IAM564- Digital Native Optimizes Human Potential

Amelia Roberts is a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing twelve years ago with a role as a virtual assistant. Student loans from nursing school inspired her to put her love of observing human nature, showing empathy, and previous marketing experience to work in new ways, and as a result, she was able to pay off her student loans in under 2 years.

Now alongside other roles, you can find Amelia helping under-recognized professionals stand out and more “get first dates” in business so that they can become thought leaders in the healthcare industry and beyond. When she is not optimizing human potential Amelia enjoys planning real and imagined food tours.

You can find her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameliaroberts/

Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today of A Million Roberts of Solutions by Amelia. It's awesome to have you on the show.

Amelia Roberts 0:39

Hey there. Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Yeah, no problem super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Amelia so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Amelia is a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing 12 years ago, with a role as a virtual assistant. Student loans from nursing school inspired her to put her love of observing human nature and showing empathy in previous marketing experience to work in new ways. And as a result, she was able to pay off student loans in under two years. Now alongside other roles, you can find a million helping under-recognized professionals stand out and get more first dates in business so that they can become thought leaders in the healthcare industry and beyond.

But she's not optimizing human potential. Amelia enjoys planning real and imagined food tours. You can find her on LinkedIn. Amelia, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Amelia Roberts 1:32

Yes, I'm excited to be here. Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 1:35

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story, what led you to get started with your business?

Amelia Roberts 1:42

So entrepreneurship has been I feel like in my blood for a long time. My dad while he was living was very entrepreneurial. There was a family story about him selling the family car for an investment of business investment, and the related aftermath. But in any case, he was always he, I wish he was living nowadays. Because back in, like the early 90s, and stuff, you know, setting up a business with just the computer wasn't a thing. He would have thrived now, but in any case, so that's there's that. And my uncle supported his family for a time as a jazz musician. My baby cousin, his daughter is a photographer. So yeah, there are lots of entry points that have the idea of earning money based on my own that crept into my head.

But I, it's a long story. But when I went into the high school area, or that time, I had friends who were buying URLs and flipping them and so I was sort of thinking about doing that. But the decision came was like, Okay, do I get a degree in credentials, or do my friends buy the Cosby Show and flip links, I went to school and got credentials. But I still had a heart for using technology to help people and connect with people. And then like, as you said, when another round of student loans came, you know, my husband had just recently read Dave Ramsey, and he had a goal of paying them off quickly. And I didn't see myself working extra shifts. So one thing led to another and I said, what, let me take a look at digital marketing again.

Gresham Harkless 3:21

Nice. Well, I appreciate you chatting the story definitely sounds like you guys have some entrepreneurial DNA in your bloodline for sure it to say, to say the least. And I think so many people maybe have thought about,  doing some type of venture or have friends and people close to us that have started and always wanted to. So I'm glad to hear, first of all, that you did it and that you are helping so many other people do that as well. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. Can you tell us to take us through exactly what you're doing with your clients and how exactly you work with them?

Amelia Roberts 3:52

Sure. So I first started out doing social media management. I had friends who started an online business or virtual assistant business, in 2007 is when they started. And then I started looking into what they were doing, like in 2012. So I started out doing social media management. And that's mostly how I paid off the student loans doing that but along the way, I looked at my client wins. I'm the one that I was most excited about. And they look like speaking opportunities. They look like getting booked on podcasts, they look like other forms of visibility more than a tweet that went viral. Because a lot of the people that I work with have stories that can't be distilled into Facebook posts.

They have stories that are best communicated by conversations on podcasts virtual summits, or speaking events. And so looking at my client, you know, past results, I said, what, I want to do that form of almost social media PR. I want to do more of that, versus the social media management part. So, more recently, I started you know, offering visibility campaigns that look like getting people on podcast tours and getting people booked on virtual summits and things like that.

Gresham Harkless 5:03

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. And as I read in your bio, the beginning of those first business days is always a great thing because I think and I don't know, if you would definitely agree with this is that most businesses and organizations are sometimes doing some really great or phenomenal things. But if nobody knows about it, you don't have that visibility, then it's almost as if you haven't even done it.

Amelia Roberts 5:23

Exactly. And, they say people do business with folks that know, like, and trust. And it really is about, you know, getting that first date and having that first coffee chat. And I've found that a lot of times the first coffee chat isn't really comfortable when it happens around a podcast, around a virtual summit, or a blog, you know, that sort of like a relationship. And then once that first relationship or that guest blog post goes live, other things can develop and happen from that. But I'm just getting that initial conversation going with somebody who wants to know about my client's business, and it is really, really exciting to see two people, exchange numbers and get on the phone with each other. It's like, super fun.

Gresham Harkless 6:05

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you know, sometimes you're just like at a networking event, sometimes, it's always hard to break the ice and figure out how, you know, to start the conversation, but as you said, if you get the opportunity to tell your story and talk about what it is that you do on a podcast, or on the podcast towards, as you talked about, that gives you the opportunity to break the ice, and now people are reaching out to you and connecting with you based off of that.

Amelia Roberts 6:26

Yes, the inbound marketing portion of that. Neil Patel has an article about guests being a guest on podcasts, versus, you know, doing guest blog posts. And I don't want to oversell how great podcasting is, but it's just there's something to being inside of the ears literally being inside of the head of your best buyers, or referral partners. Choosing to be on a podcast related to people who can send you clients is also very powerful as well. So yeah, good stuff is happening.

Gresham Harkless 7:01

Yeah, absolutely. Feel free to talk as much about podcasting as you want. I'm definitely a fan as well. So I definitely would echo that for sure. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call, your secret sauce. And that could be for you personally or for your business. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Amelia Roberts 7:20

Well, a few things. Definitely, I've long been an observer of human behavior. Definitely, my background and healthcare really have my empathy muscle well developed. And that's definitely helped with business. And it's definitely something I encourage listeners and people who are just starting out in business or habit business, who want to improve their conversations regarding sales is lead with empathy, lead with caring about someone else's pain, lead with choosing to care, and investigate what painful problem or situation that their prospective client is in or whoever there's prospecting, and to secure about how they're gonna go about resolving the pain and making it clear how they resolve pain and take it away and make doing business easy.

But definitely, I think what sets me apart is my skills in empathy, and observing human behavior and patterns. And also being able to notice matches. It's a gift, I love playing matchmaker, and I've learned that it's more appreciated when I do it with business versus personal relationships. So I found out, so I found out and I just think might be also my driver for doing the matchmaking thing. It's like, oh, people appreciate it when I do it this way. So I love looking for matches for people and imagining, you know, who my ideal client needs to meet, or my client needs to meet, like, you know, if I'm working with a photographer, or introducing them to wedding planners or bakers, or florist, you know, it's just, yeah, I love.

So I guess, yes, my empathy, and I have fun finding patterns and matches.

Gresham Harkless 9:06

I appreciate that. Yeah. And definitely, you know, I guess if you have, connected anybody from a personal side, and then they go well together, maybe they should start a business or something together, and then they'll be happy. So, yeah, that's an idea. So I appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call an SEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Amelia Roberts 9:32

As far as a CEO hack, definitely building a story brand book is absolutely great in terms of figuring out how to articulate your message. A lot of people struggle with identifying their unique value proposition while they are different from all the other health coaches out there, or all the other consultants out there. And story brand really does take that pressure off of you by putting the focus on your ideal client.

Gresham Harkless 9:59

You're absolutely right. So, now I wanted to ask you for what I call an SEO nugget. And that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice can be around, you know, digital marketing, or visibility or anything related to that. But what's something you might tell your younger business self or, or you would tell a client as well?

Amelia Roberts 10:18

Something I would tell both is that all opportunities in life come from other humans, there is a quote that I will give you that you hopefully can put in the show notes that says what I said more eloquently, but pretty much a quote goes like, and I forgot who named it, but look for the show notes who said. It is like, you know, “Opportunities aren't clouds floating in the sky. Chances are, when someone needs a new opportunity, there's a person that it is going to need to meet, it's a person, attached to it.” And, yeah, so all opportunities in life come from other humans. So start developing nurturing relationships from day one, you know, for those of us who are still, have our day job as well.

Your day job is beautiful ground for all sorts of relationship development. And also, of course, for your business, if you're in business, definitely choose to care about using a CRM or some sort, whether it's Trello, Excel, or Insightly something to help you remind you to keep in touch with people that you are meeting, that you have met to say thank you to send thank you notes, thinking of you notes. And you know, when you build in different touch points, to reach out to people, just to check in on them to congratulate them to say, thank you. That's an easy way to stand out just by doing that alone.

And in fact, I challenge, you know, listeners that if you're like signed up on the email list of people that you admire, and that you follow, and that who've helped you in some way, hit reply, do that times 10, just hit reply and say, Thank you so much for this valuable email, I found this point really helpful. In fact, I've used your advice before, and it really worked out this way or that way. Um, do that times 10, and see what happens. So I can't tell you how many times people have, you know, yes, it is a VA who might get it, but they forwarded it along to their VA, because how many times that happen, but their VA has forwarded along to like the founder, and I've had conversations with people that I never thought would reply or reach out directly.

Gresham Harkless 12:16

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I love that. Because I think so many times, and when you kind of use that cloud analogy, it seems like something that's so far away that you can't really touch it, or you can't really hold on to it. But if we understand from a tangible aspect, that these opportunities are in people that we need to build relationships with, it makes it a lot more tangible. It gives us the ability empowers us to be able to to create these opportunities and look for those opportunities because they are the people who are all around us.

Amelia Roberts 12:44

Yep, yep. And that makes also access to absolutely more practical because some people like who do you want to do business with? I want to do physical software companies. What's the name of the person that you'd like to reach out to? You know, let's boil it down to a name, boil down to position tile, boil it down to a name? And you know, are you connected with them in any way on LinkedIn? Are you one degree away? Or two degrees away? You know, are they in any local networking group or associations, that you could happen upon? You know, there are so many ways to go about it, once you decide once you realize that opportunities are attached to people absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 13:20

Love that. Love that in this technology world, sometimes we forget the human aspect and the people and the relationship-building aspects. So I definitely appreciate that tremendously. So now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Amelia, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Amelia Roberts 13:39

As CEO means to be in a position to help other people. I know that a lot of folks in the healthcare industry can feel challenged when it comes to having charging. You know, whether it's, a dentist or physical therapist or private practice owner, you know when it comes to that selling method, you know, we are all you can be uncomfortable with it. But I encourage everybody, especially those of us who offer services that help other people, who can help more people. Is it the guy standing on the street corner with a sign that says, you know, feed me?

Or can Oprah and Bill Gates help more people? So I'm not an Oprah or Bill Gates level yet. But definitely a CEO, in my mind means somebody who's in a position to help and serve other people in a way, that's easy. And that's definitely that the frame of mine has a definition of TBO for me.

Gresham Harkless 14:34

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think that just remembering that we all kind of have ways that we were able to, I guess make an impact and empower and change lives is something that's very important. So I appreciate you know, you get into that level that oh, that Oprah Bill Gates level for sure, too. And I appreciate that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can our readers and listeners know, and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Amelia Roberts 15:06

Sure. I'd love for you guys to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm there as Amelia J. Roberts. So please connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to have a quick chat, just let me know you know how you found me. And also, my website is www.solutionsbyamelia.com Amelia. Free to take a look at what I'm doing over there. But yeah, I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn. And I'll also give you a link to an e-book that I have a little e-book. Easy to read how to get in front of anyone. And I hope there is practical advice in there for your audience as well.

Gresham Harkless 15:45

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Amelia. I appreciate that. And we will have that link and information in the show notes. So I appreciate you for all the awesome things you're doing and the reminders that you gave us today, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 15:58

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo. co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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