Speaker 1: (00:02)

Kate, welcome to Get Done.

‍

Speaker 2: (00:04)

Hey, Alex, How you doing?

‍

Speaker 1: (00:07)

I, I'm, I'm kind of laughing because we did a quick check in before this, but I wanna do it as we're recording with all of our guests. If you, if you could describe in one word how you're feeling right now as an entrepreneur in this moment in the business, what word would that be?

‍

Speaker 2: (00:29)

I mean, you know, it's, . Okay. Sometimes it's, yeah. But most of the time it's, no.

‍

Speaker 1: (00:41)

Okay. And because, you know, we'll get some people, and I truly believe everyone we ask is like, being honest. Um, the last, like, I feel like the ones for the summer were all like, optimistic, inspired now and fall, and it's like, cute Crew four here. We have a hundred days basically left. Um, that's fun. What's for right now?

‍

Speaker 2: (01:04)

Uh, you know, so many levels, like on a personal level, it was a really exhausting summer for me. Um, we were traveling again as a lot of people were, because, you know, Covid seemed to be obviously not as scary as it was last year. Um, been a couple conferences, that kind of thing. Um, on a family level, it seems like, and, and, and just general politics, I guess, too. Like, it seems like that multiple layers of weight is not going away. And so, like, you know, I'm still feeling this as a human, right. I'm trying to navigate it and talk to my therapist about it, and I'm drinking more and hating myself the more I drink, you know, like, it's like that circle of. So like, there's those layers. And then, you know, lately of course is all I do and all I live, and it's a constant, you know, I hate explaining myself. I hate apologizing and I hate explaining, actually. I don't mind apologizing. I hate apologizing to a when, when, like, I shouldn't have to and yet, and you do it, right? Yeah. Like, and there's reasons that you sometimes have to do that, right? For the greater good, but the that means . Um, yeah. So, and I think the, So I've become so good at compartmentalizing, right? I'm an expert.

‍

Speaker 1: (02:42)

Yep.

‍

Speaker 2: (02:43)

It doesn't seem like there's an end to a thing. I can't compartmentalize. And, and let me give you an an example. So on a personal level, a state trooper hit me head on going the wrong way in my lane three years ago. It's been an ongoing case. They're were now, I was actually awarded the highest amount ever for this particular, uh, case. They tore four ligaments in my shoulder. So I had rotator cuffs surgery, where you wear a piece of metal around your waist and that attaches from your waist to your elbow, just like, you know, the guy at Splash not hot, and you sleep sitting up for six weeks and then you have hours of physical therapy for nine months. Um, I couldn't put on a bra for two months.

‍

Speaker 1: (03:27)

Wow. You know,

‍

Speaker 2: (03:29)

Let alone wipe my own nas. Right? I mean, just all these things I'm right-handed, so let alone type type, you know, like I happen to already use voice activated software because I have a partial permanent disability. So like, luckily I could still function. But anyways, so, and now we're in appeals, so like there on the personal level, like I had to stand up to an authoritative force, right? And, and compartmentalize all the pain around that because they tried to make me feel as though I had done something wrong. Of course, they tried to look, you know, plant drugs in my cars and lie about the whole thing, and it was this whole thing. So in, in one level of my life, I'm compartmentalizing stuff like that. Or, you know, I had a terrible argument with my sister, terrible argument. And I'm so upset about it.

‍

Speaker 2: (04:21)

And she could give a. And their, her children are involved. So it's beating me up every day right now. This stuff all sucks. What's amazing is I've got investors, venture capitalists who on me all day long. You know, I don't cry about that stuff anymore, Alex, It's still hurts. But it's just like, well, I know that, I know how to compartmentalize that pain, right? I can still, I got a whole drawer, I got a closet full of that. It's Narnia full of that, you know, . Um, and sometimes I get to the point of where maybe I'm in denial, where like I'm compartmentalizing so much that it might be impractical because I literally feel like I can't get through my day if I really think about the severity of what the is going on, you know? Yeah. Like most of the time I have a month of runway most of the time. Yep.

‍

Speaker 1: (05:21)

Oh, that's real. . I wanna, I wanna stay here for a moment, especially around compartmentalizing, because when you said that it triggered, because I say this all the time. I am a master com compartmentalizer since I was a kid. Um, I don't wanna feel the thing, Okay, I gotta keep going. And in some ways you have to do that as an entrepreneur leading a company. There's some things like, especially it's like when you're in like what peace time versus war time. A lot of startups are constantly in war time. Cuz it's like, how are we gonna get through this? You know? And you can't be frazzled when you're, you ha you have to find peace within it. The thing that I think through, cuz my dad had mental health issues and it, I'm always like, Whoa. Because it, living in New York, I see people, and this is probably sounds really dark, but when I see people on the trains that, you know, on the outside, people are like, Oh, they're crazy. No, they, they're suffering from mental illness. And it could be any one of us because mm-hmm. , there's probably a moment that they had a break. Yeah. What caused that break? And there's moments in me where I'm like, the amount of, whether it's personally in the business that I have to compartmentalize over years now.

‍

Speaker 2: (06:42)

Yeah. That

‍

Speaker 1: (06:43)

Compounding. Compounding. And it's like, of course I do the therapies, I do the work help, like making sure I'm taking care of myself. But is there ever a break? Yeah. And when does it happen for who? And that is the one thing where it's like, on one end, compartmentalizing can be magical on the other. At what point is it detrimental? Even with like, drinking, you know, like, I, I just need to feel something. Let me go to the bar real quick.

‍

Speaker 2: (07:10)

Right? Yeah. So all of this is, is valid in normal behavior, right?

‍

Speaker 1: (07:17)

Yeah. That's real. So, yes. Great, great, great word to start with. And real as. Real as, man. What's my, what's my word? Um, I would say it's probably mine right now is it. Like, it's like I'm in this, like, I'm accepting what is, I'm at peace. Like my, my birthday was in August and the wor like, thank you. The word that I wanted for this year and what I wanted to feel was peace. And I feel like I'm keeping that promise to myself. And as we're getting to the end of the year, I'm about to go into q4, things usually get really crazy. And usually I get into like, anxiety and forcing all this. Where now I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm, we're doing all the things. Me getting frazzled is not gonna make this thing go faster. So it, . Like, it. We're doing everything we need.

‍

Speaker 2: (08:19)

Yeah. My, my, so my meditation app guy Sam Harris, I like him 10 minutes. Um, and he is not, he's very practical. And, and not all No. Breathe through your eyelid like that crap. You

‍

Speaker 1: (08:33)

Know, I, that should stop talking to me this way. Just talk normal

‍

Speaker 2: (08:38)

. Yeah. It's so annoying. Um, by the way, authors read their books like that. Oh, they're terrible readers.

‍

Speaker 1: (08:43)

It's like the freaking, um, the people that do the, um, the news where I'm like, Why are you speaking this way? Just

‍

Speaker 2: (08:50)

Speak.

‍

Speaker 1: (08:50)

Yeah. Why? I just want you to speak like a normal person.

‍

Speaker 2: (08:53)

Yeah. Done, done, done. Right. That's what they're trying to do is like . It's sunny today. Done. Um, so anyways, the thing that Sam said was, um, the day will come anyways.

‍

Speaker 1: (09:07)

Mm.

‍

Speaker 2: (09:09)

Right? So there's no reason to brush it, you know? Yeah.

‍

Speaker 1: (09:13)

I love it. What a great way to kick this off. Especially for any of you that have felt or like feel like, yeah. it. yes. Um. This is, this is entrepreneurship. What a way to kick it off. Um, so before we get into all the amazing things you've done, uh, and are doing, we like to take it back. Give a little bit of context. So what in the hell were you doing before you started lately that got you here?

‍

Speaker 2: (09:44)

. Oh yeah. Um, well, so you know this, but I, I used to be a rock and roll dj, Alex.

‍

Speaker 1: (09:50)

Love that.

‍

Speaker 2: (09:52)

My last gig was broadcasting to 20 million listeners a day for XM Satellite Radio. .

‍

Speaker 1: (09:59)

Love

‍

Speaker 2: (09:59)

This Wild ride. Of course. I mean, I, I, I loved some of it for sure. I mean, it was cool as hell, don't get me wrong. And I'd been in radio for a long time and the format I was in was, it's called aaa. Um, there's not a lot of stations in the country, but it's basically album rocks, So not just the hits and across multiple genres in multiple decades. So really the way that most people listen to music, um, and to, and really focused on theater of the mind and the role of the programmer, the DJ as, um, you know, your your leader in a journey like that, that conversation that you have. So kind of old school, like seventies radio, you know, late night type of radio, but all day long . And so being surrounded at what at the time was like the Disney of that between all these crazy DJs, you know, who really lived and breathed that was a wild ride. The wildness is what I love. I mean, I was a line cook all through middle school, high school and college. Everything that Tony Bourdain wrote is true. I lived it. That's wild. It's a lawless thing that happens in the kitchen. Um, radio is the same way. It was lawless when I was there. And guess what, entrepreneurship. Same deal.

‍

Speaker 1: (11:25)

Lawless. Yes. Absolutely.

‍

Speaker 2: (11:28)

Right. I love that. Um, and it's because it's forgiving. It's, it's, it's interesting. It's exciting. You're making your own rules. You're, everyone's flying the ship as you build it, right? Um, there's no handbook to any of it, but there's still what all three have in common, by the way. There's still this collective synchronicity to get the meal up hot and beautiful at the same time. Make sure that the show goes on, you know, make sure that the, the product and is, is live and breathing and customers and investors and all the things are coordinating and, um, syncing up. So that, uh, the dichotomy I love. There's a big push and pull there. Um, Oh yeah, I I did also used to own a marketing agency. and I built it. Oh,

‍

Speaker 1: (12:22)

We're gonna get there. You have a lot of marketing experience. , I was looking at your LinkedIn. It was like marketing, marketing, marketing. I'm like, well.

‍

Speaker 2: (12:29)

Yeah. Who am I? Um, so yeah, I had an agency and I built Walmart a, a spreadsheet system that got them 130% ROI year for year for three years. Um, which is, you know, some of their pre-courses too to lately. But, you know, those are the things I was doing in, in a nutshell, .

‍

Speaker 1: (12:51)

Yes. Okay. So you actually just, you know, did a nice segue into getting to lately. First of all, um, drop the mic, the fact that you built out something from Walmart that helped them to get, you said what hundred 30% increase year over year.

‍

Speaker 2: (13:07)

Yep.

‍

Speaker 1: (13:08)

Amazing. Like literally one of the like top 10 largest companies in the world. Um, so what made you start lately and what problem is it solving?

‍

Speaker 2: (13:22)

So lately, specifically, um, wasn't my idea. So one of my, um, my friends Steve, not no longer my friend or co-founder now cuz we had quite a row, um,

‍

Speaker 1: (13:36)

Hadn't been there. Girl.

‍

Speaker 2: (13:38)

. Yeah. Been there. happens man. You know, . So Steve met me through a Walmart contact and had heard about my spreadsheets and his world was this world was, was software as a service venture capital. He'd had several exits, both good and bad and, and knew of a land I had no idea about and kept insisting on seeing this spreadsheet system that I had was using now for all my clients. I had a marketing agency and had long left radio and, and it was still pretty lawless. And when I was doing it, because I was taking everything I learned about radio, you know, I wrote hundreds and hundreds of commercials. I I learned how to be the pro a production director in radio. So not only just a, a jock picking songs and all that jazz, but, well, what else went on? Where was the money in radio?

‍

Speaker 2: (14:31)

And it was in voiceovers and production cuz there was no money in radio. So anyways, I got good at that and I was also a fiction writing major in college. So, um, you know, I understood the idea of crafting words to put an image in your mind and to get you to do something or to feel something, you know, inherently. So Steve was very curious about all these spreadsheets and um, kind of was harassing me to see them on a regular basis. He happened to be traveling between upstate New York and New York City and driving right by my house on a four hour journey on a weekly basis. So he was always around, you know, Hey, can I stop by? We'll have a drinker ha hang out, have some lunch. And he kept saying, you know, we only need $25,000 and we could build some wire wire frames and automate your spreadsheets. So those are three ideas. I were totally foreign to me. First of all, $25,000. I mean I lived on two buck Chuck and Ronen

‍

Speaker 1: (15:33)

, Right? It's like only 25,000. It's just like, where, where is, is it falling from the sky

‍

Speaker 2: (15:38)

? Where is it at? Right, exactly. And I was like, this is

‍

Speaker 1: (15:43)

Such a man thing to do. Only 25,000 at least for like

‍

Speaker 2: (15:47)

Yeah. To to you. Although, you know, now Alex, like having, I've raised $3.7 million, so like now $25,000 doesn't seem like a lot to me.

‍

Speaker 1: (15:58)

Yeah. Oh, my last company you couldn't even get in the round. You the minimum was 25,000. The

‍

Speaker 2: (16:03)

Minimum was. Yeah. So it's sort of, that's a, what you're pointing out is the perspective and it sound, I feel like such a Eater kind of saying that. Um,

‍

Speaker 1: (16:13)

Well it's only until you experience it, right?

‍

Speaker 2: (16:16)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is the world we're, I mean, this is the world I'm in, you know. So, um, tangent real quick. I don't know if you guys have seen the Ford commercial. I've been watching Hulu and this commercial is on where they're talking about how essentially the, they're talking about Elon Musk, but they're also talking about the left. There's no doubt about it how, um, the smarty pants is when they get scared they run away into sp their own spaceships in the sky. But we at Ford, we are tough, we are real people and um, it's insulting to me because I am a real person in my family. Yeah. Are real people and they're putting me in this box and I want 'em to say like, Yeah, okay, we go away in our spaceships, but we also, you know, go to our, uh, own golf courses, Mr.

‍

Speaker 2: (17:04)

Redhead, you know, so let's out Mr. Redhead who's running away. Exactly. Is it all the rich rich, smart people are running away from reality. I don't think that's true. But anyways, um, so, and I didn't understand automating my spreadsheets like don't touch my spreadsheets Steve. They're awesome. What are you thinking? And um, I didn't know what a wire frame was, you know, So Steve ended up taking the money out of his own pocket and bringing in his friend Jason, who's now my very good friend and co-founder. And they came over on a Sunday night to show me what they had built and they'd taken my whole system and sort of manifested it into a website. And I still didn't really get it, but I respected that this guy did what he said he was gonna do. And I could see I didn't like working for other people.

‍

Speaker 2: (17:58)

I mean I hated it. And even though I owned my own company, I was still at the mercy of, you know, I mean I had to fire a united way worldwide for my life. And um, I lost like $140,000 doing that, which is like a big win for me cuz there were such joints and they kept asking me to turn over the collateral and I kept telling them, it's in a Google doc, It's live, There's nothing turnover. You own it, you. And they couldn't understand that cuz they're so done. Mm. Yikes. Um, a lot of tangents in my life. But so suddenly I was like, all right, I'll do this. I wanna do this, but I gotta be the boss. And Steve started laughing. He's like, Yeah, I don't want anything to do with that part of this cuz he knew what this job was, you know?

‍

Speaker 2: (18:52)

And uh, then we were off to the races and, you know, since then, let me say the good things Alex, right? So this is hard for me to do, not because I have imposter syndrome, but cuz I live in at zero to one kind of binary level of success. But we've raised $3.7 million. We have 458 customers, we have nearly a million in monthly recurring revenue or annual recurring revenue. And, um, I have a great team who I love so much and you know, we get accolades all the time. We have a 98% sales conversion. I increase Gary Vanderchuck's engagement by 12000%. Um, yada yada yada. The fact is though, those things are great, but I I a thousand a million percent feel like a failure.

‍

Speaker 1: (19:49)

Let's, let's walk through that because Oh, okay. First of all, I wanna applaud you for the fact that for, for those of you listening, what she just did was pat herself on the back. Cuz I hate when people tell women to be humble. That's usually never our problem. literally talk yourself up. That's what gets us into rooms. And you can do it in such an amazing, graceful way like you just did it. Um, but the real is, there's this thing people do where whatever they see on the outside, they think that is the reality for you. So I will get people that come up to me and they're just like, Oh my God. Like maybe they haven't seen me in a while and all they see is like LinkedIn post and they're like, you're killing it.

‍

Speaker 2: (20:34)

Yeah, yeah. totally.

‍

Speaker 1: (20:36)

And I'm like, because you saw a pope, like, and the intention, they're not bad people. They're good people and it's because this is how we now connect and socialize. But a lot of times I'd be like, Oh my God, if you only were inside my brain and how I feel. Yeah. And not to say that I feel that way, like bad all the time, but there's this, this feeling of I haven't done enough. So I would love to hear more about what does feeling like a failure. What does that look like for you? Why?

‍

Speaker 2: (21:11)

Yeah. So , I feel like it's a good thing. You're not my neighbor. We would be in a lot of trouble together. We could,

‍

Speaker 1: (21:20)

We would lit, I think we would just like, Hey, let's get a drink. And it would be every night,

‍

Speaker 2: (21:24)

Talking

‍

Speaker 2: (21:27)

Cause some problems, . Um, Yeah. You know. Well, so, uh, one thing I want to, my, my friend Adam, um, oh Adam, why is her name Hello? I sorry, Adam. He calls it, um, intentional authenticity. And so that's this idea of having a persona in one place or another. They're all true, but it's not the whole whole piece, right? So like I live that on radio. Who I am on the radio is me, but it's also not me. Who I am on LinkedIn is me, but also not not me. Right. Parts, parts of you.

‍

Speaker 1: (22:07)

And

‍

Speaker 2: (22:07)

I have an intention there. I mean, my intention there is build a brand, sell some, you know? And so, um, when I put my, I put my worst foot forward quite a lot because that sells the most, believe it or not. isn't that amazing? I just posted, um, this hilarious VC email where somebody turned me down, rejected me, and called me, called my company another name and, and then said a bunch of other stupid. And so I just quoted and posted it, uh, to this morning, 14,000 views on that 14,000

‍

Speaker 1: (22:43)

Because

‍

Speaker 2: (22:44)

People like rejection, right? Yeah. I mean, isn't that amazing? Um, what the is the question, Alex?

‍

Speaker 1: (22:55)

Failure. So you can have Oh yeah. The same way I, I literally, we would get in a lot of trouble cuz I will do this in, in conversation with people because I'd be like, Oh, it's the story and this detail's really important. Then I'm like, wait, how did I get here? Yeah. Um, no,

‍

Speaker 2: (23:10)

I don't think in a straight line, you know,

‍

Speaker 1: (23:11)

I, I don't, I'm literally like, do, do, do. Um, so this resonates with me. Totally get it. Um, really about like you can have all these accolades on the, the outside people are gonna be like, Oh my God, you're killing it. You're amazing. But you still feel like a failure. Why is that?

‍

Speaker 2: (23:29)

Um, I haven't lived up to my own standard, of course. Right. So do

‍

Speaker 1: (23:34)

You think you'll ever,

‍

Speaker 2: (23:37)

Um, you know, yes and no. I, I do achieve the things I set out achieve, but I also constantly rage the bar, which I do believe everybody should. I mean the, the whole essence of being human is to not to achieve perfection, but to try to, that's their reason to live. That's, that's the reason to live. Right. Be better every day. And um, and more than that, be the best you can be in every way. Right. Whatever that means. So, I mean, I'm not out to undermine myself by any means. Um, I am, I do have an addictive personality. I used to smoke and loved it and was very good at it. Um, and

‍

Speaker 1: (24:33)

I love that you said you were good at smoking

‍

Speaker 2: (24:35)

. Oh yeah. Really good. .

‍

Speaker 1: (24:39)

You were like a tobacco company's like poster child. For real. You're good at it, .

‍

Speaker 2: (24:46)

Yeah. You know, I mean, if you're gonna do something terrible, like just do it all the way. And I, that's what I think. Um, but that's what I need to do. Like I have to go down to come out of whatever it's, you know, so I have this o c d kind of addictive nature for sure. And um, I see that around lately. It's like I just have to do it. I have to do, I have to get to this place, I have to do this thing. I just have to do it, you know? And, and I'm aware though I'm very super self-aware. So like, I don't feel like it's unhealthy unless I wasn't aware, you know? Um, it, and I have, uh, I don't have a chip in my shoulder. I've got a couple of planets, one in each, you know? Right. Like, got something to prove, Alex, don't you? Of course you do. Absolut.

‍

Speaker 1: (25:36)

Absolutely. That's why it resonated. It resonated when you said, you know, you, you wanna be the best and you keep raising the bar. The only thing that had, has me up in the past and thank God for therapy and coaching and all that stuff. Um, you know, one of the coaches I had shout out to Jacks Black, um, she was like, You, it's okay to keep raising the bar, but she was like, breathe through your celebrations. Mm-hmm. , breathe. Yeah. Cause I was like, I want, I would get to the thing and I'm, and I achieve, I'm a ch an achiever. I get it done when I'm, when I say I'm gonna do something, I do it. Literally when I put it out there, I do it. The only problem was I was holding my breath at each thing. It was like I couldn't actually enjoy it.

‍

Speaker 2: (26:25)

Same.

‍

Speaker 1: (26:26)

I couldn't. And let myself enjoy it cuz it was like, now I need to get to the next thing.

‍

Speaker 2: (26:30)

Same. Yeah. I mean, I feel like if you do enjoy, it's the next thing will slip away before you can do it a little bit. You know, like that's the difference between an entrepreneur and a great entrepreneur, I believe. Right? Like, we have things to celebrate and I do celebrate them, but it's not very long. It's just one second. Cuz the, the sky is falling . I mean, it is all the time. Right? It is in my world. And, and it's not, it's not an exaction. I mean, people's lives are at stake. My, can I pay my mortgage next week? Can I, for my whole team can buy food for their kids? Yep. People are depending on me, you know? And, um, I, I'm thankful my husband , he, he always jokes, but he's serious actually. His, his like role in the world is to make me laugh.

‍

Speaker 1: (27:44)

That's beautiful. I love that.

‍

Speaker 2: (27:47)

Yeah. Thank God. Because it's not my nature, you know, I'm, I'm a, I am negative. I'm a glass half empty person, you know. Whereas he pays everyone a compliment all the time. Me all day long. All he does is pay me compliments. All I do is telling what he is doing wrong. You know? But I put out so for even

‍

Speaker 1: (28:08)

Please yourself aware and at least it works for y'all.

‍

Speaker 2: (28:11)

. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that is a necessary quality to get to where we wanna get. Like, I am not interested in winning. I'm interested in beating the machine.

‍

Speaker 1: (28:29)

It's the system.

‍

Speaker 2: (28:30)

Yeah.

‍

Speaker 1: (28:31)

But it's the system. Yep.

‍

Speaker 2: (28:34)

It's the system.

‍

Speaker 1: (28:36)

Oh, this resonates so much. Yeah. We couldn't live next to each other. Um, so I appreciate that. Um, and for anyone listening, like how often we feel that way because we'll hear around entrepreneurship and it's like sunshine, rainbows. Especially when it's geared towards women and it's like, but I don't feel that way today. And actually I don't feel that way a lot of the times. And it's okay. I do wanna hop to

‍

Speaker 1: (29:04)

The things you've done really well. You've, you've said a couple of them, but the specifics, so a lot of your background is marketing, um, and you do distribution. Well, I mean, you were in, you were in radio, it's all distribution, sad , it's like all the things, like it makes so much sense why you're here and why you built the company you're you're building. Um, but for a lot of founders and especially what we see in our community, a lot of this game is distribution and getting the word out and as much as possible. So you can get the awareness, fill your pipeline with leads, which we're gonna get to cuz you have a 98% conversion rate, which is incredible. But I wanna start with that awareness piece. And what advice would you have for founders that are like, I need to build awareness. I don't have the budget, I don't have the things, but something you do well is you are constantly, you do a lot of gorilla marketing, you're on the ground, you are out speaking, you're doing a lot of stuff. So from your experiences in radio to now building lately, what would you say to an entrepreneur that's coming to you saying, I need Kate, I need to build awareness. I don't have a budget, but I know we need to, we need to fill the funnel, but we don't, we don't have the budget to do it.

‍

Speaker 2: (30:25)

Yeah, it's hard. You have to start somewhere. It takes a long time. I I believe in the long tail. Google it. If you don't know what that means and the power of the long tail to come back and overwhelmingly succeed over, uh, any kind of quick fisk fix or um, more immediate kind of marketing. Um, and that's cuz I saw it in radio so I know, I know it really well. Um, you don't have to be everything to everyone. You only have to do one thing really well. And once you can do that, well then you can do the next thing, right? So don't do paid and, and owned and earned. Don't do it all. Like, just pick one even with social, pick one channel and just be like, this is the channel we're gonna rule it on. You know, for me it, it starts before that though, Alex, right?

‍

Speaker 2: (31:18)

Like, so my, my, my uber power is turning listeners into fans, Okay, customers into evangelist. That's what I do. If I close the doors on lately today, I'm gonna take those people with me wherever I go. Yep. Right? Yep. So how do you do that? And that's the magic thing. This is gonna sound fluffy, but what I've learned is, I mean this is you, you, you're doing it right now is when you are, it's like my husband, he's a guitar player. He's been called the best guitar player in New York by Eric Amble, Joan Jets guitar player. And it's because he doesn't get on stage and do a solo. He fills the space around everyone else. Okay? It's the same thing when you are, if I'm walking into a, a cocktail party or something for networking, okay? I don't need to walk in there shouting and, and doing karaoke and all the things to get attention.

‍

Speaker 2: (32:29)

I don't need to be the person holding court. I need to be the person making other people feel. Yep. That they're the light in the room, that's the magnet. And they come, they walk away and they remember me. Right? When you start to think this way, it's contagious to other people. My whole team acts like this. Now part of it is their nature. Their their, some of them didn't know how med magnetic they were and I had to, I did have to show them, you know, And that can be as simple as writing someone's bio in a way that reflects their success. Because that's something that most people don't know how do is even write about their own successes, right? Um, cuz people inherently think they're boring, Alex, right? So on that note, there's some entertainment here that is part of what I do. You know, I know that and I leverage the out of it.

‍

Speaker 2: (33:26)

Like I thought we can talk about what I do and I'll also, I'll I'll bring it down to earth in a second. But I thought a lot about, okay, I too, I don't have any resources for marketing. I don't how many budget, even though I'm really good at it. I can't do it for my own company. I don't have time for that. I ha there's a lot more product needs me, investors like all the sales. Yep. Yeah. Right. More important things. And I thought I had a, I had an epiphany which was like, okay, I know we need content. I know how important content is. I don't, I'm amazing at writing. I don't even have time to write blogs for us or newsletters. Like every time I tried I would like do one and then move on. And so I thought, well what can I do without thinking about it? Oh, I can be on the air. I don't have to prepare for that ever. And so I started to ask people if I could be guests on their podcasts, right? And I know I can be a great guest cuz this is what I do for a living or did.

‍

Speaker 2: (34:31)

And then what if we ran this podcast through my own ai? So instead of thinking about marketing as so owned media, now it's earned media. And the win here is, I don't care if you have two listeners or 20 million, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna break it up into 40 social posts that all have the video clips attached to them. Each social post could just simply be a quote of what you or I say, This is what I did for Walmart by hand that le does now automatic. So it could be just a, a cool one line quote, the it list. And why, I don't know, right? Linking back to the full version of this, all 40 posts are gonna tag you. If I launched all those 40 posts in one week, you're gonna be like, Hey, you're annoying me. But if I drip feed them like a long tail out over time, once every two weeks for 80 weeks, every time you see her you're gonna be like, Oh, I loved her retweet.

‍

Speaker 2: (35:28)

You know, et cetera. When you do this, um, I know it's content and I know it's engaging content because I know my audience, they are marketers, entrepreneurs, women for the most part or other people who wanna support underdogs. So those are points you and I are talking about here today on purpose. I know this, even if you didn't ask me these questions, I'd get there anyways. Right now in social media, there's only two um, calls to action, click or share. It's very easy. And clicking is harder because in order for to get someone to click, they really have to have to trust you and know you. There's one exception and it's how to content. But anyways, shares are easy. People share cuz it's about the ego. They wanna look good. When you share someone else's content, suddenly you become the owner of it. Um, just like a record in, in college. Someone brings you, you know, a new album from I don't know, Tribe called Quest. And you share the album. Now you're the cool person in the room, you're the taste maker. Same thing. So these one liners that you and I are saying today are those and I know it, right?

‍

Speaker 1: (36:44)

Yeah. I love that was just like a mass masterclass in marketing. I love this. So you mentioned 98% conversion and you just said, which I've said this before on this podcast, marketing and sales work hand in hand and marketing is absolutely important. But your number one J job as the founder is sales period. Because without sales you don't have a company and marketing gives you the pop the opportunities and can amplify the opportunities. But you need to be focusing in on sales. And you just said you don't even do the marketing for your I don't do it. Our, our marketing manager does it. Um, so how in the hell did you get to a 98% conversion rate? Can you walk us through what you do phenomenally well as the founder doing sales that enables you to get to that level of conversion?

‍

Speaker 2: (37:46)

Yeah. Um, thanks. It's that process, right? So when I have 40 social posts that I know are gonna get me the highest engagement, now I, I now have a company that does this. This is what lately does, right? So I have artificial intelligence behind this that's actually pulling out which one liners will resonate with my audience the most. Um, now once we broadcast that content that I just described, we broadcast it both on our brand channels and then also on all of the employee channels. Cuz together we're stronger, right? I'm in the business of building fans. My, my customers actually are too. Cause they're all marketers, right? And my employees are as well. So now I've got exponential microphones happening here and we watch to see now the 98% is on our enterprise side. We have a 49% on our self-serve side. Um, on the enterprise side we're watching to see who likes comments and shares.

‍

Speaker 2: (38:49)

Those are warm leads, right? And it's very easy for Katie, my, my my lady who does this. She can quickly qualify. You know, you can just look at someone's account, Are they gonna be a good fit for our enterprise product? And then she can start a conversation cuz that's her, her uber power. So she'll make a comment about like, Oh, I see you were at CM World last week. Go Cleveland, whatever. And then she can ping Chris and my sales channel, Hey Chris just tags you up on Twitter. The sky's a ringer. And Chris will get in there and do a DM and get them into the product. Now the product does sell itself cuz believe me, we up the demo 50,000 ways sideways. Uh, and it's, you know, people do go holy still, which is great, but by the time they're in there, they're ready to buy cuz they know us and they trust us.

‍

Speaker 2: (39:37)

And trust is is the reason. Trust is everything. Like this is what, this is what that long tail is all about. We haven't had a day in three years where someone hasn't somehow spontaneously talked about us online somewhere. So we've built this trust where we know they already know us by the time they get to us. Right now with the self-serve product, it's actually the same thing. But I don't have to qualify anybody. All I have to do is drive in my homepage, right? And then that makes sure that funnel does its job there. What does that look like for us? You know, sometimes we're good at it, sometimes we break it and we have to figure out what that is. Um, the whole, the whole thing is about, um, it's the not sale Sale, right? Make a fan. Make a fan to make a sale.

‍

Speaker 2: (40:28)

So that's, that's my team's job. When they do a demo, no sales sweat, we always say it and we mean it, but we know people we'll buy it anyways by the time they get there, right? Um, I think people forget Alex, that I don't know why I, I don't even think they forget it. I know from all the emails, I, all the emails I get on or dms I get on sale on, on LinkedIn where people are like, Hey Kate, thanks for letting me connect with you now I'm gonna sell you something. You know? And I'm like, Hey listen, I know that your word partner means sale. We all know this now and you just met me. You can't just pitch me right now. We gotta like have a conversation and hang out. Like, you guys are so dumb at this. Um, so we don't do that ever.

‍

Speaker 2: (41:15)

Right? And it's because we think about the golden rule, which is like, what is it when I buy stuff, why, when do I buy it and how do I buy it? Every time I get a phone call from spam risk , right? I, I delete that thing. I'm not answering any, any call. I don't ever know, never ever, ever, never. I never, I get emails never day, never from people telling me, Hey Kate, LinkedIn told me you have 23 employees. I have seven. Um, so you're already fired as a, as a sales pitcher for me, right? Or, um, whatever it is. So like, if that's not how I buy, what, when do I buy? I buy, Like today we started this conversation before we hit record, I told you about three products that I totally love, right? That's how people buy. So how do I, if I'm not a cpg, which I'm not now, that's a lot harder for software. Uh, cuz I, I know I can't demonstrate it for you on, on, on Instagram. I mean I can, but it's not, it doesn't work if there's not a human being. You can't, nobody wants to watch software flow by. So how do I do it? And the way you do it is, um, just talking to people, you know?

‍

Speaker 1: (42:35)

Yes. I love this. Such a good extension to, to the, the piece on marketing. It's like all of these things work so well together. And because we're always trying to find those quick wins. And then, like for example, I was talking to a founder yesterday and they were like saying an investor through due diligence was like, well, why isn't this viral yet? And you could tell this person has never been a operator themselves.

‍

Speaker 2: (42:58)

. It's just like,

‍

Speaker 1: (42:59)

Yeah, you're right. What do you think? It's a switch you dumb. Like

‍

Speaker 2: (43:03)

Yeah, they

‍

Speaker 1: (43:04)

Do. No, the the, actually some of the worst investors I've ever met in my life are the ones that clearly have never built anything themselves because they're the le the lack of empathy and the level of expectation is ridiculous. I'm like, this doesn't make sense. I digress. I love everything you just said, . So

‍

Speaker 1: (43:24)

You are one of the very few women who has scaled to this level. Only 1.7% of women entrepreneurs have ever gotten to a million. Um, that's why we're here. It is how do we redefine what scale looks like and the stories and steps of the women who have done it. That's why we say 4%. We want more women to be able to do it, move through the revenue pipeline. So based on where you're at now, and because we want to crush that 4%, have more women rise, what are you focused on now in the business to get to the next level

‍

Speaker 2: (43:59)

Product, product like growth? Um, it sounds so obvious. Don't we all want our products to be awesome? Of course we do. Right? But it, it is not that easy. gets in the way. You know, we all make mistakes. Hopefully we make lots of mistakes, right? And learn from them. Um, we've done things we knew not to do, but there were reasons we did them anyways, knowing that we'd have to get back to it right now. Thank God my team is nimble and smart enough to be able to get back to it, right? And timing is everything. I totally believe that. Like all the ups we've ever had, whether they've been our fault or not, I would never trade any of them because they are, the payoff is huge. You know, we're only here because of all that. But the, the product, you know, you obviously value is, is the first thing, right?

‍

Speaker 2: (44:56)

Is it valuable? We know it is. We're constantly questioning that ourselves cuz we have, you know, we have people who churn, of course we do. And they have a experience and we ask them why. Or we can see why. Was there a product bug? Were we not communicating? Do we miscommunicate on the front side that expected something else where we targeting from the wrong person, they shouldn't have been here anyways, there's all these, all that stuff, you know. Um, and then we're thinking again ourselves putting ourselves in the shoes. Like what's it like when we use products we love? Why do we use them? Is my KPI different than a customer's kpi? That's a big question that we learn to ask ourselves from really? Um, from Marco Bear.

‍

Speaker 1: (45:35)

That is an interesting question.

‍

Speaker 2: (45:38)

It's a good one. Think about that. Yeah, because my kpi, this, this actually my business up, but taught me the biggest lesson as an entrepreneur. My KPI is almost always monthly recurring revenue in, in SAS land right now. For us, that was actually obscuring what was our customer's most important kpi. And so our retention was not as good as we believed it to be, but we didn't, we didn't know, you know, And by the time we did know, we had to backpedal quite a bit and make, there was a whole series of things we had to fix before we could actually fix it.

‍

Speaker 1: (46:18)

What was it for your customer?

‍

Speaker 2: (46:21)

Um, for them it's actually publishing 20 times in one month, a minimum of, of AI generated content of our content, right? How do we get them to do that?

‍

Speaker 1: (46:34)

Awesome. So you're focused on the product for anybody to get to the next level. For anyone that's listening in, how could they support you as you get to the next level?

‍

Speaker 2: (46:46)

Yeah. Um, gimme money,

‍

Speaker 1: (46:50)

, come on. Okay. This is you. There's a masterclass in marketing here and also a masterclass in what we call shout out to Rachel Rannoch, B v Big Vagina Energy. Like just going in and saying whatever the you need. And literally no. So unapologetic. I love this. Yes. Go ahead. Continue. Yeah.

‍

Speaker 2: (47:12)

So simple, right? I mean, uh, I hate it when, when investors are like, and I love my investors very much. The ones that are my investors. Like, we've been very lucky and have avoided a, a number of total bags that we almost took their money in. Like, then something happened where we didn't thank God. But, but like that, you know, how can I be useful or how can I be, I really wanna be, you know, involved. Like when I, whenever I hear that, I think red flag, you know, I wanna be left alone is what I want now. I wanna be able to access you when I need you. I love,

‍

Speaker 1: (47:51)

I wanna be left alone, Give the money and

‍

Speaker 2: (47:53)

Go . I do. I mean, I have things to do, but like it's still recognizing the value. Knowing when to ask for help is very important, right? And knowing who to ask. I I do, I have like about 60 investors actually, and all of them have d a different skill set. So I have to know, and I have to remember too who to call on when like, I'm like, you know, I feel like I don't really know how to calculate gross margin. What is that? Like who's the person that might have this knowledge, but that can actually teach me who I can learn from. That's a whole different set, you know? Or maybe my coo Lauren is gonna be working in this project, so who can Lauren bark from? You know? Or also like, who can I tap more than once? Some people, they don't want me to bother them either, which is totally fine, you know?

‍

Speaker 2: (48:36)

Um, there's some people that are such big guns, I have to know when to call in that army and when, and be very judicious about it because I don't wanna waste my, my token. It's a lot of metaphors. Um, but the, the money thing is more than money too. It's validation, it's acknowledgement, it's, it's, um, faith obviously. I mean that's all it is, is faith at our level to be, to be real with it. But it is contagious. You know that right? When one invests, you know, all those dominoes fall. It's true. Um, I'm tired, Alex. Yeah. Not gonna lie about that. I'm tired.

‍

Speaker 1: (49:23)

I love this. How real this is. So for the investors out there, give Kate money,

‍

Speaker 2: (49:29)

.

‍