IAM1662 – Digital Native Optimizes Human Potential

Amelia Roberts Teaser 00:00

It's definitely something I encourage listeners and people who are just starting out in business or have a business who want to improve their conversations regarding sales, is lead with empathy, lead with caring about someone else's pain. Lead with choose to care and investigate what painful problem or situation that their prospective client is in or whoever there's prospecting and choose to care about how they're gonna go about resolving the pain.

Intro 00:25

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 are in search of. This is to I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:52

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. And if you've been listening this year, we're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes under certain categories or topics. That we think are gonna be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners. This month is going to be about not forgetting about the human part of business. Often we forget about the human part of life. We often forget about the human part of business. So look for self-care tips, fitness, burnout, purpose, biz and personal, personal branding, motivation, drive success, understanding your why, and of course, how important customer service is. But at the heart of it, it's all about remembering the human part of business. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

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

Amelia Roberts 01:50

Hey there. Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:52

Yeah, no problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Amelia so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And 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 the 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 Amelia, 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 when 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?

Amelia Roberts 02:43

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

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Gresham Harkless 02:45

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

Amelia Roberts 02:52

So entrepreneurship has been, I feel like, in my blood for a long time. My dad was, while he was living, was very entrepreneurial. There's a family story about him selling the family car for an investment, a business investment and the related aftermath. But in any case, he was always, I wish he was living nowadays. Because, you know, back in like the early nineties and stuff setting up a business with just a computer, that wasn't a thing. He, would've thrived now. But in any case, there's that. 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 of the idea of earning money for based on my own that crept into my head. But it's a long story, but when I went into a high school area or that time, I had friends who were buying URLs and flipping them.

And so I was of thinking about doing that. But the decision came, it's like, okay, do I get a degree in credentials or join my friends with buying the Cosby Show and flipping links? And I went to school and got credentials. But I really still had a heart for using technology to help people and connect people. And then like 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, you know what, let me take a look at digital marketing again.

Gresham Harkless 04:14

Nice. So, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. Could you tell us and take us through exactly what you're doing with your clients and how exactly you work with them?

Amelia Roberts 4:22

Sure. So, I first started out doing social media management. I had friends who started an online business, a virtual assistant business, like 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 the ones that I was most excited about and they looked like speaking opportunities. They looked like getting booked on podcasts. They looked like other forms of visibility more than a tweet that went viral. Because a lot of the people that I work with, they have stories that can't be distilled into a Facebook post. They have stories that are best communicated via conversations on podcasts or virtual summits or speaking events. And so, when looking at my client, you know, past results, I said, you know what? I really wanna do that form of almost social media PR. I wanna do more of that versus the social media management part. So, more recently I started offering visibility campaigns that look like getting people on podcast tours and getting people booked on virtual summits and things like that.

Gresham Harkless 05:27

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

Amelia Roberts 05:46

Exactly. And you know, they say people do business with folks that know, like, and trust. And it really is about,  getting that first date, having that first coffee chat. And I've found that a lot of times a first coffee chat is really comfortable when it happens around a podcast, around a virtual summit or around a blog, you know, that sort of like relationship. And then once that first relationship or that guest blog post goes live, you know, there's other things that can develop and happen from that. But just getting that initial conversation going with somebody who wants to know about my client's business and is just really, really exciting to see two people, you know, exchange numbers and get on the phone with each other is like super fun.

Gresham Harkless 06:25

Yeah, absolutely. And, I think that sometimes you're just like at a networking event, sometimes it's always hard to break the ice and figure out how 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, go on the podcast tours 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 06:46

Yes. The The inbound marketing, you know, portion of that, Neil Patel has an article about guests being a guest on podcasts versus doing guest blog posts and I don't wanna 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 podcast related to people who can send you clients. It's also very powerful as well. So, yeah. Good stuff that's happening.

Gresham Harkless 07:15

Yeah. 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 sets you apart and makes you unique?

Amelia Roberts 07:24

Well, A few things. Definitely I've long been an observer of human behavior. Definitely my background in healthcare really has 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 have a business, who want to improve their conversations regarding sales, is lead with empathy, lead with caring about someone else's pain. Lead with choose to care and investigate what painful problem or situation that their prospective client is in or whoever there's prospecting and choose to care 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 and empathy and observing human behavior and patterns and also being able to notice matches. It's a gift. I love playing matchmaker. I've learned that it's more appreciated when I do it with business versus personal relationships so I found out and I just think that 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, you know, looking for matches for people and imagining who my ideal client needs to meet or my client needs to meet. Like, you know, if I'm working with a photographer 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 around finding patterns and matches.

Gresham Harkless 08:51

I appreciate that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Amelia Roberts 09:04

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, why they're 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 09:29

You're absolutely right. So, now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And that could be like a word of wisdom or 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 you would tell a client?

Amelia Roberts 09:43

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. It's that, you know, opportunities aren't clouds floating in the sky. Chances are, you know, when someone needs a new opportunity, there's a person that it is gonna need to meet. It's a person attached to it. And yeah, so all opportunities in life come from other humans. So start developing and nurturing relationships from day one. You know, for those of us who still have their 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 of some sort, whether it's Trello, Excel, and 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 touchpoints 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, you know, valuable email. I found this point really helpful. In fact, I've used your advice before and it really worked out in this way or that way. Do that times 10 and see what happens. So I can't tell you how many times people have, you know, yes it is their VA who might get it, but they forwarded it along their VA because how many times does 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 11:28

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I love that because I think so many times when you 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 onto 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 and gives us the ability, empowers us to be able to create these opportunities and look for those opportunities because they're the people that are all around us.

Amelia Roberts 11:52

Yep. And it makes also access up to be more practical because some people, like who do you wanna do business with? I wanna do business with software companies. What's the name of the person that you like to reach out to? You know, let's boil it down to a name, boil it 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, you know, that you could happen upon? You know, there so many ways to go about it once you decide, once you realize the opportunities are attached to people, absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 12:27

I love that. And in this technology world, sometimes we forget that human aspect and the people in the relationship building aspect. 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 this show. So Amelia, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Amelia Roberts 12:46

A CEO means to be in a position to help other people. I know that a lot of folks in healthcare industry can feel challenged when it comes to having or charging whether it's dentists or physical therapists or private practice owners. You know, when it comes to that selling method we can all 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 at 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 mind of a definition of CEO for me.

Gresham Harkless 13:35

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think that just remembering that we all have ways that we're able to I guess make an impact and empower and change lives is something that's very important. So I appreciate, you getting to that level that Oprah, bill Gates level for sure too. And I appreciate that definition and your time even more. What I wanted to do was 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 of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Amelia Roberts 14:05

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 how you found me. And also my website is www.solutionsbyamelia.com Amelia. And feel 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 read how to get in front of anyone. And hope there are practical advice in there for your audience as well.

Gresham Harkless 14:37

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 14:49

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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