122 – Fear Held Her Back … Until It Didn’t with Hallie Sherman of Speech Time Fun

Hi there.

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 122.

When I made my first sale,

I realized I had something here,

but I was still too scared to put my name on

it. I was scared to own it.

Hi, this is John Lee,

Dumas of entrepreneur on fire,

and you're listening to the gift to biz unwrapped.

And now it's time to light it.

Welcome to gift biz,

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.

Whether you own a brick and mortar shop sell online or

are 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

Holly Sherman.

Kelly is a licensed speech language pathologist working full-time in the

public schools in her spare time.

She blogs and creates digital resources to assist busy speech language

pathologists to make their jobs a bit easier.

She started this entrepreneurial journey about five years ago,

and at that time she didn't have a permanent job and

used her blog as a therapeutic outlet back then she kept

her blog anonymous to prevent having issues while finding a tenure

track position in truth,

how he didn't think anybody would read it.

But as time went on,

she built a loyal following and a loyal customer base just

by providing content that her audience loved.

After over three years of blogging,

she finally revealed her identity and her audience no longer has

to admire her in Cognito.

Oh wow.

Hailey, I cannot wait to hear all about your experience.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

So I like to start off by A little bit of

a creative way in that I like to have you describe

yourself through a motivational candle.

That's something that us creatives like to do.

So if you were to tell us what your ideal candle

would look like,

what color would it be and what would be the quote

on your candle?

Sure. The color would be purple.

Not only is it because it's my favorite color and the

color of my brand,

but the color represents creativity,

imagination, royalty,

and even sensitivity.

And I think all those are great attributes of an entrepreneurial

and a creative entrepreneur.

And you must be able to stand out yet,

be sensitive to those who are trying to serve.

And a quote that I just love that I think resonates

with me and my brand and everything about me is beauty

begins with the moment you decide to be yourself by Coco

Chanel, because I had a lot of struggles.

And as we're going to get into today with revealing my

identity and putting a face behind my business and being truthful

to my audience.

And so once you realize that what you are capable of,

you can do so much more.

I 100% agree with you and that quote.

So I'm really excited to get into that.

I think that is the key being yourself,

but you said a word that's really interesting Holly,

because I've never heard anyone talk about it this way before.

And that was,

you said,

be sensitive to your audience.

We always talk about,

well, you need to know who your customer is.

And you know,

you need to know who you're talking to,

but in terms of being sensitive to your audience,

I've never heard it stated that way.

Can you expand on that a little bit?

Sure. Since I am a speech pathologist in the school and

I'm serving speech pathologists in the schools,

I get the struggles that my audience is going through on

an everyday basis.

I'm there with them.

I'm in the trenches.

I know exactly what is going on.

And even if it's not happening to me,

it's happening to a friend,

a coworker it's happened to me in the past.

And I'm very sensitive on the fact that a lot of

my audience is spending money out of their own pocket to

pay for resources,

to help their students,

which is going towards my business.

It's not like they're getting funding from a school or a

district and things like that.

I'm very sensitive on the fact that my audience wants to

be better and do more and have more free time to

devote to their families and things like that.

I'm very sensitive of all their different struggles because I have

it as well.

And that's why I created my business.

I realized that I had a strength,

a strength that was,

you know,

my lesson planning.

Didn't take me that much time that I was easily able

to look at my students and come up with a quick

idea fast.

And that was why I started this whole entrepreneurial journey.

But I'm sensitive in the fact that I know what struggles

my audience is having,

which is leading them to find me.

Okay. So let's do take this back from the beginning.

I kind of did a quick rundown in your intro of

everything that was going on with you.

And now you've shared a little bit that you'd identified that

you had something that came really easily to you,

but let's talk a little bit more about this.

Your company's called speech time fun.

And let's talk this all through.

How did this all get started?

Sure. About five years ago,

I was hopping from leave replacement to leave replacement.

The teaching job market in New York is still pretty rough.

And back then it was even more rough.

There was not many jobs.

And I was having from leave replacement to leave replacement.

And that was still putting myself out there each and every

year, putting my resume out there.

Let me stop you when you say leave replacement,

like a maternity leave,

like I was filling in for someone else.

Oh, got you.

Okay. So yeah,

so I was filling in for other people's positions.

I wasn't having my own position because there weren't any at

the time.

And I was getting a little down on myself.

I'm like,

here I am.

I've put in my time,

I'm seeing people around me getting jobs.

I'm like,

what am I doing wrong here?

And I didn't know where I was going to go.

I thought maybe I would start my own private practice.

So I created a website thinking I was going to start

my own private practice.

I didn't know where it was going to go.

I just knew I needed to do something different than what

I was already doing.

And I realized that I had a strength.

I was talking to a few coworkers and friends of mine

and they were up till 11 o'clock at night lesson planning.

And I was like,

that doesn't take me much time.

And that got me frustrated because here I am,

I was not the one with a full-time job and they

did. And so I decided to,

it was right around the time when Pinterest was becoming popular.

I think back then I needed to apply for an account

and I decided to blog and pin it.

And I saw all my pins starting to travel and people

were starting to read it.

I was realizing I had something here.

I had something people wanted and needed.

And so what were the topics of your blogs?

It was Just different quick speech therapy,

ideas that using what speech therapist already had in their rooms.

Like at that point,

I wasn't making my own digital resources.

I was just sharing strategies and materials that I found.

I would find various iPad apps that I would use with

my students and share it on my blog and different things

that would benefit other speech pathologists,

struggling to come up with ideas for themselves to meet the

different needs of their students.

Speech, language pathologists have a different caseload each and every year

when it comes to their students,

it's not like a classroom teacher where there's a curriculum we're

kind of thrown in and basically told,

do what you got to do for your students.

And we're given no direction by any boss,

administrator, anything.

So we have to be creative.

We have to kind of try to pull things together,

using the limited resources that we are given.

So I,

on my blog,

I shared all these different tools using index cards.

And I would find things at the dollar store and share

how they can fund creative idea.

And I would share it on my blog and because of

Pinterest people found it.

But back then since I was still looking for a full-time

job and I didn't think anyone was gonna read my blog

anyway, I decided to not put my name on it,

thinking, I don't think I needed my name on it.

First of all,

and I didn't want to be Google-able in case like a

potential job was looking for me.

I didn't think that it was a positive thing at the

time. I thought it as a negative,

You kind of did it consciously,

but not really because you just didn't put your name on

it, but there was the reason because you didn't want to

be found in case that would interfere with an opportunity for

some position,

but it was kind of either way.

You really didn't give it too much thought.

Right? I didn't think anyone was going to read it.

How long did it take to get traction?

Couple of months,

within six months,

I saw,

you know,

my pins floating.

And that was when I started getting the social media accounts

going. I was like,

I got something here.

So even with no one knowing who I was,

I still had a Facebook account.

I had an Instagram account and a blog following back then

people were commenting on blogs.

So I knew that people were reading and I was growing

a Pinterest following.

So I got to see the numbers growing and even like

page views on Google analytics.

I saw all that going and I'm like,

huh? After six months I was like,

I have something here.

And then I found out about a website called teachers pay

teachers, and it's like Etsy,

but for teachers,

it's a digital selling platform where people can have their own

stores on their website,

just like Etsy.

And I created a store for myself and started creating digital

resources that people can purchase and download and print it out

and put together themselves to use in their therapy rooms.

And I thought,

who's going to buy this from me.

You're doubting yourself the whole way through Weren't you Holly?

The whole way.

I'm like,

no one knows who I am here.

I am.

You know,

I don't even have a full-time job yet.

And when I made my first sale,

I realized I had something here,

but I was still too scared to put my name on

it. I was scared to own it.

Why? Partially,

because of the job situation,

I was afraid of being Googleable.

And I really honestly was afraid of what people might think.

What coworkers might think,

what friends might think,

Even though you are getting traction and you were obviously responding

to people's comments on the blog.

So you were seeing all of this positive reinforcement,

but you were still anxious about getting it.

Yeah. I was still just worried about what people would think.

If they found me,

I thought of it in a negative sense in the beginning.

I don't know.

Why did you Like okay.

If they know that it's me,

then this will all go away.

But as long as they don't know it's me,

it's all good.

Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

I thought that maybe if they knew it was me,

they would say I'm not buying from her now.

Yeah. That's really interesting.

Oh, wait,

give biz listeners,

is this resonating with you?

Is there something that you're thinking of doing and more than

likely you're not even starting and hiding behind it,

like how he was doing,

but is there something where you just keep thinking to yourself?

Oh, it's for everybody else,

but I'm not deserving or it's not for me.

Just think about that a little bit as we carry on

with this conversation.

Okay. So you have everything out there.

You're starting to put out some courses and people are actually

opening their wallets and spending money with you.

That had to be so exciting.

Oh, so exciting back then on their app,

it would go searching when you get a sale.

And when you first heard that first touching you like,

wow, that can't be mine.

Something must be wrong.

I, I had to check,

I had to go on the website.

I'm like,

wait. And I realized I had something.

I realized that people were enjoying what I was providing into

the world.

And over time it made it easier to stay hidden.

I was afraid that my audience would be mad at me.

If I all of a sudden came out and reveal my

identity. I even had friends and coworkers purchase from me not

knowing it was me.

Oh, wow.

Did you ever have conversations where someone would say,

Oh, you should go to this site and check it out

and see,

and then it was really you.

It was me.

It happened several times.

And that's what made it harder to reveal my identity because

I was like,

okay, now I'm really hiding things from people.

Now It gets to the point where,

because there are people that know you,

that it's almost dishonest.

Then if you don't say,

well, it's me and I was just so worried about being

figured out.

At that point,

I was so thrown into the mix of hidden and no

one knows who I am.

I had the secret identity and it was just easier to

stay hidden because I was afraid of it.

Now what people that I knew that bought from me with

think when they realized that I just took their money and

didn't tell them that I did Thinking must've come to a

point where it's like,

it's either now or never,

because at some point you're just into D if you don't

say something soon.

Yeah. And then I had,

my big turning point was when a bunch of other speech

pathologists, bloggers,

teacher pay teacher sellers,

they came together and they went to a national convention.

I didn't go because how could I go?

No one knows who I am.

And I was sitting back,

looking on social media,

watching them,

grow their businesses and do amazing things.

And I couldn't be a part of it because no one

knew who I was.

And I was like,

I need to do something about this.

But I was still too scared.

So the following year I decided to go myself.

I was still anonymous,

but I was like,

I'm going to go and see what happens.

And when I was there,

I had numerous conversations with customers,

with fellow entrepreneurs in the same industry as myself.

And they were like,

what are you scared of?

You're holding yourself back.

Like, they were almost like,

they're mad at me.

I'll never forget this.

They said to me,

I don't trust you.

I don't know you.

How can I work with you?

I don't know you interesting.

And I was like,

huh? I was like,

here I am.

I have all this credibility because I have all these products.

I've been blogging for three years.

Now I should have credibility.

But I didn't because no one knew my name.

No one even knew that I was a licensed speech pathologist.

They trusted me when I said that I was,

but there was no proof because they couldn't check my credentials.

Even. And after that conference,

I came home from Denver.

I sat down with my husband.

I said,

I'm revealing my identity.

This is it.

I'm done.

I'm doing it.

And I started doing little teasers on social media and I

got together various other bloggers in my industry.

I said,

will you help me out?

And they were like,

yeah, we'll help.

We'll make this big.

Like, we're going to really showcase that.

You're a real person.

Since we met you now in person.

And I did a whole big giveaway and a whole big

party on my blog.

And on social media,

I made a big,

and I was like,

I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this.

Right. And I've been in the last,

what two years now.

I've been still making up for lost time.

And in the meantime,

I've been now hopping on Facebook lives,

doing webinars.

I'm speaking at conferences.

Now I'm now on your podcast.

All these things would have never happened if I was still

anonymous and I've made it my business to go above and

beyond to make up for lost time.

Because three years went by that I lost that.

No one knew who I was.

I couldn't share stories.

I couldn't show that I was a real person and be

sensitive. I couldn't be sensitive when I was anonymous because I

was afraid to reveal too much.

So now I'm so able to do so much more.

Now that I reveal my identity.

Okay. I have a million questions here now.

Of course it's so heart-wrenching that you were the one holding

yourself back and people were just open to you already just

meeting you at that conference and saying,

yes, yes,

yes. Go for it.

So you go home,

you talk to your husband,

but still inside,

you had to be so anxious and so nervous.

But what did you do?

You, didn't just like a little bit reveal your identity.

You made it this big thing.

I said,

if I'm going to do it,

I'm doing it right.

And I'm doing it well,

and I'm going to own it.

And if people call me up and they asked me,

Hey, why didn't you tell me I had a story ready

to go?

And I said,

exactly what I said to you,

that I was really nervous.

And it can be a true story.

I mean,

everyone can relate to this.

I think everybody in N the few,

maybe 2% of the population who has no self doubt ever,

if that even exists,

can totally relate and understand.

There's a such been a situation in their lives where that's

happened to talk to us a little bit about your party,

like what you did on social media.

And the reason I'm asking you,

this is I'm a big advocate.

You know,

we have a lot of listeners who only have online shops,

okay. They're never going to have a brick and mortar,

you know,

any of that.

And I try to explain to them that you too can

have a grand opening.

It's not only for physical locations for them to have a

grand opening when they're starting their business.

So this is kind of similar in terms of your party.

And this is the grand opening of you,

Holly Sherman.

Right? Talk a little bit about what you did.

I had a week long love blog giveaways.

I was giving away my free resources.

I was giving away gift cards.

I had people donating to me.

I reached out to people and I was like,

Hey, I'm doing this big reveal.

I'm going to get a lot of traffic because people are

so curious to know who I am.

Would you donate to me?

And so many people were like,

of course,

and they donated resources.

They donated,

like, I think I got some iPad app gift codes to

give away.

I gave away so many different things like a week long

of events.

And so how did you promote it?

Pinterest. I back then,

I wasn't doing Facebook ads,

just using social media back then.

The algorithms.

Weren't that crazy.

When you say back then,

what year was this?

What year was your reveal?

2015. Okay.

So couple years ago,

year and a half,

two years ago,

something like that.

Okay. So no ads,

really no money spent.

It was all social media and organic messaging,

really By asking other people to help donate.

I was also hoping that they would share it on their

social media to bring people to my blog posts,

where I went through my story.

I show pictures on myself.

I shared little snippets of information.

I never shared before where I went to college.

The state that I live in,

I was still nervous about giving too many details away.

I mean,

that's also something that we all probably struggle with how much

to reveal,

because we still want to have some things private,

but I just gave away enough of information that people knew

I was credible and they can trust me.

And I just showed my face.

I had to get used to taking selfies.

That was something I was not comfortable with.

All right.

Okay. So that is the logistical.

If you will,

now, internally Holly,

like in your heart,

how do you get yourself to do?

I just had to do it.

It was like a band-aid.

I had to just rip it.

Like when I came home from that conference,

it was honestly in like a two week span.

I was like,

I'm just doing it.

I'm going.

And I haven't looked back ever since I'm in the momentum

has just continued to grow.

And I see the feedback and the results when people were

saying to me,

thank you so much for revealing.

And thank you so much for helping me with a,

B and C and your blog posts in your resources have

given me so much motivation and inspiration that keeps me going.

Otherwise. I haven't had a chance to sit back and say,

Oh my God,

people know who I am now.

Right. Tips for people.

Well then who are in this type of a situation,

it sounded like you didn't even let yourself think.

You just said,

okay, I know I've got to do it.

I'm going to put this together.

You clearly strategized and planned the reveal because you had the

whole structure and the rollout and all of that.

But then when you actually did it,

did you just like,

shut your brain off and say,

we are in performance mode.

I'm not thinking I'm going to just do this.

Yes. And I realized that I had a talent and something

that I should own and be proud of.

And when I started telling people,

I started getting that elevator speech going like,

Hey, this is what I do.

And I started telling people and people were like,

wow, that's awesome.

You have to teach me how to do it.

And that was the responses I kept getting.

And I'm like,

why was I scared?

What was I afraid of?

And no,

one's given me any negative responses ever since then.

And that's kept me going well.

And now you're seeing what you were missing out on by

not revealing yourself earlier,

which is really,

I've never heard anybody do this before Holly.

And it's just so interesting for everybody to see that they're

just keeping themselves back.

However, what I would say also is you did prove that

you had something that an audience wanted.

So it was kind of nice for you in that situation

back then to just test some things out.

If you didn't feel comfortable with getting your name out and

truly you had a good reason just in case,

you know,

for the position,

you know,

to get a position,

if that would conflict or whatever,

but would you say that maybe it was good in the

beginning? You just should have come out a little bit.

Oh, definitely.

Once I saw the first pin go viral,

I should have revealed my identity.

Once I realized that I had something that people wanted,

I should have owned it.

I shouldn't have never looking back.

I take back so many mistakes,

but everything happens for a reason.

I truly believe that I needed to go through the motions

of being scared and going to this conference and realizing that

I was missing out on so many opportunities,

because I realized in my heart that I wanted those opportunities.

I didn't think that five years ago,

five years ago,

I just wanted someone to read my blog.

That's all I cared about.

Would you recommend for somebody in your situation to test the

waters behind the scenes like you did,

and just,

if they get traction,

then come on out.

If someone's really nervous and they just want to test system,

or would you just recommend coming out right from the start?

There's definitely benefits for both.

If you are hesitant and nervous and worried about whatever reason,

whether it's a full-time job that you have at the time,

or if you're not sure if people are going to like

whatever you're producing and you're nervous,

put your name on it,

then try it out.

Why not?

But don't wait three years.

Once you see that people are investing and liking your stuff,

put your name on it,

own it,

put a personality behind it.

That's been the best thing I can do.

Even just doing an Instagram story.

People say to me,

wow, I love your accent.

You're clearly from New York.

And no one was able to do that before.

And so many people are like commenting back,

like, Oh,

I have a cousin that lives in New York.

I love hearing your accent.

And then people are able to connect with something as simple

as that,

that I couldn't do before.

And that could lead to more sales and growing my audience.

And now I'm able to do so much more.

That sky's the limit.

I couldn't be in this situation if I didn't put my

name on it and my face and my personality.

Yeah, Absolutely.

All right.

So I think we've gotten the message down in that.

You just do it,

you know,

you don't think about it.

If this is the direction that you're taking,

you just go ahead and let yourself be out there.

And don't second.

Guess yourself,

just be yourself.

And back to your point with your candle quote is be

yourself. And don't try to be anybody else because when you

try to be somebody else,

it comes across as inauthentic.

You can spot it a mile away,

right? So just be yourself.

Some people are going to love you.

Some people may not so much,

and that's perfectly fine too,

but now you're also talking about this whole live aspect.

You're going on Instagram,

you're doing stories or Facebook live or whatever.

That's a whole nother realm,

right? Because that's not just saying,

okay, I'm this person behind the words that's putting your face

in front of a camera.

Yes. That was scary in itself.

I mean,

for someone who is scared to put their name on anything,

to then be raw and real on live video,

it was a whole nother ball game.

But I realized that I had to,

in this industry,

I had to stand out.

I had to fight algorithms and I had to put myself

out there in order to see the growth and sales that

I wanted.

And I felt like I deserved.

So again,

you just decided you were going to do it.

And that's it.

I did it once.

And I saw the response and I was like,

I got to keep going in the beginning.

I was a lot more consistent.

I was doing Periscope,

I think once a week,

maybe twice a week.

Not so much as much now as I would like to

be since,

you know,

I mean,

now I'm on summer break,

but I was working full-time and I have a three-year-old.

So it was a little difficult to go Facebook lives and

things like that.

But I always tried to do like a daily Instagram story

to get my audience,

to see me get fresh ideas.

I like to stand out and just be present and in

their inbox or whatever I to do daily.

Periscopes When Periscope first came out and now I'm doing Instagram

stories and Facebook live too,

but you're doing daily Instagram,

which is awesome.

You know,

the stories and people.

It's so interesting because when you are just yourself,

in fact,

I did a story real quick,

right before we jumped on,

do you know that it's social media marketing day?

Oh, I didn't even know that.

Yeah. We are recording June 30th.

For those of you who are tracking time,

because the show won't actually go live until next month,

actually, August,

I believe.

But yeah.

I mean,

live is so important these days and you attract people that

you wouldn't be attracting anywhere else.

And they really see to your point,

Holly, about,

you know,

a personality,

someone that they can relate to.

And just People want to feel like they're buying from their

best friend or their neighbor or someone they know that's otherwise

they would go to these big businesses and things like that.

They want to buy from people they know and can trust.

Absolutely. There is a big shift now,

I think from the big chain stores now to more personal

one-on-one buying just like you're talking about so thrilled that you're

talking about Instagram stories and the nice thing about all that

live too is it's not expected that it's going to be

perfect. You're not going to necessarily brand everything.

And so what if coffee spills off right Desk?

People just want to see real people want to see that

you're a real person.

You stumble on your words that you make mistake.

Your phone might ring in the middle of a webinar.

It's happened to me.

And you just got to keep on going and trust that

you're providing such great value that your audience is going to

eat up and love and keep going and keep doing it.

Absolutely Comments or recommendations or wisdom for people who are sitting

on the fence and say,

yeah, yeah,

Holly, I hear what you're saying,

but I'm still nervous.

That's about it.

The more you can connect with your audience,

the more they're going to connect with you and be willing

to share what you're doing with their friends and tell people

and buy more and more and more.

If you want those repeat buyers and people to really resonate

with your business and what you're doing and what you stand

for, you need to put yourself out there and share it.

Don't be afraid to take a selfie.

Don't be afraid to do an Instagram story with your face,

showing, do a Facebook live,

put your name on your blog.

And with the nice photo,

don't be afraid to put yourself out there because you'll never

know what you're missing out on.

Unless you try.

And from someone who's been there so much opportunity has been

presented since showing my face and my audience really appreciated it.

They said,

thank you.

And they're able to really connect with what I'm doing and

what I'm standing for.

And I'm also able to stand out more from my competitors

because I'm able to put my personality with my branding.

So I say,

do it,

Oh my God,

Shelly. Excellent point.

I mean,

couldn't have been said better.

And you just brought in a great comment at the end,

in terms of standing out from your competitors because no one

else can be you.

So let's even say somebody was trying to do something to

you. No one can still do it in your way.

Everybody is themselves.

So everybody can have that advantage.

Everyone has a different,

unique story that brings something different to the table.

And unless you share your story,

no one will know that.

Okay. I want to swing out into something a little bit

different, cause we've really talked about how you just need to

get yourself out there in front and take the chances and

take the risk.

Let's talk a little bit now about your blogging and creating

courses and all of that.

What do you think in that whole journey in terms of

putting that out there?

What types of traits or what resources,

or what did you pull from yourself to get that taken

care of?

To do that?

I like to look at the struggles that I've had in

my field and I write about it.

I share,

okay, this is a problem.

And this is how you can solve it.

This is how I solved it.

And by using my own personal experiences and sharing stories and

tapping into the,

and using the language that I know my audience is using,

people are reading it and liking it and able to try

it out for themselves because they can relate to it.

Probably exactly.

Do you have any tools that you can share with us

in terms of what you're doing?

Do you have a three-year-old you mentioned,

so life is probably full of lots of demands on your

time here and there and everywhere.

What do you do in your work day?

Are there any tools or anything that you're using so that

you can get everything taken care of and produce as you

are My cell phone?

I just takes photos wherever I can,

and I batch them out and I use lots of folders

in a Dropbox app on my phone that can connect to

my computer this way.

When she goes to bed,

I can easily transfer everything over and use.

I love using Canva to keep my branding and tact and

make quick templates for myself.

So I can easily make Pinterest images of my resources that

I create and have my blog post ideas.

So that's something that just saves me a lot of time.

I just use my templates with my colors and my fonts

and all that stuff.

And then I also just love anything that automates my business

as much as possible.

So I use a lot of tailwind.

It's a scheduling platform for our Pinterest.

This way I can set it and forget it.

I have all my pins of my blog posts and my

teachers pay teachers resources scheduled out for a month.

And I don't have to think about it.

I love also using meet Edgar to schedule out my Facebook

and Twitter posts.

So this way I can also set it and forget it.

So anything I can really keep as automated as possible because

I'd like to be able to sleep and eat and I

work a full-time job.

So I need to be able to automate as much as

possible. Oh my Gosh,

we didn't even talk about that.

We're so stressed with time and I totally agree with you.

I'm not as familiar with tailwind,

but I understand a similar thing I think,

to meet Edgar,

but it's for Pinterest.

Yes. The other thing that's so great about meet Edgar is

it will continually rotate your posts if you want to.

So that's really helpful too,

for timing.

You have it down Pat And I also loved meet Edgar

cause you can schedule different categories to different times of the

day in different days of the week.

So I know how my audience is feeling on a Monday

morning and I can post something specific in that kind of

category of coffee,

tired, stressed out,

upset the weekend's over,

and I can schedule out different things based on their mood

and interests.

Underline that here in terms of posting and the types of

posts that you're doing,

where Holly is saying,

you know,

she understands that her audience might need a little jumpstart on

a Monday morning.

And so any posts that are more related to that can

jump into the Monday mornings.

What does that for your audience?

Think about that.

Just not posting,

not just putting things up in the timeframes that you want,

but what is the specific topic of the post and how

does that then link into what your customer might be experiencing

at that point in time?

Excellent comment,

Hailey. All right.

Is there a book or another resource that you tap into

regularly to help you enhance your posts or continue your learning?

I'm always listening to podcasts every time I'm in the car

going somewhere.

I have a podcast going so that I can always learn.

I always try to stick to a topic,

whether it's blogging or Instagram or Facebook ads.

And I will create my,

a little playlist for myself and whenever I'm on the go,

or if I'm going for a walk with my daughter in

her stroller,

I'm listening and learning and taking in as much information as

possible because algorithms are always changing.

Social media is always changing.

There's always new tools out there.

I want to be the first to know it.

Totally agree.

Well, I'm hoping you're listening to ours because it was especially,

you're going to be on.

Are there a couple of others that you would reference?

I love social media examiner.

That's always a good one.

Oh yeah.

Michael, Stelzner yours.

Amy Porterfield.

Those are some just to name a few that I listen

to regularly.

AskPat Those are all my favorites too.

Holly. Absolutely.

You guys are my go tos.

All right.

Give his listeners just as you're listening to the podcast today,

you can also listen to podcasts and audio books with ease.

I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to

get an audio book on me for free.

All you need to do is go to gift biz,

book.com and make a selection.

That's gift biz,

book.com. All right,

Holly. Now I would like to dare you 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?

The ability to continue to share my gift of creativity and

passion. I want to keep helping busy speech-language pathologists that are

seeking assistance.

I know that they're always looking for creative ideas and I

hope to always have those ideas to over a long haul

because I love giving back to a field that I love.

I truly love what I do.

I love helping my students each and every day.

And I hope to just keep that momentum going.

I hope to always have the energy and drive and the

ideas to keep flowing so I can help the audience that

I'm trying to serve.

Fabulous. And what is your favorite venue?

Is it speaking or what's your very favorite part?

I love it all.

I don't speak live as much as I,

you know,

would love to just because of time,

but I have some live speaking events coming up in the

future in the next few weeks,

actually, now that I'm off for the summer,

I try to book a few,

but I love any way that I can teach.

I've done a few webinars.

I love being able to just share free,

valuable ideas.

I don't need anyone to necessarily buy anything from me.

I just love helping and sharing and helping others learn and

grow Beautiful.

How can our listeners get in touch with you?

If there was one single place you would direct people to

because they're out walking their dogs or in the car or

something, and they can't look at the show notes page right

now, if there was one place you would tell them to

look that they can remember,

what would that be?

They can visit my blog speech time fund.com

and there's links there to find me on,

well, my social media platforms,

if you want to see what I'm doing over there to

get some ideas.

And if you really want to dig deep into my blog

and you can probably find the blog posts where I revealed

my identity as well.

Oh, that would be fun.

So you can look in the search tab and try to

find it To do a little research,

find that link and put that over in the show notes

And as well.

So if anyone wants to get an idea of what to

do, they're more than happy to do that.

And you can also send me a message.

You can send one through my blog and I'd be happy

to give anyone any guidance or tips or just a motivational

speech if you need.

Hello, thank you so much.

That's wonderful that you offer that up.

My pleasure.

I really Have enjoyed speaking with you.

I think that this topic is something that so many of

our listeners,

a lot of people everywhere,

but especially our listeners who are really,

they have that desire way deep down to do something more,

you know,

as you talk about,

you're not in it for getting the sales,

you're in it for sharing what you know,

helping others make their lives easier,

et cetera.

I think so.

So many people who are listening can relate,

and this is a story,

Holly, it's very unique.

It's different than I've ever heard before.

And I really appreciate you being genuine and real and authentic

and sharing.

And I think we're going to help a lot of people

here today.

So for that,

thank you so much.

And Holly,

that your candle always burn bright.

Thank you so much for having me.

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 by taking the gift biz quiz,

access the quiz from your computer at bit 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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