694 Caterina Rando:

Remember when you were back in the playground? Little boys would fight and instantly forget, and often forge closer friendships. All too often little girls would let the harsh words linger, internalizing the slight and never forgetting. Play it forward into business and ask yourself how often disappointments turn into depression when they could instead forge a path of determination, like my guest today, the serial entrepreneur and coach Caterina Rando shares in our conversation about what holds women back from big fat scaling success

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we dig deep into how to remove any obstacles in your way – real or imagined – on your entrepreneurial journey and finally overcome the perfectionism that holds many women back …with an inspiring entrepreneur, bestelling author and master certified coach.

You might know Caterina Rando from her book Learn to Power Think or her other books geared to helping women in business. Caterina is the Founder of Thrive Publishing and Thriving Women in Business Magazine, and also host of the podcast Expand Your Fempire.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to understand and accept that done is always better than perfect.

As women it’s easy to fall into the trap of perfectionism – as we endeavor to prove ourselves, our talents, our skills, our unique abilities. Problem is, perfectionism can delay our dreams. Missed market opportunities, missed opportunities to co-create with your customers, missed opportunities to build the team that will make all the difference for your business.

Today we talk about how to find the confidence and resilience to accept that we don’t have to know all the answers, that we don’t have to do it all to have it all, that the process of growing a valuable business is … knowing your own value.

I’m excited to share this conversation with Caterina Rando because she’s on a mission to help women entrepreneurs, consultants and speakers build influence and expand their reach through speaking, events, and retreats. The founder of Thriving Women in Business Magazine and the Thriving Women in Business Giving Circle, raising money for education and entrepreneurship training for women and girls around the world, Caterina is a women’s business mentor extraordinaire – and today you want a pen and a pad to take down all her great advice.

Coupled with her certification as an Emotional Intelligence Trainer from Qmetrics® Corporation, Caterina is all about engaging, uplifting and positively impacting everyone to think bigger about the stunning results on the horizon and how to achieve them. She’s the author of the national bestseller Learn to Think Differently and also The ABCs of Public Speaking. Caterina hosts over 70 days of training and live events for women in business each year including: The Expand Your Fempire Summit, the Shero Summit and The Hawaiian Breakthrough Luxury Retreat.

So, listen on and be sure to join the conversation with Caterina and me over on Podopolo, the must-download app for personalized and interactive podcasting. Just follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join us in conversation.

Now let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Caterina Rando.

Melinda Wittstock:

Caterina, welcome to Wings.

Caterina Rando:

Thank you. Happy to be with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Likewise. I love talking to other lifelong entrepreneurs. Both of us, I think, have been at this for the same number of decades, I guess. I know that you’ve learned so much along the way from your own businesses, and now you’re doing so much to help female entrepreneurs. Let’s just start with the context of what you think women in business need to learn most. Is there one thing, and if you get that one thing right, a lot of the other things are going to be easier.

Caterina Rando:

Well, Melinda, the truth is I don’t think there’s one thing. I think there’s a lot of things. First of all, we have to know that we have massive value to bring. We have to believe in ourselves. That’s one thing. We also though, have to be able to ask for what we want in terms of our business and terms of gaining clients. That’s another thing. We have to be able to run a team if we want our business to scale. That’s another thing. And of course, the one that I find maybe that we don’t talk about enough as women entrepreneurs is we have to be able to manage our disappointment in our discouragement because there will be challenges de jure along the way.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh yeah. I mean, it’s part of the program in a way. I think maybe over time, I guess speaking as a serial entrepreneur, you start to come to terms with that because I even embrace it because it’s feedback. It’s an opportunity. It’s like, no, not this way, try this way, but so many of these things and all the things that you mentioned so much of it comes down to mindset, doesn’t it? Like knowing our own value, being able to get out of the way of a team and lead them effectively without micromanaging them, overcoming perfectionism, all that stuff. That’s all in our heads.

Caterina Rando:

Absolutely. Recently, I decided to send a survey out to my current clients and I realized that for years, I didn’t want to do a survey earlier in my career because I didn’t think I had the thick enough skin to take all the feedback or criticism. It’s important to know that it all serves and that we will get to the point where we can take it, whatever it is.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Why do you think men are better at that? They tend to roll with it. I wonder, you go back to the playground when right when we were little girls and little boys. And the insults or whatever happened with the girls would stick around for a long time. The boys on the other hand would be in this big fight or whatever and then the minute it was over, it was completely forgotten.

Caterina Rando:

Right. That’s the difference between girls and boys.

Melinda Wittstock:

So we internalize all this stuff off and it festers?

Caterina Rando:

Well, absolutely. I mean, the psychologists say that depression is when we turn in anger and women have more of instance of depression and that’s because we blame ourselves more and men, everybody else for whatever is wrong.

Melinda Wittstock:

Sounds so easy. Doesn’t it? I mean, it’s just like, okay. This is something that comes up a lot on this podcast is, these themes of knowing your value, knowing what you want, being confident enough to ask for it without fear or the no, and all the same, actually being able to receive it and that’s the other place. So on that point of how do we shake off rather than internalizing disappointment or internalizing anger or any of those things. What’s the way to walk through that and how do you coach all the amazing women entrepreneurs that you mentor?

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. This is where we want to take our disappointment, our discouragement, and we need something to do with it. Our depression, and we want to turn it into determination. And the more we can build our determination muscle. We talk in business about risk taking, hey, take a risk. Well, let’s also focus on increasing our ability to be perseverant and tenacious and to be determined to create what you want. I remember a while back, I was on a cruise ship on a little three-day, John, my friend took me on and I had this woman who reached out by text and she canceled coming on our retreat with me. And we do these women’s retreats every year.

I was on vacation, but still I thought to myself, “This is very disappointing.” Because the event was already sold out. I took a deep breath and I said to myself, “What can I do to make this not ruin my day?” First of all, I could have just made the decision, but I wasn’t that evolved in my mindset yet. So I took a deep breath and I thought to myself, who could I call to invite to join me? And the short answer is I called the lady that had said no, six months before and I asked her if she wanted to revisit the conversation and she said, yes and she signed up. I share this because it’s a great example of you get discouraged, and then rather than being discouraged, you ask yourself a question, like what can I do to turn this around? And then you’ll get the answer.

A lot of times in business we think about the strategy and the action, but really Melinda, it’s back to what you said. It’s the mindset that is the foundation. A good mindset is the foundation for everything. And these questions we ask ourselves make a difference in the actions we take.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ve worked with so many women over the years and I’ve had to conquer this within myself too, that sort of perfectionism that is a form of almost procrastination in a way because you spend so much time perfecting something that like, for instance, you could miss the market opportunity or you’re doing a lot of stuff yourself that somebody else on your team could do better or whatever and we end up delaying the outcome. Do you think at the root of that combo of procrastination, perfectionism is just a fear of rejection because as women we feel, and relatively speaking as relatively new entrance to the entrepreneurial field, relative to men, we feel so much that we have to always be showing our competence and coming from that position of strength, rather than being able to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Caterina Rando:

To be vulnerable to even authentic. To be who we authentically are. Yes. I tell my clients and people I talk to, perfection’s not required. And I go a step further, Melinda and I say, it’s not encouraged.

Melinda Wittstock:

No, it’s the worst.

Caterina Rando:

Exactly. Because it does push off the action. It pushes off the launch. It pushes off the mastery. The more time we’re getting ready to get ready to make things happen, not only are we pushing off making things happen while we’re pursuing perfection, but we’re also pushing off the revenue that is going to come. And this is important for women to understand done is better than perfect. The other thing is that getting ready, planning, research, all of this is really not where you learn. You learn by doing and seeing what upgrades need to happen for the next time.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh God. A 100%. I mean, this is something that’s really understood very well in the software industry around what’s a minimum viable product, like getting to market fast often with something that’s not full vision, not perfect. Maybe it’s even got a couple bugs in there is better than making it perfect. But it’s a really hard thing to do for a founder that has this vision of their final thing. I remember a mentor of mine once when I was working through this, because I’m a tech media entrepreneur and she said, “Hey Melinda, do you remember what it felt like when you got your first cell phone? How did you feel?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, well, it was really cool. I could talk to anybody from anywhere and it was awesome. I felt empowered whatever.” And I went through all how I felt right with that first brick or whatever it was and dating myself here. Okay. And that was super awesome to have that.

And she said, “Okay, was it the iPhone?” I’m like, “Well, no.” And that landed with me because when we’re entrepreneurs, we’re continually innovating. It’s a continual process and you’re continually learning and you’re continuing to get closer to your customers and understand their needs and serve their needs better. It’s almost like it’s never done. And so this is an interesting question about done and what’s like done because if it’s never done.

Caterina Rando:

One of my guiding principles is that we’re always upgrading. So yes, we’re never done because we’re always upgrading. One of the things related to this that I want to share is that I mentioned earlier about authenticity. The more we can be a tick and tell the truth, the more we’re going to not be as worried about looking perfect or looking great. I recently did my first train, the trainer teaching other women to teach my sales program Thrive at Sales. I said to them, “Hey, this is the first time we’re going to do it. It’s not going to be perfect. We’re going to probably make a few upgrades when we’re together at the training and that’s why you’re getting this pre-publication discounted price.”

Caterina Rando:

By telling all of them that, I didn’t feel pressured when I was doing it because they knew it was the first one. They knew it wasn’t going to be perfect. And when we made little changes during the training, they were all happy to help. And they still got massive value, even though it wasn’t 100% finished. And this is important because women wait so long before they put things out there and it’s not good for their business.

Melinda Wittstock:

On top of that, customers, people generally feel really flattered and empowered to be part of the creation. I mean, you can leverage your customers as co-creators, co-create with them. And you can also start to leverage them when you build that loyalty that comes from that process. Those people become your best salespeople. They start to do it for you.

Caterina Rando:

That’s true. It’s true. And Melinda, let’s hang out here for a second because you just said they can be your best customers, your best champions, your best referral partners. One of the things I encourage everyone to do, if you’re in the helping professions, if you’re a practitioner or a coach, is to identify those clients that have gotten massive value from you and invite them and ask them if they’ll host you for a virtual Zoom meeting and invite their list or their friends or their colleagues to come where you can showcase your value. They can rave about you and they can get some referral commissions from you for the people that they put in front of you.

I did this last week for one of my clients who have been with me for about eight years and she invited everybody. She knew pretty much there was 70 people there to come and listen to me, talk about how to get booked for speaking, because I think it’s a great marketing strategy. And as a result, we got some Insta signups for different things. That’s a great example of a client partnering with us because they’ve gotten great value and now they’re ready to be loud and proud about the value we bring. And of course, we want to make sure they benefit as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Because people always like to talk about their own success. And so if you’ve been the midwife, I guess, to that success by extension, that’s amazing, everybody wins, everybody wins. So you are an expert in helping women around sales, among other things and there’s a whole bunch of things that you do, but let’s start with the sales piece, because that’s the thing that people spend a lot of time planning for the sale, or they’re really good at evangelizing their product or service and then forget to actually ask for the sale. And then maybe they get the sale and they forget to send the invoice or they underprice themselves and over deliver in that. So there’s this whole process of at every step where we’re not valuing ourselves or what we’ve built or the service we provide. Go through for me please, how you help women master sales. What’s that process? How do you get them where they need to be?

Caterina Rando:

Well, the first thing is that I teach them that marketing is not sales and in the marketplace there’s so much attention on marketing recognizing that is letting the world know about your amazing product or service. Sales is when you ask people to be your client. And it used to be Melinda, I know you remember the days when we could send out an email and we could fill a class. We could send out an email. We could fill a program. Well, those days are few and far between because now the marketplace is so crowded and people search for you, but they get 100 other practitioners or coaches or service providers very similar, which is why business is still about relationships like it was way back when pre-internet, and to remember that nobody will ever buy from us.

Caterina Rando:

This is the most important guiding principle. Nobody will ever buy from us if we haven’t built influence with them. And that does often from being in an interactive setting with people. And recognizing that not everyone needs the same amount of influence before they buy and it’s our job to keep engaging them so that they will become our clients. These are a few of the things I want everyone to know.

Melinda Wittstock:

And this relationship between marketing and sales. So you’ve got to be willing on the marketing side to shine your light and this is something else that women are afraid of. Like, “No, I’m going to take those photos from my personal brand website when I lose 20 pounds or I’m going to.” Again, the delay or, “Look, I’m going to wait until I have my whole studio built.” And all those sorts of things.

Caterina Rando:

Right. That’s a very good point, Melinda. I think women perhaps are more concerned with looking good and we have to get over that. I mean, hey, I like to look good, but I’m not going to look perfect. Meaning whatever my ideal is in my head, we have to get out there. We also have to remember that what people care about is not our shade of lipstick, what they care about is how can you help me? And the more we focus on being client focused or audience focused, bringing massive value, what’s going to happen is people are going to step forward to want to work with us. But the thing is, and I can tell you, Melinda, in 30 plus years, 90% of the time I’m asking people if they want to be my client after I’ve built some influence, rather than people rushing to the back of the room or reaching out by text or phoning.

Sometimes they do. That’s wonderful. Most of the time I’m initiating the conversation because they may be thinking about it, but it’s not their priority today. It’s my priority today to get some new clients. And this is also what we have to remember. It’s our job to ask. It’s our job to reach out. It’s our job to follow up. It’s our job to circle back when they don’t respond to not getting discouraged, to be determined

Caterina Rando:

As a result, that’s what’s going to get clients in the door, not us sitting back and waiting. And again, remembering that it might take several reach outs and follow up and circle backs before someone’s a yes, but I do want to give an important point here. During all that time, we want to look at how can we keep people engaged? We talk about content is king. Well, content might be king, engagement is the queen of everything. I don’t mean social media engagement. I mean, people engaging with us. It might be through social media, but it could be engaging with us through Zoom or engaging with us through text or engaging with us through phone calls or being in the same room live and in person on the ground that we’re in.

The more we can have people engage with us, the more they’re going to be open to buying from us. The law of familiarity, which says the more someone is aware of what you’re doing, the more they’re going to know you, like you and trust you, even if they never met you. That still applies.

Melinda Wittstock:

it takes seven to touches or some people say 11 touches or whatever. And in this day and age, you alluded to this before, but in this day and age of infobesity, and I like to call it, people are just bombarded all day, all the time continually and they’re very busy. It’s not necessarily that if you reach out to them, once, twice, three times, five times that they’re not interested is just like understanding their context and understanding and being empathetic in that sense to what’s actually going on. I remember a sales coach of mine way back in the day saying, it’s like it’s not a no until it’s a firm no, like stop calling me.

Caterina Rando:

Exactly. And even when it’s a no, in the example I gave earlier, we can always circle back a little bit later and invite people to revisit the conversation because people’s situations change. Their financial situations, their career or business situations, their marital situations, everything changes. Life is dynamic. And if somebody liked you before and they weren’t ready to get started, and they said, no and you feel that you can genuinely serve them, it’s okay for you to circle back. But again, we it’s on us to do the reach outs and invite people to connect with us and engage with us. And that’s the other thing is I don’t meet people and say, “Hey, you want to buy something?” Of course not.

I meet people, I invite them to engage in a group format on Zoom, on Clubhouse, where I can bring my massive value and then invite them to a one-on-one conversation. That’s what I recommend people do. Too many people are skipping that influence building part, just like you see on LinkedIn. People inviting you to call conversations every day when they have never met you or don’t know your business. And that is a very hard path to cash. It’s much easier to build influence first in a group setting and then invite the people that you want to work with to talk to you.

Melinda Wittstock:

The other really critical thing too, is really understanding what is the I guess, three o’clock in the morning stressor for your potential customer? Like what is their pain? What is the thing that they’re most worried out? How do you connect with them on that really personal, almost emotional level in that marketing and sales way in terms of how your solution is going to help them deal with the real problem and just a psychology of what makes people take action or buy.

But even with all of that data and with all of that understanding, if you’re not being authentically yourself, it’s pretty hard too. So how do you help people step into their authentic, like dare just to be who they are?

Caterina Rando:

Well, first let me say, Melinda, you mentioned about what keeps them up at night and what’s their pain. I really like to focus on possibilities. And a lot of women are going to be very intimidated when people say to them, well, what’s this costing you and what’s the thing that you’re most afraid of? Those are intimate questions and we have to build relationship first, but any Mary, Jen or Sheila is going to be ready to talk to you about the possibilities of what she wants to create right away. I’m not saying don’t mention or talk about pain, but it’s not always the best way to get in the door. Talking about possibilities will have people feel good about talking to you and that’ll have them want to talk to you again. And that is something I want to make sure people are bringing in as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. So a lot of what you do too, is about helping people build their influence and through helping them with the public speaking part of that, and so we could get back into that don’t be afraid to shine your light thing. Tell me about what are the best steps to be able to [crosstalk 00:24:32] public speaking.

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. There’s about eight different ways to use public speaking to get in front of new clients. Let me give you a couple of my… Well, I gave you already one of my super favorites, Melinda, which is this idea of what I call the intimate intro where one of your clients is showcasing you for their community or their clients. That is a great way to gain new clients through public speaking. Another thing, as soon as the pandemic hit, I told all my clients to do this. Many of them had their best year ever. The first year of the pandemic when they started hosting a monthly Zoom workshop once or twice a month.

Now, if your business is more product based, you could have a half an hour showcase once or twice a month talking and showing your products. This as a consistent marketing strategy where you get to always have something to invite people to, that they can engage and interact with you is a highly effective way to gain clients. Not only clients down the road, but Insta clients. I’ve got people that come for three months and then they become a client. They’re more of a slow cooker, but also I see for myself and my clients, many people that come to a workshop and then become an Insta client because they got massive value.

Those are two of my favorite ways right there that everybody can implement right away, very easy. And the third way of course, is to go and talk to groups virtually or live and in person where your ideal clients are gathered. If you’re in the healthcare industry, there’s a lot of healthcare associations. If you speak to businesses, if your clients are business, there’s a chamber of commerce in every city on the planet that you could present to. Where are your clients gathered? Go present to those groups. They all need speakers.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. Whether it’s in person increasingly back again now [crosstalk 00:26:40] receipts, or just on Zoom. I know personally every time I show up and I talk to say a podcasting group or something like that related to what I’m currently doing and what it’s been true in the past as well. I always get clients. So people get to know you especially if you speak from the heart and you take them on that journey through great storytelling about what’s the now, and what’s the gap between now and where you want to be and how can you transport them there.

Caterina Rando:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s so, so important. So take me back a little bit in time Caterina to what was it that made you into an entrepreneur? Was it always in your DNA or there was just a certain point where I was like, that’s it. I’m creating my own business. How did that go for you?

Caterina Rando:

Well, here’s the truth in high school, my first job was I worked at Baskin-Robbins and I got fired because I gave away too much ice cream. I thought it was public relations or community outreach, but my boss didn’t quite see it the same way. And that made me feel like I’m not really vibing working for somebody else. And my sister had a cafe and I went to work for her and then she left that business and I ran it with another woman and I loved having a business. I loved making the decisions, I loved learning new things, but the thing is I didn’t love food service. I didn’t love making sandwiches and salads and wearing tomato sauce every day. I tried to figure out what my thing was and I did have a business coach at the time and she thought that I would make a good business coach.

Now, the thing is I was shy and introverted and didn’t know much about much, but one day this lady came in and thanked me for some business advice that I had given her. And she was smiling so big and her gratitude literally touched my heart. I felt a pang of bliss in my chest and I said, this is what I’m going to do with my life. I sold my business and I hung out my shingle and that’s where I realized, well, it’s a lot easier when you have a cafe. You just turn on the lights and you open the door and people come in. And if you want to get clients, when you have a service business and you don’t have a brick and mortar, that’s where speaking came in.

And even Melinda, when I didn’t know how to sell, I knew how to give a speech and bring value and that’s how I BR built my business because like you said, there will always be people in the audience that will resonate with you, that will be ready to get started. That’s why I’m such a proponent of speaking and that’s how I’ve gotten 90 plus percent of my clients over the last many, many years.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, that’s amazing. Something that you said though, just someone thanking you for something that you’ve done that’s changed their lives. Yeah. That’s the best feeling in the world. I think that drives a lot of entrepreneurs.

Caterina Rando:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

Once you experience that, it’s like, “Oh, okay. I know I’m doing what I’m meant to do.” It’s like being in your zone of genius.

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. And when you watch people’s lives transform. This is why I used to be a runaround speaker. Run around the country and speak and leave. And it wasn’t very fulfilling. I mean, it’s like a one night stand. You’re wonderful, but then you never see that person again. I would imagine my friend, I don’t know about that, but the thing is when you get to speak and work with clients on an ongoing basis and train and coach them, what happens is that you see not only their businesses transform, their lives are uplifted. You watch them be more confident and more self-assured and blessing more in their lives. And yeah, in my opinion, there is nothing better.

Melinda Wittstock:

So very early in the conversation, Caterina, you mentioned that building and leading teams was a vital part of success as an entrepreneur. I want to make sure that we don’t miss that. And we touch on that because that’s something that I see a lot of women struggling with because they fall into the trap of, “Oh, it’ll just be quicker to do it myself.” Or seeing hiring as an expanse rather than an investment, and having a hard time with that delegation muscle as well.

So, when is the right time to really start building a team? How do you really build that at right team? Getting the right people in place at the right time, delivering the results that you want. I mean, this is a big part of entrepreneurship and it’s a big topic. We could spend a whole podcast on it, but I want you to share how you help people through that piece.

Caterina Rando:

Well, what I want to say is that having a team, building a team, it is like dating. You do have to kiss some frogs sometimes before you get your prince or your princess. Right now, I have the best team I’ve ever had. Part of it is that these days, I’m not willing to settle. Again, just like dating, I’m not willing to settle for what’s okay. I’m looking for what’s excellent. And the first thing is that everybody wants to get clear, not only on roles and responsibilities for any particular person that may be with you.

I say roles and responsibilities rather than job descriptions, because job descriptions are more for employees. Roles and responsibilities are more for your independent contractors. Most people may want to start with independent contractors or even your VA is really one of the first people, your virtual assistant that you want to bring on your team and they might only work 10 hours a week for you or maybe even 10 hours a month at the very beginning. Not only what do you want them to do, but how do you want them to be?

I’m looking for people who have integrity, who have excellent communication skills. Who care about not only me, but they care about the business that I’m in and they are excited to serve the population that we serve women entrepreneurs and that they feel like their mission in life can be fulfilled through their work with me and my team. And the reason I say this is because I’m looking for not just team members. I’m looking for long-term, maybe even if I’m lucky, lifetime team members that are great partners for me. That’s what I want everyone to look for because yeah, it costs a lot of money to be training somebody every five minutes for the same role, because they might have the skill, but they’re not the right fit for you.

Personalities, in my opinion, do matter for people to be happy in their work. We do want team members that are very happy working with us, because they’re going to be more productive and they’re going to be with us longer. So think not only about the demographics of what you want, education, et cetera, but also think about the psychographics of the kind of person you want in addition to the tasks. My friend, I’m going to leave it there. Again, like you, we could talk all day about this, but we’ll leave it there for the moment.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, no, it’s interesting because the other piece of it too is at the earliest startup stage. As a founder being really honest with yourself about what is your zone of genius that only you and nobody else can do. Where you bring the most value. And then, I mean, I like to think of it in a Foursquare and I get my whole team to do this too and be constantly evaluating it, but in another square there’s something that at you’re excellent at, really good at and you love to do, but someone else in the world is equivalent to you. Also loves it, can also do it. And then in a third square it’s stuff that you’re okay at, but someone else, and you don’t mind doing, but somebody else could do much better and it makes their heart sing to do that thing.

And then in the last one, stuff that you actually suck at or you hate. Like you’d rather watch paint dry and really being really evaluating yourself relative to that, because that is a roadmap in a way of hire your weakness as fast as possible.

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. Well the thing is that as the CEO or the founder or the head of your organization, I like to say you have five jobs speaking or being the spokesperson or the visible part for your business. Selling, unless you have a sales force, serving your clients, strategy, that’s of course your job and self-care. And not only is those our job, Melinda, but those are the things we have to master. So it’s not only what do we hate, but what’s just not the good use of our time. I mean, I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but pretty good is not a good use of my time. We want to do those things that we want to master and that’s really a good yardstick for people to use. Should I be doing this? Well, do you want to master this? If you don’t want to master podcast editing, sweetheart, don’t be doing podcast editing because then you’re not selling, you’re not serving excellently and you’re not speaking to get new clients.

Melinda Wittstock:

I find as we scale,  in Podopolo’s case where a year ago we were two people, we’re now 25. By the end of the year, we’ll be at 80 people. Walking that journey as a founder, I find like my own time is changing, but increasingly it’s on team leadership. It’s on making sure that they have the resources and tools that they need. That they have all of that in place that they’re in the right seats. All of those things. And then I’m permanently recruiting at all times.

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. Well and that’s because you’re having significant growth, which is wonderful. And maybe recruiting is not your job, my friend, I don’t know. That’s for you to decide because you have so many other talents as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

I find what I’ve done is once I master something in a different area of my business, if it called on me as a CEO to master it, then there SOP or a process around it, so it can be replicated by somebody else every step of the way.

Caterina Rando:

Yes. And that’s one of the things that’s very important as we talk about entrepreneurship is are you documenting things? Are you writing things down? Because if it’s not written down, it can’t be delegated, but not only can it not be delegated, it cannot be upgraded. When it’s written down, you can continue to upgrade these processes and these even just checklists. Sometimes if you don’t come from a corporate background, people think, “Well, what’s a system? What’s a process? Simply a checklist. What do you do when you have a new client? How do you onboard that client let’s make a checklist for that? What do you do when somebody is new to your team? Let’s have a checklist for that. Let’s keep it simple so that you will use these things that you create and then you can continue to upgrade them.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, Caterina, I want to make sure that people discover your podcast because you podcast as well. It’s called Expand Your Fempire podcast. Tell me about that.

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. We’ve done over 80 episodes and we’re all over the place. And really it’s interviews with experts like yourself, Melinda. Hopefully, you’ll be a guest on a future podcast.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, I would love to be. I always like to [crosstalk 00:39:48]

Caterina Rando:

Would love to do that. And then the other half of the podcasts are me sharing my super tips and ideas out something related to women entrepreneurs in business. Sometimes it’s mindset stuff. We definitely talk about speaking. We talk about selling. We talk about retreats. We talk about how to have clients that keep coming back. We don’t want clients. We want long-term and lifelong clients. And also how do we bliss our business? Because for many of us Melinda, we chose entrepreneurship because we want to be happy in life and of course be of service. I really want to continue to shine the spotlight on that because if you’re not blissing in your business, you’re doing it wrong. So that’s something we focus on as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gosh, Caterina, I could talk to you for a lot longer. I want to make sure people also know apart from your podcast, what’s the best way to find you and work with you?

Caterina Rando:

Yeah. Well, my website is caterinarando.com. Caterina with the C rando.com. And there you can also get my many free resources we have at caterinarando.com/links. And also I always have a free workshop coming up. So if you look at our events page, you will see our upcoming free workshop. It could be on sales, on speaking, on a few different topics to enhance your business and have you bliss more along the way.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic, and we’ll have all that available on the show notes and I’d also like to invite you to come on Podopolo, my app that I can’t stop talking about. We have five podcast, personalized journeys. It’s an interactive experience. So it means that if you’re in there, Caterina can add you as a guest in the Wings community and we can carry on the conversation long after this episode is over. And so if anyone has any questions for you directly, they’re able to ask you there on Podopolo. So I hope to see you there when this episode airs and everybody else, if you have any questions for me or Caterina about sales, speaking, any of these things, teams, scaling blissful businesses, make sure that you download Podopolo and follow the Wings community there. So you can interact with us. Caterina, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Caterina Rando:

Thank you, Melinda. My privilege and pleasure.