Working in your own zone of genius keeps not just the momentum but the magic to flow.
In this episode, it was such a delight to talk to Hera Zee discussing anything about marketing, business and branding. We could just go on and on for hours! You could tell in this interview.
2:42 Hera’s story
12:58 Hera’s goal to increase more female-owned businesses
20:51 realizing the need for delegation
32:09 finding your own zone of genius
More Hera:
Website – https://herazee.com/
Instagram – @herazee
Free marketing call – https://calendly.com/herazee/dys
Hey, guys Megan here. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is going to be a really good episode. I hunted this woman down specifically to come talk to you today. So I am really glad that you’re gonna be able to hear this episode. I am here with Hera Zee, so people might call her a serial entrepreneur and she won’t debate that Hera built her first business online over a decade ago. Okay, before it was cool and immediately saw what having a solid marketing plan could do for growth and sales over Brand. Now, as an active partner at her reigns creative social Media Marketing Agency, Hera and her team have successfully helped thousands of business owners work smarter, not harder to grow in scale online. Their mission is to double the size of 10,000 female owned businesses in the next five years. And her vision is to see more entrepreneurs succeed in business. Besides, she wasn’t named goddess of women for nothing, though Herra so thrilled you’re here. Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for inviting me. This is very exciting. I’m usually the one doing interviews, but every once in a while. Yes, I get hunted down, it will have turned on. I like it.
So let’s talk about the first business online a decade ago. Let’s talk about the origin story like Batman villain style.
Okay, so I actually just got chills when you said that, because I don’t know if you follow my stories, but I just put up a poll in my instagram where I ask people if I should let go of my very first original domain. That was like the big online business 10 years ago and I guess it was 11 years ago. No, 10 years ago, 2010 I did guys. I let it expire.
My God, that is huge. I had anxiety when I first heard that too. I completely understand that Zach sticks, though that’s a huge breakthrough.
It is because, you know, I said, let me, there’s nothing worse than a Web domain squatter and that’s essentially what I was doing. I was squatting on this property, right? Like I used to be a URL like a Web domain hoarder because I viewed it as real estate. Sounds like I want all of the names and you never know which one is gonna pop one day. But my very first business, I started in 2010. I thought it would be really cool to have an online yoga, you know, membership. I got my mom passed away and I went to therapy for a year. And then I said, I think I need yoga. So I got certified to teach it. And when you know how we talked about the dollar dollar bills I love, I love money. I love people and I love money. But when I got certified for yoga, I saw this woman was making $25,000 in three months to certify us And like, teaches yoga. So I was like, I want to do that. So I started that business. I said, I’m going to do it online and reach the entire world. I spent close to $40,000 on launching, trademarking, producing these yoga videos and you know, I thought if I start a blogging, a website, a membership, if I build it, they will come and that could not be further from the truth. Think you know it and I know it. And I think all your listeners probably know it too, right? If we build it, No, that does not mean that they will just arrive at your doorstep. You gotta kinda set up a marketing plan is what really would have benefited may big time just to know how people find you, how to drive traffic, how to solve a problem for people and really niche down and narrow down. And that demographic that you’re serving, they’re a very particular problem. And more, most importantly, what will be the after state that they are transformed into after they have experienced your products or services on. And I think that goes for pretty much every industry. I see you, not in there. I can see Megan. You guys can’t. I need some poop.
You’re missing out. Let me tell you that’s your hair girl. Thank you, it actually needs to die. But it’s good enough for now. It’s getting the job done.
I love it, so that was my first business and you know, It was like getting my masters in what not to do. It was a cost, like a college degree. So figured stuff out, you know.
How long do you run that one for?
Well, it didn’t make me any money, so I don’t really know if I could say I ran it, but it did evolve. Quite a run You? Well, 10 years. I just let go of it. I held onto that web domain for 10 years. Literally. Just last week, it was expiring. I said, Let me let go. So I can kind of release that into the universe. Maybe somebody else wants it, we did have a trademark for a really long time. I let the trademark go, but that evil that made me no money. That turned into a kid’s yoga festival, which also didn’t really make us money because we never repeat. Well, I didn’t repeat it, but the Kids Yoga Festival was amazing. It was the biggest one in South Florida. My partner had gone on to do several more throughout the country, and from there I think I got into online health coaching with a little company called Beachbody. I did very well there. Love them. Still drink psychology to this day. However, with the knowledge that I was learning about marketing, I morphed into, I really wanted to be online. So I was doing Beachbody coaching and I said I could make more money doing this if I make my own e courses and I was running Facebook ads. So this was in 2012 it was when I started Beachbody and 2017. So just three short years ago, I was, you know, running out to my own online coaching program and e course and I had reached out to the founder of she reigns creative. We used to be direct sales marketers. I said, Hey, you do a lot of these top Beachbody coaches. I want you to run my ads and we started a marketing agency. So that little business from 10 years ago morphed into what we have today and that passion right when you had introduced me so beautifully. Thank you, that passion is real. Because I want to see more entrepreneurs. They’re going to invest. I want them to make the money back. So that was it, that’s been going on for almost 11 years of me being pretty obsessed with passive as passive income as you can get, right, I like to call it maintenance income. So the original business didn’t get very far. It just involved me.
It got you started and that’s, you know.
Which is why it’s a big deal to let it go. I had people deal with me and say, Keep it, it’s a memory. and I was like, I just I can’t I need to let it go and give it.
To a degree. That shit, right? You need to just think.
Marie Condo: What does FARC joy? What is he using all that stuff?
Can I tell you? My best friend was a Beachbody coach and she ecology and she gave me. She leans e guide like she leans 100 Facebook posts or something when I was my first business and I think I still have it. Now that I think about that.
Charlene Johnson is dope. She’s got a lot of good marketing material.
She’s crazy. Awesome. I if whoever’s listening is like you’re not watching her or following her for Instagram or just for, like, energy. Find her. She’s amazing.
She’s someone when I look at people like that for sure. I mean, she was the one. I think when I was in Beachbody, I was listening to her say to figure out your hourly rate, right? Like, what are you worth? And if a task can get done for less than what your hourly rate is, then you should outsource it. And it was little things like that when I started, I can’t remember the last time I shopped for my own groceries, with the exception of when the Pandemic occurred and I had to go in myself. But I used Instacart and prime and between, you know, whatever it is, the yearly fee, plus the tips. I’m happy to give that tip to somebody to provide me that service and save me the two hours of grocery shopping. So I learned that from Charlene. I’m glad you know her.
I remember she was probably thinking the same talk. She was talking about the guilt that she felt originally when she was hiring and cleaning people. Like she was, I was on her podcast and like back in 2015 or 2016 or something. But it stuck out to me that she was like, I’m working from home and I can’t help it like I gotta hire a cleaning person And it feels guilty because I’m at home and I could be cleaning. But like my money, my value isn’t. It’s more valuable for me to be working and pay somebody to clean than is toe. Keep that mental space or whatever.
You’re also stimulating the economy, and that’s what I tell my work. Then every time he says, How come you don’t cook?
That’s no.
It’s not my zone of genius, not sorry, I like to know.
What’s your favorite, what’s your favorite way to cook?
No cooking.
I really do like making pancakes. I’ll be honest with that. Make them from scratch. I do a paleo. It’s called birch vendors, paleo I put a little egg in there, banana little water, and I make those pancakes dinner wise. You’re not going to catch me cooking dinner. It’s just not gonna happen. But I could eat. I couldn’t eat sushi every day of the week if it were allowed. Just not allowed, though. Sorry.
Who’s not allowing you? were going with.
I feel like the power sites in the raw fish will probably take over my body. So we owe on then. Plus, that isn’t quite a bit of rice. And I consume way too much fat, like she’ll even actually look, can somebody? Of course, she’ll even tell her to get on this podcast because we’re talking about her. She would have loved this conversation like food outsourcing, marketing all the things. Shoes, eyelashes. I don’t know, Charlene. You come on next. What’s happening?
Well, I need her help with eyelashes and apparently she’s roller skating now, So we’ll need to deep dive into that when we find her and become best friends with her.
Okay. Sold. I mean,
So let’s go to what people are probably actually wanting to hear about. Let’s talk about this goal. You have to double the size of 10,000 female owned businesses and that’s been in a town. But I love that. How did this? Like, How did this start?
I will tell you I have the answer. First of all, I don’t feel like that is banana town because we have a team like we have multiple people that are, you know, doing that. I feel like with ads, right? Running ads, you can greatly Increase your reach and then also Also, I’m on social media and I when it comes to female entrepreneurs. Yes, I think I was named after a goddess. And I’m supposed to help women step into their greatness. But we are digital marketers, certified partners, and that is their mission. So it came from that, like, I’ll be brutally transparent, so I think that is possible. I feel like, What’s more, banana towns? Is that what you called it? Banana towns? I like that.Thank you. I will borrow it for this episode. And quite possibly beyond, but I feel like it’s a little bit crazier as I can be very impulsive and when I have a good idea which maybe that was one of them, right? Like let’s do that. That’s great. I said that I was gonna do a thousand free marketing calls in 2020. And I made this big announcement on my instagram, and it’s in my bio, and people can opt into these free marketing plans where they’re actually my favorite part of my life. They’re incredible and they are free. But i didn’t do the math. So if we were to do the math of how many hours I would be working to complete a thousand of those calls, it’s like I don’t work that much. So it’s gonna take me, like, three years to do the thousand free calls and then the 10,000. I mean, e I just feel like that’s a great way to put a dent in the universe, right? Like, really help people avoid my quote unquote failure, which is not a failure off my first business, right? If somebody could have helped me, if I knew back then I am who I don’t even know what I would be doing. I’m owning some online yoga empire. I suppose I like my empire, though. I’ll keep it.
You have a fantastic empire now, like it was beget from yoga, right?
It did start. It started from that. I mean, I think I have a gift. Some people can sing what is actually letting me. Can I ask you a question on your podcast?
Yes.
Do you have a gift? Like, what do you consider your gift or your zone of genius? Because I guess I always say like, somebody you know, some people can sing, Some people can dance. What is your zone of genius or your gift? What are you really good at?
My God. So my zone of genius is, and I know it’s true because I’m embarrassed about it. It is marketing. I love talking about marketing. I love helping people with marketing. I will bore you to death cocktail parties. If there ever cocktail parties again talking like that, I get angry about marketing. I get past like, that’s my jam I talk about. I had an episode last season. That was just me ranting about the worst ad I had seen in a Mexican, it was just like and I was just going through just totally riffing on the user experience of it and the messaging and the and, like I can I could talk for a fucking day if I wanted just about things that people need to do to make sure. So that’s what I’m doing now.
I’m drooling listening to you and I’m like, where? The cocktail party. How do I get together with Meg? Let’s talk. Okay. I had Megan. I had a four hour dinner the other day where all we talked about was branding brand positioning messaging X factors. Four hours and we left the dinner table because we were the last people at the restaurant and we said, We’re not even done. We need to schedule another dinner. So heaven, Right, Right. Okay, so that’s your zone of geniuses marketing and clearly that’s where we’re connected, I feel like some people can’t like to look at Shakira like chicken sing. J Lo she could dance, I feel like my gift is I could turn anything into a business like I come up with ways to make money out of things like I don’t even know. And my one of the things that I tell people all the time is, and I say this and it’s quite polarizing and it’s quite absolute. But that is something that I think you would believe that in marketing you need to have your absolutes and be a little polarizing, I feel like if you don’t have at least three or four streams of income in 2020 and beyond, you are losing at the game of life. So that’s that’s that could be a hard pill to swallow for some people because some people I’m not gonna lie might even be struggling with one. You know.
Absolutely. I think that covid it especially has shown people that this so-called security of a date job like that doesn’t exist. You need to protect yourself. You can’t fly to your day job. You can’t rely on a business like you’ve got to diversify that.
I completely agree and I used to be a teacher. I was a high school Spanish teacher and I had one of the most amazing jobs in one of the most amazing schools, celebrities, Children, I had. I mean, it was a fantastic school down in South Florida, and people thought I was nuts to leave it, and I said, Listen, I teach Spanish if budget cuts happen, I will be the first to go. And I just always craved more freedom. And I think I’m really about having people. I think we are biologically designed to expand and to grow right. Like I mean, look at us. We even make babies. I personally don’t make babies. I just keep getting more dogs. But the way is right. I know you’re shaking your head your way are your past no judgment people, but for hard past, no judgment because I know how I feel about my dog. So you people must feel that way about their kids times 10. But tell me they don’t drive you crazy like my dogs drive me crazy s o. I feel daycare right now because we need love.
We need two days. He goes to doggie daycare twice a week. Wow, It’s his puppy energy out smart. And then, like, I get to work and so I understand people that can’t have day care right now.
I feel you, that’s smart. So it’s I mean, right, So we were talking about money and coming up with ways to make money, and I just felt my teaching career was actually very limited. Like I would tutor people after school. And I had this tutoring program I was making a lot of money off of and I had S.A.T. prep. I worked actually, for it’s funny because my brand archetype is the stage and the ruler and I worked for the Princeton Review. So, like I taught people the S.A.T. And how do I get a perfect score on the S.A.T.? So there was money in that I believe in investing in yourself because it will always have the best ROI. And then, you know, charging people for a transformation and some sort of results. And however you can do that passive heck to the yes, scalable. Yes.
Well, I think that’s the perfect segment. Let’s talk about investing in ourselves by telling us something. Then when did you first start delegating for your business? Like, when did you realize that? Shit, I need to bring people in.
So for my first business, I had to hire like videographers and all of that because I wanted it done professionally. I think when it comes to the world of online coaching. That was my first big spend waas hiring somebody to run my Facebook ads because I was doing them and they were generating leads and the thought process was okay. What I’m really good at is working one on one with these people and getting them results. And if I get them results, then they’re going to go tell other people. And I can show those results to anybody that comes into my, you know, from my ads. But I’m spending all of this time on ads and it’s driving me crazy and I can’t stand it. So, like, why don’t I just hire? But I am determined that someone higher off of somebody will do this better than me and we’ll bring me more our ally and more time. So that was probably my first cause. I don’t. When I was in Beachbody, I think maybe ahead of VIA did some basic stuff, but more so it was for the ads. It was like, This is an investment in my business that’s going to bring. It’s going to grow my business. Essentially, that was how I decided and even now I probably have a that will dio some e don’t know how to label it because I don’t want to call them. What is the word like me neither, Not what’s what type of task. They’re just administrative tasks that she can help with. I don’t need to help with or make sure that after my calls or she sends me my agenda every day and follows up with the calls and all of that stuff, those are just things that she helps me run a system. So I don’t have to think, so those and then, of course, the groceries. Like I told you, I’m not, You know, I was doing a meal prep service was coming, so I didn’t have to cook. Yes, hiring a cleaning lady so I don’t have to clean. And, you know, my husband feels like kids. He does. He wants me to cook and clean. He’s not, he’s not any type of, you know. He’s not a What’s the word? I don’t have words today for you. Big words I don’t have What is the word for when I’m a chauvinist? Is that the word like a show of honest people?
Well, I don’t know your husband, but a chauvinist would be someone who is probably pretty aggressively sexist so I don’t think he’s like a traditionalist.
He would love it if I was really traditional. That’s what he is. Maybe he wants me to be traditional. So it’s funny. I don’t know if something doesn’t exist in my reality. Sometimes I don’t have the word for it, so I don’t know what he would be called. He’s a fantastic man, but he would love it if I cooked, my God, He would love it if I cooked in cleans. But I outsource and he doesn’t like it as much. I think he wants me to do it. I’m going to be very serious with you, Dennis. I love you. So that’s where I started.
Okay, that’s I love that. I love that you right away understood that it’s going to have a better room for me too. Higher videographers, even though I’m starting this, I don’t really know what it is, but I know that there’s somebody who could do this better. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs and I was totally guilty of this thought it would be cheaper for me to do it, to learn it myself and do it myself. And I think that this might be really over Assumpta. But I think that that’s a younger person’s idea like a young, younger entrepreneur. And maybe that’s not true but I’m 36 now, and I learned probably when I turned right around in my early thirties that all of this unlimited time I assumed I hadn’t taken for granted like, that’s not the case and I’m not dying anytime soon. But just like now, it became more of an all right. My time is valuable and now I’m realizing that. And so I think that when I was younger, I was running my first business, that it was just a I don’t know if it was maturity or fear or the whole amalgamation of that, but just like I’ll do it myself. I’ll do it out, look busy. I’ll look impressive and then I won’t give you money.
I think I feel that hard, actually because when you say younger I think there is nothing that can’t speak of time, right? So time is literally, only a finite resource. So I think if we are younger, I can only speak for up to 40 years old. I’m 40 so I can speak from my own personal experience that in my 1st 40 years you don’t have that experience right now on this earth. So with the more time you’re on this earth, you start to learn more. And I’ll tell you, what I’ve learned in my 40 years is Number one. Business is a spiritual game, so a lot of stuff is going on in your mind. In your heart, business also requires that you have faith and take a little bit of risk, which that’s where I think it kind of gets. The faith part is where I am. It also becomes very spiritual and a lot of self study, right, like listening to what’s going on in between your ears and doing a heart check and a gut check and listening to that inner dialogue. But the longer amount of time that you spend on this planet, you will start to gain different experiences, and one of the many times that I’ve seen the experiences money goes up, money goes down. Money comes in, money comes out, but it’s this beautiful cycle. And if you can get to the point where you can really trust and what helped me, I’m going to get a little will on y’all. What helped me really was to look at the trees and the birds, and some people might like what she was talking about. I looked at the trees and I looked at the birds, and even when this pandemic happened, I bought bird food. And I said, If the trees and the birds can exist and they are provided for because there on this planet I am on this planet to I exist, I will be provided for. And it was a game changing thought for me. Game changing because then I started to trust a little bit more, and it was like Money goes out and money comes back in. And when you’re spending on outsourcing, quite possibly. There’s a book called Happy Money. I haven’t read it yet, but it talked. Happy pocket full of money. I think it’s just called Happy money I don’t know.
There’s a book called Happy Pocketful of Money. It is like my Bible. It’s incredible.
Okay, girl, I got on my audible wish list. I don’t wanna do it now because I will lose Focus on the audience, I’ll just lose you. But happy money. I think it’s called being happy. Pocketful of money. Happy money. But it’s like even when you put your money out, like thank Thank it. Right. And it’s like, Wow, Like I’m giving that to somebody else. And I believe in the three graces that you give you in return. So it’s this cycle. And at 40 years, at this point, I have, thankfully, thank you. So I’m so grateful that I’ve lost the fear intention, shit. If it goes out, it’s never going to come back. And it’s like, No, it will. And sometimes when you put it out, oftentimes you put it out, it comes back 10 fold, three fold. However many folds. You believe so I think having that time on this planet you start to see, I’m actually going to be okay. Maybe let me take a risk and see if I can be a navigator. This I just recently came to the conclusion right is like, You know what? I’m actually okay. with uncertainty. And for 40 years I have not been my God. For 40 years I have been the most. I need to be the most certain person, which is why I have when I tell you multiple, I like multiple multiple strings of income because of that need first, like you can’t see me shaking. But I’m shaking the need for certainty with my finances. So it served me well yet at the same time, Now it’s time to, like, let go a little bit and just know that we we can make very strategic decisions and put that money out there If and this is the last thing I’ll say, and then I’ll shut up for this part I’m super obsessed with, like when you said the ads for, like, the user experience, like I’m super obsessed with the user experience. So who is your ideal client? Who is consuming your stuff? Who’s going to get the biggest transformation from consuming your stuff? And if you can focus all of your marketing around that, like giving your client winds at every flipping stage of your marketing plan, right or whatever you wanna call it sometimes I call it a candy land board Just because it sounds like more fun, that’s really cool. Like to have candy cane legs. You know that? Don’t break, though, of course. But if you’re obsessed with getting them wins at every stage of the game like that can also help you make decisions as to how you outsource, like, do I outsource and a better software. Do I outsource and help? That will make me give them better results. So that’s kind of a deciding factor to and how I outsource things, you know, for the younger peeps, fuck here, big sounds when I pick up.
So, I think this is not the old sound, not the old people. Sounds. But I think that this is a perfect segue for going back to talking about zones of genius and how you could recognize that How you can say okay like this is my sweet spot. Everything else has another genius. Let me deal. Let me send that. How do you recommend people recognize that? And how do you think they should start going out to find other Jeannie?
I Jeannie, I hold on, Let me Put my dentures back in like you guys don’t have dentures. Not yet, anyways.
Hey, guys. Megan here. Just a reminder. I have regular Q and A episodes coming out, So if you want your questions answered, head to MeganBrame.com/Ask a question on Woodward and you’ll be able to get your question posted, and if I feature it, you will get a copy a free copy of my book, Day One or Practical Guide to Launching Your Business. So again, head to meganbraime.com/Ask a question and if your question gets featured, I’m sending you a free copy of my book as a thank you.
Hopefully never. So let’s see how I do it. And again, it took a lot of faith because we almost deny that part of ourselves, right? What is my zone of genius? So let’s face it on two criteria. Nobody’s ever asked me this before, so I’m gonna pull some stuff out of my noggin right now. And I like business exclusive right now. That was a weird noise. Y’all don’t think I’m weird. That was a really weird noise. That’s what happens when you put your dentures back in, so I like steps and list. So how do I find my zone of genius? Number one What lights me up the most, Like, what could I spend hours talking about right. And like, right now, for cheesy it’s branding like I’m getting big time into the branding archetypes. It’s always been messaging because again, I think if you show up on social media, but you don’t know who you’re talking or what makes them enticed enough to buy to get the transformation that they want, that to me is your brand’s message that lights me up. And I also noticed, so that’s the first part. I also noticed that if I give it away for free to somebody and it lights me up and they’re feeling like, my God, like this, This is amazing. It’s like, This will give them a result. This is what I do best. This is what I do best, and I This is where the trust comes in. I can trust that I can just do this and all of the other things I will find someone else to do. And I will be okay with them not doing it as perfectly as me because I will stand next to them and I will guide them and know that they’re going to make mistakes. But they have to learn, just as I did. So when you onboard somebody and you’re outsourcing things, there’s a problem. There’s a learning curve in a process and can I say, Dosh.
Please.
Okay, so you’re kind of a douche if you don’t train them and you don’t guide them, right? Like I’m from New Jersey. We say we share a lot. So if they if you take them on and you’re like, I just do it they’re not inside your head. So be willing to let them go and then get like, What’s the word? Give them feedback like Okay, this is how you did this. And here’s the goal. This is what we want. So how do we achieve that together, But let them do what they have to dio. You have to trust and you have to know that it’s gonna be a process for them to get to a point where you’re okay with really letting go of the reins. But you gotta let go of the reins. Do you probably want to so you can scale and you can grow? And you could be in your zone of genius and love your life, Which is probably why you started your business. Hashtag just saying because that’s what I know happened to me. And then where do you find them? That’s a really good question. So it depends on the task. I’m thinking of some websites right now. Like I know people sift through work fiver, maybe even online jobs dot ph, which you need like a membership to. Here’s what I’ll tell you. My experiences with them is that it’s a lot of sifting. It’s almost like going to like Marshalls or TJ Max or some like, I don’t know, discount store something. But I know in fiber and upward you can set your parameters to maybe just be local people, at this stage in my game, I prefer to pay more to outsource, then just go with the cheapest and hashtag By the way, guys, you’re gonna find very rarely things that you want for $5 on fiber, very rarely. And if you do, it’s just gonna probably turn out weird eso There’s that eso you can, you know you can change it to getting local people. You can message them and ask them questions. And I say, sometimes you might have to go through a few freelancers to get the quality product that you want, you know. So there’s that when it comes to the websites, if you happen to be in a Facebook group with things like social media managers or marketing strategist or anything of the sort or perhaps a networking group that you pay for, you know you’re getting a good pool of other people, possibly VAS. Let’s just say let’s give it a basic term, right other VHS that can come recommended or are you know not. They’re like a step up, I think, from five or quality. Not that I want to say everybody on five or sucks because they definitely don’t. There are some gems on Fiverr and up work and online jobs. PH, I do want a word of caution to that when it’s outside of your country like I can speak for sure. For India and the Philippines, there’s cultural differences and time differences. Big time, I personally love working with people from India and the Philippines, though I find them to be very pleasant, very pleasant. But my biggest preferences, yes, North America, right? My Mexico, Canada, United States, I think are great and then the Facebook groups when we’re all similar entrepreneurs. And if we can refer to each other, that’s my favorite. That’s where I love getting quality peeps.
I agree and say that you say about 500 outwork and online jobs. A.P.H. I used all three of them for va stuff. I never really used them for, I mean, I hate to say this will be like a professional, you know what I mean? Like I used them for stuff and graphics, right? Podcast editors. You know things like that and you’re totally right that if you’re new to this, you probably go through a few vidas or freelancers or whoever just because one you have to learn how to manage people and to you have to learn, like how to manage people, but also how to like you said, be okay with Okay, this is this is the output that they’ve given. This isn’t what I would have done, but is there a disconnect there, or is there m I too stuck in my ways or something? And I totally agree with you with one thing that I’ve learned: just tip everybody for dealing with the A’s or you know abroad where local is if you give them an idea of what the purpose is for the task. So, you know, like, I have a va who was collecting journal prompts for me because I wanted to give that as a guide, and it was about I think it was an entrepreneur Journal prompts guide. And so at first, she had just, like a bunch of block posts, like a bunch of like, What’s your favorite Twitter followers was like, No, this isn’t on. And that was my fault because I didn’t give her the like, okay, Her name is Alice. Alice. Let’s think about it this way. Like you’re an entrepreneur. You’re stuck like you can’t grow, and you feel like, okay, if I just write this out and try to figure out what’s going on, that I could get forward. So, like, what questions are going to facilitate that. And I think like once I got to give her the ability. Do see what goal was rather than just like give me a list of 100 journal prompts for entrepreneurs. Like once we got into this is what the problem is going to be solved than I think that that was really helpful. So definitely recommend that the VA is born, if he is, I think that.
Even all your team members, right.
That’s true.
This is such a good point. Why are we doing this right? What is the purpose and why are we doing this? And what is the ultimate goal? And if you sometimes they may come up with things even better. Like I’m no, I am notorious for triple checking my VA and she just like, smacks me in the face every single time. And she’s like I did that, silly. It’s just me PMSing again and my brain is not functioning. You’re the best. I love you and I do. I love her. I love her because she gets me. She lets me be my neurotic self, but she always gets it done. Always eso she’s she’s she’s a gem on guy went through so many people to find her. So just be aware that you’re not going to hit. You may not hit your gem, the first try or 10 off, but that’s the beauty of what I do. I want to say it’s the beauty of it. Let me think about that. Because, actually, fuck that shit. That’s not the beauty of it. It’s just not, I’d rather take a pill and just have it downloaded into my brain. Yep, but that’s not the beauty of it. I lied. It’s just the way it is, guys. Okay, I’m gonna keep it.
I love it. That’s no bullshit. I know about when people come to you because you are a service professional. You are a badass female entrepreneur. When people come to you for your services, you can speak in general or you can speak specific if you want. But that’s however you must feel comfortable. How do you recommend people prepare themselves for coming to a professional like you. What? What expectations do you think they should have?
Okay, let me think about this because it totally does depend on the level. So Okay, what they should have read, I guess I’ll kind of speak in general terms, right? And I’m thinking of all of my clients and probably clients that would go to anyone that wants either work done or to be coached or consulted or guided or like, or to actually have services done such as Facebook ads, I want them to first and foremost view themselves as a partner with me and my team. We are partners, and I actually say this on I will say this on quote unquote sales calls with people I don’t like to call themselves calls, because that to me, does it feels very pitchy and I don’t like the word discovery call, but when we are assessing what somebody needs in order to move forward in their business, I say to them. Okay, well, we’re partners. And not that I’m going to get a cut of what it is that you do, necessarily. Those were very few contracts farm between. That’s when we have, like, major ad spend, we’re partners in the sense that there should be communication. There should be honesty. You should know that marketing is not a magic wand. There are no magic wands for growing your business with a snap of a finger. Business takes unopened minds on open heart open ears, because you should. You should be listening right, listening to your clients and your customers and what they need. Listening to the expert mentor coach team you’ve hired and doing that, that gut check of like, does this align with my goals and my North star and I’m going to take into account both of these sides, right? The team and then also the client are saying and wanting and then seeing how it meets up in the middle. But if they’re going to hire a professional to do something for them, then they have to be willing to view themselves as a partner and have that open communication. And then also willingness to. I want to say experiment. But the experiment seems like it’s not strategic. So, like when we do marketing plans to, it’s like, Okay like that. Here’s the strategy. They have to be willing to test out strategies. That’s what it is. So here’s the strategy. Now let’s test it and see how the market responds because you know you as a business owner who at whatever, whoever is listening right now, whatever you do, whether you have a blog, whether you are selling on Etsy, whether you are an online health coach or a smoothie shop downtown Georgia, wherever you are. I don’t know you. You have to have that ability to come up with these products because they’re solving us. They’re solving a problem for somebody, but it doesn’t matter if you like it. It matters If buyers like it, it means what they say matters, and the same goes for your social media. That was my biggest problem when I was on Social as a health coach. I thought my social media was all about me. How stupid my social media has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with you and how I can serve you and how I can entertain you and how I can make your life better just by watching my flipping stories or reading one of my posts or coming or opting into a marketing plan. It all has to do with the user experience. So I feel like that’s what that was. A long answer, you can tell. I’m very passionate about marketing, that’s what I would want people to know. I would want them to know that you are owning a business for a reason, which puts you in a position of leadership to take into account the you know, the public’s opinions or the outsider’s opinions, and to see what works and then be willing to test and see how the market responds. I hope that was helpful.
Probably helpful. I completely 500% agree that people get scared to spend the money, and then when they finally are all right, I’m going to give you the money. But you’re gonna fix this for me, and I feel like it’s not fair for them. And it’s not fair for the professional to not be willing. To Dodge, Duck, Dip, dive and Dodge. You just like having to find the flow, I guess.
It’s a working relationship. Sit right again, the same thing to even with your VA is like whoever you’re going to bring on board to help you grow your business. Just know that it is. It’s a relationship and it’s a partnership and it’s very I think it’s very rare that if you’re looking for true expansion, it is very rare that it’s going to be a one off thing, you know? I mean, of course, there are exceptions, right? Real quick. Just set this thing up for me, you know, up a project or like e. I mean, even building a website, You know, that’s actually what’s actually dropped this in the bucket because I had a client who was getting her website done, actually from somebody else. She came to me for consulting and somebody else was doing her website and it brought me back to my first website because you know, so many people. And I say this so respectfully because it was me 10 years ago. So many people think I’m going to hire a web designer and they are going to make me a website. Do you know how much work you have to put in to actually like to tell the Web designer what to create and guess what, guys. You need to also write the content that’s on the website unless you want to hire a copywriter. And that copywriter is going to cost you a print dependent and that copyright is going to need you to be their partner and need you to answer questions and need you to come up with things. So you are essentially your business. Is your child basically? And it’s only going to grow and survive if you are nurturing it. And you know, whatever parents do with their kids, I don’t know breastfeeding it, giving it whatever they don’t know. I don’t have kids. Kids just believe.
Giving them a Nintendo switch so you can work. I don’t know.
Yes or like putting them in Montessori or getting put to help them with their university. You’re giving them their first car, teaching them how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. Like shit you’re not. I tell people there one last thing on the business thing. I tell people all the time your business is your baby and the same way your baby took nine months hopefully to cook pop out. You had to take care of it. For how many months, then? Then do the tummy time. Actually, I guess I do know about kids. Then they have to crawl. Then they have to walk. You have to feed them. Like when this child is going to be independent at 18. And then there’s still a pain in your ass. Come now. So think of your business like that. Like you actually have to nurture your business for years, years before it can probably stand up on its own and run and drive and, like, go to college. You’ve got to treat your business like that. Like you gotta be all in and in it for the long game. Which is exactly why you should outsource, because, I mean, parents hire babysitters, don’t they?
Teachers. I mean, you know, I’m teaching like, swimming coaches or you know dancing writers like that’s all that’s all outsourcing.
Absolute. You’re absolutely right. Your taxes pay for the schools. If your kids you’re going to public school, right? So you’re paying for it. I don’t think you’re not paying for it. You’re paying for it. The Southern. I don’t know what type of accent that is. I do accents quite a bit and quiet is also my word of the month. It’s quite nice.
It speaks to me.
Good. I’m glad.
Dude, we’re running out of time already. It’s already been an hour.
Clearly, we could talk about marketing forever.
Where can people find you? And what is it that you want them to know.
I want them to know that they are special. I wish they could see my face right now. Okay, so I’m on Instagram 24 7. I could tell you to go to my website at Herazi.com. But, like, I’m on instagram 24 7. And that’s what I want them to know is I’ve started the business. I failed the business. I know the things that you need to succeed in business. So if you feel inclines, then you book a free marketing call with me in my instagram bio, you and I will probably fall in love. So you need to know that the marketing calls definitely go a little over 30 minutes but it is my give back. It was gonna be my give back year. It’s gonna be my give back three years because I’m doing 1000 of them. It’s just gonna take me longer than a year, but they’re my passion, really. Toe have people understands just to know that they have a solid foundation and that from there is where your business can grow If you’re doing things backwards or if you’re missing steps in your marketing plan or your funnel or whatever you wanna call it, do you think of a fun right with holes like your money will leak out of it, your time will leak out of it. I want to save people time and I want to save the money. So that’s where the marketing calls came in. And my instagram I don’t know if you do, you put the show notes, but it’s Hera Zee on IG, I’m obsessed with stories. I curse. I have to really cute dogs. And the other day on my stories I said something that I wish I could take back. But I didn’t.
This’ll authentic self, which a marketer would love.
Where to your mother And that’s why I left. I was like, I’m just gonna leave it because they got a lot of responses, But I don’t I guess I forget that my instagram goes to my Facebook and I have a little bit more of a professional audience on my Facebook, believe it or not, So it’s all good. I’m me. I’m not going. To change very much from my genetic makeup.
Where is your home country?
Brooklyn, just bare Ridge. What? I mean, where are you now?
I’m in Jersey. I’m like, right down the road.
I am in Rochester, New York. So I am upstate now, Mr. Rochester.
I’m in New Jersey, so maybe we’re like, meetup in Bay Ridge one day. Spumoni Gardens. Isn’t that Bay Bridge like That’s still wrong. Yes. Stop. I’m just this okay.
I Love you. I like you.
I love you. I think it’s never too early to say it either thank, I Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me on. I love you.
Hey guys Megan here before you go. I would love to ask a favor of you. It’s so helpful to have reviews on new podcasts as it really helps iTunes stitcher Spotify All of those guys find out that you’re really enjoying it and that they should show it to new people. So if you wouldn’t mind just leaving a quick review about what you think about the podcast, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much again. I’ll talk to you next week. The next episode started in the beginning and she said to me, Okay, so tell me what your ideal day is. What is your ideal day? And I said, Well, my ideal day is five hours of creating content like an hour of selling and a couple of hours of social or marketing or, you know, admin and things like that. And she’s like, You’re only gonna work eight hours a day and it’s all gonna be on content. That’s not right. I should have realized then that this was not going to work because, yes, but it was the question. What is my ideal day? And I invested $10,000 to be told that I was wrong and to spend three months.
