130 – Entrepreneurial You! Monetize Your Expertise with Dorie Clark

Hi there.

You're listening to gift biz on episode 130,

I have seen too many smart,

talented professionals who struggled to really be able to successfully make

money at their business.

Hi, this is John Lee Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to give to biz unwrapped,

and now it's time to light it up.

Welcome Nick gift bears on unwrapped your source for industry specific

insights and advice to develop and grow your business.

And now here's your host Sue Mona height.

Hi there.

It's Sue and welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

If you're a gift or Baker,

crafter, or maker,

and you own a brick and mortar shop sell online,

or just getting started,

you'll discover new insight to gain traction and to grow your

business. And today I have the pleasure of introducing you to

Dorie Clark Dorie is an adjunct professor at Duke university's view

plus school of business.

She's also the author of entrepreneurial.

You reinventing you and stand out,

Inc magazine.

She's a former presidential campaign spokeswoman and the New York times

describes Dory as an expert at self reinvention and helping others

make changes in their lives.

Dory is a frequent contributor to the Harvard business review and

consults and speaks for clients,

including Google,

Microsoft, and the world bank Dorie.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it.

Yeah. Wonderful.

As we a little bit alluded to already,

I'd like to start off our conversation in a creative way,

and that is by having you describe a motivational candle,

since we're all creatives here,

it gives us a little bit of a different look into

what you're all about.

So if you were to create a candle that would really

resonate with you,

what would the color be and what would be the quote?

Absolutely. I love this question.

So if I was going to create a motivational candle,

I think for me,

the whole premise of the candle is that it should smell

really good.

So I'd probably mostly want to make sure that it was

like half lavender and half vanilla.

Those are my favorite scents.

And if it was going to say something,

it would probably be stand out,

which is the title of my most recent book and a

real principle that I try to live by that if we

are going to differentiate ourselves in this crowded competitive marketplace,

we can't be afraid to be authentic and be ourselves and

really do something different.

And that is so much of what we're going to get

into today and something that I think a lot of my

listeners honestly,

really need to understand and know.

So I'm glad that's the quote on your candle.

It's perfect.

And I'm all about sense.

So that works really well for me too vanilla.

Can you take us back a little bit and bring us

to how you've gotten here today in terms of being a

speaker and an author and all that?

Give us a little of your journey?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I actually began my career.

I started working for myself 11 years ago.

And before that I had done a lot of different things.

Probably some of your listeners can relate to my eclectic background.

I had gone to graduate school for theology.

I had been a newspaper reporter.

I had worked in politics and been a political communications person.

I had been a spokesperson on a gubernatorial campaign and a

presidential campaign I'd run a nonprofit.

So there were a lot of different careers in there.

And ultimately when I decided to start my business,

I was interested in taking all of those skills and putting

them together in terms of communications and marketing and finding ways

to help my clients,

either their businesses or themselves as individuals really stand out and

get heard amidst all of the noise.

And so for a while,

when I first began my business,

I was just doing traditional marketing strategy consulting.

But I soon realized that if I was going to take

my own medicine,

if I was going to be able to be heard,

I would need to start doing something different and contributing my

own ideas to the discourse.

And so I began blogging pretty regularly for the Harvard business

review and some other places.

stand out,

my most recent one came out.

So yeah,

I learned a lot about all the information in terms of

putting it in your book,

by observing others and interacting with others.

As you're talking about your journey,

what really stood out to me is everything that you're talking

about had some type of an interaction,

a people interaction with it.

So you've really,

it sounds like gravitated and,

and always been into relationships with people,

I guess,

your whole life,

right? That's pretty much you.

Yeah, it's true.

I think that there is a real core of it,

of connecting with other people.

And what I'm especially passionate about in my work is making

sure that the voices of talented people get hurt,

because I think that a real problem that we have,

especially, you know,

the world,

thanks to the internet,

gets noisier and more crowded.

There is a real difference between being good at what you

do and knowing how to promote what you do.

And oftentimes even if you're amazing,

the world is not going to notice if you're not doing

the right things.

And so I'm very interested in making sure that the most

talented person wins,

that the most talented person gets their ideas heard and not

just the loudest voice,

Good point,

because you can have so much talent,

but if it's not being noticed by anybody,

it's not going to happen.

And a lot of people,

quite honestly,

when you see them out there,

they may not be the most talented,

but they're getting heard,

they're getting the visibility.

And then some people sit back and say,

well, why is it not me?

That's being seen,

you know,

my product's better,

or my images are better or my services better,

or, you know,

whatever it is,

but they're just not moving the needle in terms of getting

visibility. And that's pretty much what standout is all about.

Right? Yeah,

that's exactly right.

And in fact,

my newest book that is going to be released in October

is called entrepreneurial.

You it's coming out from Harvard business review press,

and it's taking that concept even a step further because of

course the biggest hurdle for a lot of small business owners

and entrepreneurs is,

you know,

first you got to get heard and get people paying attention

and liking your stuff.

But again,

you have to make money.

You have to get people to buy it.

And so entrepreneurial you is really about,

you know,

where the rubber meets the road,

it's about how to monetize your ideas more successfully.

So you can really build a business that thrives over the

longterm. So you would say stand out is identifying specifically what

it is about you,

that then you can announce to everybody and entrepreneurial youth is

then how to get it out.

Yeah. Entrepreneurial you is very tactically focused about basically how to

make more money in your business.

I realized that for a lot of people,

especially women business owners,

this can be a challenge.

You know,

certainly knowing how to even,

how to feel comfortable,

sometimes selling things and really knowing the full range of the

different possibilities and business models out there for building a successful

thriving six,

seven, eight figure business.

And so I interviewed more than 50 top entrepreneurs and literally

just broke down their business models and talked about how they

made money,

what worked,

what didn't,

because I wanted to provide a template for people.

I feel like in our society,

oftentimes there are so many taboos talking about money.

It leaves a lot of people in the dark,

and that is not really helpful for anybody.

Right? Absolutely.

Let's talk more about standout.

Can you give us some advice in some direction on how

you do that?

What is the recipe for identifying what it is?

You need to be telling people,

or you're the one who's the re-invention right.

That's what the New York times says.

So let's say we've had someone who has been in a

nine to five job,

and now they're looking at reinventing themselves.

How do you do that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, if you have a gift business that you're looking to

really take to the next level,

you want to be spending more time on it and really

emphasizing it.

I think that,

you know,

there's a few things to keep in mind with your re-invention.

The first one is that we are often surprised by how

many times it takes how many iterations it takes for things

to sink into other people's brains.

You know,

we might think,

Oh, we'll just tell somebody once.

And they'll remember,

and you know,

they'll know exactly what we're doing.

And then they'll remember so that they can order all of

their holiday and birthday gifts from us.

No, you are going to have to remind them repeatedly because

honestly, you know,

people are busy.

They're not paying that close attention to you.

And so it often slips out of their mind that you're

doing this or to make the connection that,

Hey, you're their friend or their colleague.

They should be supporting your business if they like your,

and so we can't just tell them once we need to

find ways to remind people of this when you're launching your

business or beginning to take it to the next level of

sending out personal notes to people,

you know,

we might think one blast email is enough.

I would actually say sending out a short personal message to

the people that,

you know,

just giving them an update,

letting them know what you're doing.

That's an important touch.

Another thing that's really useful is starting to create content around

your work.

And this could be anything from an Instagram account showing off

what you do.

It could be on LinkedIn,

maybe you're sharing blog posts that you write or articles that

you've read that relate to what you're doing,

you know,

with a little comment,

but just,

you know,

keeping on people's radar.

So they remember the last thing that I'll mention too,

is, you know,

this is a place where a lot of people miss their

opportunity. Let's say you're at a cocktail party or some gathering

a barbecue.

Everybody of course is going to say,

well, what are you up to lately?

And a lot of people don't have a good answer.

They just say,

Oh, you know,

same old stuff.

So true.

Drop the ball.

This is a place where people are asking,

right? You're not intruding.

You're not bragging,

whatever they are asking you.

And so you should have something useful and relevant to say

about your business.

This is the place where you can say,

Oh, well,

you know,

I'm so excited because I recently started work on,

you know,

my blah-blah-blah line where I'm creating a,

B and C and you know,

I'm feeling really good about it.

And it's just,

you know,

that's one more opportunity for them to hear about it and

say, Oh,

right, right.

I had forgotten you did that.

That's great.

My cousin's birthday is coming up next month.

Maybe I should get her one.

Absolutely. And I think if,

as listeners,

a couple of the things I just want to underline that

is talking about is the number of times that you're connecting

and multiple channels to then,

you know,

just as Dory saying,

like maybe it's social media,

maybe you're going to start a blog about your whole business

or a new system that you're doing for making your jewelry

or whatever it is,

but multiple channels.

And I think Dory,

I don't know what you'd say about this is we always

feel like we are way more important than other people feel

like what we've done in what we say should stand out

one time,

because it is just that important.

But life is busy and people are getting information from all

different ways.

And it's not that people don't care or aren't interested in

what you're doing.

It's that you continually have to put it in front of

them. Yeah,

that's exactly right.

It's just that repeat iteration.

Yeah. Yeah.

And family and friends,

easy way to get started.

You're brand new.

If you're a little skiddish about presenting yourself and being bold

and being confident and being proud,

family and friends is a great place to start.

Just like Dory's talking about if you're at a cocktail party

or something like that,

it's a great way to kind of flush out any anxiety

that you might have about that.

So I know Dory also,

you are a big one for networking,

any suggestions or comments or advice to people who aren't so

comfortable presenting themselves in a room with a lot of people.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think too,

that one of the misconceptions about networking,

which is a common one,

is that when we think about networking in a general sense,

what comes to mind for almost everybody is the sort of

classic archetype of a networking event.

Oh, if you want to network,

if you go to a networking event and these are usually

it just hell for everybody to an extreme extrovert,

I mean,

you walk into this room and you don't know anyone and

it's loud and you have to go up to strangers and

make small talk.

I mean,

it's terrible.

And so I think that one of the most important things

that we can do is to really separate the idea of

networking from a networking event,

you don't have to go to those things.

All networking refers to is just keeping connections,

warm, keeping relationships alive,

and then trying to meet new people.

And so,

you know,

some simple things that people can do for networking,

even if you're shy,

even if you're introverted.

One great thing is to go through your LinkedIn or your

address book.

And every morning send a note to three people that you

haven't talked to in a while just saying,

hi, just checking in.

And you know,

you start a little email dialogue.

And of course,

you know,

I wouldn't lead with this.

I wouldn't hit them over the head.

Like, Hey,

I have this business,

you can ask about them and odds are,

they'll write back and they'll say,

well, what are you doing?

And then that's an opportunity for you in a very low

key way to just say what you're doing,

that you're excited about it.

You can even share a link to the website so that

they can check it out for themselves,

no pressure,

but you're making them aware of it.

That's a great form of networking.

I'm a big fan personally of organizing dinner,

gatherings of friends that I would like to bring together.

And that works for me because it's people that I already

know and have at least some relationship with some I know

really well.

Some, I don't know that well,

and it's not the sort of weirdness of talking to a

stranger. It's very much on my own terms.

Oh, now that's interesting.

Let's talk a little bit more about that.

So do you do that at your home or do you

go to a restaurant?

How do you do that?

Well, you certainly could do it at your home if you

are a good cook,

but I am not.

So if that's your thing,

then by all means lean into your strengths.

But for me,

I actually tried it once.

I tried it literally once at my house and because it's

not something that I love doing,

I just found it too stressful.

It was six people and there were,

I think,

four different dietary plans.

Oh no,

no, no,

no, no.

Then you're focused on serving them and making sure they're comfortable

versus really being able to get a chance to chat with

them. Did you analyze who your guest list was going to

be and make sure that everyone was going to blend together?

Well, any thought process behind putting them together?

And the reason I asked you that is a lot of

our listeners have locations,

they're brick and mortar.

So they could easily be doing events in their shop,

which I continually propose to people.

That's another form of networking,

but you're inviting people into your space,

but you want to make sure that they're all going to

blend well and everyone's going to have a good time.

Sure. Yeah.

I think that it is important to give at least a

little bit of thought to the mix.

Although I don't overanalyze it.

I feel like people could sort of paralyze themselves with thinking

through all the different permutations.

But generally the lens that I apply is would these people

have at least some basic stuff to talk about,

would they have some things in common?

You could do all sorts of different themes that cut across

different areas.

I mean,

for instance,

some examples of the types of dinners and things that I've

organized. One time I did one for journalist friends.

It's just all the people I knew who were journalists.

Another time I did one for musician,

friends, other times I've done,

you know,

sort of more broadly like friends in the arts,

I'm having a dinner next week.

And it's a lot of people who are involved in startups

and finance.

It's not that everybody has to be from that mix.

But if there's certain commonalities,

you could do people,

you know,

from certain alumni groups are like,

Oh, they're all moms.

Or, you know,

whatever it is you want to just give them something,

some kind of crutch that they could fall back on conversationally.

Sure. Really,

really interesting idea.

Let's move on to talking a little bit more about standout.

What if someone has no idea how they stand out,

they have a shop or they make a product,

but they have absolutely no idea.

Like what do we mean?

Stand out.

I have nothing that stands out Mom and thing that,

you know,

of course we are in the forest.

And so we can't really see the trees as it were

what I actually recommend for a lot of people,

because it is very hard to know what is special about

us is that the way around this is actually hearing from

other people.

And so in my first book reinventing you,

I actually suggest an exercise for people.

Call it the three word exercise.

It's very simple.

And that is that,

you know,

here's a homework assignment over the course of the next week.

You reach out to about half a dozen people that know

you reasonably well.

And you ask them a very simple question,

which is,

if you had to describe me in only three words,

what would they be?

And you know,

this could apply to you as a person.

It could apply to your business,

whatever it is that you want to try to analyze.

And by the time you get to the fourth or the

fifth person,

you're going to start to see patterns in what their responses

are. And this is interesting.

Not because you're going to hear something that is so shocking

that you've never heard before.

You've never thought of before.

Well, You hope not.

Anyway, You'll hopefully,

you know,

we have a reasonable sense of ourselves.

But the interesting part is that we as humans have no

idea what it is that other people find most distinctive about

us. That's the key.

What is it that other people find most unusual,

most distinctive that you only know by asking.

And so once you hear that,

once you gather that data,

it gives you some interesting ideas and some possibilities,

because that allows you to say,

Oh wait,

wow. If people seem,

think that this particular trait of mine or this particular thing

is particularly noteworthy,

maybe that is a strength that I can lean into.

Wonderful. And now you also,

because I just printed this out this morning.

No I've had your book,

but I haven't printed this out.

Ever. You have a standout self-assessment guide.

Yes, it is super long Dory.

That's true.

I do.

It's a free 42 page handout that I created for people

to actually help them figure out what is their unique idea

and how do they then get recognized for it.

If folks are interested,

it's a series of 139 questions that walks you step-by-step through

figuring that out.

So it's really a good way to do a deep dive

on who you are,

what your brand is,

what you can offer and how to get known for it.

Anyone can download it for free@dorieclark.com

slash join.

J O I N.

Perfect. Perfect.

Well, I printed it out.

I'm traveling this weekend.

It's coming on the airplane with me.

So I haven't even looked at the questions,

even though I've already read the book,

let's see what happens with me as a result of that,

but really cool and very interesting because sometimes you'll get downloads

like this and they're like 10 quick questions.

This looks like it's a really deep dive,

very excited about it.

And give biz listeners if you are just not sure.

You're really curious.

Definitely check it out.

We'll have the link in the show notes for sure.

So, all right,

Dori, you have taken some steps to get out of your

comfort zone recently.

You're kind of doing some fun things on the side,

right? It's true.

I am.

I started last summer taking a stand-up comedy classes.

And so I have done a number of standup performances,

probably well over a dozen,

maybe 15 standup performances around New York,

which has been terrific.

And my latest thing actually is that I have hired a

coach to help me with musical theater writing.

Oh, my word,

my latest fascination.

Wow. So what has Prompted you to do these creative outlets?

Well, you know,

I realized I was spending all of my time promoting the

book. And of course,

you know,

it's a good thing.

When you have a book,

you have to really take advantage of that opportunity.

But I also realized that things come in phases and after

the rush of the book promotion and the release did,

it was maybe time to attend to some other areas of

my life.

And I thought about what would be interesting for me and

especially living in New York,

I thought about areas where there might be a unique opportunity

in New York to have access to resources.

And of course,

a comedy scene here and the musical theater scene are just

top notch.

And so I figured,

you know what?

These are things that I've always enjoyed.

Let me look a little bit deeper and try to take

advantage of the place where I am So natural on stage.

That's where I first met you.

Social media marketing world.

Let's see,

two years ago.

I think it was Right.

It was when I First saw you actually in person,

but so you're taking what you already pretty much feel comfortable

doing. Let's face it.

Most people don't right.

Getting up in front and talking to people,

but then switching it up a little bit.

Would you say that the comedy and now the musical theater

has helped you with the other portion of your life?

The more professional portion too,

You know,

it's interesting.

I don't yet see a direct correlation,

although I don't need to,

I'm really am doing this as a form of extracurricular development

for myself.

Comedy is much harder than professional speaking because it requires the

skills of professional speaking.

Meaning as you indicated,

you have to stand up on a stage.

You have to be comfortable in front of a crowd,

but the bar is a lot higher for professional speaking.

It's okay.

Are you interesting?

You know,

keep the audience engaged.

Is your material reasonably educational,

that kind of thing.

You can meet that bar.

You've done a good job.

People like it for comedy.

It is okay.

Are you comfortable on stage?

And can you keep the audience laughing every 10 seconds for

approximately five to 10 minutes?

Interesting. Yeah.

And If you don't do that,

it doesn't matter how educational you are.

It doesn't matter how entertaining you are just,

you know,

in terms of presenting the material,

you have to make them audibly laugh.

And so learning how to really do that,

to how to master the timing,

how to master that joke,

writing and performing just takes it to a whole nother level.

So, you know,

in some cases the skills are transferable,

but it's its own animal in terms of its demands and

I think much harder.

Well, and then you also,

most of the time I would imagine get into storytelling,

which then is more personal,

right? So you're a little more vulnerable out there cause you're

putting, you know,

it's got to somehow relate to you in one way or

another. Sure.

Let's move on a little bit.

Now I want to talk about entrepreneurial you and we're timing

this because we want to make sure that this goes out

right before the book is available.

I've already pre-ordered.

I mentioned that to you earlier,

How much can you open up and share with us?

This'll probably be a couple of weeks away.

We haven't talked Dory about what the live date will be,

but I'm thinking a couple of weeks away or right close

to when it's going to be available.

So what can you share with us?

We want to make everyone go out and buy them.

I appreciate it.

Thank you,

sir. The book officially is released on October 3rd and I

cannot wait.

Ultimately, the reason that I wrote this is that I have

seen too many smart,

talented professionals who struggled to really be able to successfully make

money at their business.

And I wanted to be able to provide a toolkit as

it were so that people could kind of look inside the

vault, see how other successful people were earning,

living, and try things on for size.

See what spoke to them as possibilities and really break that

down so that hopefully things might seem to be more achievable.

You know,

I wrote about people who had built large followings and in

some cases were able to very successfully to monetize them,

whether it was blogs or podcasts,

coaching consulting,

creating online membership communities,

public speaking,

organizing events.

These are things that in many cases might be relevant to

some of your listeners and just opening up new possibilities.

Because for me,

one of the things I believe very strongly is that especially

in the new economy,

especially as we are entering this kind of increasingly freelance or

entrepreneurial world,

one of the smartest and safest things you can do is

to diversify your income streams so that you're not reliant on

just one thing.

You know,

the world changes quickly.

And so you need to hedge your risk and this allows

you to do it.

And if you diversifying your income streams,

it also gives you a lot more baths and a lot

more opportunities to be able to leverage your community or leverage

your ideas and make money in multiple ways from them Taking

a similar idea,

but applying it in different ways,

different methods,

that type of thing.

Is that what you've been seeing that other people are doing

or totally separate revenue streams.

I'm really talking about finding ways to extract the maximum value

from one thing that you're doing,

whether it is one particular service you're doing or from your

community in general,

I think certainly one could be,

you know,

an Uber driver and a dog Walker and a yoga instructor,

but they're all very different things.

You have to build all of those things separately,

what I'm especially interested in.

And I think a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs

are, is finding ways to really take your time that you've

spent in building a customer base,

building a community and saying,

all right,

how else can I serve these people?

What else can I do since we've already invested in putting

this together and really maximize it,

I could not agree with you more.

You know,

I sit here with two businesses,

although the audiences overlap,

it is somewhat challenging.

So I love that.

That's what you just said because having one single thing and

then diversifying it,

but it comes from a single core,

I think just you're going to maximize your opportunity so much

more doing it that way.

When you interviewed people,

did you see that a lot of the methods were similar

as you talked to a number of different people or are

there different methods?

Well, there's a lot of different things that people can be

doing in terms of,

you know,

if you look at it on the surface,

they're very different.

I mean,

for instance,

you might say,

well, organizing a mastermind group is really different than having a

blog for instance.

And they are,

you know,

the different skillsets,

that sort of thing.

But I think that a lot of the foundational principles are

very similar and specifically one of the things that I think

is really most important as we think about how to be

successful business owners is the principle of taking small bets and

iterating. And what I mean by that is that in a

lot of ways,

you know,

the sort of old fashioned way of doing things,

the way that still some people imagine something has to be

done is that you cook up an,

you keep it secret because of course,

you know,

people might steal it and you work on it forever and

you were affected alone in your garage and then you unveil

it to the world and hopefully it is a massive success,

but the truth is most often,

if that's the approach that you're taking,

Hey, you've spent a lot of time and possibly a lot

of money working on something and you have no customer feedback.

You have no way of knowing if anyone besides you thinks

it's great.

And so more often than not a product or a service

conceived like that fails,

and it can become extremely damaging for a business.

What is a lot better,

honestly, is the new sort of lean startup approach.

Even as small business owners,

we can borrow these ideas and approaches that are now being

used in Silicon Valley.

And you know,

that is much more about trying something small,

try a pilot,

try a stripped down version,

run a little test that's cheap and do that first,

do it with a small segment of your audience,

do a little pilot,

see how it goes.

See what they're asking for.

More of see what they're asking for less of and then

adapt. And then by the time you're ready to launch it

for real,

you will have had that customer validation.

You won't have gone,

broke doing it.

And you'll really know what your audience wants.

Yeah. I mean,

it's devastating when you see people putting so much time and

money into something and you're right,

they keep it so tight to their chest.

And then crickets,

you know,

when they launch something,

yeah. This is like on the online learning,

you know,

training courses,

all of that in that whole category.

And I'm Joe,

you know,

this story,

a lot of people are talking about how you may not

even have built the course yet,

but if you start having people buying it before it's even

there, and then you start building it as you go along,

as you drip it out,

that's a great way to go because you know,

you've got the audience and you know,

people are wanting what you have.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

I mean,

that is the exact format that I used last year when

I piloted my recognized expert course.

And it worked really well.

And in fact,

in my book,

entrepreneurial you,

I tell the story of a guy named Danny INI.

And he really came around to this methodology because he had

an experience a few years ago.

You know,

when he was first starting his business,

he had expertise in marketing.

And so he created this mammoth gargantuan,

you know,

sort of Magnum Opus,

Mark, online marketing course called marketing that works.

And he put it out there and he was convinced that

this is what the world needed and tragically,

although, you know,

you can almost see the coming one person signed up for

it. He hadn't developed it.

And so for the next six months,

he had to spend all this time developing this course for

one guy who had bought it.

And it was so incredibly depressing that for years he didn't

even touch online courses,

but finally he decided he would try it again.

But he said,

okay, this time I'm going to do it differently.

He actually did what you described,

which is that he pre-sold the course.

He said,

I'm thinking of this course.

If you are interested in it,

buy it.

Now you can get it at a discounted rate.

I will develop it with you.

I'd love your feedback on what you like and what you

don't like.

And in exchange,

I'll spend more time with you and we'll really be able

to co-create it I'll be able to build something that is

what you're requesting.

And so he did that.

And frankly,

he said he did that.

Not as some super smart strategy,

but as a way that he could back out if nobody

wanted it.

But instead the opposite happened and tons of people wanted it.

And it became his first really successful course.

And it made him realize the value of taking these small

bets and moving from there.

What would you say to people who are thinking?

Yeah, but then someone else is going to have the idea

and they're going to do it too.

Yeah. I think a lot of people worry about that,

but the truth is I sort of let that go a

long time ago because the truth is in any industry,

it is very rare that you're going to find anything that

is 100% completely never been done.

I mean,

you know,

what if eucalyptus candles,

sorry, somebody else has made a eucalyptus candle before.

This is not like some new invention that you've concocted.

The real question is not,

Oh my gosh,

has the world never seen this?

Or is somebody going to copy me?

The question is what is the unique spin that you have

that makes it relevant to your audience?

And maybe that's not even about the candle,

maybe that's about their connection to you.

Maybe it's about,

you know,

for every candle that you're creating,

that you blog and you tell the story of where the

ingredients come from or how it relates to something in your

life. Maybe they buy from you because of the connection that

they feel with you.

And the candle is a representation of that.

You know,

whatever it is that we're doing,

whatever product,

whatever our service people are buying,

yes, the service or the product,

you know,

they want it to be good.

They want it to be nice,

but it doesn't have to be some crazy thing they've never

seen before.

They like it because it has your unique flavor.

If we put that in,

we can be successful.

Give business owners,

we've talked about this before.

Nobody else can be just like you show your customers who

you really are.

And then you lay it over your whole business in terms

of your personality,

the whole vibe of your product and the way you talk

with your customers,

just like Dory's referring to right now.

Nobody else can copy that.

Nobody. The other thing I was just going to mention here,

I mean,

we're talking about courses and building courses,

not necessarily putting them up before,

they're all completed.

That type of thing.

You may feel that this doesn't quite relate to you,

but I have an idea for all of you listeners as

well is if you make jewelry or you're making cupcakes,

possibly you want to think of doing some type of course,

to teach people how to make what you already do.

You're the professional.

And when Dory's talking about multiple revenue,

streams could be a huge opportunity for you.

Online courses are getting easier and easier to make these days.

So something to just consider,

just throwing that out there for everybody at this point,

Dory, you're an author,

you're a speaker.

You have so much going on in your life.

How do you keep everything going?

Know where you're supposed to be,

get speeches made,

write books.

Is there some type of tool you're using that helps you

create all this magic?

Well, there's a few different things.

I mean,

I am still governed.

In fact,

I have it right in front of me now.

I still keep a super old school to do list on

a legal pad.

So I have that and I updated every couple of days.

So I kick it old school,

but some of my favorite tech tools that help me,

I use a service called schedule.

Once it's an online scheduling service,

I pay an annual subscription of about things,

about $175 a year.

But for me,

it's super well worth it,

which enables me to set up meetings without all of the

back and forth of emails about,

you know,

Oh, what time Tuesday?

Oh, well,

okay. 9:00 AM.

No, can't do that.

How about 2:00 PM,

blah, blah,

blah. You know,

I feel like you could go back a million times and

just set up one meeting.

It's so frustrating.

And so instead with schedule,

once I can pick a block of time,

let's say the entirety of Tuesday morning,

and I just send over a link and it allows people

to pick the time that works for them directly.

They book it using that service.

It sends me a reminder email with their phone number or

their Skype handle and boom we're set.

It eliminates probably five out of the six emails.

So that has been a huge time-saver for me.

What do you do in terms of staying current in your

field? What I have noticed is the more people are known,

I guess I'll say out there speaking the less,

they're able to watch what other people are doing and learning

from other people,

because you have your own tribe that you're educating,

working with,

et cetera,

but where are you going right now to help educate you

in your industry?

Are there books or podcasts or conferences that you go to?

Yeah, it's a really good point.

I think it's very true because certainly early in my career,

I think I spent a significant amount of time,

you know,

reading business books and really trying to educate myself about the

field. And that was an important step and important learning step.

And I do have less time for it now.

I certainly do still try to keep up with things.

And now,

because of my blogging,

I receive a lot of review copies of books that get

sent my way and things like that.

But in terms of how I keep up,

I have some Facebook groups with colleagues that I participate in.

Those are some things that I follow.

There's certain friends that I feel like are always good curators

of things.

For instance,

my friend,

Mitch Joel,

is a very regular blogger about media and technology.

And so I follow his messages and always learn a lot

from them.

I am a big consumer of podcasts,

love that.

And so I'm really particularly enjoying our conversation,

which is great.

Some other ones that I liked,

my friend,

James Altucher has a great podcast.

I also like one called the art of charm by Jordan

harbinger. I've been a guest on there a couple of times,

and we'll be joining him pretty soon.

Talking about entrepreneurial you again as well.

Well, it's a good point in that you can't continue to

always learn and capture information.

At some point you have to transition and start doing,

but at the same time,

you still want to continue learning.

It's like a teeter-totter,

you know,

at some point you back up because you've got to be

taking in information.

So great comment in terms of Facebook groups for everybody too,

most people have Facebook groups that are very specific to whatever

you're into and that's a great source of information.

I'm glad you brought that up.

We've never actually talked about that here on the show.

Any advice as we start winding down here to someone who

is just starting their journey and they're listening to us and

they're like,

Whoa, this sounds so way out of my league.

Anything you would suggest.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know,

ultimately one of the topics that I talk about a lot

in my book stand out and I have an online course

that I do called recognized expert ease.

I help business owners think through the question of how they

can become a recognized expert in their field because this matters

a lot in terms of being able to get media attention

in terms of people in the community,

looking to you as a source of information about your topic.

And so the three things that you should be keeping your

eyes on,

number one is content creation.

And that's because people don't know what your ideas are.

They don't know if your ideas are any good if they

can't sample for themselves.

And so,

you know,

when you're thinking about ways to promote your business,

you know,

whatever your medium is,

if you can make videos talking about your art forum or

your service,

if you can write blog posts,

you know,

helping people understand the methodology of your craft or talking about

issues related to it,

you know,

maybe let's say you make candles,

right? And you blog about home decor,

home design,

that's, you know,

really nice complimentary thing.

Those are ways to get your ideas out there.

The second piece is what psychologists call social proof.

And essentially this is about markers of credibility.

And so it's giving people a reason to listen to you.

And so for instance,

thinking about how you can strategically work to a crew,

social proof could be useful.

So for instance,

maybe it is running for the board of your local chamber

of commerce.

That's a great way to acquire social proof in your community.

Maybe it's,

you know,

petitioning your best customers or super fans to nominate you for

your city's best of awards.

You know,

all those types of things can be pretty cool.

Maybe you start a meetup that can be like a local

craft or meetup that starts at your store.

There's a lot of different ways.

And then finally third and finally is your network because your

network really matters for a lot of reasons.

One of them of course,

is that they are the people who can provide you with

a lot of great advice about your business.

Maybe networking with fellow gift business owners is helpful.

Even business owners of different kinds and different varieties.

Just the people that you think are smart in your life.

That make a lot of sense.

Who can be part of your sort of informal mentor of

directors really matters.

And especially if these are people in your community,

they can often be early ambassadors for you to help spread

the word about your products,

your services,

your store,

and can make a big difference in your voice being heard

above the noise.

This is great because when you're describing all of this,

none of these steps sound too hard to accomplish at all.

You know,

the overall thing looks so big.

What you're trying to get to where you're trying to go.

But when you break it down this way,

especially for someone who's just starting out,

it's so much more achievable than you think it is.

Now that we've done that.

And we've told our listeners and new people what they should

be doing now,

I'm going to challenge you Dorie.

And I'm going to ask you to dare to dream.

I'd like to present you with a virtual gift.

It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.

So this is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable

Heights that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box?

Well, let's see.

I would say maybe I'll cheat a little and pick two

things. You can do that.

One thing.

This is related.

We were talking about this earlier,

too. My coach in musical theater writing is that there is

a musical theater fellowship program that I am applying to help

you hone your skills in writing for musical theater.

And I applied last year and I did not get it,

but I am going to apply every year until I do

get it.

There you go.

And maybe just by saying this,

this is going to be your year.

How about that?

That's right.

I'm hoping that this time with my coach with a little

extra support,

that I can catch their eyes.

That is one thing that would be pretty great.

The other thing that I've always thought would be really cool

would be to be a speaker or presenter somehow at the

world economic forum in Davos,

Switzerland. I have not managed to attend that or be part

of that yet,

but perhaps that might be on the books at some point,

There you go.

An aspiration,

right? Are you a skier or snowboarder?

No, not really.

I grew up in North Carolina,

which I can use as my blanket.

Excuse for my ineptitude.

Here you go.

Maybe you get on the slopes and that'll also help with

that. You never know if people wanted to get in touch

with you,

where would you direct them to go to learn about all

the books?

Your course,

all of that good information.

Yeah. Thank you.

So I will direct folks to my website,

which has more than 400 free articles available that I've written

for places like Forbes and the Harvard business review.

It's Dorie clark.com,

D O R I E C L a R k.com.

And I'll also mention that for folks who are interested,

particularly in the idea of how to build out multiple revenue

streams, I do have a free self-assessment.

They can download it is available at Dorie clark.com/entrepreneur.

All of this gift biz listeners will be on the show

notes page,

as you know.

So if you're not able to capture all the information right

now, no worries.

Just get to your computer,

your iPhone,

go to the show notes page,

and it'll all be there for you as we finish up

here. I just want to say Dory,

that generosity is when you light someone else's candle with the

flame of your own.

And that's what you've really been doing here.

You've opened up,

you shared so much,

you know,

some of your personal things as well as business and I

couldn't be happier and thankful to you for sharing all of

that. So thank you once again,

so much.

And our hope for you is that you are going to

get that fellowship and that you are going to speak in

Switzerland in the near future.

May your candle Dory always burned bright.

Where are you in your business building journey,

whether you're just starting out or already running a business,

and you want to know your setup for success,

find out why taking the gift biz quiz,

access the quiz from your computer at Vic dot L Y

slash gift biz quiz or from your phone by texting gift

biz quiz to four four two,

two, two.

Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the

next episode.

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