From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Leveraging Your Flamingo Advantage with Katie Hornor

Megan
00:00:00

This is season eight of the Making a Marketer Podcast with your hosts, Megan Powers and Jen Larsen. This show is your resource for all things business, branding and of course, marketing, no matter your experience level.

Our guests provide the dynamic insights and stories to help you in business and in life, no matter how you listen. We're so glad to have you with us. Here we go.

Hello. Hello and welcome to the Making a Marketer Podcast. I'm Megan Powers with Powers of Marketing.

As you know, if you've been listening, the show is brought to you by Powers of Marketing, our standard sponsor. But if you would like to sponsor the show, please shoot me an email - Megan@PowersOf.marketing.

We also want to do more of sending you to our website, which is a Podpage website. It's MakingAMarketerPodcast.com.

I just attended PodFest and have all sorts of ideas and things that we want to be doing percolating to expand our reach and to do more good stuff which includes doing some lives. Right, Jen, my co host, Jen Cole.

Jen
00:01:18

Hi, Jen.

Katie
00:01:19

Hey.

Jen
00:01:20

Yes. Yes. Live streaming. I think this is going to be a great direction. I'm so excited.

Megan
00:01:25

Yeah, we, I mean, we used to do one per month, but now we're going to try and about every other week -- twice a month we're going to try to do them all live. I am on the ECAMM train. I need to figure out how to fully use it. I need a little, I think ending in another little tutorial.

But Doc Rock helped me at PodFest to get set up on it. So I'm looking forward to spending our Friday afternoons. So we hope it will be appointment listening for y'all. What time did we decide on?

2:00 Pacific.

Jen
00:01:55

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan
00:01:57

2:00 Pacific, 5:00 Eastern. Jen is out in central land, so that'll be 4 o'clock her time every other Friday. So. So be on the lookout for that.

You can Watch us on YouTube or LinkedIn or if you're still on the Book of Faces, you can do it there too. So we'll see that all goes. I'm super excited to get back live again.

Jen
00:02:17

Me too. I think this will be fun.

Megan
00:02:19

Our friend Jeff C. Encouraged me while we were when we were at podfest to go live more. So we are gonna rock with that. But today, our guest.

Thank you for being with us, Ms. Katie Horner. Welcome to the show.

Katie
00:02:34

Hi. Thank you. Excited to be here.

Megan
00:02:35

We are going to be talking flamingos in the mix on this show and you can't see her because this one's just an audio podcast. But she's got a pink, pretty pink flower in her hair. She's got a flamingo behind her and stuff. I'm loving this look.

Jen
00:02:52

Yeah.

Megan
00:02:53

So let me quickly read her bio.

A trip up a river and a chance encounter with flamingos in the wild sparked a lifelong mission to help entrepreneurs embrace their unique purpose and boldly live it out through businesses that are in service of their life and calling.

Our guest today is a prolific, award winning author, keynote speaker and business strategist who has empowered thousands to grow their businesses without compromising their faith, family or values.

As a mother of five, ministry wife, Airbnb owner, and 18 year expat in Mexico, she brings a wealth of experience and passion to the stage or to our pod, as we say. Her masterful use of flamingo metaphors offers a fresh perspective on uniqueness and marketing. I'm excited for the show today, Jen. Let's kick it off.

Jen
00:03:39

Okay. I'm so excited about this too. I think this is going to be something completely different than other things that we've done in the past.

Fresh perspective. So the flamingo advantage is such an intriguing concept.

Do you mind sharing with us how this idea came about and why you chose flamingos as your metaphor?

Katie
00:03:57

Well, the flamingos kind of chose me. That trip of a river that you mentioned was sort of my first encounter with flamingos, but I couldn't get them out of my head.

And I'd been coaching business for years and been sort of dancing around this idea of you have to live your uniqueness, whether that's in your personal life or your weekend life or your business life. You have to be true to who you are and what you've been put here to do.

And the more I studied the flamingos, the more these lessons just kept coming out about how flamingos and entrepreneurs are similar. And the advantage is that the flamingo doesn't have to negate how unique they are. They get to just stand up and be proud of it.

And we should too, as entrepreneurs. There's all kinds of things about each of us in our business and in our place in the world and in the market that we should be proud of.

We shouldn't try to hide that pinkness that we have.

So from there, it sort of morphed into what is now our brand and a book title and all kinds of great marketing around this idea of bringing your uniqueness into what you do and who you serve.

Jen
00:04:59

Yeah.

You know, it's really funny because when your name came up, the Other day it was interesting because I haven't seen you in years, but this was what I remembered. I remembered colorful. I remember the flowers. I remember that personal brand of yours that you can't forget it. It's, it's beautiful. It's amazing.

It's very unique. And so you're doing it very well.

Katie
00:05:19

Well, thank you.

Jen
00:05:19

Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to have you on the show. I'm excited to dive deeper into this.

I think it's going to be really enlightening and inspiring for our listeners and of course, us too.

Megan
00:05:28

Yeah, always. We learned so self serving this show for us to learn personal development.

Katie
00:05:35

What can we do?

Megan
00:05:36

That's right. All right, so as Jen said, let's dive a little bit deeper into this concept.

So what does it mean to embrace your flamingo advantage in both life and business? Can you dig a little deeper on that?

Katie
00:05:49

Sure.

I think what other people might call the flamingo advantage would be like your usp, your unique selling position, or the way that you stand out from your competitors in the marketplace.

And I like to call it the flamingo advantage because even though there are millions of other people out there doing what you do, nobody does it like you do. And with my clients, and I know I have many people who come to me for coaching that are like, yeah, but so.

And so is doing that or, you know, I don't want to look like I'm copying them or, you know, like those kind of conversations are real in our heads and sometimes real in person. Right.

And so narrowing in on what makes you unique within that sphere of all the other people who do what you do, like there's lots of other people out there trained to be EMTs and lifesavers. That doesn't mean we don't need one more. Right. But you have a unique spin on the way you do.

Unique background, unique education, unique network, unique experience, unique accomplishments. And all of that builds in to make you you. And it's not anything you need to be ashamed of or try to hide.

It should be something that you get to leverage in the marketplace to call those people to you who need you. And here's a unique flamingo fact, I'm going to throw the first one at you. Flamingos have their own unique voices.

So even though they look just like all the other birds in the flock, even though biologists even have a hard time telling male from female, until they get really up close and personal, they can know each other, they distinguish each other, and they create relationships and communicate back and forth based on their Voices, that's how they know one another.

So when you think about that, in the entrepreneurial space, each one of us has our own unique voice, our own unique flair, our own unique way of saying things and explaining things and, and serving the people that we serve. And that calls to certain people, certain people resonate us when they might not resonate with the next bird in line, if you get my meaning. Right.

And so that's our flamingo advantage. And it's something that we can leverage and be proud of.

Megan
00:07:44

I love that.

So this just reminded me of I had a client who created a project management tool for event professionals and I was in the, like tech startup space, exhibiting at an event show. And one of the other entrepreneurs, startup, also had the nerve to say to me, like, why would you do this when people can just use X platform?

And I was like, like what? Like, that's crazy if you're trying to say that there should only be one of anything.

Like that's like saying, oh, why did you start an audiovisual company when there's already, you know, 500. Like, because it's my business and it's a. Wait, what?

Katie
00:08:23

And it's a perfect open door to say, here's why we're different, here's what makes us different. And to be able to, to leverage that, to show how you stand out.

Megan
00:08:31

Yeah, totally. And I did, but I just felt like being on the defensive after some people think that way, and I.

Katie
00:08:38

Why would I do something else?

Jen
00:08:40

Yeah.

Megan
00:08:40

And then I was like, for the next show, I was like, I don't want to be next to that guy. Make sure we're not next to that, that exhibitor. So silly.

Jen
00:08:47

That's so funny. So, you know, as marketers, we like to be aware of the trends. We like to be on trends, and we're very focused on trends.

So with that being said, how do we balance staying relevant while staying true to our own unique selves?

Katie
00:09:01

Well, I think staying relevant has to do with listening and being up on the trends, like you're saying, listening to those who are in the lead in your market, listening to the trends, but also listening to your people and what they want.

Relevance has a lot more with about to do with listening to your audience or your clients and customers or prospective clients and customers, I think, than it does just to what even what the market is doing because the market is following your clients and customers as well. And so listening to them, hearing them, and then being able to again, add in your own flair. This is how we're different.

This is how we go above and beyond. This is how we tackle that. This is our perspective.

And one the ways that you can do that, quite simply, is just by stating something like, you know, most of the other people out there doing X say to do it this way. Here's why I disagree, or here's why we do it different. Right. So you can do it in a very positive way.

You're not putting them down, you're not calling them out, but you're just very simply stating, here's what everyone else is doing and here's how we're different.

Jen
00:10:03

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I have been watching. Well, I've actually been rewatching. I believe it's Selling Manhattan.

I don't know if you've ever watched that show, but it's like Ryan Sirhant and he's selling these penthouses in Manhattan and they're gorgeous and everything. But I remember the first episode and he's talking about what. What sets him apart and what sets Sirhan apart.

And there's a lot of really cool things like cobalt blue and the, you know, his attitude and his approach to content creation even. And it's really cool to, like, dive into that kind of stuff, but sometimes it's, you know, hard to figure that out too.

Megan
00:10:33

Yeah, yeah. Actually, real estate's a great example, right. Of where, like, you've got a whole bunch of people trying to sell the same stuff.

That house could potentially be sold by ten different realtors. Right. But whether it get. Gets the deal, gets done or not will depend a lot on how the seller gets on with the realtor. Right?

Jen
00:10:50

Yeah, yeah. It's a. It's a lot about selling like yourself, I feel like. And that's when I got into advertising.

Back in the day, I worked for a newspaper and that was what they were trying to teach me. I was never a good salesperson. I was so focused on the product that I could never believe that I was selling myself. But I was also, like, in my 20s.

I didn't. I don't even know if my brain was developed yet.

Katie
00:11:11

It did not.

Jen
00:11:13

I was like, sell myself? What do you mean?

Katie
00:11:15

I get it now.

Megan
00:11:17

That's funny. Okay, so let's talk. Like, seeing things from an outside lens can be a challenge. Right?

So with that in mind, how can business leaders identify what makes them or their business uniquely valuable within their industry? Right, because it's going to vary on the person, but it's also going to depend on the industry. Right?

Katie
00:11:38

Yeah.

I think if you already have clients and Then one way to do this is to go to them and to look at your reviews or run a survey, get feedback, have a few phone calls and talk to them and ask them why they chose you. Why do they keep working with you? Right. What is it about us that makes you choose us over the other guys? Right.

If you don't have clients and you're looking at just within you, yourself or your team, what is it that makes us different? And go through that list, like I said, what is our education background? What is our experience background?

What kind of accomplishments do we have in the staff? What kind of clients of has each team member worked with in the past that they bring that experience? Right.

And then you're able to sort of create like a mind map of sorts of what are all the things that we have that would work in our favor. And just like Jen was saying, it's hard to sell yourself.

I deal a lot with people who have sort of this mindset limitation that, like, oh, I don't want to be seen as prideful or I don't want to feel like I'm bragging or whatever. And, you know, I think we've seen a lot of bad examples of that in the past.

And sometimes our media and our world tend to make fun of that to an extreme, and we just tend to think that everybody is that way. But really, there is no shame in stating facts.

If you or your team or your company has made a certain achievement, helped a client achieve a certain thing, whether that be, you know, awards or financial numbers or projects finished, whatever the case may be, whatever it is that you help people with, there's no shame in talking about that because it's a fact, it happened, and you did it because of the experience and the expertise that you bring.

And so honing in on that and noticing those kinds of trends within the skill sets in your business is going to help you to say, okay, that's somewhere that we can leverage, that we can do that. The other one more thing that you can look at is to look at what kind of clients or what kind of projects or results you tend to do best at.

And you can sort of narrow it down. You know, they're always talking about niching the riches are in the niches, right? Getting narrowed down and narrowed down and narrowed down.

If you know that you have the best results with women who are 40 to 45, who are in this specific niche, who have this specific personality, then like, that's your leverage, that's your flamingo advantage. You are the wizard for that person. Right.

And that's the perfect client avatar that you should be going after and leveraging those results with those people.

Megan
00:14:05

Yeah, that's super helpful. Yeah. And I think it is important to continue to reevaluate.

Jen
00:14:11

Right.

Megan
00:14:11

Like, you created these three different widgets, but maybe it's been five years and one of those widgets isn't needed anymore, or maybe we need to create another widget or, you know, whatever. Terrible example, but, you know, you get the point.

Katie
00:14:24

Yeah.

Megan
00:14:25

Yeah.

Katie
00:14:25

Well, and like, when I started coaching, I was 30, in my early 30s, and I was coaching generally people that were in their 40s and 50s. And now that I'm in my mid-40s, my demographic has shifted, and now I'm starting to coach women who are in their 30s and 40s. Right.

And so everyone changes. That's part of life.

Megan
00:14:43

Yeah.

Katie
00:14:44

We can't expect to stay the same. And that goes for us and it goes for our client base. And so you have to willing to continually evaluate that.

And look, you know, is that still something I want to leverage or do I now have a different skill set that it makes more sense to leverage?

Megan
00:14:58

Totally, totally. Perfect. Okay. It is brain break time. Try to at halftime or halftime. Ish. At least halftime.

As far as the questions go, ask a question that gets us thinking about something a little bit outside of the business realm for the most part, part. So the question this time is, what habit are you either getting rid of or adopting in the new year? Notice we didn't call it a resolution.

We call it a habit, which is, you know, the bristle, the R word. It's like a bad word. And it's like, so we already had quitting Friday, Right. So like within two weeks of the first, it's like eggsaw commercial.

And the guy goes, it. It's a thing. Google it, like, or look it up or something. By the second Friday, people have stopped doing whatever it was that they resolved to do.

Okay, so we're going to talk habits. So, Jen, what is a habit that you are either getting rid of or adopting?

Jen
00:15:50

So this is kind of a big thing for me, and especially with the lifestyle that Tim and I live. But I have decided to, like, severely cut down my drinking. Like, severely.

Like, even when I'm out at a really fun place where I would normally want to.

To have a glass of wine or a cutesy cocktail or whatever, I'm asking for mocktails or I'm asking for kombucha, or I'm just drink water and I was sick for a couple of Weeks. But I've been doing this for almost a month now. And it's incredible how much better it makes you feel to cut that out or just not. Not completely.

I'm not cutting it out completely because there are times where I'm like, let's celebrate.

Megan
00:16:31

And wine. Juice. Yeah.

Jen
00:16:36

Because I love wine, but I don't like being hungover. I don't like being drunk. I like to drink, but so I'm like, you know what? This, we're going to make this a treat again. We're going to make it special.

Megan
00:16:46

Special.

Jen
00:16:46

Not like an everyday or every week thing.

Megan
00:16:49

Yeah, a lot of it. It's a habit or like ritual more than anything.

So if you can make that habit or rituals, then be like a fizzy drink with juice in it, you know, splashing it or whatever instead of the booze.

Jen
00:17:02

Or even like, I have like this mix that I've been taking at night to help me sleep. It's just a. It's a blueberry magnesium glycinate powder that I just put in water and it tastes delicious. This. And it knocks me out worse.

Oh, it's so good. It's like blueberry muffins in a glass. I love it.

Megan
00:17:17

Oh, my gosh, that's funny.

Jen
00:17:18

So I'm finding joy in other places and I like that.

Megan
00:17:21

That's great.

Jen
00:17:22

Yeah.

Megan
00:17:22

What about you, Katie?

Katie
00:17:23

So I've replaced my morning coffee with a morning cacao drink, which is like an organic cocoa powder, a cocoa, like just straight from the beans, cocoa.

And I've replaced the milk with a whole milk powder, and I've replaced the sugar with honey, and I'm adding in turmeric and cinnamon and of those spices that they say are good for you to, you know, all get the rid of the toxins and keep the blood flow, like all those kinds of things. And so I really haven't noticed any huge, like, caffeine headaches or anything like that.

And really I'm enjoying that new sort of ritual in the morning.

Megan
00:18:00

Nice.

Jen
00:18:00

That's awesome.

Megan
00:18:01

Are you trying to cut caffeine out or was it just a. I wasn't.

Katie
00:18:05

No. I didn't feel like I had a caffeine problem necessarily. I just knew that I didn't like the milk in the coffee.

That was one thing, because we have like a processed. A weird processed milk. I just was trying to make better choices. And a friend of mine told me about this and say, hey, you should try.

I like hot chocolate anyway. Anything chocolate, right?

Jen
00:18:23

Yeah.

Katie
00:18:24

I wasn't expecting that. I would not miss the coffee as much, and I really don't. Haven't missed it.

Megan
00:18:31

All right, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, matcha is the thing that I think a lot of people have replaced their coffee with. And I'm like, what is matcha?

I had to Google it the other day. What is it?

Katie
00:18:41

Peruvian or something, isn't it? Yeah. Delicious.

Megan
00:18:43

This. Yeah. So I. Jen, also, I gave up drinking for a month, and I'm not calling it dry January. I just, like, I don't want to drink this month.

It's interesting, though, because I definitely have been. What's the word? Like, I feel like I've gotten more done, but I also.

I don't feel any different, and I have not lost any weight, which is kind of annoying because this is the main reason for me doing it. But, you know, we all got in all these habits through Covid, and I just never let them go. It was, like I said, more out of habit or ritual.

So, you know, if I'm at a bar, I'm like, can I just put some bitters and soda water and some fresh lime? And that, like, makes me feel like I'm having a cocktail when I'm in, like, the Delta Sky Lounge at the airport. But. Yeah.

And then trying to, like, you know, not eat too late into the evening, you know?

Jen
00:19:31

Yeah.

Megan
00:19:32

I made lots of incremental changes. Eat a little bit earlier in the day. Yeah.

And, yeah, so I'm going to layer out sugar, But I was like, I can't cut out sugar and alcohol at the same time. There's just no way that's gonna happen. Body is like. In fact, I read people, when you cut out alcohol, you tend to crave sugar more. And I.

I'm finding that to be true because I. I'm usually not much of a sweet tooth, but I did buy some Valentine's candy when I was at the store the other day. So there's that.

But dark chocolate, it's better. Good for you. So. Right. Yum.

Katie
00:20:06

It is.

Jen
00:20:06

I love that stuff.

Megan
00:20:08

All right, that was fun. All right, let's kick off the second now.

Jen
00:20:11

Okie dokie. All right, so this is fascinating. You guys have published 90 titles. So how has leverage your flamingo advantage influenced your creative process?

Katie
00:20:24

Well, I think one of the biggest things in the creative process is that you are leaning into all of those experiences and pulling them in. And especially where writing is concerned, you have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of ways to. To bring that in.

And I have an education background as well, and so the Teach teacher in me likes the. The lessons, the object lessons and. And tying two things together.

And I think that that's one of the things that has allowed us to be able to publish so much is that we are constantly putting something out. Just. It's almost like who I am, I can't help but not teach most of the time.

Jen
00:21:02

Amazing. My parents are retired teachers as well. Always educated. Still. Always educated. Learning. It's always did, you know, and that's why.

Katie
00:21:11

That's why I went to college for education, is because I knew that no matter where you are, you're teaching someone something.

Jen
00:21:16

Yeah.

Katie
00:21:17

Right. And so, you know, it works well when you're a coach and a consultant.

Jen
00:21:21

It sure does. It sure does. And some people just really have a gift for teaching, like, even sometimes unintentionally teaching and inspiring.

I think it's a special person that's able to do that so organically.

Megan
00:21:33

Yeah. I got my undergrad in English, and the number one most asked question of me was, oh, so you're going to teach?

Jen
00:21:39

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

Megan
00:21:40

No, no. Like, my brother goes, oh, because only teachers need to know how to write well. Right? Like, it's like such a silly notion. He was kidding. Sarcasm.

Yeah. It's just such a silly question. It's like, I mean, I can do anything with this degree, really.

I mean, communication is important, and I got to read books and just write papers. I didn't have to take tests. It was amazing because I'm just not a good standardized test taker. Right. Like, it's just like. Yeah.

So I didn't learn until later that that was actually a thing. I just thought bad student. So. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about leveraging that uniqueness.

So in your experience, like, how would you recommend or how do you coach people to leverage their uniqueness to impact customer relationships and even, like, loyalty to their brand?

Katie
00:22:30

Well, I think when you talk about leveraging uniqueness to impact customers and loyalty, I think there needs to be a little bit of a flip to where now we're. Instead of talking about my uniqueness, I need to start thinking about the client's uniqueness.

And going back to the teacher thing, we know that as people and students have love languages, they have learning styles, they have languages of apology. Right.

And when you pull all of those into your relationship with your customers and clients, then it makes it easy for you to stand out and be unique, because you're the only one taking this into consideration that they're not just every one of them. A copycat of the other one. Right now we're saying, okay, so and so hasn't been on a coaching call for three, three weeks. Their love language is time.

Let's have a team member reach out to them and make a phone call and see if they need a 15 minute call. We'll check in with the coach. Right. And they respond well to that. And that makes them feel loved and seen and heard. Right.

And, and that makes you unique because you're actually taking the time to do that in a way that means something to the client. So I think that when we look at especially the loyalty piece, clients will buy because they're looking for a solution to their problem.

They often will stay or renew because they found community or they felt heard and seen.

And so that's where, you know, checking in on their uniqueness, what do they need, what makes them feel special, what makes what meets their needs and those more personality related kinds of things is going to be helpful in maintaining the loyalty over the long run.

Megan
00:24:02

That's so interesting. All right, I like it. You just flip the script, right?

Jen
00:24:08

Yeah.

Katie
00:24:09

I have a whole keynote around using the love languages and learning styles in your marketing. Marketing even to people who are not yet clients. And a lot of it has to do with we know people have, they learn in all these different ways.

We know that they respond to feeling valued in all these different ways. Why are we not including those things in our marketing on a regular basis?

Megan
00:24:29

How do you uncover what those things are?

Katie
00:24:32

Well, if you're marketing to people that are not yet clients, then you don't necessarily uncover and be like, oh, she's, you know, she's got glasses, she needs the visual whatever. But you do it by incorporating like all the different ways as much as you can.

And so you're not just thinking about the visuals, you're also thinking about the copy or you're thinking about different ways for them to get the copy. Maybe we have, you know, that's why we have video ads now. That's why you might have an audio ad on a podcast because some people are audio listeners.

Right.

And then in your emails as well, or in the way that you outreach someone who is a gifts person as a love language, they're going to respond to a free gift. Somebody who is not a free gift person person, they're going to respond to a free 15 minute call because they're a time person. Right.

And so that's why you want to have a mixture of all these different kinds of marketing things because it's going to reach different people, attract different people based on their own personal learning styles and love languages and how they respond.

Megan
00:25:30

That's a great point. Yeah, good tip. Good tips. That's one thing I learned last week, too, is to not just talk to our listeners. I'm talking to you.

I'm talking to that one person. I'm supposed to be talking to you. If you're hearing this, it's you that we're talking to do.

Katie
00:25:44

Right? Right. Even. And in writing your emails. That's why we mail merge people's names into the. Hi, Katie. Hi, Jen. Right.

Instead of just saying, hey, y'all, I want to tell you every. I want to tell everyone this today.

You know, you make it sound like because they're just one person on the receiving end and they want to feel special, unseen, for sure.

Megan
00:26:02

I think it's funny, though, like, especially when you're an interview show with multiple people, it's hard to talk to just one person because you're already talking to two. Two people in the room. And so. But we are, you know, trying to talk to person at home, which is why we're trying to get feedback. Right.

Like, which this is why we have a survey on our website and we want to start collecting email from our listeners, which we haven't really done so far in eight years. It's just crazy.

Jen
00:26:28

That's a while.

Megan
00:26:29

Yeah. So we can learn from them what they want to know. Podcasting is just kind of a different beast.

And so we're needing to come up with unique ways to learn from you, listener, than you, that one person who's listening right now.

Jen
00:26:41

Teacher us, Teach us. So, all right. For some people, it's probably pretty challenging.

So for those that are feeling stuck or unsure or unconfident about their unique advantage, what advice would you give them to just get started?

Katie
00:26:55

Stop thinking about what other people are going to think or say.

Jen
00:26:58

I love that.

Katie
00:26:59

Yes. Yeah. I mean, you are you and you are uniquely you.

And you've been created that way on purpose and you've been given this job to do either, you know, if you're an employee by someone else or if you're self employed. Like, you've been put here for a reason and the reason you're still here, because there's still a reason for you to be here.

Somebody still needs what you have to offer.

And so stop being worried about what everyone else is going to think or say and start focusing on the people who need you and what they need from you.

Jen
00:27:27

Amazing. So it's like, don't be the people pleaser, take the people user out and please yourself.

Katie
00:27:34

It's people pleasing. But some of us like the people pleasing and the pat on the back and the. Yeah, you did so great at that. But others of us really fear the criticism.

Yeah, you shouldn't be doing that. Why do you do that? Who do you think you are? Right. And if it's not coming from outside, it's coming from our internal voices.

Jen
00:27:49

Oh, yeah.

Katie
00:27:50

And past experiences.

And really like, if they're not part of your team, if they're not part of your board, if they're not a client who's paying you, what do you care what they think? You need to reach the people who need you and let everything else fall to the side.

And so what does that person who needs you today need to hear here? What do they need you to be doing? And who cares what everybody else says because they're not your client. You're not doing this for them.

Jen
00:28:18

Yeah, that, that is a great thing that I, I feel like people need to focus more on. It is like it's a personality thing, client to business relationship.

And like, if the personality doesn't match up, then how are you going to work well together? And so some people, Kelly Marabella says the best. She's like, I'm not for everyone.

Katie
00:28:35

You know, you're not. And that's why every one of us has a different voice. Just like the flamingos. Right. Because you weren't made to serve everyone.

And it's okay if you can't serve them. You can direct them to somebody else and you can be happy, but you don't have any responsibility to have to please everyone.

I've had people say, well, I could never work with someone who had a flower in her hair. I just couldn't take her seriously. I'm like, great, then go fire, hire somebody else.

Megan
00:28:59

Yeah.

Jen
00:29:00

You know, like there plenty of people without flowers.

Katie
00:29:03

But I'm also not going to let them, you know, force me into, you know, I wear the flower because it reminds me that I get to be me today. Right. My visual reminder to just show up and be me and enjoy what I have in the moment. And that's, that's great.

And if that doesn't resonate, then I'm not for you. That's fine.

Megan
00:29:20

Yeah. I think it's also depends on how it's shared and in what spirit.

Jen
00:29:25

Right.

Megan
00:29:25

Because we learn from criticism, we, we grow from criticism. And so sometimes, and I hate it, like, I'm like, you know, words of affirmation that's my. I want it to be. I want to be positive.

I don't want you to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Yeah. But the flip side to that is, is being told something is. Can be a gift to help you grow and change and improve.

Katie
00:29:48

Right? Yes.

And I think, you know, anytime that you're given anything that can help you, whether it's criticism that comes kindly or unkindly or suggestions, like, any of us who want to grow should be taking that to heart and evaluating it. But then you have to.

You also have to have a thick enough skin to know that if it's just an ongoing critique because you are different people or different personalities or they don't like what you're doing, doing, or they're a competitor or whatever the case, you know, at some point, there has to be that wall there that says, I'm going to do what I know I need to do regardless of what the critics say. Right. And then you also have to have that inner strength that allows you to take the criticism and ask yourself the hard questions.

Do they have a point? Is there something I need to change? And if yes, go change it. And if no, let it roll off and keep going.

Megan
00:30:36

Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right.

Katie
00:30:38

Awesome.

Megan
00:30:38

Okay. We have come to our standing question that we like to ask our. Our guests this season.

That question is, what is the most amazing lesson that you've learned in the last year that surprised you?

Katie
00:30:51

One of the things that I have learned in the last 12 months is that we don't always need a champion. A lot of us as entrepreneurs are, maybe not consciously, but at least subconsciously. We're.

We're sitting back there going, man, I wish so and so would put me in the line. Limelight. I wish so and so would promote me. I wish so.

And, you know, we have those dreams of becoming this overnight sensation because someone picked us up or. Or promoted us in some way. And I think it's. It's common. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think it's human nature to have those things. But what I've come to realize over these last 12 months is that you don't have to wait for that. You can be your own champion.

It takes some initiative. It takes some organized research. It takes some good old hard work. Work. Right. But you can be your own champion.

You don't have to wait for someone to drop those kinds of opportunities in your lap. You can look for them. It's a new age of technology. You can. You can have AI write press releases for you.

Now, you don't have to have a publicist or someone call you from a big name magazine to get your name in the news. Right.

And there's so many ways that we could go into to talk about this, but essentially the lesson was what can you do to be your own champion and stop waiting for. For it to fall in your lap or for someone else to do it?

Megan
00:32:07

Perfect. And that works nicely with the theme of the show, too, right? That's. That's awesome.

Jen
00:32:11

It really does. Yeah.

Megan
00:32:12

Thanks, Katie. This was super valuable. We really appreciate you taking the time to record with us today.

Katie
00:32:19

Well, thank you. And you know, to the listener, if something that we said today struck you, like, let us know, Leave us a comment, send an email in.

I know that Jen and Megan love hearing from you guys, and it would be awesome to know what, what stood out and what's going to happen help you for sure.

Megan
00:32:33

Appreciate that. All right. And Jen, February 7th, we're going to start recording live.

And so those of you listening, look for us on the tube and on LinkedIn and all that good stuff. We will see you on February 7th at 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern. Thanks, Ms. Chen.

Jen
00:32:53

Thank you so much. You're a great host, Megan.

Megan
00:32:56

Oh, thanks, y'all. All right, my friend. And as we said, if you're still listening, go to our website, give us some feedback. We want to engage with you.

This has been another episode of the Making a Marketer podcast, and we will catch you next time.