Finding Your Voice and Brand Authenticity with Tracey Watts Cirino Ep 104

Could your unique traits and experiences be the key to your professional success? Join us in this enlightening episode of Enthusiastically Self-Employed as we sit down with Tracey Watts Cirino, a dynamic force in empowering female entrepreneurs and leaders. Tracy shares her wisdom on embracing your voice and understanding your worth without falling into the trap of overworking. This conversation sheds light on leveraging moments of vulnerability to stand out and become memorable, urging women to step into their true leadership potential and confidently write their own paychecks.

Connect with Tracey on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceywattscirino/

Watch the video interview on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VKh-P1NreI?sub_confirmation=1

LinkedIn "Power Hours" (Single Session, x4, x12)
Each package includes: 

• LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
• Review of LinkedIn profile / company page to provide guidance / advice / recommendations

https://www.mellermarketing.com/powerhour 

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

Hey, good morning, good evening or good afternoon, depending on where in the world you're watching from. My name is Brenda Meller, my show is called Enthusiastically Self-Employed, and today I am joined by Tracy Watserino. Hey, Tracy, how are you doing today? Great?

Speaker 2: 1:04

Brenda, how are you? Thanks for having me?

Speaker 1: 1:07

Oh, I'm doing great and thank you for coming on. I'm delighted, and we were talking in the pre-show about. It feels like it was literally years ago when we booked this and here we are, finally in January. I think it was actually in the fall that we first started talking about this, wasn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:21

I think so Because I remember we had you on my podcast on Beyond Common Business Secrets, right, and we were like oh, they'll both come out later.

Speaker 1: 1:31

So here we are. Yeah, I know it's crazy, as we're getting our live stream going here. I want to welcome all of the audience members who are watching us, and could you do us a favor and this is like my mic tap moment, tracy If we were at a live event, I would tap the microphone and say can you hear me? In the back In the live stream world, the equivalent is can you hear us? Is the live stream going? If so, could you drop a comment below and the comments help us to know that the live stream is picking up. Today we're going live on LinkedIn, youtube and, I think, instagram. So if you're on any of those networks and you can see the live stream, drop a comment. You can just say hi or hello. That'd be perfectly fine.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Instagram is a newer platform that I'm using and StreamYard has recently allowed us to start the live stream on there. I think I got the Instagram. I see the Living Source and Dan Roth are on there. Oh, look at this. I start to see the comments coming in. We've got. Lisa is watching us from Troy, michigan. We're very brisk and cold up here in Michigan today. We have Christopher Johnson of Caldwell Clear Media coming in from YouTube.

Speaker 1: 2:29

The Instagram comments don't come in, tracy, so I'll have to pay attention. Yeah, you have to look at those later. I'll keep an eye on those in the sidelines, but as we are watching those comments that are coming in, why don't you take a moment? I know you from Macarena and I had Mac on my LinkedIn live-a-thon back in August and after the event I said who else should I talk to? And she said you got to talk to Tracy. So you and I had a chat. I know a little bit about you, but why don't you take a few minutes and tell us a bit about what do you do, who do you help and what do you help them with?

Speaker 2: 3:00

So what I do is coaching and mentoring services. I do a lot of speaking, consulting and basically whatever is going to help you get out of your own way so that you can have the most success possible. I primarily work with females, females that are in entrepreneurial space or are in a position of leadership. It's sometimes men are like no, I want you to be my coach, but I have a focus on women. It's just one of those things I think, since I can remember I have been so passionate about helping women write their own paycheck. You don't have to settle for extra crumbs. You get to decide what you're worth and you can do it in a way that aligns with your energy, not with overworking or hustle. It's just really important to me that I can help as many women as possible step into the true power of their leadership.

Speaker 1: 4:00

I love it. There's so many things that you were just talking about that resonated with me, and I'm sure many of our listeners as well. We don't have to settle for crumbs. I think that's an important distinction. There's a lot that's to be said about our value and working more efficiently. So a lot of things I think we're going to jump into. And our topic for today. When I invited you on, I said, Tracy, what do you want to talk about? And you said, let's talk about how to find and use the power of your unique voice. So this is something I think a lot of us who are self-employed might struggle with, especially as we're first getting started in our business or, honestly, even as our business evolves. So what advice do you have for us, Tracy?

Speaker 2: 4:39

I first have the advice of, even when your voice trembles and quivers, if something is calling you to say it or use it, the time is now.

Speaker 2: 4:50

So sometimes we think that feeling means that we should quiet, but there's something that you need to say and even when you are feeling like, oh, my voice is crackling, it's trembling a little bit, that is usually such a sign that it is your moment to shine, and don't be afraid of that.

Speaker 2: 5:13

So the other piece is when it comes to like how to find your voice and use the power of it. It is so often I will meet with business owners who are looking at this through the lens of what's everybody else in my industry doing, and I think the way that we really shine, both personally and professionally, but how businesses stand out, is that what makes you unique and different, like the weirdness, like the weirder you are. Bring that to the table. Like I can remember being a kid, I used to have this scar right here from chicken pox and the. The kids would tease me and they would say how. And the thing is I am American Indian, it's in my heritage, so I would just say how back it was like fine, but I would go home and cry a little bit, right.

Speaker 2: 6:02

And it took years of embracing the fact that you know what that is, something that is unique to you. Oftentimes we're trying to hide things, right. The thing is, the more you just put it out there. That is how it'll be that one little thing that people remember. So when we're talking about using the power of your voice, it's like it has to align with what makes you stand out, and that is super important, and it's an area that so many people before I start working with them they just have neglected it. And the minute that we can align your voice and who you feel born to be, when those align in your business, that's when everything takes off.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Yeah, and I imagine, when you're working with people too, tracy, that it sounds like you're giving them permission to be who they already are, but they haven't given themselves to be that own permission, and maybe because they feel like they should blend in with everyone else, that they can't be distinctive. Is that a fair assumption, or what do you think?

Speaker 2: 7:08

Absolutely, and that is that's so often the case. Right, like we're supposed to. We're supposed to stand out in business. How are we going to get known? But I'm so scared to do something different than everyone else is doing, and I like to put it this way If you're only going to do what everyone is already doing in your industry, why do you need a business? There are so many great people. Go work for them, be a part of their team.

Speaker 2: 7:34

The reason that most people want to start a business of their own is because they have this burning desire of some sort to do things different. So when it's time to show up in that space, that's where we have to step into our true authenticity and be that person. And sometimes you're unaware of it, so it's not intentional, it's unconscious. It often can be your blind spots. So this does often take an accountability partner, a coach, a mentor, being part of a group of women that you've given permission and see you want to give permission to people that you trust, but the stranger or your relative that doesn't know what you're doing. That's like a no fly zone for them. To say it to you, right, it has to be that you've given permission to someone that you trust and giving yourself permission to step into it.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Yeah, yeah, you just made me think about something. I had a friend who recently we were both at a conference together and he updated his LinkedIn about statement and then he put it out to LinkedIn and said, hey, I just updated it and he started getting some feedback. And one person said I don't like this because of X, y and Z. So I like that. You're saying, give yourself permission to be different and have that trusted circle of people where you're getting feedback from. But how important is it to think about who is giving you that feedback? Because in this case, the person who was saying I don't like your about statement, I was saying is she your audience? Is she your target audience? So what are your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1: 9:10

How important is relevancy of the audience in getting that feedback Like?

Speaker 2: 9:14

keep. It's almost like keep your side commentary, return to sender. It's not for me. I think we do enough internal judgment of our own, so I personally wouldn't accept that. I wouldn't accept that outside judgment because you don't know. You don't know if they're your target audience, you don't know if they're checking all the boxes.

Speaker 2: 9:36

There are some things that you just put out there to make conversation and that's fine. But if it's something that you're like, oh it's, if you're holding it tight in your heart, maybe don't ask people's opinion, because there are things where it's we have enough criticism of our own going on. I'm not always open to a whole lot of other criticism from other people that maybe haven't looked at, looked at through the same lens that you have, or the person. You know what I'm saying. It's one of those things where you have to be open to having unique, different points of view. But when it's like, when it's just like real close and tight and you're not so sure yet, it's almost like you're too vulnerable. That might not be the time to ask everyone's opinion, because I don't want you to run back in your shell like a turtle, right.

Speaker 1: 10:21

You're way too different. This is not what we expected. I'll even draw from one of my experiences.

Speaker 1: 10:26

When I was first creating my business Tracy, I was designing my logo and my brand colors and I used pink and I showed it to a friend and she's like blue is really the color of LinkedIn and if you use pink, you're going to alienate men and you're not going to get any male clients. And I was like sitting on that feedback for a little bit and then I said you know what? No, I did some research on color psychology and pink means expressive and enthusiastic and approachable and I'm like those are the elements of my brand. So I think also I got confident with myself and my message early on and I decided not to take her. And I've had male clients you talk about. You work with female clients and male clients as well. I've had male clients, so they've never I've not had one person say your color's pink and I don't like pink, I'm not going to work with you. Is it common to not maybe not have that confidence at the beginning of your business journey? But that's something that we gain over time, would you say?

Speaker 2: 11:19

I would say that if it's the beginning of your business journey, if you're transitioning to something that you're not quite sure about but you can see the long-term vision, but you're like, oh, I just have to take a step in that space, it definitely is. Take it with a grain of salt, because your business is enthusiastically, so pink fits it. If you would have said, oh no, so it's. You never know.

Speaker 2: 11:45

By I think oftentimes, before we're really sure and confident with our next move, we might ask an opinion too soon where, if you're feeling like, hey, I'm all in, I know I'm doing this, it's okay if I have to tweak and change things, but I'm all in, if you're in that place of confidence, then you can probably handle asking people. But if you're still like you're a delicate flower, I just say it's so important to build up the confidence muscle and have some resiliency to it, because it's not that anyone's intentionally trying to hurt your feelings or knock you down. They're just giving their opinion. But when we're in this state of vulnerability, the glasses we're viewing the world are a different color at that moment.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Yeah, I always think it's interesting too, tracy, because when you're at the beginning of your getting started and you talked about this you might be a little nervous about going out there and doing some things, and I'm like I document everything on social media. Now I look back even to I got to pull up like one of my very first LinkedIn live videos and how my personality has just changed so much. I've gained more confidence in what I do. But even things like my social media posts, my my brand posts and my company page, and things that I did in the beginning are different and it's easy, I think, to reflect upon.

Speaker 1: 13:01

But what advice do you have for people that might be struggling with? Maybe they've just left corporate, they're starting up their own business and we're here talking about how to find and use the power of your unique voice, and maybe they don't feel like they have that yet because they've been a corporate employee for so long where they couldn't give themselves permission to have their own voice. They had the corporate brand voice. So what do you have? What advice do you have for people that are at the beginning of the journey? How do we dip our toe into this water a bit?

Speaker 2: 13:30

This gets me so excited because it's beyond this permission granted, right? It's like permission to have fun. This is the fun part, right? Like you no longer have to hide behind a corporate mission and vision. What would it be like to have it actually come to life? What is the feeling, the living, breathing pieces of what you want people to feel when they experience your business? Look at it through a lens of how do you want it to feel for people that are interacting with you and your business. When you look at it through that lens, it gets really exciting.

Speaker 2: 14:06

Get out the crayons, the markers, the paint, whatever. Have some fun and really start asking yourself some deep journaling questions. We have a guide on this, too. I can give you the link to walk yourself through some of the questions, but it's what would it be like if you were serving your dream clients and earning the maximum revenue? What does that person behave like? So you're looking at it with the end in mind, and when you look at it from that space, it's so much more crystal clear, because we don't want to look at it from where we are now, especially if we're struggling. You want to look past that, because the struggle isn't lasting forever right the dream vision of where you want to take people and what that looks like. You want to have fun asking yourself those questions. So I say go on walks, do journal dives, get creative with paints, have so much fun with this, because that is what's going to set you apart from every other business.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1: 15:10

That's great advice. And I even think about myself and maybe you can relate to this too, tracy at the beginning of my journey, when I first left corporate and started to become self-employed and I'm building out my brand and building out my story, even things like my attire we were talking about logos and colors and stuff like that, but even things like my attire. You go from a corporate attire which is like a lot of dark suits when I worked in corporate marketing, go to board meetings and networking events and things like that, and then when you become self-employed, you realize you don't really need to wear those uncomfortable suits and the high heels that maybe there's several and I started getting a lot more comfortable in wearing brighter colors and doing different things. But it was like a gradual transition and I would assume this is probably part of the business building journey as well. It's a gradual process and I think is it okay to give ourselves permission that maybe we don't have everything outlined in the beginning, but there are some elements that we should. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 16:04

Absolutely. I think that is a key piece of your voice, right? Because who you are like, how you wear your hair, how your makeup's done, how you're dressed, is showing up before you do, right, before you even make a peep. Right? That's part of that voice, right? So you get to curate and create this, so it needs to be in alignment with I know I'm just going to touch on this because it's such a common question all the time that I get is that I'm so excited to be away from corporate that I just want to wear yoga pants all day.

Speaker 2: 16:43

However, if you're not in the business of yoga, what message are you sending and is it making you feel the most confident? Right, because, yeah, we can put on yoga pants, but then a jacket and be on a Zoom, you can. But do you feel you're most confident if you do? Great. But if it is sending any type of inauthenticity or misalignment, it's really important, right, because you should be comfortable. I have found some of the best pants companies that now make dress pants that are as comfortable as yoga pants. I have tons of them, yes, so that's what I'm saying. So there's a way to have it all and find where you can come from a place where, like, I could step on stage in those pants and I could sit and be comfortable, right. So that's the thing of think about your authenticity and who you want to show up as Right. Yeah, that's so important because, yeah, like it's so funny, I always would tease that.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, it's funny that you talk about attire and the, and I've seen like the companies are like these are yoga pants that can go from day to night and workouts and everything in between. And it's the pandemic allowed so many of us more to work from home and we realized, gosh, we don't really need to be in full corporate attire, at least from head to toe we can be in our more comfortable pants. But I think you raise a really good point, which is when you're self-employed and you're not going into an office every day, you can fall into that trap of wearing the yoga pants every day and getting overly comfortable, and I think it can even reflect upon your own when you're in a Zoom call, when you're in a discovery call, right, it can impact the way that you might be feeling too casual and not on. Would you agree with that and any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 18:33

Absolutely. That's why it's such a key point to aligning with your voice right, if your business is casual and you're attracting a casual type of client, that's wonderful. Like I know, I'm very friendly, but I speak with authority about business because I know about it. You know what I'm saying. So I think if I showed up with my hair in pigtails and looking like I just came back from a run, I think that when I started talking, my clients might accept that. But they might be like oh wait, hold up. Does she even know what she's talking about? Are you 12? We're not five one. Are you 12? Does she? Has she even had a business?

Speaker 1: 19:11

It's not going to ask because you'd brought up the pigtails.

Speaker 2: 19:14

You wear pigtails sometimes casually, or I don't, usually, maybe when we're on a beach vacation. But I'm just saying it's not that pigtails are bad, they're amazing, but it's the. What voice are you sending? And it needs to be authentic, because in no way, shape or form are we saying for you to be anybody but you, but be that sort of best version of yourself, because you're in this attraction phase, like you're attracting clients to you. So what are they looking for?

Speaker 1: 19:44

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, and a lot of this kind of confidence comes with time and it also, I think, working with you said, working with a coach or working with somebody who can help to guide you through that process and helps to make you comfortable. What I'd like to do, tracy, is maybe change gears and I want to invite our audience into the conversation, if that would be okay and I see we've got some folks watching us on LinkedIn, on Instagram, as well as on YouTube and if you do have any questions, I want to invite you to come on into the chat and don't be shy. We're here today talking about how to find and use the power of your unique voice and, for those of you who might be a little, maybe nervous about asking questions, I want you to think about using the. I have a friend technique. I have a friend who's wondering about X, y and Z.

Speaker 1: 20:30

I have a friend who's not comfortable on camera. I have a friend who's struggling with public speaking. What advice do you have? So you can use the. I have a friend technique if you have any questions that you'd like to ask us today, and, as we're waiting for any of those questions to come in. I want to just pull up a couple of comments that have come in from our audience watching here on LinkedIn. And here's one from Lisa, who says the professional soccer squad in Palermo, sicily, italy. Their team color is pink. I wasn't aware of that. Our teams- are using different colors there.

Speaker 2: 21:01

I love that. You know what that's. Is that right? Italy, yeah, palermo, sicily Isn't that so amazing? I was like so, lisa, thank you so much for sharing that I've only been there twice in my life.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Italy.

Speaker 2: 21:15

Yeah, To Sicily particularly yeah. So I was like that's amazing, yeah, awesome, hey, linda.

Speaker 1: 21:22

Thank you for watching. Linda just summarizing what we were saying. You don't have to have everything outlined in the beginning. She loves that. She says I know my business and I my LinkedIn postings, et cetera, are still a work in process. Thanks for the reminder that it's okay Anything you want to add to that Tracy based on Linda's comments.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Linda, thank you for saying that, because we forget that. And Brandy, you touched on that. The thing that's amazing is that when you show up and you do the LinkedIn, post the video, the live, you'll have this timeline of wow, look how much I improved. But if you don't take the inspired action, then we don't get better by just thinking about it in our head. Right, we get better by showing up and testing, and some days for me it's been epic fails. But you just get up and you figure out OK, I'm not going to do that again, Maybe I'll try this. And you have to just find a point where a business can be serious. But you can't take yourself so serious. I just try to laugh at myself and poke as much humor on it as possible, Because at the end of the day, it should be fun. It should be fun, it really needs to be fun. When you see somebody that is having fun in their business, it makes you want to do business with them.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Absolutely. And for me I was talking about this earlier, tracy like I don't make mistakes. I have learning experiences. I make mistakes but I don't tell the mistakes. I call them learning experiences. So one of the things like I'll give a.

Speaker 1: 22:46

For example, I was working with my intern, julia, and she helps to merchandise my podcast when after they're published and we get like a little clip from each of our interviews and I noticed in the clips that she's grabbing and I always tell her to try to tell her get my co-host. So have Tracy speaking, but I want to have both of us on camera and usually what the clip she was grabbing is it was you speaking looking at the camera and me looking down. And it's not because I'm not interested in what you have to say, but I'm looking down because I'm looking at the comments, I'm watching the chat, I'm watching the and it looked like I was disinterested and I told her. This is not a criticism on julia and the clips. I said it was on me. I said I need to be more conscious about when my guests are giving this great advice. Looking at the camera and at the beginning I tap my camera.

Speaker 1: 23:30

I'm like and I don't know about you, Tracy, but when I first started my business and speaking and doing a lot of videos, I found it really hard and really uncomfortable to look at a piece of plastic with a circle, because it's an inanimate objects. I want to look at your eyes, but when I'm looking at your eyes I'm not making eye contact with you.

Speaker 2: 23:48

Yeah, you're looking down, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:52

Did you have that same struggle and do you have any advice for people about that? I you know what. I had a friend that taught me a really amazing trick in the beginning of putting a post-it over your phone when you're speaking to it, and that helped me a ton. So I would do that in the beginning when I'd first have interviews. I'd put a post-it over my own face so it would force me to look into the eye of the camera so I wasn't like checking my hair, or you're saying that a little bit off camera.

Speaker 1: 24:18

I need to move myself around.

Speaker 2: 24:20

It's so funny, though, what you're saying, because I had a similar conversation with one of my assistants not that long ago, because he was so amazing he did all these clips for our podcast. I can't use any of them because I had this huge thing of lipstick across my teeth the entire time and I said honey, it's not that your work isn't amazing, it's that I needed to be guided to check my lip. It was just like it's funny. I think. Sometimes it's just like you have to work together and laugh at yourself, right.

Speaker 1: 24:49

That's, that's hilarious, and those are the things that you can't really edit out.

Speaker 2: 24:55

It wasn't the middle. It was like did I eat it? Seriously? Did I do my entire podcast with the guests like that? And I guess the only question I would have is like, why didn't my guests say anything?

Speaker 1: 25:04

Oh, I would have said something, but that's just was it noticeable or maybe it was like they were doing. The thing that we're doing right now is we're looking at the camera. We're not looking at you on screen, cause if I were to see something on screen I might be like was that cat, just that just walked behind you and you'd look and you'd see, oh yeah, that was my cat. Like we're trying to be good video, I had lipstick on my teeth, but then you're taking the attention away from the interview and everybody's trying to look for the lipstick on your teeth and that's where it.

Speaker 2: 25:35

That's why I say this. So take the posted idea, but check your lipstick. That's all I'm like. You know what I'm saying? It's like take the posted idea, don't be looking at yourself the whole time, but check your lipstick To that, to Tracy.

Speaker 1: 25:47

You're like why didn't my guest say something and we're here today talking about how to find and use the power of your unique voice. Part of it is like making sure that you're surrounding you talked about this earlier surrounding yourself with supporters, people who will support you, who will tell you when you have spinach on your teeth or lipstick across your teeth or something amiss, who say hey, I think I'm seeing this, even if it's in the middle of the interview. Tracy, it looks like you might have lipstick. If that were me, I'd be like Tracy, you got lipstick on. It looks like you might have lipstick on your shoes, and part of that is that that helps to reinforce you're talking about your unique voice, but your relatability.

Speaker 2: 26:22

This is something that happens to a lot of us, right. It happens to all of us, right, and sometimes it is testing things, not being afraid to tell someone that you admire if you're at a conference and they did have spinach in their teeth Using your voice in that way is a really good stepping stone to speaking out right, Because you would want someone to tell you. So it's like stuff like that. I think sometimes it's like little if you're not ready to go live, maybe just using your voice in a way that would be loving and supportive to someone else.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, we got on this pink talk by the way.

Speaker 1: 27:01

I don't know if you have seen, or if you're planning on going to see, the mean girls movie that's at the theaters. Tracy, I went to see it with my daughter over the weekend. It was like a remake of the original. Yeah, yes, great movie for teenagers. But I what I found is there's a lot of teenagers in the theater, how they do the thing where they're like please turn off your cell phones, because it's distractive. When you're in a theater of teenagers, they don't go without their cell phones. For the whole movie is what I learned, and there was like people pulling up and the phones kept lighting up and it kept distracting me and I was like I want to watch the movie, but at any rate it reminded me of that movie. So Roy says he looks great in fuchsia, so thank you.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Roy, that's awesome. I want to see a picture of you in some fuchsia.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Roy, we're going to have to see a picture of you in some fuchsia.

Speaker 2: 27:42

We're going to need some fuchsia.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And Shep, you're making me crack up at your comment. He put this on and then, immediately afterwards, he did say sorry for the. Why are you shouting at us, shep? No, I didn't think that. But again, we're here talking about how to find and use the power of your unique voice. When you see things like this happening, whether you call them mistakes or learning experiences or whatnot, let people know. Hey, I'm sorry, I had the caps lock on. I realized it after the fact.

Speaker 1: 28:12

In a way, isn't Shep more relatable because he just did that?

Speaker 2: 28:15

Yes, because we all do that. We all do stuff like that. So, yeah, I think, anytime that you just show up and put it out there, it's always better and however it comes out is just exactly what was supposed to happen.

Speaker 1: 28:32

Yeah, absolutely, and I want to read this for the people that are listening to this in the podcast later. You can't see it, but I knew that he had the caps laps unintentionally, because if you look at the text on screen, you're going to see that the words that should be capitalized are lowercase. So he had the caps lock in place inadvertently. And he says I look at myself using the camera app before I sign on to any video so I can see what I look like, but you'll notice like the eyes are lowercase because he was trying to capitalize correctly. So the trained eye would know that Shep. But it's a really good thing. Look at the camera and even today, tracy, when you and I both came into StreamYard or if you go into a Zoom call, you can test your video and test your audio and not just test it but actually look at yourself.

Speaker 1: 29:13

And one thing I try to do is I'm always trying to look at what's lit in the background. Am I well lit? Do our lighting? Are they looking similar? My goal is always like, when I'm sitting next to you on screen, that it almost looks like we're sitting next to each other in the same room, so we're at the same distance to the camera. The same lighting doesn't always get perfect. Is that something that you try to do as well, tracy, and any thoughts on that? I yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:36

I do that. I think it's just like a natural. I think it's a natural conversation, mirroring actually that I just really work hard on making people feel comfortable.

Speaker 1: 29:47

So, yeah, now that you're saying that, I'm like, I think I do that all the time, yeah, so, something we maybe don't even think about it, that we do it, but now I'm like we're pulling back the curtain a little bit on what we do behind the scenes here.

Speaker 2: 30:00

I do have a lot of people that will reach out and tell me that they were so nervous and thank you so much for making the interview so comfortable. So I think I just have a way of trying to make people shine themselves as much as possible and I think, just asking, I think asking questions and getting to that eye level. It's really important to get to the eye level and mirror what seems comfortable to whether it's your client, someone you're interviewing. I think it's really important when you do that, it empowers them to use their own voice and then by them doing that, you're using your own voice more. So sometimes that's your way through. If you are just getting started with I don't even know what my unique business voice is ask people that you trust some really major questions about life, purpose things and have deep, meaningful conversations, and by pulling this out of others, it will come out of you.

Speaker 1: 31:05

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Ask the people you trust. I think it's a theme that we've heard a couple times throughout the presentation here today. So what I'd like to do, tracy, is I want to pull up your LinkedIn profile up on screen. And I'm going to share the screen in just a second here so people can see what the profile looks like. And as I'm doing that, I just want to ask are you open to connecting with people that are maybe watching you here on the show?

Speaker 2: 31:28

or listening to the podcast later. Are you open?

Speaker 1: 31:29

to connecting with them. Absolutely All right, wonderful.

Speaker 2: 31:33

And I see that I got to fix something. Thanks for pulling that up. We need to look at that. Look at that. It needs to be over a little smidgen.

Speaker 1: 31:42

Alignment thing. I even thought about with some of my guests in 2024 doing like a mini profile audit in advance of the session giving some different pointers and stuff like that. I was curious. So your coffee mug? I can't see it because it's a little bit in the background, but it looks like you're a statement coffee mug person, as am I. So what does your coffee mug say, the one that you're holding up in that picture?

Speaker 2: 32:03

That one says today will be magical. And then how ironic that this one you said I said, permission granted, here you go.

Speaker 1: 32:16

Oh yeah, Love it, Love it. That's such a cool thing. So I noticed that I'm when I'm looking at your profile. You have creator mode turn on and I know that because I can see the talks about hashtags at the top of the profile. You've got the custom URL, so when people visit your profile Tracy I'm just going to let them know the default button. If you're not connected to Tracy, it's going to say follow. If you want to connect with Tracy, you can, but you've got to click on the more button and then, from your view, you will have a note underneath there that will say personalized invite or connect and just mentioned to Tracy in your note to connect that you saw her on the show with Brenda Meller. She'll know where you're coming from there, Would that help you out?

Speaker 2: 32:47

Tracy, yeah, absolutely. Is that a setting that I even have control over? I'd probably need to change that around.

Speaker 1: 32:54

Creator mode. When you turn it on by default, your default button becomes follow. There's no way to make it connect and it's. I usually tell people I wouldn't turn off creator mode because of that feature, but just be aware that there might be people who are coming to your profile who see the default button as follow and they don't know that there's any other way. So that's part of the reason I like to give those instructions.

Speaker 1: 33:15

But for you, tracy, and for anybody listening who has creator mode turned on, I just say go to your followers and just look at those followers, like once a week, because there might be some individuals in there that are following you that actually do want to connect with you, but they couldn't figure out a way to do so, and then you can initiate an invitation. Yeah, wonderful, thank you, awesome. And then I also want to pull up your website up here on screen as well. And, tracy, if people are interested in doing business with you, can you remind us a bit about some of the services and what do you offer and how do you work with people?

Speaker 2: 33:48

So I work with people where they'll hire me to come in and do a big like conference. So I'll do speaking events. Oftentimes I'll customize packages where it's like speaking, launching something to them and their team, and then follow up coaching after I do one-to-one. And then I have a lot of programs. I have a lot of different programs based on what you're looking for, like I have goal setting, things that are more personal, diving in, but the universal program that we sell all the time is beyond common essentials and that is the groundwork to getting everything in line so that you're setting up both your life and business to truly be as successful as possible without spending more time.

Speaker 2: 34:43

Everything that I teach is about how do we maximize the time so that you actually get to enjoy your life, and I think that comes from the beginning, the start of my business career. I definitely suffered from burnout from that hustle. You know what I mean Thinking you can outwork people, and I learned the hard way and I don't ever want anyone else to go through that. So I really focus on really working smart and taking people through a process that allows them to really be profitable with their time, instead of becoming what I call the expensive hobby. I always tell people, until you have people paying you, you might just have an expensive hobby.

Speaker 1: 35:25

Yeah, and it feels like it can feel like that. So I think sometimes having somebody from the outside and outside helping to look in with you and your business, to help to guide you through that process. Anything you want to point out I see you've got some free resources, some other stuff. Anything you want to point out on the website here?

Speaker 2: 35:41

We have a whole shop area, because the thing about me is that, yes, I'm a business coach, but I also have multiple businesses. Me is that, yes, I'm a business coach, but I also have multiple businesses. I'm a creator at heart, so I don't teach anything that I haven't done myself. So I have many different segments of business, like I have businesses I've created with my children, I have businesses that are just for business owners, I have personal stuff, so there's a lot in there that you can pick through and see what lines up best for you. But we have a podcast every week, so there's lots of free resources there.

Speaker 1: 36:17

And remind us the name of your podcast again.

Speaker 2: 36:19

Beyond Common.

Speaker 1: 36:20

Business Secrets. I'm going to put that into the chat right now. Beyond Common let's see how fast I can type business secrets. Sometimes I can type faster than others. I don't know about you, Tracy, but I find I type slower when I have somebody watching me and in this case maybe dozens or hundreds of people watching. Beyond common. Business secrets is the name of your podcast and I'm assuming that's on all the major podcast platforms. We could look at that, every channel.

Speaker 2: 36:46

Yeah, actually we're very blessed to be in the top 5% of all podcasts in history.

Speaker 1: 36:51

Wow, congratulations.

Speaker 2: 36:53

That's great to hear.

Speaker 1: 36:54

So great podcast Highly recommend listening to it. And as we wrap up our conversation here today, Tracy, just want to ask you any final comments for us on how to find and use the power of our unique voices.

Speaker 2: 37:07

We have a gift for the members of your audience and it is at beyondcommonbusinesssecretscom slash voice. And that is a guide and like a mini training on really walking yourself through how to find that power of your authenticity and your unique voice. And it doesn't matter what stage of business you're at Sometimes. We just need that refresh.

Speaker 1: 37:36

Okay, awesome, I'm going to try to grab that and put that into the comments here.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Beyondcommonbusinesssecretscom slash voice. Yep, okay, so I'll drop that into the comments on LinkedIn and I'll put that in the show notes for people too. Okay, okay, awesome, all right, I want to thank everyone for watching and, by the way, tracy and I are self-employed. We are enthusiastically self-employed, if you will. So if you do have any feedback for us, we don't have annual performance reviews anymore. It's one of the things I miss the least from corporate, but I do getting feedback, tracy, and I'm sure you do as well, so I'll just ask our audience if you enjoyed the conversation here today.

Speaker 1: 38:13

We'd love to see your comments coming in, but even more so would be as soon as this video is done playing, or as soon as you're done listening to the podcast. Click to share it along with someone who could benefit from learning about all the great tips that Tracy shared with us in the conversation. If you're doing it as a LinkedIn post, remember to tag us. Use the at symbol to tag Tracy and myself. When you do, we'll get a notification and I know I'll comment back. I'm guessing that you probably will comment back as well. Is that right, tracy? Yes, yes, awesome. So be sure to share that along, all right? Thank you so much, tracy. It's been a delight chatting with you here today. I know I'm going to be listening to this playback again, reviewing this all over again, but this is really great advice and I just really enjoyed chatting with you. So thank you for coming on today.

Speaker 2: 38:56

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you everyone. It's been a pleasure. I'd love to do it again.