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Episode 012: Reina Pomeroy - Creating a Joy-Filled Business that Allows You to Profit + Serve
149 Plays6 years ago
Reina Pomeroy is the Founder of Reina + Co, the Life + Biz Success Coaching® Practice for creatives who are right brained and heart centered. She helps clients stop spinning their wheels and take action on what’s most important so they can become the go-to expert in their industry. She is a Coach, Speaker, Educator, Author of the Big Plan for the Creative Mind, and Podcaster. Reina is a host of the Creative Empire Podcast and the Fueled with Heart Podcast to educate new entrepreneurs. Reina’s work has been featured on the Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast, Entrepreneur.com, Brit + Co, The Huffington Post, and the Rising Tide Society. Find out your secret sauce and where to put your focus at www.reinaandco.com.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-reina-pomeroy-episode-12/
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Transcript
The Power of Money for Good
00:00:08
Speaker
And so we have this icky mindset about money and we have to kind of release that and say, okay, as a heart centered person, money is actually a magnifier for our good. So if you really want to make an impact, if you want to do good in the world, having money is not a bad thing. Having money and making profit is being able to, you know, give more money to be able to give more time, whatever it is that, you know, for those of you.
Introduction to the Show and Guests
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands That Book Show, where we help creative businesses find more clients and build their brands. I'm your host, Davy Jones. Today's guest is Reina Pomeroy. Reina is the founder of Reina & Co., the life and biz success coaching practice for creatives who are right-brained and heart-centered. And she's also a speaker, author, and podcaster. Today, she's sharing about why you need to profit in order to serve your community well.
00:01:04
Speaker
Let's do this. Yeah. All right. Let's do this. Well, welcome. Welcome to the show. I'm fine. I'm glad that you that you finally been able to join me here. I've been on creative empire twice now. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's been a blast. And there's so many things I want to ask you about like moving your business across the country.
Challenges of Business Relocation
00:01:21
Speaker
You know, I can
00:01:22
Speaker
I mentioned this another episode, but moving must be in my top five least favorite things ever. If I could completely outsource that, I would, and we always talk about it, but we never do. I want to chat about that a little bit, but I really want to chat about is a profit.
00:01:42
Speaker
And we all, I mean, when we get into business for ourselves, I think that's something that we're all thinking about. I think everybody loves the idea of profit. But what people don't really like, I think, is selling. I think for a lot of us, that's something, it's more of an acquired skill than we think. I think some people go into it thinking that some people are good salesmen and others aren't. I'm sure that to maybe a certain extent, there's some natural ability in there.
00:02:10
Speaker
I think that at the end of the day is just a acquired skill. So I want to talk to you about that a little bit.
Boosting Productivity and Skills
00:02:17
Speaker
And I want to tell you something that I've been doing and I got this idea from you a long time ago. I think it was via maybe one of your newsletters or a conversation, but you used to block off weeks of time
00:02:29
Speaker
where you worked in your business versus, you know, taking coaching appointments. Yep. My A and B weeks. Yeah. And so we recently implemented that and I got to tell you, it has been amazing. Oh my gosh. That's so awesome to hear.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's been so incredible. And, you know, block scheduling is something that I've been trying to fool around with for so long now. But one of the challenges of block scheduling, I think, is that, you know, if you do it by day, it gets too difficult to figure out, okay, well, like, well, this week's different than last week. Whereas, you know, so I've been doing this A and B week thing. And then on Thursdays, I record that, or I leave that for any meeting. So even on a B week where I'm not taking any meetings, I leave Thursday open.
00:03:10
Speaker
just because ultimately i find that i have to take at least one meeting a week so that's been amazing i wanted to let you know that that's been it really hasn't been it's been super transformative i think for for our business and just our ability to actually work in our i mean
00:03:28
Speaker
on our business a little bit instead of just in it. So thank you for that. But I want to get back to talking about you. I want to talk about your coaching business. I want to talk about your background a little bit.
From Social Work to Coaching
00:03:41
Speaker
One thing that you do really well in your business is just service, I think, in general. And I think that's probably because you have a background in social work, right?
00:03:51
Speaker
And then in addition to that, your husband was in the military for a long time. So you guys just have service, I think, written all over your lives. But could you talk to us a little bit about how you got into coaching via social work?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those journeys that people say, oh, it's windy. It totally is. I thought that going in college, I measured in psychology, and I thought that I was going to become a lawyer, took the LSAT, applied, and decided, nope, I'm going to social work. And it was kind of one of those things that I just really wanted to help people. And I saw a need for, I thought I was going to be a therapist. I thought I was going to do all of that stuff.
00:04:34
Speaker
in that process, in being in school, being actually on the ground and I wanted to do something a little bit more impactful in a bigger way and social work is hard. I was working in inner city Baltimore doing foster care and trauma care and it's hard work and maybe people would say that I wasn't cut out for it and that's so true but I realized pretty early on that I needed a creative outlet. I really needed
00:04:59
Speaker
A different way of being I had just had my son and I couldn't do a two-hour commute DC area is tough with commutes and Driving back and forth with a little little one was really really tough So I made a decision to make the switch and right before I did
00:05:15
Speaker
In my social work career, I was given this opportunity to do coaching and I had no idea what coaching really was. I was like, wait, am I going to do like baseball? I don't know anything about it. And they told me, no, it's a thing where you talk to people. And I was like, wait, I can do that. But I didn't know how to not be a therapist and to do the coaching thing. And so there's a little bit of a distinction. Therapy looks at people's backgrounds and like what's happening behind the scenes and all of that.
00:05:42
Speaker
And for coaching, it's like, what's here right now as well as what's your potential? What's, you know, what do you want to be doing? And so there was a little bit of shift in perspective, but the listening part, um, the transition to doing all of that has not been all that big. So I went to coach training after I quit that job. Um, and.
00:06:03
Speaker
Here I am. I'm three years into my business and I absolutely love working with creative entrepreneurs.
Fulfilling Creative Entrepreneurship
00:06:08
Speaker
I help people find what's most important for them so that they can become the go-to expert in their industry to really figure out what their fulfillment is and we'll talk about this a little bit later but about the profit and serve thing.
00:06:19
Speaker
As creative entrepreneurs, it's really hard, like you said, to talk about the sales stuff. And I really want us to focus on serving people and being heart-centered, but at the same time, we have to make a profit. And instead of talking about the six-figure business owning and all of that stuff, that's sort of like hypy. Thinking about what your profit is and why you want to have that is really, really important.
00:06:40
Speaker
That's kind of like the spiel. Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit more about, you know, just service in your business because I know you give away part of your coaching proceeds and your affiliate, any affiliate sales that you have. So I want to talk about that here in a second. But transitioning out of social work to coaching, you went to coaching training. How did you find your first few clients?
00:06:59
Speaker
Oh my gosh, um, I was sort of unabashedly asking everybody. So one of the best things I did was just telling everybody what I was going to do and one to ask me questions because I didn't really know how to talk about coaching. Just as you know, I had learned a year ahead.
00:07:15
Speaker
I didn't know what coaching was, and so most of the world also doesn't know what coaching is. And I wanted people to ask me what it was about so that I can kind of sharpen my marketing words, I guess. I was definitely not talking to my ideal client, but they were asking me really good questions. And then from there, I got just coaching clients by really reaching out, asking people what they needed help in. Any time people feel stuck, I felt like that was my moment
00:07:45
Speaker
to be able to support people. So I did a lot of free sessions, got better, like one, develop my own skills. Just as you would as a photographer or a calligrapher, you have to practice your craft, right? And develop the business side as well. So I was kind of doing both of those in tandem.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, and that's so surprising to me that your business is only three years old because I feel like your messaging is very consistent and coherent and to the point, it's very clear what you do and how you do it on your website and throughout different marketing collateral. And I think what you said about just putting yourself out there and having people ask you questions is so interesting and sort of a theme that I've seen across interviews and people just getting started, how important that is just to put yourself out there.
00:08:31
Speaker
You know, it's so scary. Yeah, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. And I find even after, you know, having started a couple of businesses that sometimes, you know, all started a new project, and I won't tell anybody about it. And then I'll be like, you know, bummed that nobody's, you know, nobody's asking about it, right? You know, and Crystal, come on, be like, you know, you haven't told anybody about this. Right. So there's such value, I think it just putting yourself in putting yourself out there.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like one of those things that you want people to know that you're there and you have something to offer. But it's so scary to put it out there because what if you get turned down? But I think that something that I have reminded myself time and time again is that you can't help anyone if you don't tell people about it. And so like you can't create something and just expect people to show up. And so like
00:09:19
Speaker
yes you might get rejected that is part of the game but also you're gonna like as you go down this path you're gonna get clearer and clearer about who you're talking to who you're really helping and who you're ultimately able to serve best. So how did you how do you end up finding you know your ideal client in your niche as you got started in your business.
00:09:38
Speaker
I think I had a really big heart for event planners at the very beginning. I worked, one of my first clients was an event planner and actually a florist. So it's fun to be able to give back to that creative community in that way and say, okay, how do we get from where you are to where you want to be? And from there it was just word of mouth. I used, I didn't know anything about Instagram at the time, so that's fun.
00:10:04
Speaker
Literally, when I started my business, I had two people. I remember that moment. I think one of those people was my other account, so it was technically one person. Literally, just posting in Facebook groups, just showing up and giving people value. I didn't have a content creation platform. I didn't have a blog. I didn't have a website.
00:10:25
Speaker
for about five months after i started my business and so i really wanted to just figure out a way to be visible but not and still not have a website because i was creating it and i really just told myself i don't have to be perfect it doesn't have to happen like all in one day but i need to start finding those clients
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine that just in those initial conversations, it probably helped you refine, you know, your website and your whatever your content creation platform would become, which you know, today's rain and company, you know, so you build this business, and then you move across the country.
00:11:00
Speaker
And I have to ask because there's other people that especially military families, you know, I think we get we get that question a lot is we hear from people, especially when they want to talk about SEO, you know, they know they're going to be moving in a couple of months. How do you prepare for that? Was it discouraging at all? It's so funny that you asked this because I've interviewed so many people on the Creative Empire podcast who have also moved and every single person's tips are so different.
00:11:24
Speaker
I think it really depends on your business model. Mine does not require a location-based business strategy, and so my business model is completely online. The biggest concern that I had was, oh my gosh, I'm going to be out of commission for a couple weeks while we figure out housing and while we figure out my kiddos' daycare and all of that.
00:11:44
Speaker
Um, and also like my biggest fear was, oh my gosh, I'm going to be three hours behind the East coast. How am I going to survive? Which has not been that big of a deal. I did hate that though. When we were working on the West coast, it was just waking up and feeling like the rest of the world was, yeah, you know, that was, that was, uh, that was stressful for me. It was a legit concern when I was moving. So if you have felt like that, I get it. Um, no, but really it's, it's been really such an honor to be able to carry this business across the country because it's
00:12:13
Speaker
that this model works and it's harder for me to speak on businesses that are location-based but I think that if you are innovative and we've interviewed people who were photographers who had like very destined you know destination or like specific place
00:12:30
Speaker
Um, business and we're able to transport it, you know, 5,000 miles away. So it's totally possible military spouses and military, you know, people get this, but we have to move and it's just part of the life. And so, um, I think that if you are strategic and create community before you even get there, um, I think that that's one way to make that transition a little bit easier because you're going to be in like.
00:12:54
Speaker
complete foreign land even if you do speak the language or whatever and feeling alone is hard and Having some kind of support network there before you even move can be really helpful Yeah, for sure. And I think that's going back to
00:13:10
Speaker
The basics is just hard to remember sometimes. Again, going back to just starting new projects all the time. I have a problem with just starting new projects all the time, as you might be able to tell. And sometimes just remembering like, hey, I have to go back and I have to start with the first step. And oftentimes, especially with somebody who's location specific, I think. And it's nice that you probably meet with a lot of your clients online, so you really can be anywhere in the world
00:13:36
Speaker
But for those people who can't, I think trying to build those relationships and advance a little bit before they ever get out there goes a really long way.
00:13:47
Speaker
Another thing too, I just want to add for people who feel like, oh my gosh, I'm really starting over, is that if you already have a successful business somewhere, it's not like starting from zero. You might be backpedaling a little bit just because you have to get new clients and all of that, but honestly, you have a portfolio, you have business systems, you know what your pricing generally is, but you have so much more than
00:14:09
Speaker
day one of your business. And so we, we feel like we're starting brand new over, but it's not the case, right? So just reminding yourself that you have a lot kind of established already. Yeah, absolutely. So when people, when your coaching clients come to you, what are, what's kind of the most common, you know, reason that somebody would come to you? What do you hear most often?
Overcoming Client Challenges
00:14:30
Speaker
Is there, is there, are there any themes there? Yeah, a couple different things. So first one is,
00:14:35
Speaker
I have so many pieces of my business and I don't know how to bring them all together and I don't know how to talk about them so that my ideal clients find me. Another one is I know that I want to have a freedom-based lifestyle but I really don't love selling and I struggle with closing on those sales and I know I can help people but I don't know how to make that all happen.
00:14:54
Speaker
And another one is I have so many ideas. I have all my tabs open in my brain and on Chrome. And how do I close them down so I can focus? I don't know what to do first. And I have all these projects that I've started. And how do I make sure that I can keep making progress on those things?
00:15:10
Speaker
So those are kind of the basic buckets of things that people come to me for. And in the process we get to talk about launching, we get to talk about marketing, but really at the core of it, it's like, how do we figure out what's most important to you and then make progress on those things?
00:15:26
Speaker
So how, where do you even start with people to figure out what's most important? And I think, I think almost every entrepreneur has probably struggled with that at some point where there's just so many different ideas and there's so much, um, there's so many voices out there, you know, there's so many people putting out content saying you gotta focus on this or you gotta be focused on that. Um, so where do you even start with people?
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is to shut out the noise. This is like so hard as a content creator to say this, but you really need to look at what's inside and ask yourself, what is important here? Like what in this state in my life, in my business, what do I really want? We're not gonna be focusing on like, oh, I need to build this million dollar business later on down the line. Like what do you need right now? If that's, oh, I need childcare in order for me to be able to concentrate on my business, cool.
00:16:13
Speaker
And if that's I need to really start thinking about like making a healthy lifestyle change. Cool. That's fine. But like so that's kind of the thing that comes up often in my work is that it's the through line is that we have to focus on life and business at the same time or else we can't be well rounded entrepreneurs and then we end up burning out. So to kind of answer your question in a roundabout way.
00:16:35
Speaker
I think the most important thing is to do reflection first before we look at anyone else's content because no one else can tell us what quote unquote success looks like.
00:16:45
Speaker
no one can tell us what fulfillment feels like at the end of the day. We're the only ones that can define that. And so if you're looking at somebody else's goals and saying, oh, she wrote a book last year. I want to do that. You're like, okay, well, do you actually want to write a book or does that sound just really cool? And you want to be able to say that. So you have to kind of distinguish, you know, between the two things. And then once you get a little bit of clarity around that, then you can define what your priorities are. I typically like to think about in terms of like,
00:17:13
Speaker
What are your personal priorities? What are your family and home priorities? And then what are your business priorities? Because they all kind of happen in tandem. Yeah. And I like what you're saying there about that through line, you know, and life's effect on, you know, having a successful business because I think that conceptually, especially as a solopreneurs or small teams running a small business just in general, you can't, you can conceptually separate work and life, you know,
00:17:40
Speaker
but in a practical way you can and we had a me and jordan on a earlier episode they talked a lot about that but it's just impossible i think on a practical level to separate home life and work life especially if you work with a husband my team like chris and i do you know there's not like you know for arguing about something in life it's not like we go to you know work we go downstairs in our office and then all of a sudden that arguments over
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And I think that that's so interesting too. I've worked with several husband and wife team, couple teams. And it's so interesting to be able to see the dynamics of, this is like coaching slash therapy sometimes, but figuring out what hat are you wearing right now? And are those roles kind of getting enmeshed? How do we figure out how to separate them? Because you can't always separate them, but we can make a better way to like create boundaries around those things.
00:18:32
Speaker
So yeah, I think it's whether you're solopreneur-ing or you're in a team or you're in a family team, whatever the dynamics are, it can be a little bit complicated and you have to slow down in order to think about where the relationships or the life stuff is coming into play.
00:18:47
Speaker
Absolutely. So transitioning to profit,
Mindset and Money
00:18:51
Speaker
right? Really what we want to talk about today. There's a blog post that I think you wrote back in December that I thought was really interesting. Just again, it's tying in your social work background. These t-shirts you used to have saying, we'll work for change. I think a lot of entrepreneurs start out that way. We all want to make profit. A lot of us hate selling.
00:19:13
Speaker
Where do we even start? How do we get over that hurdle? How do we create a mindset around money that's healthy and doesn't cause a bunch of stress and anxiety in our lives in business? Yeah, I mean, as a social worker, like you said, I had a t-shirt that said, we'll work for change. And the double entendre of want to make an impact and also will work for pennies is kind of a sad one.
00:19:36
Speaker
And that's kind of the mindset that I came into business with and I struggled with asking for money at first because I was constantly thinking about it in terms of I have to get clients, I have to get clients, I have to make money. How do I get money? And it's the shift from how do I get money to how can I serve people so that that thing is like an even energy exchange. This is like very woo, but how do I make sure that whatever value I'm offering to somebody is something that they want to give me money for?
00:20:05
Speaker
Ultimately, if you see your work as service, as something that you want to do to help, and this is, I think, the most difficult part of service and heart-centered people is that whatever comes naturally to you, photography, calligraphy, coaching, whatever it is that your craft is, most likely comes pretty naturally to you.
00:20:28
Speaker
Crazy to be able to say oh, I'm gonna charge $5,000 for that. Yeah, right because you would probably do it for free for somebody else But truly when you're running a business we have to bake make that mindset shift of putting profit Pretty much in line with our service so our heart has to be in line with how much we want to make and our Money-making wants to be in line with our service. And so I think we have these big
00:20:52
Speaker
I don't know what's the word I'm looking for, kind of like figures in our head of people who represent evil, people who have money who represent evil. And by having more money, becoming richer, making more profit,
00:21:07
Speaker
Turns us into that person in our heads right and this is like a crazy crazy line of thinking but if you think about it you might think of I don't know some people that my clients bring up our Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump or I don't know sure ever your person is it doesn't really matter but we all have this like image of
00:21:26
Speaker
If we get stuck in this, it's typically that we have this image of somebody who represents kind of corruption or like something that's like not great. And so we have this icky mindset about money and we have to kind of release that and say, okay, as a heart centered person, money is actually a magnifier for our good.
00:21:43
Speaker
so if you really wanna make an impact if you wanna do good in the world having money is not a bad thing having money and making profit is being able to give more money to be able to give more time whatever it is that you know fulfills you so for me in my business i we give to a couple different organizations one is
00:22:02
Speaker
Pencils of Promise, we are trying to build a school, and it's something that I'm super passionate about. And also, for International Women's Day, we are encouraging people, using our platform to encourage people to donate or to give to Kiva, which is a microloan organization. So stuff like that. And I think that we are able to make a bigger impact when we have more money and a bigger platform.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, and just as a side note real quick, what you posted, I think it was on Instagram about International Women's Day, about the pay gap not being closed until 2186 was mind blowing. That was astounding to me. But yeah, I mean, that's that's crazy. But going back to this money mindset, how like, what are some practical steps that we can take to make that leap to say, okay, hey, just, you know, asking for money is not a bad thing. How do you get to be comfortable doing that?
00:22:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that's such a loaded question. I'm sorry just to drop that on you. I feel like we can do like a whole episode on it. So the first thing I think we need to think about is what is that money story that we're telling ourselves? What's that like deep seated sort of money story that we have, whether it's from our parents saying money doesn't grow on trees or, you know, when, when you have more money, you look like this, right? Whatever that image is. Um, so you need to kind of,
00:23:25
Speaker
disassociate money from
00:23:28
Speaker
whatever that image is. And often, it's not money that becomes evil, right? It's the person or the tool or whatever that turns it into a mechanism for evil. And so if you can think about money being just a tool in order to do good for your business or for your life, then that's the mindset shift we need to make. And so I think journaling on things can be really important just to see that like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that I believe this about money.
00:23:57
Speaker
I can be really important and then also thinking about on the sales side because sales is something that people struggle with a lot right thinking about sales in terms of okay. I want to help people and by giving by giving my service I also receive something in return it has to be a reciprocal process or it feels kind of icky.
00:24:17
Speaker
Have you ever received something from somebody that wasn't like a gift, but it was just free and then you didn't really see value in it. So you kind of threw it away or it just kind of lived on the shelf where you re gifted it or something. But when you invest in something that's actually important to you, right? Even if it's like $25, you're like, oh my gosh, this is something that I really love or like a shirt that you buy that you wear all the time.
00:24:39
Speaker
When you invest in something, you're more likely to cherish it. I think that's the kind of an even energy exchange that we're talking about. We want to lean into it a little bit more so that you can start making more profit and asking more confidently for the money that you deserve to have in your business.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of free, I mean, I just think people who like free things, they value as free, you know, they just don't value it as much as something that they pay for, even if it's something that they need, I think. For me, something that I struggle with early on was thinking to myself, you know, that person could do it on their own.
00:25:14
Speaker
So it's not as valuable because that person could do that on their own. You could take pictures at your own wedding or get a friend to take pictures at your own wedding. But at the end of the day, they don't want to do that on their own. Otherwise, they wouldn't be looking for that service. Just this podcast and vlog here, one of the reasons that I didn't start it for so long is because I didn't want to dig into the editing.
00:25:38
Speaker
You know, like, I don't want to deal with any of that. And so finally, you know, my sister is my sister, somebody who loves that kind of stuff. So I'm paying her, you know, to handle all the editing and uploading and all that stuff that's that's preventing me from doing it. And it's not a matter of that. I couldn't do it myself. Like, I'm, for the most part, a pretty much DIY person, but I don't want to do it myself, you know. And so there's a ton of value in my sister doing that kind of stuff for me.
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, because she's creating a shortcut for you, right? And relieving that resistance of I want to create content and I don't want to do the next steps to get it actually live. So paying somebody is of value too. I think that's like such a great example.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that especially going back to just this concept of free, sometimes, especially when we're first starting out, sometimes we just have to do stuff for free. It's a part of the growing process, it's a part of finding your niche and your ideal client and learning how to talk about your business. But at a certain point, you're going to be really unhappy if you continue doing things for free. And the person that you're working with is gonna be really unhappy too, because I think when you have a project scope and that scope is free,
00:26:47
Speaker
It's really hard to keep things within that project scope and everybody be happy at the end of the day.
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think free is necessarily a bad thing. Sure. But here are kind of like my parameters around this. I think is that one, when you are doing it, when you have zero portfolio, you have zero testimonials, the exchange isn't the money. Exchange is feedback. Exchange is the testimonial. It's the fact that you can talk about this particular client. And so there's value in receiving that, right? As somebody who's doing the free active service and
00:27:18
Speaker
It has to feel even. That's the thing, right? It's not about the dollars that are exchanged, but does it feel even in the exchange that we're doing? And so this is where I think a lot of barters go wrong, where the parameters aren't outlined, and there's a lot of scope creep and all of that.
00:27:35
Speaker
So, whether you're doing free stuff or paid stuff, just having something written down that says, here's what I'm agreeing to do, here's your end of the bargain, and here's how we're going to proceed or whatever. So, that's kind of how I look at things. Do you have any tips for people on how they should value their work?
00:27:54
Speaker
what we do in the creative world. A lot of people look at just their hard costs or they're told to just look at their hard costs. There's obviously issues there I think when you're just looking at the cost of the camera or the memory card or something like that. Do you have any tips for people who need to value or price their services?
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there's so much we could talk about. This is probably your entire platform on your podcast. But thinking about like, how to look at you have to look at your numbers, first of all, right? And you can't just kind of willy nilly it. And at the beginning, it's kind of a game. But you have to start treating it at some point like it is a business.
00:28:36
Speaker
And so what are your hard costs? Like you said, what are your overhead costs? Keep them as minimal as possible and figure out what are the hours that you're putting into a project? Figuring out how many of those hours you want to be putting towards client work? How much of that do you need to be spending on money generating work? And then ultimately, if you're in a full-time job, you only have a limited period of time to work in your business. If you're a full-time in your business, great. You have a little bit more time, but honestly, it's still divided.
00:29:06
Speaker
We have to figure out what are the costs that we incur and also what are the, you know, figure out your dollar per hour. And if it's getting lower than you want it to, you have to raise your prices. And as long as that rate matches the confidence in which you can deliver that service, and then I think you're fine. So for me at the beginning, I was charging like nothing and then like raise my prices. As soon as I had three clients sign, I raised my prices, got three more signed.
00:29:32
Speaker
I raised my prices again and every single time I felt like the energy match was there. I was confident. My systems were growing. At the very beginning, my contract was like I printed it out and I had her sign it. Nine clients in, I had hello sign and I was doing online invoicing. I felt like I was a little bit more legit, I guess. As you grow in your business that way, your confidence also grows and you can charge more and people will value your services more.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, I love that system you had of just upping your prices every three clients or so on. And so I think people would be pretty smart to have something like that in place, whether it's every three or five clients or another one that I hear is anytime someone books your highest package, there's somebody out there who would pay more, so raise your prices a little bit.
00:30:19
Speaker
All of that kind of stuff I really like, especially when you're looking at time too. If you have three clients, or if you have no clients, then your time's probably valued a little bit less because you have so much of it. All of a sudden you have 10 clients that year or 20 clients that year. That 21st wedding, you should value that time because it's more scarce more than you did the very first wedding of the year.
00:30:44
Speaker
So one thing that you had mentioned, we haven't talked about yet, is that you give 10% of all your client work, right, to Pencils of Promise, and 100% of all your affiliate sales to Pencils of Promise, to also Pencils of Promise. There's another one you mentioned, I'm sorry, the microloan. Yeah, so we do Kiva sort of on the side for like my birthday and for International Women's Day, but
00:31:11
Speaker
mostly all of our money goes towards Pencils of Promise until we're done building this school and we're about 80% in. So all of my speaking fees that people give me, I take it and I'm so excited about it. Thank you so much for having me. And then it goes to Pencils of Promise. And I feel like when I give education to the community, that money goes towards education for somebody else. So I'm just like the pass-through, I guess. So how did you decide on that system?
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's not really like a succinct answer, but I wanted to figure out a way to build giving into my business from the very beginning. No matter if your business is making $100 a month or a million dollars a month, 10% is 10%, right?
00:32:00
Speaker
If you like start when you're a million dollar business and you're just like, I'll just wait till I'm bigger. I'm just, you know, I'm, till I'm better. That sticker shock is going to be really, really scary to be like, Oh, I'm, I'm actually going to have to give a hundred thousand dollars away instead of like, Oh, you know, I was giving a dollar or $10 away at the beginning.
Incorporating Giving in Business
00:32:17
Speaker
So I'm like used to it. So I think that that was one thing that has really helped. And I encourage people to think about how they can give with their businesses. And it does not have to be monetary. I say this all the time.
00:32:28
Speaker
It can be giving a seat away for your class that you're doing, or it can be mentoring somebody in the work that you do, or bringing in an intern and giving them extra mentoring that you might not usually do for an intern, or something like that. And there's a lot of different ways to be able to give back through your business, but you have to be intentional about it, or it just becomes one of those things that, quote unquote, you will do in the future.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think if you're not willing to give 10% away now, you're not gonna be willing to give 10% away if you're making double what you're doing right now. So such a great practice, I think. And just, you know, I think it ties into this idea of gratitude and abundance, you know? So I think that's just such a great practice. And I would love to talk with you more about that. But how does that tie into your fueled with heart community?
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah. So the field with heart community is a Facebook community and, you know, a part of our podcast that we run. And, um, so we often talk about field with heart as in.
00:33:30
Speaker
It's a group of people who believe in the profit and serve, kind of like what we were talking about earlier, and you want to serve your community and do good work. You want to be intentional and also make a profit in all of that so that you can live the kind of life you want to live. And most of the people say they want to travel, say they want to pay off their student loan debt or, you know, any other debt that they have or, you know, be able to take a year off, whatever that is for them.
00:33:57
Speaker
And the thing that they say most often is they want to give back. So they want to tithe or they want to be able to go, you know, to a developing country and do service work, whatever it is.
00:34:07
Speaker
this business can do that for you. So if you shift your mindset to that abundance mindset and you allow yourself to be able to give in whatever way from the beginning, you can start, start doing that in a bigger way as you profit and serve more. And so the field with her community is really about leaning into that. Um, we want to put social impact, um, in line with the work that we're doing, baking our social impact into our businesses from the get go. And if you don't have it and you're like three years in, that's cool. You can start baking it in now.
00:34:37
Speaker
So whether that's partnering with an organization that, you know, this is like a simple example, but client gifts, we all give client gifts. One way to do it and like spend the same kind of dollars is look at an organization or company that creates products that also give back. So you're spending like $30 and a portion of that proceeds goes to something important that you're not spending any more money. You're just like kind of channeling that money through. So there's so many ways to be able to give back in the field with heart community. That's something that we talk about often.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, and you talk about this profit and serve mindset.
Sustainable Business Models
00:35:10
Speaker
And I know you've alluded to it throughout the interview here, but the concept, right, tell me if I'm getting this right, it's just that in order to serve our clients well and to continue serving, we need to be turning a profit. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
00:35:24
Speaker
You know, every time I pay for my taxes, I'm like super grateful because that means that we turn to profit. But it means that the more money we have in our businesses, the more impact we're able to make. So whether that's making bigger decisions in our businesses, taking more risks, making, you know, donations, whatever it is. But the thing the profit and serve model, the field with heart model is really about
00:35:45
Speaker
creating sustainable businesses. So you might hear these entrepreneurs who pop up and are like, I made seven figures in five minutes. Oh, that's awesome. That's not my business model. I wish that was my business model. Yeah, that's crazy, right?
00:36:00
Speaker
It was so easy for me. That's great. But I see people struggling with the kind of in between. And one, I want to show them that it's not that hard. Yes, you have to work hard. But it doesn't have to be grueling, if that makes sense. I also want to show people what we were talking about earlier. What is your message? How do we message it so that everything that's in your world actually makes sense together? We also talk about sustainability and profitability, how you look at your numbers, all of that stuff.
00:36:29
Speaker
Um, we also talk about, um, kind of thinking through the, the, uh, what's it called? Like the visibility work that you do. So how do, how do people actually see you? And then we talk about like goals and focus. So what matters most, how to focus on that. Um, so it's kind of a comprehensive circular model.
00:36:48
Speaker
So you're never really like grown out of this model. You're constantly working through it, constantly moving through it and growing every single time you go through it. And one of the core parts of it is called the heart and core. And I see so many people starting their businesses thinking, oh my God, and I did this too.
00:37:06
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I need clients. How do I get started? But I think the biggest thing is we don't take the time to figure out what's important here. Like what does my business stand for? Who do I really want to serve? What's important to me? And then creating a marketing model around that. So people focus too much on the tactics like, oh, my Instagram isn't growing.
00:37:24
Speaker
and kind of blame it on Instagram where I think you should be thinking about, okay, what's the vision of your company? Where is it going? What are your core values? And how do we make it so that that has like an actual strategy that we can turn into tactics?
00:37:38
Speaker
I'm such a big fan of, I think, that mindset of actually starting with those things, actually writing them down, not just thinking about those things, but writing them down on a piece of paper. And because I think it's really easy to skip over that kind of stuff, you know, like goal setting is another one where people are like,
00:37:55
Speaker
You know, yeah, they're kind of up here, you know, I got my goals there and you know, they're in here But you'd be surprised that until you write something down, you know And you talked a little about journaling earlier until you write something down how not fleshed out it is You know how many questions and then all of a sudden you write something down here like that doesn't really make sense Where I don't really want to focus that thing and going back to and I think kind of the basis of what you're talking about right and you started the interview this way but talking about
00:38:20
Speaker
just thinking about how can I serve my clients well? How can I add value to that? I'm really starting there. And that grueling sensation that you feel every once in a while in business, I think if you actually take the time and you write down why you're doing this, who you're trying to serve well, the why behind your business, the purpose, it's gonna be a lot easier to get through those moments because all of us are going to go through those moments.
00:38:48
Speaker
But when you have that, you know, you have something to look back on and hold on to moving forward. Yeah. I love that quote. How does it go? It's something like if it gets hard, learn to pause and not quit. And I think that there's so many times in entrepreneurship where it gets a little bit sticky, right? Money's a little bit tight or the clients aren't coming in as well as you had hoped or a launch fails or whatever it is.
00:39:12
Speaker
you're feeling like, ugh, should I just throw in the towel? And there's so many moments when you just have to pick yourself up and do it again. And I think that when you go back to that why, like you said, it can be a game changer.
Motivation and Community Engagement
00:39:24
Speaker
So for me, I have two wise, and I think this is something that I struggled with at the beginning because I felt like I only had to have one why, like you can only have one why. So one is like a very personal why, like the freedom why. And then the other why is like, what does my business do? Like what's a big vision of my business? And that's to empower women.
00:39:42
Speaker
so that they can have profitable businesses, so that they can do whatever it is that they wanna do in their lives. And so, kinda like two things, and give yourself permission for it to be whatever it is that you want it to be, and kinda lean into that, because there's not one way to do it. Yeah, and so I wanna talk about how somebody can find the Fueled with Heart community. So if somebody's listening to this and saying, hey, this sounds awesome, how do I learn more, what do they do?
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, go to fieldwithheart.com and we'll lead you to it. You'll hear my story kind of like what happened behind the scenes. You got a little bit of a glimpse here and then we'll lead you into our community. It's, you know, a tight knit group. There's so many Facebook groups out there.
00:40:24
Speaker
And I get that there's a little bit of overwhelm. And what I really try to endeavor to do in this community is to one, be present as a leader and also give kind of like behind the scenes that are happening in my life, in my business, as well as adding a lot of value. The community is amazing. The women in the group, it's mostly women, but it's not always.
00:40:45
Speaker
Um, I think we have like five guys. That's actually, I feel like the breakdown of the, uh, industry, you know, five guys and thousands of whatever people contribute. But I think that one of the, it's one of those things that like people feel safe in this community. People feel comfortable asking quote unquote, stupid questions, which are not stupid. And everyone else is like, Oh my gosh, I feel like that too. Can I, can I get some help here? Um, so it's nice to be able to have that collaborative atmosphere.
00:41:14
Speaker
And so you can go to fieldwithhug.com and then we'll leave you right to it. And we always have conversations about the podcast and all of that in the group too. So final question here, how much of business do you think is just showing up?
Leadership and Consistency
00:41:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh, so much. Yeah, like a like a hyper. And that's just one thing that I'm realizing as I do these interviews. And one of my favorite podcasts is how I built this. Yeah. Yeah. And I just one of the things that I'm realizing more and more is it's just a matter of showing up consistently. And of course, there's work involved, you have to show up and work. But if you know, if you show up consistently, good things, good things tend to tend to happen. And I think
00:41:56
Speaker
that I'm a big fan of coaching just in general. So I think that those people who if you're ever struggling with showing up consistently, or you need accountability, finding a coach like yourself is a great way to make sure that you continue to do so. Yeah, I think showing up is hard, especially when you feel like you don't have a platform, you don't have anything to really show off.
00:42:22
Speaker
You know, you have a lot to prove. That's how I felt at the beginning of my business. I was like, I am hungry and I want this and I want to be able to serve people, but I feel a little bit, you know, like I'm not quite sure. And so showing up felt really scary then. But I think if you think about it this way, the one person who follows you on Instagram, you know, as you grow that, like have a lot of gratitude for each and every single person that comes into your community, because that's a human being that's, you know, you can connect with. And so I think,
00:42:49
Speaker
back then i don't think we had instagram dm and now i feel like that's a platform that i use so often but you know those people are actually human beings that you can converse with have come you know like have legitimate relationships with and so that's something to keep in mind too is that you're this isn't just a transaction you're not just trying to you know
00:43:10
Speaker
steal their dollars, you're really trying to be in a relationship with them and hopefully serve them. And in the future, maybe they'll pay you, maybe not, maybe they'll bring you a cool connection. And so it's really just like keeping those doors open for conversation and opportunities. So yeah, showing up is a big thing, whether it's creating content and
00:43:27
Speaker
posting about it or just saying, hey, how can I support you to people who you really appreciate? This is something I did at the very beginning of my business. I felt like there were these leaders that I really wanted to lean into and just encouraged because I thought they were doing awesome things. That opened a lot of doors for me. I think remembering that these leaders are also human can be very valuable.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I love that just this concept of focusing on what's there and not focusing on what's not. If you have two Instagram followers, focus on those two people. Don't worry about the 20,000 or 90,000 or whatever that number is in your head that you think you have to get to.
00:44:06
Speaker
to validate yourself. And I know this is true for me, but you probably look back on that six month period of time before you had a website and some of the questions you're asking, you just think, oh man, those were probably super silly questions or I can't believe I did that. But it was just so important, I think, to getting started. And so even in kind of the discouraging moments, getting up the next day and showing up again, that's the only way that you get to where you wanna go.
Finding Reina Online
00:44:37
Speaker
We talked about Fueled with Heart. Where else can we find you? You have a new podcast. Tell us about that. Tell us about what social media platforms can we follow you on.
00:44:50
Speaker
So you can find the podcast at fieldwithheart.com or you can just go to iTunes as well and find us there or whatever platform that we're pushing to. And you can also find me at reinaandco.com. I am super active at Reina and Company on Instagram. I really love engaging with our people and it's
00:45:11
Speaker
The community is wonderful. That's some place that I really love pouring into. Whenever you have questions, I really do. My clients will laugh at me when I say this, but I build most everything for my clients. People who keep coming back are the people I build things for. If you are a part of my community and you give feedback, you might see some of those things turn into programs.
00:45:34
Speaker
So I'm really excited to be able to roll things out. Like next week, this is coming out on the 9th. We're rolling out a challenge for the community who are like, oh my gosh, I feel like everyone is, like all my competition is doing these things and why didn't I think of that? We're having a conversation about forgetting the rest. Like don't worry about the competition, worry about you and figuring out how to amplify your message. So that's something that's really important to me and we'll be doing a really fun challenge around that.
00:46:02
Speaker
All right, awesome, and I'll be sure to link to all of that in the show notes so that people can get connected with that challenge and that community and connect with you in the places that you show up, like Instagram for sure. And of course, Creative Empire, that's still happening. Of course, I didn't mention Creative Empire, but yes. Yeah, the Creative Empire podcast, which I'm sure a lot of people already are familiar with. So thank you so much for taking the time to share about profit and selling and money mindset
00:46:31
Speaker
and just a little bit about your background and how you got started. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like we talked about so many things, but I hope this is valuable for your listeners. Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Brains That Book Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources, visit DavianChrista.com.