THE WORST BIZ ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED

Don’t be afraid to keep things personal in your business. Even if your intent is to one day have an audience of millions there is still ALWAYS time to foster real personal connection.

Probably the worst advice I ever got was from a couple of women I once masterminded with who actively spoke with disdain about how people in their audience always thought they had the right to ‘just message them’ and expect a personal reply.

They advised me that, to really ‘go big’ you need to eliminate any idea of letting people access you, obvs unless they pay the big bucks. The idea being that if you’re at Oprah level (or whatever) you wouldn’t have time for that anyway. But it was also a superiority thing; the masses shouldn’t dare to try and touch the previous genius, that sort of vibe.

Ugh.

At the time it didn’t sit well with me at ALL, but I sadly thought maybe they were right, that if I wanted to grow big I needed to pull back on connection. So, I tried to do what they said … for about a MINUTE. It didn’t take. lol. Despite being the world’s biggest natural introvert (like a lot of leaders, messengers, performers), and often not wanting to people too much in real life, I am still ALL about people.

I love talking to them. Hearing from them. Getting to see or feel their excitement, energy, dreaming, or what they’re battling with. It feeds my SOUL. And, I built my first online business to multiple 6-figures per year PURELY through 3 things:

1) Connection

2) Conversation

3) Communication

Yeah, basically they’re all the same thing! Haha. Constantly talking, listening, HANGING with the ladies who followed my first little fledgling blog; seeing them as the equals they of course were rather than as an audience to keep separated from via some kind of online wall and then throw marketing tid-bits over the fence hoping they’d throw money back!

#theidiocy

So yeah … even though I thought maybe these ‘advisors’ of mine at the time knew more than me because back then they were further along, my SOUL knew that a) I couldn’t do that; I’m not interested in a business without a personal conversation, and b) I didn’t really believe in it anyway!

Now, okay, I don’t yet have millions of followers; I have hundreds of thousands though, which is a fair few, and yet I STILL have daily personal conversations with quite a lot of people. No, I also don’t mean only those who have paid for access!! I answer EVERY PM I get. If it’s billing or whatever, my team answer that. But if it’s personal, whether a thank you, a request, or whatever, I promise you: I’m seeing that. And I’m answering, often with an audio note as well (partly ’cause I like audio’s and they’re fun, and partly ’cause I know people don’t believe it’s me necessarily if it’s text!).

I achieved the so-called impossible in this industry – building a business that makes millions of dollars each year, consistently for years now, where I only do what I loved, and it’s been 98% ORGANIC this entire time! Yes, we spend approx 1% only of monthly revenue (which is multi-6-figs) on advertising!! How did I do that?

FUCKING CONVERSATION, CONNECTION, COMMUNICATION. #notrocketscience

This is not time consuming.

If you think it’s too fucking time consuming speaking to people who have the courage, grace, love to message you and share how you’ve impacted them, or if you think you should be so damn cool that people shouldn’t be able to touch you, maybe you need to get out of the business of connecting with PEOPLE.

Sure, you don’t necessarily need to PM every single person who reaches out to you. There are days when I hide out from everyone too. I also am not reactive or responsive to my messages. I go in there on my terms, when it feels expansive for me, and usually only after doing my own stuff, writing, journaling, gym, etc.

I just choose to not see TALKING to people as an energy drain, or an annoyance. lol. I choose that it expands me and gives me energy. And on a not-so-side-note, you might wanna know that the fact that I do this is, for CERTAIN, one of my most effective and time-saving marketing strategies. I can’t tell you how many times people have become Inner Circle 1:1 clients, or joined a high-level intensive with me, and they’ve referenced the fact I personally replied to their inquiry as being a big tipping point.

I can also think of NUMEROUS counts of people becoming clients of either high-end stuff or in my low-cost programs years AFTER I once audio’d them personally. I know this ’cause they tell me, then I go back in the message thread and see.

Or they emailed the customer support inbox a thank you or a share, often saying something like ‘I know Kat probably will never see this’, and then I personally write back. ALWAYS. I actively encourage people to reply to my emails, yes, even at ‘this level’. And I really mean it!!

The marketing ‘results’, that’s not why I do it though. It’s a great plus, and it does make me think you’re kinda STUPID if your marketing strategy is in any way about removing your damn self from your audience, but for me I do it for the same reason I do anything:

Because I can’t not.

If you don’t want to talk to your own audience, I don’t believe you’re a true leader.

And if in 2019 (or any year where humans are alive and responsive to true connection) you think that being so damn cool you’re unreachable is still a strategy, I don’t think you even understand the damn word leader.

Stop being scared of opening yourself up for connection.

You can have boundaries AF and you can also be a fucking human.

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