IAM313- Serial Entrepreneur Helps Clients Communicate With Their Audiences

After a 30-year career as a corporate marketing copywriter and content strategist, Susan decided to pursue her dream and become a life coach. Assuming there was NO WAY the proven tactics she used for her B2B clients would work in the personal development market, she tossed her expertise out the window. Instead, she followed the {incomplete} advice of her online coaching mentors—with no results.

After losing more than $60,000, she was ready to quit. Then she attended a digital marketing conference where the light bulb went on and she realized her BIG mistake. By going back to the tactics she had successfully used to help multi-million dollar companies (and her husband’s massage clinic) consistently grow, she began to see results—higher email open rates, more engagement, and sales!

Now she spends her days teaching her students how to replicate the same success.

• CEO Hack: Doing something that stays in touch my intentions- Yoga
• CEO Nugget: Listen to your intuition and do what feels right to you
• CEO Defined: Having the courage to follow my dreams without worrying about the outcomes

Website: http://susanrose.net/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanRoseWriter/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanrose001/
Download the content creation cheat sheet: http://susanrose.net/content-creation-cheat-sheet

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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 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 0:30

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Susan Rose, Susan it's awesome to have you on the show.

Susan Rose 0:39

Thank you. Great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

Yes, definitely super excited to have you back on. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Susan so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And after a 30-year career as a corporate marketing copywriter and content strategist, Susan decided to pursue her dream and become a life coach. Assuming there's no way the proven tactic she used for her B2B clients would work in the professional and personal development space, she tossed her expertise out the window.

Instead, she followed the incomplete advice of her own online coaching mentors with no results. After losing more than $60,000 She was ready to quit. Then she attended a digital marketing conference where the light bulb went on and she realized her big mistake. By going back to the tactic she had used to help multimillion-dollar companies in her husband's massage clinic consistently grow, she began to see results, higher email open rates, and more engagement, and sales. Now she spends her days teaching her students how to replicate the same success. Susan, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO? Community?

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Susan Rose 1:42

I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:44

Yes, let's do it. So the first thing I wanted to do is hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Susan Rose 1:50

Well, so you the BIOS have a lot of it, I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I've had lots of businesses. But I'm in this most recent iteration, where I'm teaching people how to do what I've been doing over the last 30 years. Because I got really frustrated when I was going into my coaching practice of the information out there things people were being taught that is not necessarily wrong, but it's just not the whole story. And so people have very unrealistic ideas of how they're gonna be able to launch their business and how to communicate with their audiences. And I don't like seeing that. And I can do something about it. This is where I'm supposed to be helping this audience. Really figure it out and do it well.

Gresham Harkless 2:40

Yeah, especially in the digital marketing space. And really, probably most industries, there's so much misinformation out there, that you hear something, you hear that it's easy to do it or you hear this is exactly how you do it. And sometimes the people that are telling that sometimes aren't even the people that are doing or taking their own medicine, so to speak.

Susan Rose 2:59

Right. And that's, you know, and in the digital space, things move really fast. So maybe when they did it, it worked. But you know, something that worked three months ago might not work now. And that was kind of the thing I learned is that while the medium has changed over the last 30 years, I've been doing the same stuff. And that stuff still works. It's just tweaking it for whatever's new and what's happening. That was the part that was missing.

Gresham Harkless 3:26

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to hear a little bit more about this stuff. And all the things that you're doing to help support the clients that you're working with. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Susan Rose 3:35

So, I work in a couple of different ways. There are two pieces of the business one person can hire me to do the writing for them. These are usually larger companies that are scaling. And they're just like, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to hand this off to somebody else. So that's one group of people that's honestly the bulk of the work that I do. But I have a passion for helping these smaller entrepreneurs who are in the personal development space or the holistic healing space because it's just a market that's near and dear to me. So I teach them how to do it for themselves. Because hiring a really experienced copywriter it's a lot of money and hiring somebody who doesn't know what they're doing is a waste of money.

So I believe everybody can learn how to do it themselves. So you know, I'm working with people and I'm teaching them just the little tweaks it's not that they don't know how to do it they need to learn what the strategy is and what the methods are, and why you do what you do. You know, why do you put emojis into the subject lines of emails The reason for that is that I'm teaching them how to do it either through one on one coaching, through a program, or through a membership program, I have called the Copy Clinic.

Gresham Harkless 4:51

Nice. And I find that a lot of people just like us went to like the emojis or whatever it is. Sometimes you see somebody do it or you hear that you should be doing XYZ, so you just tried to implement that. But I love that you're talking about that strategy piece because I think that's often overlooked. Because a lot of people don't understand why they do what it is that they do.

Susan Rose 5:10

Right. And if you don't understand why you're doing it, you might occasionally have success. But you're not going to be doing it consistently or at the right time, yeah, so I'm a big believer in understanding why you're doing what you're doing.

Gresham Harkless 5:26

Exactly. And now, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of makes you unique?

Susan Rose 5:34

I think what makes me unique is that combination of the strategy and the big vision along with the real tactical piece of it, a lot of copywriters when people are hiring a writer, think, well just go write it, I need this, just go do it. But if you don't understand how this fits into the organization's bigger goals and what they want to achieve, then you're wasting your time, you're probably going to produce stuff.

So I think that's why a lot of people don't see results because they're focusing their energy on the wrong thing. So my secret sauce is that I bring that ability to see that big picture along with, what are we going to do, and I'm often telling my clients not to do the thing they hired me to do. I'll do that, but you're not gonna get anything out of it.

Gresham Harkless 6:26

So it's all about trying to help them kind of understand, you know, what their goal is, and try to make sure that what they think may not necessarily be in alignment with it, but you're kind of showing them exactly how to do what they technically need to do in order to reach that goal.

Susan Rose 6:42

Right in the Content Marketing World. Not all things are created equal, so every different kind of thing you create on this podcast has a different purpose and impact than a blog post does. They're not the same thing. They're not used for the same things to the same audience. So it's important to understand what that is, and how that fits into what you want to be achieving.

Gresham Harkless 7:06

Exactly. Because often people just hear that they shouldn't be doing XYZ. So they try to implement it, oh, I need to have a podcast, because so and so has a podcast, because it strategically aligns with what their goal is where it may not necessarily work with somebody else.

Susan Rose 7:21

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 7:23

Awesome. That makes perfect sense. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Susan Rose 7:37

This might sound strange, or maybe not. But what makes me more efficient, and that I realized as a hack is taking that time for self-care, especially doing meditation and yoga, and doing something every day that grounds me and kind of stills that mind, because like so many entrepreneurs and CEOs, I have a gazillion ideas a day, you know, and if I'm not really taking that moment to sit back and stay in touch with what I want my intentions, I will go running down all the rabbit holes. So I'm finding I've really gotten back into that, you know, last time we talked, I wasn't doing that very consistently. And I have been ever since the beginning of this year. And it's making a huge difference in my productivity, my results, and the opportunities that are coming my way. Just because I like to do yoga.

Gresham Harkless 8:36

No, it's funny, because all those little things kind of add up. Because I know sometimes when I get it, you know, throughout a week or something like that, and it's just like an off week. A lot of times, it's just because you didn't take even that little period of time just to kind of get clear. Make sure that you're right in alignment with everything that you're doing. And sometimes you just have to take that kind of me time, so that you can be even better at everything that you do.

Susan Rose 8:57

Yeah, it does. It actually gives you more hours in the day, that hour to focus on yourself. And it feels counterintuitive until you've experienced it. You know, now I sit down sometimes I'm like, I'm done with everything I need to do.

Gresham Harkless 9:13

It's weird when that happens, always get a little paranoid. Okay.

Susan Rose 9:17

Entrepreneur, especially what I need to do right now. It's crazy.

Gresham Harkless 9:22

Exactly. But it's all about being efficient and being able to kind of take that time. So I appreciate that hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can happen to be a time machine what would you tell your younger business self?

Susan Rose 9:38

To listen to my intuition more. It's very easy to get caught up like you said and all the things people are telling you to do. Especially in content marketing so you got to do this, got to do that. If you don't have your podcast, your business is gonna fail. You don't do YouTube videos, you can you know, so listen to your intuition and do what feels right to write to you. Because if it feels right to you, and you've been strategic, it's going to attract the right people to your business.

Gresham Harkless 10:08

Absolutely, I think that's definitely a great reminder. Because, you know, a doctor or whatever that you go to, I've always heard that you are your best doctor. And a lot of times when you're making decisions about your business, whatever it is that you're doing, you are usually aware of what that right quote-unquote answer is. So a lot of times you have to tap into yourself and listen to that small voice that we sometimes ignore.

Susan Rose 10:30

Right. Every failure I've had, and everybody I know who's had a huge failure, when they go back and sit and reflect. And they're honest with themselves. They knew before they did it, that it was a mistake, and then, like my, you know, being $60,000, in my heart, I knew it was a mistake. I didn't listen to myself, I listen to all the noise around me, and I let myself doubt this new venture. Kind of take over. And, you know, when it got clear, my little light bulb went off. And I sat back like, Yeah, I knew this all along. You know, I just myself.

Gresham Harkless 11:08

Yeah. And it's super hard to do. I mean, have you found in there any things that you've been able to do to kind of make sure that you're tapping into that? Or is that more than a hack when you're taking that time away? Because I think there's so much noise and so many things pulling at you that sometimes it's hard to listen or even hear that little voice that intuition.

Susan Rose 11:26

Yeah, well, I think that's, that's a great question. And that does get back to what I was talking about with the self-care and doing yoga or meditation like that kind. Because that does help hone that ability to listen to yourself, when you quiet your mind and get still, you know, I think often erasing mind is just our way of not listening to our intuition. So the more I'm doing this other stuff, the more able I'm to hear that voice inside of me saying go for that, don't go for that. Do this, don't do that. And so I've made a lot of changes, I'm doing things a lot differently than I'm sure other colleagues like would.

Gresham Harkless 12:07

Absolutely know that. That's absolutely awesome. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So Susan, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Susan Rose 12:21

It seems to me that means having the courage to follow my dreams and do what I want and not worry about the outcome, necessarily. I mean, I think that that's the bit of leadership. But it's that it's a curiosity. And it's a kind of leadership by example.

Gresham Harkless 12:42

Absolutely, it's great to kind of remind yourself of that reminds us of that, because a lot of times, you know, when you're a leader, you want to be able to kind of march to the beat of that same drum that you're telling everybody else to do in all aspects of life. So it's kind of a great reminder of that. And, Susan, I truly appreciate your time, what I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know, and then how best they can get a hold of you.

Susan Rose 13:08

Well, they can get a hold of me, the easiest way is probably just to go to my website and see what I have there. Because I have a lot of resources, a lot of downloads, and a lot of opinions about how to do things. And my website is susanrose.net. So you can find out anything you want there. And, you know, my advice I would leave people with is to be curious. You know, I'm assuming that most of the people reading this podcast are not marketing people like me, so they kind of hear this word, like would I want to do that and feel sleazy? And it can be you know, if you're not listening to your intuition, but I think that if you have a healthy curiosity about how it helps serve your clients, I mean, really help people, then it gives you a different perspective. And there are so many cool things out there to do to try and experiment with. So that's my advice is to be open to it and, and not run away from it, which a lot of people do.

Gresham Harkless 14:12

Exactly, run to the fear, run in the face of the fear, and face it. And that's how you get to have some awesome things happen. So thank you for reminding us of that. And we'll make sure to have those links as well in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and see all the awesome things that you're doing. But again, I truly appreciate your time and all the awesome things you're doing. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Susan Rose 14:31

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Outro 14:33

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 reading.

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