[Music] welcome to the craft to Career podcast with Elizabeth Chappell or every week we
dive into how you can turn your craft into a successful career get ready to have the career you’ve always dreamed of
[Music] hello and welcome to episode 95 of the crafty career podcast I am Elizabeth
Chappell the host of the podcast this week I have a very special guest on the
show I’m going to tell you a little bit about how I’ve worked with this guest but before then I want to invite you to
subscribe and leave a review for the podcast I don’t run ads but I do try to
bring a lot of value and a lot of great guests and just even myself sharing information on the podcast but in order
to do that I do rely on your reviews and your subscriptions to the podcast so if
you haven’t yet please take a moment to go and leave a review for The Crafty career podcast
so this week we have Michelle Fernandez she is a very talented marketing expert
I hired her to help with my ads last year and in fact we have an entire episode
that’s going to be on her podcast where I dive really deep into my experience hiring someone before her and no names
or anything but just how how she knows what she’s doing as a
marketing expert and recently we are actually in the same Mastermind this year and so I’ve reached out to her and
she I I did not realize she’s not just Facebook ads like she does marketing with all of the things with your funnels
how to drive more traffic to your products I mean she is the real deal and
a major wealth of knowledge and she’s just super sweet and fun so I cannot
wait to introduce you to Michelle Fernandez
I’m so excited Michelle to have you here my audience knows how much I love you
because I talk about you so I I will let the introduction be done by you can you
just share a little introduction of who you are in the marketing world yes so hi I am excited to be here and you’re just
so lovely it’s like so nice working with people who are really like driven to make things happen and more importantly
help other people like make their dreams happen if you will um so my journey I I am a I have a
digital marketing agency and I work with mostly and mainly course creators
coaches people have memberships and masterminds things like that and I do have a couple of brick and mortar
businesses like salons and things like that Pilates studios stuff like that and
um I really am all about driving more traffic and driving more demand for your offers and really get your
um visible out there to the masses like amplify what you’re currently doing and
ultimately so you can create this predictable growth in your business so you can kind of stop that feast and
famine mode like a lot of people are even it’s it’s funny because even though
they’re generating all this Revenue they’re still like every month oh my gosh how am I gonna pay my bills right
and you’re like wait a minute you just brought in a hundred thousand dollars this month what do you mean right so
it’s about not only creating this growth it’s like predictable profitable growth is really what I like to dial in on and
figure out like where the gaps are really in your whole marketing funnel
like your business and then figure out how we can go in there and then start to
um have like a Quantum Leap to get to there okay well that’s so appealing I don’t
know a business owner out there who isn’t like yes I want more sales I want more traffic so when somebody comes to
you do they generally well first of all how how do they generally find you oh I
usually my mom asked me this this morning it was this because I I got a new client
and she’s like yeah like we celebrated and then she’s like well wait how did they find you and you know and I said
through referrals because I really feel especially in my line of work
um that’s the best type of thing like you don’t always want to have all your eggs in any one basket however when you
get those referrals it’s so nice because they’re so warm because you’ve done such a great job for somebody else
um so you they’ve already vetted you so to speak so that’s how most people find me
um if not it’s from podcasts like this or I’ve been on a stage or something and then they’re like oh you seem really
cool what can you help me how can you support me like that kind of thing that’s cool and I did find you through a
referral and someone recently asked me how do people find you it’s a very
healthy practice in a business to understand where your traffic is coming from yes absolutely absolutely yeah so
when someone does reach out to you and they’re like hey I want to hire you what what does that process look like what do
you first ask somebody and this is a really good question especially if you’re looking to hire any
type of I would say independent contractor whether it is an agency or not
um so for me what I’m looking at is really what I have found or learned the
lessons that I’ve learned because when I first started it was just like I want all this business and I’ll work with whoever right because I just need the
money because I you know I just left my nine to five I gotta pay my bills I’m gonna do this okay that was not the
right way to build your yeah so now when I’m really looking to do first and
foremost is to see how passionate someone is about their business because with my personality in particular what
happens is sometimes I end up caring more about their business than they care about their own right because I see the
potential I see their Vision I get so excited that I’m like yes let’s drive all these people and I’m like yes we’re
more more and then they’re just like sitting back like if it happens great if you know so I definitely look in that
and I really look to see like are they mentally prepared um to play Big right whatever big looks
like for them to really go to that next level like they’re all into growing their business right and then it’s like
okay we know that there’s going to be some level of fear so how are we gonna move through the fear to get to the
other side to that next level of fear however um what was it I was talking to a client
the other day and then we I talked her down off the ledge and then she leaves me a boxer message
she goes I could tell you’re a really good mom and I’m like where did that come from because she goes you handled me so well today when I was freaking out
when I went to press that button to launch her new product that she was
putting out so because it does happen so I’m also looking for somebody who is
going to respect the fact that I am the expert in what I do as well as I respect them that they are the expert in what
they’re do so this is like a mutual relationship like a a coming together of leadership if you will on what we’re
going to do and together we are going to move forward right not somebody who’s gonna hire me and then shift me in every
direction because that has happened and then I’m like oh they want this and oh and then they don’t get the results
at all like not even what they were expecting and then I’m like that’s on me because I allowed them to kind of direct
me so that was another lesson learned so that’s pretty much what I really look for and then I ask all the rest of the
questions the normal stuff yeah you know well so I I’m excited to dive into like
what things you do to help people because I hired you to do ads to help me
with ads which was such a game changer in fact we’re gonna do a whole episode on your podcast
diving deep into that so you all need to go check that out because it was amazing but um I did want to touch on you said
sometimes people are a little bit of I mean I hate to say head case but they’re they’re afraid or
they’re like uh how what signs do you have that like this person isn’t ready
for Success mentally yes um and yes maybe head case is not the
right word however we all get to that point sometime and I don’t care where you are because you would be very
surprised some of these people that maybe you’re looking up to in whatever world you’re living in that what I call
like the famous people some people call them the gurus or the influencers whatever you want to name them is
literally they’re all head cases right because every level is that every level you get to so it’s almost like okay
when I look at them it’s like they’re still really nervous but they’re still taking action and they’re still moving
ahead and that’s the thing and then open enough to hear
um okay this is not working and not get defensive or the other way like all you
know depressed or discouraged that oh my God I set this up all wrong oh my God I gotta you know no it’s like okay I know
what it is what do I need to do to fix it right and then I’m like here’s what I and I don’t just say oh this is broken
see ya come call me right when you got it together it’s like okay this is what I would recommend let’s start here with
just this one simple thing let’s make that one tweak and then we move forward okay let’s now change this and then when
it’s like that but when I see people start to freak out and that’s when I
know that they’re not ready so it’s the action taking it’s like feeling that fear and doing it anyway right with the
problem here actually you know well and you you’ve got to be an action taker to have success and with that will come
mistakes like you I bet you cannot name a single client of yours who hasn’t been like oh what dang it you know who’s had
some ups and downs right but being able to move forward so when oh go ahead I
was just gonna say like one of my clients is a very um uh I would say is
an influencer so we scheduled her webinar and she gets on the webinar and I get a text and she’s like no one’s on
what is is going on like am I do I have the right day and I’m like oh my God so
I go in and I’m like did I schedule it like like you know what’s going on well the person in charge of sending the
emails did not put the link to where everybody was supposed to show up no right that happened so she’s just going
with the flow and then we take like literally within not even within five
minutes we got the link out to everyone and people start coming on so what could she have done say oh nobody’s here I’m gonna hang up
I’m gonna just disconnect or she just kind of kind of talked us through wait
for her team to do what needs to be done and get people on and guess what from that
and then she didn’t even have anybody on she had she sold ten thousand dollars
within 60 minutes so if she would have walked away and hung up and gotten all upset or
gotta you know yelled at the team because they didn’t have whatever in place she would not have made ten thousand
dollars right so when I actually this is the other thing being open being coachable and really making all your
decisions based on the data and not the drama okay because emotions it’s easy to make
decisions like that and most of us make decisions based on our emotions right oh that’s uh I’m a loser nobody wanted to
come and hear me right I put and this was the first time she was doing this webinar okay wow so she probably you
could have thought oh nobody wanted that yeah I had some sign ups but nobody really wanted it I’m just gonna scratch
it all together that’s what a normal person I think I might have even done that too right so then when it was all
done and she was still like okay when she hung up she’s like okay tell me what happened I said this this we’ve already
fixed it for next time so it’s done right while she was talking then I said
okay let me just look at the numbers of what you did you had this show up rate even though they got the Lincoln you had
this sales conversion which was higher than any opening webinar you’ve ever had
so can you just imagine the next one you do when everything’s working smoothly what that’s going to look like so those
are the things where it’s like you’re like womp womp then when I bring out the numbers you’re like hey that’s not so
bad and then you’re able to snap out of whatever was going on in your head you’re like oh okay you know because you
have that information well and it’s interesting because even for me as I’m listening I’m like well
people still liked it it was the link that was broken but let’s write this story a little
differently let’s say the link hadn’t been broken everyone did get the link and still nobody came
it doesn’t mean that her product’s a failure there’s still something to look at to be like oh the message wasn’t
right or what piece of the pie wasn’t right and let’s focus on fixing that
exactly exactly and honestly I have when I first started I did do some webinars
and there were times where I was talking to myself because I thought you know what I’m gonna just practice walking
through this and how much easier is it going to be for me to go through it performing but nobody in the audience
like it actually got me more relaxed for when people did show up and guess what that replay link went out to people so
if my energy was low then nobody would have bought through the emails right yeah I look at everything as an
opportunity to learn and I heard this um I can’t remember his name but he talked
about turning your failures into Fuel and when he had that I’m like yes yes
that’s what so I always remind myself how can we turn this failure that we’re
calling it into fuel for the next time absolutely there’s always something to
learn and to improve and when I hear people say things like well I’ve marketed I’ve done everything
I can do and my sales aren’t good I’m like that kind of mindset is not serving
you like there’s always something that you can look at doing a little bit better or improving on which brings me
to to your services like what things do you work with clients to like help them
improve their sales and get more traffic so one of the well we talked about the Facebook ads and things like that
um the other thing is your funnels so there’s there’s two sides to this that I that I do I build them out so we we it’s
more than just the design right so I really come to you’re like I want to sell this product so I even if you don’t
ask me I still tell you what I think um and I’ll be like well what if you tried this so you can actually get maybe
even get a little bit more money like so for example if you were to sell some sort of a product like well what could
be like an upsell so like like it’s funny because I drag my husband to all these events I I did it on purpose at
first just so he would like be okay with me wanting to join something right and
then it was like well gosh when I have these conversations with him at home like I want him to understand because I
he’s really you know creative and sounding board so we went to McDonald’s to get him coffee
and then they were like well would you like a apple pie with that or something whatever they asked and he turns to me
he’s like that’s an upsell I’m like it is an upsell everybody has them you are right I’m glad to see you are paying
attention but like what kind of an upsell could you provide right um so I really look at like because
whenever you’re doing some sort of a funnel like whether it’s in person or whatever you’re doing
you are looking to see like okay how can I make the most out of it how can I earn
the most out of it because most likely you are running paid traffic to it so we’re looking to see how can we get the
most return on whatever investment that we’re putting in whether it be time or money right
so that’s like one side I kind of strategize what is this going to look like what is that customer Journey going
to look like and make sure it all goes through and then on the other side I do like this fractional Chief marketing
officer so that just means part-time for those who don’t have somebody in full time um so variations of it but basically I
look at their company holistically and I first start with what are your company Revenue goals right and then what is the
marketing department have to do to achieve those so we always want to make sure that’s aligned so it is coming in
and literally like with a huge spreadsheet breaking down to see all the
data and then find the Gap like what is the first thing that is below a
benchmark that if we even change this it’s going to be like that domino effect that if we change this it’s going to
push everything else to increase okay now we got this flowing we got this system going what’s the next one that we
need to improve so that’s more of a bigger project like really growing and expanding and um
you know that’s what I really love to do so I always push myself on you I’m like
okay this is what you need to track from here and oh look how cool this you know goes um so yeah that’s pretty much what I do
my heart rate is going high and I’m like we need I need to hire you immediately because I have like well and so here’s
the deal though a lot of my listeners are more not not all but most most of my
listeners are this is pretty advanced stuff they’re not quite there yet so even for them I can hear them thinking
like wait what does she mean this domino effect so I guess if I were to share in
in my business terms and tell me what you know tell me your thoughts on this but like over time I started with one
product and then you touched on a customer Journey so figuring out like what things would a person buy before
they buy my my main product and what would they buy after that and so this
domino effect are you like well let’s look at that thing that they would get before they buy your main product and
how to get more traffic to that yes opt-in or whatever yes so let’s say
you’re giving a free design pattern or something like that right so it’d be
like okay well are you getting the the leads that you should be getting so are
you putting it out there and let’s say The Benchmark is for every 100 people that’s see it the Benchmark is really
like 30 40 people are going to actually opt in to get the free thing okay so if
your number is at six percent then that’s the one thing that we can start
improving to get it to the 30 percent so then you can get more leads so if
you’re spending let’s say it’s costing you you’re spending a hundred dollars so let’s say six leads or six percent is is
costing you I don’t know twenty dollars a lead well now if I go and get you
forty percent that twenty dollars a lead is gonna drop significantly to maybe
like six three I don’t know right so then now you’re able to get more leads
with the same ad spend so you see how it’s affecting not only with what you’re getting subscribers to get new people
into your ecosystem to then buy more stuff and then it’s also getting your
marketing costs are able to maintain what they are you’re not having to increase the budget so what happens is
this is what I see so many times they’re like oh Facebook doesn’t know what they’re doing and I waste all this money
and I’m like really let’s just look at it and how can we do this I did one this
is an example with one customer she was doing a boot camp different from what um I know you’re the people
listening do so a boot camp is something like they participate in something and they learn something for a few days and
then she pitches their course so the first day her she was getting 26
of the people opting in we I went in I was like let’s change
blah blah blah I think we changed a couple of little things the next day it went to 58 point something in one day
okay that’s crazy so so what things do you look at things that I can think of on my radar photos the words I don’t
know if we understand the power of the words are there other things that I’m not thinking of yes so messaging is
everything because you could sell everything with messaging right so when you’re saying the words on the page is
like is it something is it the problem that they solve is it something that they want are you creating the curiosity
like there’s all kinds of things are you showing them what the desire is going to be without the pain or struggle so
that’s one thing um also too some sometimes it’s technical right sometimes it’s like is
there literally a button so they know what to do they might read it but maybe they can’t see it before the scroll so
they’re like okay so now what so what happens because our attention span is like I don’t know now it’s probably like
four seconds something ridiculous we just swipe we move away we bounce off the page sometimes this is really big is
the mobile optimization so we might be putting something together on the desktop and you’re like wow this looks
beautiful it’s perfect blah blah blah but when you look at your phone the font size is so big that maybe you see like a
word and a half and then they’re like what’s going on it they bounce right so it’s just even
sometimes it’s just little single tweaks that make a huge difference all I want
to do right now is hire you full-time to work for me all the time that’s all I want
what have we got to do to make this work no okay but I did also want to talk about
you mentioned solving a problem so again people in my audience get
really stuck on this idea of narrowing down the
niche they they either don’t understand it or don’t believe that it matters or don’t know what that looks like so so
first of all the niche because you’ve worked with clients across the board so I’d love for you to touch on the niche and then within the niche
what what does it mean like why is solving a problem important and how could that look like with a clue pattern
you know okay so let’s talk about the problem really quick and then maybe we can talk in circles because sometimes I
do that um so when you talk about the problem most people run faster from pain than
towards pleasure right so when we were talking at the beginning of
this conversation we were like how do we stay in this positive mindset right I was like got so into my mindset
that I was like I’m gonna make everything positive and then I was like this is not good for marketing because I
would think people would want that desire right but they don’t want to sit in that fear or that pain or that
struggle they’d rather you know uh be like they’re not even like running
towards desire but they don’t want to feel that negativity so it’s almost like
you have to hit on what that negativity is so I’m just throwing this out there and and
maybe we could walk through this but like maybe one of the let’s just say you’re doing quilts for your baby right
and then you’re like you don’t want the pain to be that like when the kids get
older they didn’t have that baby quilt or something special that then they could pass on to their child and so on
and so forth right so it’s all about maybe creating that emotion because
emotion in your messaging is very very good and what would that how would you describe that pain right
um and you might think well that’s not really a pain Michelle but it is because you can’t get back that time right so
when you dive into that a little bit more then you’re gonna see that when it comes to niching this was a big thing
and a lot of people do struggle with it so if if you’re one of those people you are totally not alone
and I as a i in fact did because I thought in my agency oh I know how to do
all these things like literally I know how to do all these things should I be doing all these things right exactly
because I’m like I’m doing this doing this and one of my clients is like hey by the way do you know how to do this and I’m like yeah and he’s like why
didn’t you tell me and I’m like I’m not gonna sit here and be like you know um but if they if as we start talking
this could be something I end up offering as a complete service
when um I read this book called built to sell and it ended up being a marketing
agency um that was struggling because they offered all the things building a
website you know doing advertising whatever all these things and they were struggling to make it work
so he went to a gentleman asking for coaching and he says I want you to pick one thing that you either love to do or
one thing that you want to sell and he’s like there’s no way I cannot because we do all these things and I have all these
people that build the websites and like these departments he’s like pick one and
I want you to be the go-to place to go do this one thing and I can’t remember what they picked but let’s just say
websites so he literally cut out all the other services and not only did his
Revenue go up his profitability went up that when he went to go sell the company it was like what right so what ends up
happening is is when you Niche down so for example let’s say the baby thing
you know that either they’re gonna have another baby or the baby’s gonna get older and they’re gonna do something
else but guess what now they’re in your world so now just like I was saying when
they when my client asked me he’s like hey do you do this well now that I have him in my world but he came to me for
one thing right and now that he’s here I can be able to look and see hey what do you
want or what else what else do you need or I identify things and I say oh I we
can help you that with that here and it would be the same thing for you so you would either identify well what’s the
next need or problem that they would have so what is that next milestone for that child right
um also two now you’re looking at referrals because I know when I got
pregnant my sister-in-law was pregnant my friend was pregnant right so now you’re looking at oh my God that quilt
is beautiful where’d you get oh you know so then that’s also how it starts getting out and getting word and then
once they’re in your world you go to sell them something else yes which okay I’m gonna give a shout
out to one of my students here because this has come to my mind she speaks Spanish and she started a
Spanish-speaking podcast for Quilters I cannot think of a much more narrow Niche
right and now she’s like she’ll reach out every once in a while what about this what about this and she
was like I have a separate Instagram account for the Spanish speaking I was like yeah you need to only do that like
go all in she’s like what about all my English-speaking people I’m like they’re not your customers like it’s so scary
for people to give up because they feel like but if I appeal to more people I’ll have more customers and I don’t know how
to like Express to people except show examples of success yes you just did yes and then but yeah she’s
coming from and here’s the thing you have to decide for you as a business
owner how much time and energy are you willing to do so really to me that’s like having
two full businesses because you would have if she did a course or or even like
the instructions would be spent you know so it’s like also pulling yourself in two different directions
right so it’s like does she have a team that can maybe do XYZ maybe in the
future right um I don’t know if you follow chalene Johnson she’s one she was actually
if you’ve ever heard of Beachbody it’s like okay so she was one of the fitness
personalities and that’s how I got in this business so she had this whatever and then she
got into the business and marketing and it kind of all fluctuated so what one of
the things and this is where I learned from her is that she was the go-to fitness whatever and she didn’t
introduce the marketing until she was already known for one thing and people continue to buy buy and then now she
introduces so now when you’re talking about and increase that upsell or the Martin purchase now it’s like okay well
who was in here that was in Fitness that maybe has a business and wants to learn marketing and then she was able to go
off in two things but that took her years to do yeah right well and with the niche I
mean going back to this idea generally a niche is solving a problem so let’s use
the Spanish-speaking quilter I literally have people who speak Spanish and they’re like I want to learn how to do
this but nobody’s there’s a hole like there’s a group a population that has a problem that’s not being solved or
they’re looking for a product but like who’s the go-to where do I go to find this and I cannot tell you how many
people are like I’m just learning how to quilt what’s the best beginner if someone could really Niche down and
become the go-to beginning quilter but nobody does because they’re like but then I want to add this and this like if
you can be known as the go-to and solve that problem you will increase your
sales incredibly I mean you could even I mean depending on I I wouldn’t say not to Niche yourself down so small that
there’s like only a hole that you know um you can even be like even if we go
back to the baby quilting that does maybe for babies of um uh like military spouses or something
like absolutely right absolutely and then your patterns and your designs are all blah blah blah Army Navy whatever
right or firefighters please like oh yeah like that though those types of
things because then there’s a market for that because it’s like wait a minute I find these baby things but you know there’s one and then everybody has you
know so there’s all kinds of ways I’m telling you like the more you can Niche down the
more success you’ll have like it’s it’s crazy and it’s always scary any student
who I have a coaching call with even when I talk about branding like you need to choose certain colors and only stick
with that they’re like but I like all the colors I’m like that’s great you can like all the colors right but your business has to have a brand right you
know because it’s recognizable exactly yeah yep so for you what have been some
of the biggest I mean we’ve talked about mindset they have to be ready to accept that success lean into the fear of
growth but what are some other things when you meet a business owner that you would say like really strive to have XYZ
to be successful and I’m putting you on the spot here but I know I’m like oh so many things
um I really look at it like a couple of things like when you’re when
we were just talking about this is how quickly you can snap out of something or and or one of the other things is how
resourceful are you right that is huge because you could pretty much figure everything out I I
tell my mom and one of my friends is I’m like I am not 1 800 support or am I not
Google I appreciate that you think I’m so smart but I am not as smart as Google okay
um and those are the little things that it’s like okay it’ll take you two seconds to you know what I mean to be
more resourceful or figure out like where you can find these things I think that alone is really good
um the other thing is really taking responsibility for your business right it’s like No One’s Gonna Save you I’m
not here to save you you’re you know your spouse or whoever it’s like it’s up to you and as if you want your company
to be successful it’s like you have to step up to the plate and really um do that and that’s one of the things that I
notice even sitting around a room like we’re in this masterminding together this year it’s so excited
um it’s like when you sit around the room and you’re looking at these women um only because there’s no men in there
but um right you’re looking at them like okay what I always look and say okay what do I admire about each person right
and sometimes and not with everyone like as I started working more on my
um like working through the way my my thoughts you know create my feelings and
all that kind of stuff and I because I’ve become more self-aware so what happens is I can catch myself not all
the time but I can hear myself saying certain things and I’m like oh I need to change that right and I can also hear
when someone else is talking when they’re fighting for their limiting beliefs right yep so it’s like
um depending on how close I am I’m like did you notice that you said this or whatever
um because sometimes we don’t notice that we’re saying it one thing I heard um and I thought this was interesting
um Brooke Castillo say she’s like what is the one sentence at least one that you say on repeat
um that is causing you not to do your things right and when you hear questions
like that like little prompts that you can find journaling somewhere but then now you become more aware of what is it
that you’re saying to yourself how are you responding to those things and becoming more self-aware about that will
just put you in a different position of who you need to be right now in this second to show up and be the boss that
you know you need to be right yep which I and I am so curious to hear your
thoughts on this because as I’m going through this I just had the thought
tell me I don’t know okay tell me your thoughts on this we need to have all types right like I have a friend who I
was chatting with the other day and I was like what’s your dream what would you love to do and she was like I love
to be a worker bee I want to be behind the scenes I don’t want to make the decisions and so as I’m hearing this I’m thinking
people might think that oh I can make it work but being an entrepreneur owning
your own business doesn’t have to be everyone’s dream right like so maybe
those limiting beliefs not that it’s not limiting beliefs maybe it’s just self-actualization like what what is
your joy what really does light you up you know is this the thing for you and not letting it be because you don’t
believe you can do it but I guess being aware enough that this is really what you want to do you know and even for me
um well I call that also too when you’re like oh she wants to do this it’s like recognizing your own strengths and if
you do want to be an entrepreneur and have a team who can offset so if you are the true Visionary I’m sure you’re not
all up in your project management system like making sure that clients are being met okay like I get it so it’s like but
who can you have come on and help you to make sure those deadlines are being met so you can you know achieve your dreams
or Financial Freedom or whatever it is that you’re looking for um so I know for me I also got into like
a niche and then it was like oh I don’t want to do this anymore it doesn’t light me up
how the heck do I get out of it and move and pivot right so that was challenging for me as much as I in my mind was like
oh I’m doing this nobody else was going along with me I’m like hey guys I’m over here and then it was like oh no we’re
still calling you for this so that was a little challenging but in navigating through that but then you figure it out
because what’s more important is that you be happy and you want to sit down at your desk every day not crawl back under
the sheets you know right that’s also yeah that’s a really good point too because you might be
really having success or moving forward with this thing but you realize you don’t like it and that’s not a failure
like that is learning and now you’ve pivoted exactly here you are and I
literally said to myself like I kind of got down on myself kind of a little bit I was still like I don’t know is this
the right thing like the the doubt of do people not see me like this so I was putting my I was allowing other people
to put the value on me rather than me put the value of myself and then one day I was just like
I built my agency up from nothing if I did it once I could do it again so I
really looked at it like I’m building it up from nothing and I’m gonna go this way you know what I mean but it doesn’t didn’t take away what knowledge and what
experience and what I’ve already learned that I already had yeah right because it’s valuable exactly
and that’s what I just had to literally keep reminding myself like I know this I could do this and it was like I had to
I think they call it like evidence stacking I had to like either write it down going back and look at here’s evidence of what I did here I literally
have a like a folder of testimonials so sometimes I would go back look at screenshots that somebody sent me just
to remind not to like build my ego but to remind myself of who I am because I was not I was not even open to hearing
it right it was like my husband would say oh but this and I’m like oh you only say that because you’re my husband and
you love me or oh but this oh no no they only said that because and I would make all these excuses and then I’m like wait
a minute why am I doing that they wouldn’t have said let’s not talk about my husband but this person I wouldn’t
have told me that they didn’t have to so it’s like recognizing that in
yourself and being open to receive it absolutely Anna that’s so smart that you save it I started I wish I’d done it
sooner but saving the nice DMS or emails like some days I’ve really got to pull
those out and be like let’s read that again yeah yeah so have you ever experienced people
tearing you down publicly that you’re aware of oh publicly
not publicly um but I’ve had had I’ve had had
one that I comes to mind of a client that did not see
that they were the problem okay I worked with my mom for 30 years
and so no matter what I did it was like um if a customer said something it was
even though she would defend me to them it was always something we could have done better okay right so I interpreted
that that okay well I was always wrong right or I you know and then of course as I matured I realized okay maybe it is
that we could have done something better um but these are the lessons that you go to learn from where it’s like you have
to stand in your power and your knowledge and your Authority or whatever it is and
sometimes you have to realize that they’re not going to see it your way that there could be one circumstance
with two different perspectives and unfortunately we have to be professional
in our response or whatever because especially in um like in my world if it
is all referrals like I don’t want the reputation to be whatever that is and it
it and it was funny enough because the girl that was working for me at the time she recognized it right away I kind of
felt something in my gut and then I thought well wait a minute this woman is at a higher level than
what I’m normal but I’m used to dealing with so maybe this is the personality of the person at this level
so this is okay we can do this I am strong enough to get through it and then as we were going through and going
through the girl that worked for me I could tell like she didn’t want to say anything because I kind of shut her down which also as a boss I’m learned my
lesson not to always do like I didn’t like stop complaining but I was just like it’s okay and you know we’re gonna get through this and then I was like I
should have listened to you I should have listened to you and listened to my gut um but yeah but I would say that was it and
then we just figured it out to work um you know to be okay with it because I
really recognize that were there lessons that we learned yes was I in the like who’s really wrong or
right right you just have to be good with it and look I’m still here today and people
still refer me business and people are very very happy and sometimes I mean you
talked about people ripping you down in person like something happened with another client and I thought oh my God
they’re he’s so mad at me and then he literally called my phone number which I never give out my phone number but I was
like and he’s like I just wanted to tell you how awesome you are and here I was thinking oh he’s mad because this
happened you know which wasn’t even my fault but I felt like oh like this whole
link thing that wasn’t my fault but then I’m like right like oh should I have followed up with her right I I
automatically take on that responsibility even though it’s not my role so I almost put some of this
negativity on myself so I have to learn to you know let that
go that has been interesting for me as a business owner at first whenever someone emailed with like this didn’t go right I
was instantly like they’re right I I made a mistake and then I kind of over corrected and I was like oh no I know
I’m right and now I’m in this in between line of like step back look at what happened and answer with kindness you
know and like see if there’s something you could learn or do better here and if not then be
nice about it you know so not that I wasn’t nice about it but yeah so well this has been such a fun
conversation I could chat with you for days and days but for our listeners who
want to find you where’s the best place for them to find you can find me on Instagram at D Michelle Fernandez you
can send me a DM that would be awesome awesome and you have a podcast I do it’s
called the traffic and conversion show awesome well thank you so much for being here it was a pleasure yes thank you for
having me [Music] Michelle thank you so much for being
here on the podcast it was so fun chatting with you if you couldn’t tell just the vibe in the podcast is so
relaxed and fun and Michelle really knows I mean she has experience helping
with marketing and I do invite you to go over and check out her podcast where I’m a guest on an episode because like I
said we dive deeper into my experience hiring her but um yeah she’s the real
deal like she really knows what she’s talking about and I hope that you enjoyed hearing from her about tips for
success for your business and a few little marketing strategies sprinkled in there you know your customer journey and
offering some upsells along the way so thank you so much for being here on the crafty career podcast again if you’ve
not left a review please do it really does make a difference for the longevity of the podcast also I do rely on
referrals chances are you’ve heard about this podcast from somebody else and if
you have I’d love for you to pay that forward take a screen shot share the podcast with someone who you know would
benefit from hearing about the podcast that would mean the world to me and it would make the difference for one of
your entrepreneurial friends so thank you so much for being here on the craft to Career podcast we’ll see you back
here next Friday until then have a wonderful week [Music]
