitting in the [00:08:00] piazza, sipping espresso, chatting and blissing.” I’m gonna do that later today, and I’m gonna see what Charlie comes up with.

Create your compelling vision, and that compelling vision will be the result of your bold desire for what you want in your business. and that will be the fuel to keep your party moving. Now, that’s number one.

Number two bold leadership principle, my friends, for some of you, this is the one: be decisive.

Be decisive about your pricing. Be decisive about your offering. Be decisive about who gets the privilege to be your client.

Have a client criteria that makes [00:09:00] you bliss. Now, I’m gonna give you a very important big hint right now. The biggest client criteria that will make you bliss is for you to say, “I want clients with the same values as me.”

My clients are positive. They are community-minded. They are generous. They are women on a mission. They operate with integrity just like me.

And when you Say out loud and you write down, “This is who I want to spend my time with. This is who I wanna serve.” Do you know what happens? Those gals will begin to show up.

And not only that, the gals that don’t match your criteria, they will not [00:10:00] be in your space much. Occasionally they’ll show up and you give them some love, but you don’t invite them to be in your community.

And let me tell you why.

Because I want to strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to consciously curate your community. Because when someone is in your community, they’re not just your client, they are interacting with all of your other VIP clients.

And we don’t want gals that we feel are not what we would like… meaning their values.

I remember many years ago, I had this gal come into our community. Lovely gal, ambitious gal, successful gal, and she hired [00:11:00] four of the gals in my community. One for graphics, one for events, couple other things, for a couple other things. And guess what? She didn’t pay anybody. She did not pay anybody. Oh my gosh, I was so distressed. I tried so hard to get her to pay everybody.

But you know what I did after this debacle?

Wrote her a big check and sent her on her way. Cost me a pretty, lots of pretty pennies, but you know what?

Here’s a guiding principle my dad taught me, and my mom. If you can throw money at a problem and make it go away, you can get rid of your problem. Now, you might say to me, “Caterina, that’s fine if you got money,” and you may not feel that you have some. Well, let me tell you something. You want a bliss in your [00:12:00] business? You wanna be a bold leader in your business? Financial surplus supports that. We’ll talk about that a little bit more.

Here’s my point: Be decisive about who gets to come and hang out with you. Create that criteria. Upgrade that criteria.

Because when you are a woman on a mission and you find women that are aligned with you, and you get to support them, and they get to support each other, you are gonna be blissing and your clients are gonna be blissing.

And you know what happens when we have blissing clients? Two important things.

One, they start to have their own massive impact. They start to create their own communities if they want to. In my case, I’ve seen they start to do their own retreats. [00:13:00] They start to have their own clients that are having massive impact as a result of working with them. That is phenomenal.

And you know what else happens when you consciously curate your community?

They become friends. They become collaborators. They are uplifting and enriching each other’s lives because they’re all aligned, and they all match.

Now, it’s very interesting. They look different on the outside, they have different businesses, they run different lives, some are married, some are single, ethnic diversity, everything. But when values are aligned, women thrive with the other women with the values aligned.

So I’m inviting you to be decisive, to consciously curate, to make a decision [00:14:00] about who gets to be served by you and gets to connect with your other gals.

Now, I do wanna say actually one thing. So some of you know I have a center in San Francisco. I was there last night speaking for a lovely group of businesswomen. I’ve had my center since about a year before the pandemic. And you’ve probably heard me say if we’ve ever been in the same room that successful women make decisions quickly.

That’s being decisive.

I had been looking for a place for my center for five years. I got sick of giving all my hard-earned money to the hotels and feeling unappreciated and, in fact, not only unappreciated, but they weren’t in love with me because my gals were mostly local, so they didn’t buy [00:15:00] sleeping rooms. And they always wanna sell their sleeping rooms, especially by the airport where I used to host all my events.

So I said to myself one day, “Enough with these hotels. I’m gonna get my own place.” Five years I’m looking. I go look all over. I look at buildings. I say, “No, this is not my place.”

Well, at the time I owned a building with my mom. There was a hair salon on the top and a cafe on the bottom. And my mom calls me one day and she says, “Alex is leaving. He’s the guy who owned the hair salon.” And she said, “Why don’t you put your center in the hair salon?” I thought to myself, “Well- Maybe, but you know, there’s only one bathroom and there’s not a lot of parking and… I said, “Can you give me 24 hours?”

You know what my mom said to me? She said to me, [00:16:00] “No.” She said, “you gotta decide right now.”

Now my friends, this is one of the, my biggest business decisions. I had to insta make it. And guess what? I did. And then I found out, I realized, I forgot at the moment, there’s a huge parking lot block and a half up. Huge. Free.

In a moment sometimes the decisions you make will support you. Do not feel that you have to ruminate and research and ponder and talk to 10 people before you move forward.

Successful women make decisions quickly. Bing, bing.

Take a deep breath, my friends. Ask yourself right now, what decision have you been, blah, [00:17:00] going on and on and on about? It’s time to make a decision and go.

Because part of time, you know why you’re not making the decision? ‘Cause you’re not trusting yourself.

Maybe you wanna write a book. Maybe you wanna do a retreat. Maybe you wanna start a new program, but you’re getting ready to get ready because you’re not really sure you could do it. But when you make the decision, now it starts for you to be figuring it out. Getting it?

Next bold leadership guiding principle: Run your business for where you’re going, not where you are. Run your business for where you’re going.

Now, my friends, I’ve been serving women entrepreneurs for 30 years, 30-plus years. [00:18:00] Makes me bliss. And before any of you knew me, I was more of what I call a run-around speaker. Run to the East Coast and give a speech on coaching skills for managers. Go somewhere else and teach foster parents about powerful communication.

I was a run-around speaker. But do you know, this is actually 20 years ago, when I got married, I decided I didn’t wanna run all over the country. I wanted to stay in my hometown. But I still wanted to do my thing. So I said to myself, “Well, you know what? I want to be the kind of speaker that people come and they fly in to be with me.”

Now, what does that mean? That means I was gonna do my own events Produce my own [00:19:00] events rather than getting paid to speak for other people.

And I remember the day that I pulled out of the hotel parking lot, and a few people had flown in. We had a full room. Guess what, my friends? I did not even make an offer. It wasn’t about making an offer, it was about doing the thing that I wanted to do to prove to myself that I could do it. And pulling out of that driveway of the parking lot, I never felt prouder of myself and I never blissed more in having done something to move my life and my business in the right direction.

And today, not only do gals fly in from all over to come to my speaker retreats, to come on cruise retreats with me, I’m blissing because [00:20:00] of that bold leadership move I took so long ago.

And the other thing is, the more you do bold action, the more you’re gonna be blissing.

So what have we talked about so far?

Having a compelling, bold vision.

Being decisive, and looking at how you can be even more decisive.

Make decisions more quickly.

And by the way, one of the things that supports decisiveness is having criterias.

Look at where in your business you don’t have criterias that you can bring one in.

So for example, Your client criteria, we’ve talked about that. Your vendor criteria. Who has the privilege of you being their client? And I’m gonna say, a lot of it again [00:21:00] is about the values. They could be a totally different type of person. If they have the same values, you are going to be aligned.

Criteria for your charitable giving. Some of you were with me at our Fempire Fest. Part of that event was a fundraiser for deaf women empowerment organization for women in Nepal. Teaches them how to start their own enterprises. We support women in Zambia with their own business.

My charitable giving criteria is for girls’ and women education and entrepreneurship and personal empowerment through financial success for women around the world. That’s my criteria.

Now, is there a lifetime supply of important causes? Yes, there’s a need everywhere Trafficking, breast cancer. Yes, the list is a [00:22:00] mile long, right? We can’t give to every Mary Jane and Sheila who asks for some support. We have to decide, what am I gonna put my attention on?

And you can choose to expand that and add more, but create a criteria to get started.

Create a criteria for who gets to be on your team. . Create a criteria for what you need from the people on your team. The more you can create criteria, the better.

I’m gonna tell you another little thing that I’ve done. On my calendar now, this is, my time criteria. After every speech, after every networking event, after every class I’m teaching, I have at least a half an hour, if not an hour, of nothing on the calendar. That’s a [00:23:00] time for break- And before that is a time for prep. So I’m not doing what I used to do, which was go from class at 10:00 to 11:00, class at 11:00 to 12:00, class at 12:00 to 1:00. No. Now I have time in there after for my to-dos, for my preparation, and that is an SOP now, standard operating procedure.

What are those things that you find really work for you? And make them universal through your whole business. And I’m gonna put that under bold too.

And I’ve got one more bold leadership principle for you.

Ready for it, my friends?

Recognize selling is service.[00:24:00]

Selling is service. Now I’m gonna tell you the one thing that I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard it. I would be a billionaire. “I don’t wanna be salesy.” I’ve heard it hundred, thousand, million times, “I don’t wanna be salesy.”

Sweetheart, I don’t wanna be salesy either. Here’s the thing. If we can’t sell, we can’t serve.

Now, I’m gonna tell you, I teach sales. You all know that, right? I have a sales class starting on Monday. Some of you have been in my sales class several times.

Here’s my sales conversations. “Hey, my friend, what’s new and exciting?” [00:25:00] If I don’t know them, “hey, my friend, tell me about you. Tell me about what you’re up to. Tell me about what you wanna be up to.”

Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. At some point, ask more questions. And then at some point, ask a question, “Hey, sounds like you’re a great match for our sales program that starts on Monday. Would you like to hear about it?”

Always ask before you tell. Now, if somebody just told you to tell them about what you’ve got, are you being salesy?

No, my friends. Very simple.

And when you wear your C.A.P.E., which is your Certainty, your Authenticity, your Positivity, and your Enthusiasm while you’re telling them, that is gonna have whatever you’ve got be more alluring to them.[00:26:00]

And here’s my other big guiding principle for selling. The more gals you talk to, the more clients you get.

It’s not rocket science. Selling is all about relationships.

It’s all about talking to people that you feel are a great match, asking them if they wanna hear about it.

Don’t do what a lot of gals are doing. They’re hiding behind their social media, waiting for people to say, “I really wanna talk to you about your XYZ.”

If you are waiting for that, my friend, I am sorry for you.

Because I can tell you, having had hundreds of clients, having filled over 300 group programs, having filled over [00:27:00] 50 retreats, if I held up my hand with five fingers, that’s probably how many times somebody has said, “I am super interested in signing up for what you’ve got,” or something like that.

It’s all about beginning the conversation

So my friend, I want you right now, to recognize that the more you connect with gals that are a great match for you, the more you get to know them, the more you invite them to talk to you, the more gals will become your client.

Now, if you’re super savvy, you’re gonna build some influence first, not just with your social media, do that, but with your speaking. Because speaking allows you to build insta-influence.

Okay, my friends, we’ve talked about your compelling vision.

We’ve talked about your decisiveness.

We’ve talked [00:28:00] about run your business for where you’re going.

We’ve talked about recognize that selling is service.

And I wanna ask you, which one of these bold leadership guiding principles do you want to embrace right now? That you know would support you on your path to not only bliss more in your business, but to actually grow and scale and serve more with your business.

And please, don’t just say, “Okay, Caterina, that was really nice. And some ideas.” I really want you to pick one.

We just did quarterly planning a couple days ago with my clients. That’s all about getting ready for the next quarter. Take this next quarter to amplify your attention on this bold leadership principle so that you can bliss more in your business.

My friends, I want to invite you to talk to me about not only your bold leadership, but your speaking, your [00:29:00] selling. Most importantly, take more bold action so that you can bliss more in your business and uplift more lives. Bing, bing, bing.

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