Business coach Reina Pomeroy of Reina + Co. discusses how to create a healthy mindset around money and turning a profit, and how to build giving into your business.
More about Reina:
Reina Pomeroy is the Founder of Reina + Co, the Life + Biz Success Coaching® Practice for creatives who are right brained and heart centered. She helps clients stop spinning their wheels and take action on what’s most important so they can become the go-to expert in their industry. She is a Coach, Speaker, Educator, Author of the Big Plan for the Creative Mind, and Podcaster. Reina is a host of the Creative Empire Podcast and the Fueled with Heart Podcast to educate new entrepreneurs. Reina’s work has been featured on the Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast, Entrepreneur.com, Brit + Co, The Huffington Post, and the Rising Tide Society. Find out your secret sauce and where to put your focus at www.reinaandco.com.
Reina: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Pinterest
You have to check out Reina’s new podcast: Fueled with Heart
The transcript…
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(Intro)
Reina: 00:09 We have this icky mindset around money and we have to kind of release that and say, OK, as a heart centered person, money is actually a magnifier for our good, so if you really want to make an impact, if you want to do good in the world, having money is not a bad thing. Having money and making profit is being able to give more money to being able to give more time. Whatever it is that fulfills you.
Davey: 00:35 Welcome to the Brands, that Book show where we help creative businesses find more clients and build their brands. I’m your host, Davey Jones. Today’s guests is Reina Pomeroy. Reina is the founder of Reina and co. the life and business coaching practice for creatives who are right brained and heart centered, and she’s also a speaker, author, and podcaster today sharing about why you need to profit in order to serve your community well.
(end intro)
Davey: 01:05 All right, let’s do this well, welcome to the show. I’m glad that you finally are able to join me here. I’ve been on Creative Empire twice now and I think that’s been a blast and there’s so many things I don’t want to ask you about like moving your business across the country. I mentioned this another episode, but moving must be in my top five least favorite things….. ever. Like if I could completely outsource that I would. And we always talk about it but we never do. So I wanted to chat about that a little bit, but what I really want to chat about is a profit and we all— I mean when we get into business for ourselves, you know, I think that’s something that we’re all thinking about. Uh, I think everybody loves the idea of profit. But what people don’t really like, I think is selling. Yeah. I think for a lot of us that that’s something, it’s more of an acquired skill than we think, you know, I think some people go into it thinking that some people are good salesman isn’t and others aren’t. And I’m sure that to a certain extent, um, there are some natural ability in there. But I think that at the end of the day, it’s just an acquired skill. So I want to talk to you about that a little bit. And I want to tell you something that I’ve been doing and I got this idea from you a long time ago. I think it was via maybe one of your newsletters or a conversation, um, but you used to block off weeks of time where you worked in your business versus, you know, taking coaching appointments weeks.
Reina: 02:36 Yep. My “A” and “B” weeks!
Davey: 02:36 Yeah. And so we recently implemented that and I got to tell you, it has been amazing.
Reina: 02:42 Oh my gosh, that’s so awesome to hear.
Davey: 02:44 Yeah, I mean, it’s been so incredible and block scheduling, something that I had been trying to fool around with for so long now. But one of the challenges of block scheduling I think is that, you know, if you do it by day, it gets too difficult to figure out. OK, well, like, well this week’s different than last. So I’ve been doing this “A” and “B” week thing and then on Thursdays I leave that for any meeting. So even on a “B” week where I’m not taking any meetings, I, I leave Thursday open just because ultimately I find that I have to take at least one meeting a week. Um, so that’s been amazing. I wanted to let you know that it really has been super transformative for our business and just the ability to actually work in our, I mean on out business a little bit instead of just in it. So thank you for that. But I want to get back, get back to talking about you. Um, I want to talk about your coaching business. I want to talk about your background a little bit. Um, you know, one thing that you do really well in your business is just service I think in general and I think that’s probably because you have a, um, a background in social work, right? And then in addition to that, your husband was in the military for a long time, so you guys used to have service, I think, written all over your lives, but could you talk to us a little bit about how you got into coaching? Um, via social work?
Reina: 04:06 It’s one of those journeys that, you know, people say, oh, it’s windy. It totally is. In college I majored in psychology and I thought that I was going to become a lawyer. Took the LSAT, applied, and then decided, Nope! I’m going to social work. And it was kind of one of those things that I just really wanted to help people. And I saw a need. I thought I was going to be a therapist. I thought I was going to do all of that stuff. And you realize that in that process, in being in school, being actually on the ground and I wanted to do something a little bit more impactful in a bigger way. And social work is hard. You know, I was working in Inner City Baltimore doing foster care and trauma care. And it’s hard work and maybe people would say that I wasn’t cut out for it and that’s so true. But I realized pretty early on that I needed a creative outlet. I really needed a different way of being. I had just had my son and um, I couldn’t do a two hour commute. DC Area’s tough with commutes and I’m driving back and forth with a little little one was really, really tough. So I made a decision to make the switch and right before I did, um, in my social work career, I was given this opportunity to do coaching and I had no idea what coaching really was. I was like, wait, am I going to do like baseball? I don’t know anything about it. And they told me no, it’s, it’s this thing where you talk to people and was like, wait, I can do that. Um, but I, I didn’t know how to not be a therapist and to do the coaching thing. And so there’s a little bit of a distinction. Um, therapy looks at people’s backgrounds and like what’s happening behind the scenes and all of that. And for coaching, it’s like what’s here right now as well as what’s your potential, what’s, what do you want to be doing? And so there was a little bit of shift in perspective, but the listening part, the transition to doing all of that has not been all that big. So I went to coach training after I quit that job. And here I am, I’m three years into my business and I absolutely love working with creative entrepreneurs. I help people find what’s most important for them so that they can become the go to expert in their industry to really figure out what their fulfillment is. And we’ll talk about this a little bit later, but about the profit and serve thing. I think that as creative entrepreneurs, it’s really hard, like you said, to talk about the sales stuff. And I really want us to focus on serving people and being heart centered, but at the same time we have to make a profit. And instead of talking about the six figure business owning and all of that stuff, that sort of like hype-y thinking about what your profit is and why you want to have that is really, really important. So that’s Kinda like the spiel.
Davey: 06:42 Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit more about, um, you know, just service in your business because I know you give away part of your coaching proceeds and your affiliate, uh, any of affiliate sales that you have. Um, so I want to talk about that here in a second, but transitioning now to social work, to coaching, you went to coaching, training. How did you find your first few clients?
Reina: 06:59 Oh my gosh. I was sort of unabashedly asking everybody. So one of the best things I did was just telling everybody what I was going to do and to ask me questions because I didn’t really know how to talk about coaching. Just as you know, I had learned just one year before and I didn’t really know what coaching was. And so most of the world also doesn’t know what coaching is. And I want to be able to ask me what it was about so that I can kind of sharpen my, um, like marketing words I guess. Um, I was definitely not talking to my ideal client, but they were asking me really good, good questions. And then from there I got coaching clients by really reaching out, asking people what they needed help in, you know, any time they feel, people feel stuck. I felt like that was my moment to be able to support people. So I did a lot of free sessions, um, got better and developed my own skills. Just as you would as a photographer or a calligrapher, you have to practice your craft right? And develop the business side as well. So I was kind of doing both of those in tandem.
Speaker 1: 08:01 Yeah. This was surprising to me that your business is only three years old because your messaging is very consistent and coherent and to the point, you know, it’s very clear what you do and how you do it on your website and throughout different marketing collateral. And I think what you said about just putting yourself out there and having people ask you questions is so interesting and a sort of a theme that I’ve seen across interviews and people just getting started, how important that is to put yourself out there.
Reina: 08:01 It’s so scary!
Davey: 08:35 Yeah it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying. And I find even after having started a couple of businesses that sometimes I’ll start a new project and I won’t tell anybody about it and then I’ll be like bummed that nobody’s, nobody’s asking about it. Right. And Krista will come home and be like, you know, you haven’t told anybody about this. So there’s such value I think in just putting yourself in, putting yourself out there.
Reina: 08:57 Yeah, I think that’s like one of those things that you want people to know that you’re there and you have something to offer. But it’s so scary to put it out there because what if you get turned down? But I think that was something that I have reminded myself time and time again is that you can’t help anyone if you don’t tell people about it. So like, you can’t create something and just expect people to show up and so yes, you might get rejected. That is part of the game, but also you’re going to, like, as you go down this path, you’re going to get clearer and clearer about who you’re talking to, who you’re really helping and um, who you are ultimately able to serve best.
Davey: 09:32 So how did you end up finding your ideal client in your niche as you got started in your business?
Reina: 09:38 I think I had a really big heart for event planners at the very beginning. I um, worked how might, one of my first clients was an event planner and actually a florist so it’s fun to be able to give back to that creative community in that way and say, OK, how do we get from where you are to where you want to be? And from there it was just word of mouth I used, um, I didn’t know anything about instagram at the time. So that’s fun. Really. When I started my business, I had two people at that moment. I think one of those people was my other accounts, so technically one person haha, but literally just posting in facebook groups, just showing up and giving people value. I didn’t have, um, like a content creation platform. I didn’t have a blog. I didn’t have a website for about five months after I started my business. And so I really wanted to just figure out a way to be visible but not instill, not have a website because that was creating it and really just told myself I don’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to happen like all in one day, but I need to start finding those clients.
Davey: 10:41 Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine that just in those initial conversations, it probably helped you refine your website and your whatever your content creation platform would become which today’s Reina and company. Um, you know, so you build this business and then you move across the country. And I have to ask because there’s other people that–especially military families, you know, I think we get, we get that question a lot is we hear from people, especially when they want to talk about SEO. They know that they’re going to be moving in a couple of months. How do you prepare for that? Was it discouraging at all?
Reina: 11:16 It’s so funny that you asked this because I’ve interviewed so many people on the creative empire podcast who have also moved and every single person’s tips are so different. I think it really depends on your business model. Mine does not require a location based, a business strategy. And so my business model is completely online. The biggest concern that I had was, oh my gosh, I’m going to be out of commission for a couple of weeks while we figure out housing and while we figure out my Kiddos, daycare and all of that. Um, and also like my biggest fear was, oh my gosh, I’m going to be three hours behind the east coast. How am I going to survive? Which has not been that big of a deal.
Davey: 11:54 I hate that though! When we were working on the west coast, just waking up and feeling like the rest of the world was.
Reina: 11:54 Already working
Davey: 11:59 Yeah, you know, that was stressful for me.
Reina: 12:01 It was a legit concern when I was moving. So if you have felt like that, I get it. I’m. No, but really it’s, it’s been really such an honor to be able to carry this business across the country because it’s proof that this model works and it’s harder for me to speak on, um, businesses that are location based. But I think that if you are innovative– and we’ve interviewed people who were photographers who had like very destination based, or like specific place of business and we’re able to transport it, you know, 5,000 miles away. So it’s totally possible military spouses and military, you know, people get this but we have to move and it’s just part of the life. And so, um, I think that if you are strategic and create community before you even get there, um, I think that that’s one way to make that transition a little bit easier because you’re going to be in like complete foreign land even if you do speak the language or whatever. Feeling alone is hard and I’m having some kind of support network there before you even move can be really helpful.
Davey: 13:06 Yeah, for sure. And I think that’s, um, going back to the basics, it’s just hard to remember sometimes, you know, again, going back to just starting new projects– I have a problem with just starting new projects all the time, uh, as, as you might be able to tell and sometimes just remembering like, hey, I have to go back and have to start with the first step. Oftentimes, especially with somebody who’s location specific, I think, and it’s nice that you can, you probably meet with a lot of your clients online so you really can be anywhere in the world. Um, but for those people who can, I think, um, you know, trying to build those relationships in advance a little bit, uh, before they ever get out there. It goes, it goes a really long way.
Reina: 13:47 Yeah. And another thing too, I just want to add for people who feel like, oh my gosh, I’m really starting over, is that if you already have a successful business somewhere, it’s not like starting from zero. You might be like backpedaling a little bit just because you have to get new clients and all of that. But honestly you have a portfolio, you have business systems, you know what your pricing generally is. You might have to tweak it, but you have so much more than day one of your business. And so we, we feel like we’re starting brand new over, but it’s not the case. Right. So just reminding yourself that you have a lot established already.
Davey: 14:20 Yeah, absolutely. So when you’re coaching clients come to you what’s kind of the most common reason that somebody would come to you? What do you hear most often? Are there any themes there?
Reina: 14:32 Yeah, a couple of different things. So first one is I have so many like pieces of my business and I don’t know how to bring them all together and I don’t know how to talk about them so that my ideal clients find me. Another one is I know that I want to have like a freedom-based lifestyle, but I really don’t love selling and I struggle with like closing on those sales and I know I can help people but I don’t know how to like make that all happen. And then another one is like, I have so many ideas. I have all my tabs open in my brain and on chrome and how do I close them down so I can focus, I don’t know what to do first. And I have all these projects that I’ve started and how do I make sure that I can keep making progress on those things. So those are kind of the basic buckets of things that people come to me for and in the process we get to talk about launching, we get to talk about marketing. But really at the core of it, it’s like how do we figure out what’s most important to you and then make progress on those things.
Davey: 15:26 Where do you start with people to figure out what’s most important? And I think almost every entrepreneur probably struggle with that at some point where there’s just so many different ideas and there’s so many voices out there, you know, there’s so many people putting out content, say you gotta focus on this or you’ve got to be focused on that. So where do you even start with people?
Reina: 15:44 So I think the biggest thing is to shut out the noise. This is like so hard as a content creator to say this, but you really need to look at what’s inside and ask yourself what is important here? Like, what in, in this state, in my life, in my business, what do I really want? We’re not going to be focusing on like, oh, I need to build this million dollar business later on down the line, like, what do you need right now if that’s, oh, I need childcare in order for me to be able to concentrate on my business. Cool. If that’s, I need to really start thinking about making a healthy lifestyle change. Cool. That’s fine. So that’s kinda the thing that comes up often in my work is that it’s the through line is that we have to focus on life and business at the same time or else we can’t be well rounded entrepreneurs and then we end up burning out. To kind of answer your question in a roundabout way, um, I think the most important thing is to do reflection first before we look at anyone else’s content because no one else can tell us what quote unquote success looks like. No one can tell us what fulfillment feels like at the end of the day, we’re the only ones that can define that. And so if you’re looking at somebody else’s goals and saying, oh, she wrote a book last year, I want to do that. They’re like, OK, well do you actually want to write a book or does that sound just really cool and you want to be able to say that. So you have to kind of distinguish between the two things. And then once you get a little bit of clarity around that, then you can define what your priorities are. And I typically like to think about it in terms of like, what are your personal priorities, what are your family and home priorities, and then what are your business priorities because they all kind of happen in tandem.
Davey: 17:23 Yeah. I like what you’re saying there about that through line and lifes effect on having a successful business. Because I think that conceptually, especially as solopreneurs or small teams or running a small business, just in general, you can conceptually separate work and life, you know, but in a practical way you can’t. And we had Amy Jordan on an earlier episode and they talked a lot about that. But it’s just impossible. I think on a practical level to separate home life and work life especially if you work with a team like Krista and I do–if we’re arguing about something in life, it’s not like we go to work, and we go downstairs into our office and then all of a sudden that arguments over.
Reina: 18:05 Yeah, for sure. And I think that that’s so interesting too. I’ve worked with several, um, husband and wife teams, couple teams and it’s so interesting to be able to see the dynamics of, it’s just like coaching slash therapy sometimes, but figuring out what hat are you wearing right now and are those roles kind of getting emeshed? How do we figure out how to separate them because you can’t always separate them but we can make a better way to like create boundaries around those things. So yeah, I think it’s whether you’re solopreneur or you’re in a team or you’re in a family team, whatever the dynamics are, it can be a little bit complicated and you have to slow down in order to think about where the relationships or the life stuff is coming into play.
Davey: 18:47 Absolutely. So transitioning to profit, right? Really what we, what we want to talk about today. Um, there’s a blog post that I think he wrote back in December, um, that I thought was really interesting just again tying in your social work background, these t shirts you used to have saying “will work for change.” You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs start out that way. Um, we all want to make profit. A lot of us hate selling. Where do we even start? How do we get over that hurdle? How do we create a mindset around money that’s, that’s healthy and doesn’t cause a bunch of stress and anxiety in our lives and business.
Reina: 19:25 Yeah, I mean, as a social worker, like you said, I had a t-shirt that said “will work for change”. And, you know, the double entendre of want to make an impact and also will work for pennies is kind of a sad one. And that’s kind of the mindset that I came into business with and I struggled with asking for money at first, um, because I was constantly thinking about it in terms of a have to get clients. I have to get clients, I have to make money and how do I get money? And it’s the shift from how do I get money to how can I serve people so that thing is like an even energy exchange. This is like very woo. But how do I make sure that whatever value I’m offering to somebody is something that they want to give me money for? And ultimately, if you see your work as service, right, as something that you want to do to help. And I think the most difficult part of service and heart centered people is that whatever comes naturally to you, right? Photography, Calligraphy, coaching. Whatever it is that your craft is most likely comes pretty naturally to you. And it feels like crazy to be able to say, oh, I’m going to charge $5,000 for that, right? Because you would probably do it for free for somebody else. But truly when you’re running a business, we have to make that mindset shift of putting profit pretty much in line with our service, so our heart has to be in line with how much we want to make and money making wants to be in line with our service. And so I think we have these big, uh, uh, I don’t know what’s the word I’m looking for? Kind of like figures in her head of, um, people who represent evil, people who have money, who represents evil. And by having more money becoming richer, making more profit turns us into that person in our heads. Right? And this is like a crazy, crazy line of thinking. But if you think about it, you might think of, I don’t know, some people that my clients bring up our Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump, or I don’t know, whoever your person is, it doesn’t really matter, but we all have this like image. If we get stuck in this, it’s typically that we have this image of somebody who represents kind of corruption or like something that’s like not great. And so we had this icky mindset about money and we have to kind of release that and say, OK, as a heart centered person, money is actually a magnifier for our good. So if you really want to make an impact, if you want to do good in the world, having money is not a bad thing. Having money and making profit is being able to, you know, give more money to be able to give more time, whatever it is that you know, fulfills you. So for me, in my business, we give to a couple of different organizations. One is pencils of promise, we are trying to build a school and it’s something that I’m super passionate about. Um, and also we, like for International Women’s Day, we are, you know, encouraging people using our platform to encourage people to donate or to give to Kiva, which is, you know, a micro-loan organization. So stuff like that. And I think that we are able to make a bigger impact when, when we have more money in a bigger platform.
Davey: 22:26 And uh, just as a side note real quick what you posted I think it was on instagram about international women’s Day, about the pay gap not being closed until 2186 was mind blowing. That was astounding to me. But yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s crazy. But going back to this money mindset, what are some practical steps we can take to make that leap to say, OK, hey, you know, asking for money is not a bad thing. Um, how do you get to be comfortable doing that? That’s such a loaded question. I’m sorry, just to drop that on you.
Reina: 23:01 Oh my gosh yes, I feel like we can do like a whole episode on it. So, so the first thing I think we need to think about is what is that money story that we’re telling ourselves? What’s that like deep seated sort of money story that we have, whether it’s from our parents saying money doesn’t grow on trees or you know, when you have more money, you look like this, right? Whatever that image is. Um, so you need to kind of, uh, disassociate money from whatever that image is and often it’s not money that becomes evil, right? It’s the person or the tool or whatever that turns it into a mechanism for evil. And so if you can think about money being, um, the just the tool in order to do good for your business or for your life, then that’s the mindset shift we need to make. And so I think journaling on things can be really important just to see that like, oh my gosh, I didn’t even know that I believe this about money and can be really important. And then also thinking about on the sales side, because sales is something that people struggle with a lot, right? I’m thinking about sales in terms of OK, I want to help people. And by giving my service, I also receive something in return and it has to be a reciprocal process or it feels kind of icky. Um, have you ever received something from somebody that wasn’t like a gift but it was just free? Um, and then you didn’t really see value in it. So you kind of throw it away or it just kind of lived on a shelf where you re gifted or something, but when you invest in something that’s actually important to you, right? Even if it’s like $25, you’re like, oh my gosh, this is something that I really love. Or like a shirt that you buy that you wear all the time. When you invest in something you’re more likely to cherish it. And so I think that’s the kind of even energy exchange that we’re talking about. We want to like lean into it a little bit more so that you can start making more profit and asking more confidently for the, the money that you deserve to have in your business.
Davey: 24:56 And speaking of free, I think people who like free things, they value those things as free. they just don’t value it as much as somebody that they pay for even if it’s something that they need I think. For me, something that I struggled with early on was thinking to myself, you know, that person could do it on their own, you know, so it’s not as valuable because that person could do that on their own. You could take pictures of at your own wedding, or get a friend to take pictures at, at your own wedding, um, but at the end of the day, they don’t want to do that on their own. Otherwise they wouldn’t be looking for that service. Just this, this podcast and a blog here. One of the reasons that I started for so long is because I didn’t want to dig into the editing like I don’t want to deal with any of that. And so finally my sister is somebody who loves that kind of stuff. So I’m paying her to handle all of the editing and uploading and all that stuff that’s preventing me from doing it. And it’s not a matter of that I couldn’t do it myself. Like I’m for the most part are pretty much diy person, but I don’t want to do it myself, you know. And so there’s a ton of value in my sister doing that kind of stuff for me.
Reina: 26:05 She’s creating a shortcut for you, relieving that resistance of I want to create content and I don’t want to do the next steps to get it actually live. So paying somebody is a value to you. I think that’s like such a great example.
Davey: 26:19 Yeah. And I think that, um, especially going back to just this concept of free sometimes, especially when we’re first starting out, sometimes we just have to do stuff for free. It’s a part of the growing process and it’s part of finding your niche and your ideal client and learning how to talk about your business. At a certain point you’re going to be really unhappy if you continue to doing things for free and the person that you’re working with is going to be really unhappy too. I think when you have, um, a project scope and that scope is free, it’s really hard to keep things within that project scope and everybody be happy at the end of the day.
Reina: 26:53 Yeah. I don’t think free is necessarily a bad thing, but here are kind of like my parameters around this I think is that one when you are doing it, when you have zero portfolio, you have zero testimonials. The exchange isn’t the money, exchange is feedback. Exchange is the testimonial. It’s the fact that you can talk about this particular client and so there’s value in receiving that, right? As somebody who’s doing the free active service and it has to feel even. That’s the thing, right? It’s not about the dollars that are exchanged, but does it feel even in the exchange that we’re doing? And so this is where I think a lot of like barters go wrong. Where the parameters aren’t outlined and there’s like a lot of scope creep and all of that. So whether you’re doing free stuff or paid stuff, just having something written down that says, here’s what I’m agreeing to do, here’s your end of the bargain and you know, here’s how we’re going to proceed or whatever. So that’s kinda how I look at things.
Davey: 27:49 Yeah. Do you have any tips for people? Uh, on how they should value their work because a lot of what we do in the creative world, right? I mean a lot of people look at just their hard costs. They are told to just look at their hard cost and there’s obviously issues there. I think when you’re just looking at the cost of the camera or the memory card or something like that. So do you have any tips for people who, um, you need to value or price their services?
Reina: 28:16 Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there’s so much we could talk about, this is probably your entire platform on your podcast, but thinking about like how to, um, look at,–you have to look at your numbers first of all, right? And you can just kind of willy nilly it and at the beginning it’s kind of a game, but you have to just start treating it at some point, like it is a business. And so what are your hard costs? Like you said, what are your overhead costs? Keep them as minimal as possible and figure out what are the, what are the hours that you’re putting into a project, figuring out how many of those hours you want to be putting towards client work, how much of that do you need to be spending on money generating work? Um, and then like ultimately if you’re in a full time job, you only have a limited period of time to work in your business. If you’re full time in your business, great, you have a little bit more time, but honestly it’s still divided. And so we have to figure out what are the costs that we incur and also what are the, you know, figure out your dollar per hour. And if it’s getting lower than you want it to, you have to raise your prices. And as long as that rate matches the confidence in which you can deliver that service and then I think you’re fine. So for me, at the beginning I was charging like nothing. And then like raised my prices. As soon as I had three clients sign, I raised my prices, got three more signed. Um, I raised my prices again and every single time I felt like the energy match was there. I was confident my systems are growing, you know, at the very beginning my contract was like, I printed it out and it had her sign it and you know, nine clients in I had hello sign and I was doing online invoicing so I felt like I was a little bit more legit I guess. And so as you kind of grow in your business that way, your confidence also grows and you can charge more and people will value your services more.
Davey: 30:01 Yeah, I love that. I love that system. You have to upping your prices every three clients or so on. And so I think people would be pretty smart to have something like that in place, whether it’s every three to five clients or another one that I hear is anytime someone books your highest package, there’s somebody out there who would pay more. So raise your prices a little bit. Uh, all that kind of stuff I really like, especially when you’re looking at time– if you have three clients or if you have no clients, um, then your time’s probably, valued a little bit less because you have so much of it right? But, you know, all of a sudden you have 10 clients at year or 20 clients a year, that 21st wedding you should value that time because it’s more scarce, more than you did the very first wedding of the year. So one thing that you had mentioned, uh, we haven’t talked about yet, is that you give 10 percent of all your client work, right? to pencils of promise and a hundred percent of all your affiliate sales to pencils of promise? Right? There was another one you mentioned. I’m sorry, the micro loan.
Reina: 31:05 So we do kiva sort of on the side, um, for like my birthday and for International Women’s Day, but mostly all of are money goes towards pencils of promise until we’re done building this school. And we’re about 80 percent in. So all of my speaking fees people give me great, I like to take it and I’m so excited about it. Thank you so much for having me. And then it goes to pencils of promise and um, yeah, I feel like when I give education to the community, that money goes towards education for somebody else. So I’m just like the pass through.
Davey: 31:37 Yes, So how did you decide on a, on that system?
Reina: 31:40 Uh, that’s a, that’s not really like a succinct answer, but I wanted to figure out a way to build giving into my business from the very beginning. Um, no matter if your business is making $100 a month or a million dollars a month, 10 percent is 10 percent. Right? And so if you like start when you’re a million dollar business and you’re just like, I’ll just wait till I’m bigger and until I’m better. That sticker shock is going to be really, really scary to be like, oh, I’m actually going to have to give $100,000 away instead of like, Oh, you know, I was giving a dollar or $10 away at the beginning cause I’m like used to it. So I think that that was one thing that has really helped and I encourage people to think about how they can give with their businesses and it does not have to be monetary. I think I say this all the time. It can be giving us a seat away for your class that you’re doing or it can be mentoring somebody in the work that you do or bringing in an intern and giving them extra mentoring that you might not usually do for an intern or something like that. And there’s a lot of different ways to be able to give back through your business, but you have to be intentional about it. Or it just becomes one of those things that quote unquote you will do in the future.
Davey: 32:53 Yeah and I think If you’re not willing to give 10 percent away now, you’re not going to be willing to give 10 percent away if you’re making double what you’re, what you’re doing right now. It is such a great practice. I think it ties into this idea of gratitude and abundance. You know, so I think that’s just such a great practice and I would love to talk with you more about that. But how does that tie into your Fueled with Heart community,
Reina: 33:20 Fueled with heart is a Facebook community and a part of our podcast that we run and so we often talk about Fueled with Heart as in it’s a group of people who believe in the prophet and serve, kind of what we were talking about earlier and you want to serve your community and do good work. Um, you want to be intentional and also make a profit in all of that so that you can live the kind of life you want to live. And most of the people say they want to travel, say they want to pay off their student loan debt or any other debt that they have. Or you know, be able to take a year off whatever that is for them and the thing that they say most often is they want to give back so they want to tie or they want to be able to go to a developing country and do service work. Whatever it is, this business can do that for you. So if you shift your mindset to that abundance mindset and you allow yourself to be able to give in whatever way from the beginning, you can start, start doing that in a bigger way as you profit and serve more. And so the fueled with heart community is really about leaning into that. We want to put social impact in line with the work that we’re doing, baking our social impact into our businesses from the get-go. And if you don’t have it in like three years in that’s cool, you can start baking it. So whether that’s partnering with an organization that, you know, this is like a simple example, but client gifts, we all give client gifts. One way to do it and spend the same kind of dollars is look at an organization or a company that creates products that also give back. So you’re spending $30 and a portion of that proceeds goes to something important that you’re not spending any more money, you’re just like kind of channeling that money through differently. So then there’s so many ways to be able to give back and in the fueled with heart community, that’s something that we talk about often.
Davey: 35:08 And you talk about this profit and serve mindset. And I know you’ve alluded to it throughout the interview here. Tell me if I’m getting this right. It’s just that in order to serve our clients well and to continue serving, we need to be turning a profit.
Reina: 35:25 Oh for sure, so every time I pay my taxes I’m like super grateful because that means that we turn a profit, but it, it means that the more money we have in our businesses, the more impact we’re able to make. So whether that’s making bigger decisions in our businesses, taking more risks, making you know, donations, whatever it is. But the profit and serve model is really about creating sustainable businesses. So you might hear these entrepreneurs who pop up and are like, I made seven figures in five minutes. Awesome. Not my business model. Yeah, that’s crazy. Like it was so easy for me. That’s great. But I see people struggling with like the kind of in between and first, I want to show them that it’s not that hard. Yes, you have to work hard, but it doesn’t have to be like grueling, if that makes sense. I also want to show people like what we were talking about earlier. Um, what is your message? How do we message it so that everything that’s in your world actually makes sense together. We also talk about sustainability and profitability, how you look at your numbers, all of that stuff. We also talk about, um, kind of thinking through the what’s it called, like the visibility work that you do. So how do people actually see you? And then we talk about like goals and focus so what matters most had to focus on that. Um, so it’s kind of a comprehensive circular model, so you’re never really grown out of this model. You’re constantly working through it, constantly moving through it and growing every single time you go through it. And one of the core parts of it is called the heart and core and I see so many people starting their businesses thinking, oh my God, I did this to, oh my gosh, I need clients. How do I get started? But I think the biggest thing is we don’t take the time to figure out what’s important to hear. Like what does my business stand for? Who do I really want to serve, what’s important to me? And then creating a marketing model around that. So people focus too much on the tactics, like, oh my instagram isn’t growing and kind of blame it on, on Instagram, where I think you should be thinking about, OK, what’s the vision of your company? Where is it going? What are your core values and how do we make it so that that has like an actual strategy that we can turn into tactics.
Davey: 37:38 I’m such a big fan of, I think that mindset of actually starting with those things, actually writing them down, not just thinking about those things, but writing them down on a piece of paper. Because I think it’s really easy to skip over that kind of stuff. You know, like what your goal setting is. Another one where people are like, yeah, they’re kind of up here, you know, I got my goals they’re in, they’re in here. But you’d be surprised that until you write something down–and you talked a little about journaling earlier– until you write something down, how not fleshed out it is and then all of a sudden you write them down. You’re like, that doesn’t really make sense or I don’t really want to focus that thing. Uh, and going back to, and I think the kind of the basis of what you’re talking about, right? And you started the interview this way, but talking about how can I serve my clients well? How can I, how can I add value to them? And really starting there and that grueling sensation that you feel are every once in a while in business. I think if you actually take the time and you write down why you’re doing this, who you’re trying to serve, well, you know, the why behind your business, the purpose, it’s going to be a lot easier to get through those moments because all of us are going to go through those moments. But when you have that you have something to look back on and hold on to that moving forward.
Reina: 38:54 Yeah, I love that quote. Um, how does it go? It’s something like if it gets hard, um, learn to pause and not quit. And I think that there’s so many times in entrepreneurship where it gets a little bit sticky, right? Money’s a little bit tight or the clients aren’t coming in as well as you had hoped or launch fails or whatever it is. And you’re feeling like, ah, should I just throw in the towel? And there’s so many moments when you just have to pick yourself up and do it again. And I think that when you go back to that, why, like you said, it can be a game changer. So for me, I have a two “why’s” and I think this is something that I struggled with at the beginning because I felt like I only had to have one “why” haha. So one is like a very personal “why” like the freedom “why”. And then the other “why” is like, what is my business do? Like the, what’s the big vision of my business? And that’s to empower women so that they can have profitable businesses so that they could do whatever it is that they want to do in their lives. And so it’s kind of like two things and give yourself permission for it to be whatever it is that you want it to be. Um, and Kinda lean into that because there’s not one way to do it.
Davey: 39:58 Yeah. And so I want to talk about how, uh, how somebody can in find the fuel with heart community. So if somebody is listening to this and saying, hey, this sounds awesome, how do I learn more? What do they do?
Reina: 40:13 Yeah, go to the fueled with heart dot com and it will lead you to it. You’ll hear my story kind of like what happened behind the scenes. You’ve got a little bit of a glimpse here and then we’ll lead you into our community. It’s, you know, a tight knit group. There’s so many facebook groups out there and I get that there is a little bit of overwhelm. And what I really try to endeavor to do in this community is to, one, be present as a leader. And also give kind of like the behind the scenes that are happening in my life and my business. As well as adding a lot of value. The community is amazing. The women in the group, it’s mostly women, but it’s not always. I think we had like five guys in.
Davey: 40:48 haha That’s actually I feel like the breakdown of the general industry right now.
Reina: 40:56 Yeah and it’s totally great like whenever people contribute. But I think that one of the, it’s one of those things that like, people will feel safe in this community. People feel comfortable asking quote unquote stupid questions which are not stupid, and everyone else is like, oh my gosh, I feel like that too. Can I, can I get some help here? So it’s nice to be able to have that collaborative atmosphere and so you can go to fueled with heart dot com and then we’ll lead you right to it. And we always have conversations about the podcast and all of that in the group too.
Davey: 41:24 So final question here, how much of business do you think is just showing up?
Reina: 41:30 Oh my gosh. So much.
Davey: 41:33 Yeah, haha and that’s just one think that I’m realizing as I do these interviews. And one of my favorite podcasts is how I built this. And just one of the things that I’m realizing more and more is it’s just a matter of showing up consistently. And of course there’s work involved. You have to show up and work, but, you know, if you show up consistently good things, good things tend to happen. And I think– I’m a big fan of coaching just in general. So I think that, uh, those people who, uh, if you’re ever struggling with showing up consistently, or you need accountability, finding a coach like yourself is a great way to make sure that you continue to do so.
Reina: 42:14 Yeah, I think showing up is hard, especially when you feel like you don’t have a platform, you don’t have anything to really show off and you have a lot to prove. That’s how I felt at the beginning of my business. I was like, I am hungry and want this and they want to be able to serve people, but I feel a little bit, you know, like I’m not quite sure. And so showing up felt really scary then. But I think if you think about it this way, the one person who follows you on Instagram– like have a lot of gratitude for each and every single person that comes into your community because that’s a human being that you can connect with. And so I think back then I don’t, I don’t think we had instagram dm and now I feel like that’s a platform that I use so often. But you know, those people are actually human beings that you can converse with, like have legitimate relationships with. And so that’s something to keep in mind too, is that this isn’t just a transaction, you’re not just trying to steal their dollars, you’re really trying to be in a relationship with them and hopefully serve them. And in the future maybe they’ll pay you, maybe not. Maybe they’ll bring you a cool connection. So it’s really just like keeping those doors open for conversation and opportunities. So yeah, showing up is a, is a big thing, whether it’s creating content and posting about it or I’m just saying, hey, how can I support you to people who you really appreciate and this is something I did at the very beginning of my business I felt like there are these leaders that I really wanted to lean into and just like encouraged because they thought they were doing awesome things. That opened a lot of doors for me. So I think remembering that these leaders are also human can can be very valuable.
Davey: 43:48 Yeah, I mean I love that. Just this concept of, you know, focusing on what’s there and not focusing on what’s not, you know, if you have two instagram followers– focus on those two people, don’t worry about the 20,000 or 90,000 or whatever that number is in your head that you think you have to get to validate yourself. And I know this is true for me. Uh, but you, you probably look back on that time, that six month period of time before you had a website and some of the questions you’re asked and you just think, oh man, those were probably super silly questions or I can’t believe I did that, you know, um, but it was just so important I think to getting to getting started. And so even in kind of the discouraging moments, getting up the next day and showing up again, um, that’s the only way that you get to where you want to go.
Reina: 43:48 Yeah totally.
Davey: 44:39 We talked about fueled with heart. Where else can we find you? You have a new podcast and tell us about that. Tell us about what social media platforms can we follow you on?
Reina: 44:50 So you can find the podcast episode at fueled with heart dot com or you can just go to itunes as well and find us there or whatever platform that we’re pushing to. Um, and you can also find me@Reinaandco.com. I am super active at Reina and company on instagram. I really love engaging with our people and it’s, the community is wonderful. That’s like someplace that I really love pouring into. And so whenever you have questions, I really do– my clients will laugh at me when I say this, but I build the most everything for my clients and so people who keep coming back are the people I build things for. And so if you are a part of my community and you give feedback, you might see some of those things turn into programs. So, I am really excited to be able to roll things out like next week–this is coming out on the ninth that we’re rolling out a, um, a challenge for the community who are like, oh my gosh, I feel like everyone is like, all my competition is doing these things and why didn’t I think of that? We’re having a conversation about forgetting the rest, like don’t worry about the competition, worry about you. Um, and figuring out how to amplify your message. So that’s something that’s really important to me and we’ll be doing a really fun challenge around that.
Davey: 46:02 And I’ll be sure to link to all of that in the show notes so that people can get connected with that challenge and that community, um, and connect with you in the places that you show up. Uh, like a instagram for sure. And of course a creative empire?
Reina: 46:02 Of course I didn’t mention creative empire!
Davey: 46:20 Yes the creative empire podcast, which I’m sure a lot of people already are familiar with. So thank you so much for taking the time to share about profit and selling and money mindset. And just a little bit about your background and how you got started.
Reina: 46:34 Thank you so much for having me. I feel like we talked about so many things, but I hope this is valuable for your listeners.
Davey: 46:39 Absolutely. Thank you.
Davey: 46:45 Thanks for listening to the Brands that Book podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources visit DaveyandKrista.com.
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