Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Referral Partnerships: How to Grow Your Location Independent Business with English Expat Zoe Linda Pollard

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

A few episodes ago, you heard me talk about location independence for beginners. My guest Jeremy and I discussed how starting a service-based business was one of the best ways to get started.Jeremy mentioned that he grew his business through referral partners. In this episode, I’m diving deeper into that topic with my guest Zoe Linda Pollard. Zoe is an English expat living in Sweden and she specializes in teaching others how to grow their online businesses through referral partnerships. She’s actually hosting a free event called the Magical Meetup on April 7th and you can find out more about that by going to sarahmikutel.com/zoe. If you hear this podcast after that, I’ll link to another useful resource of Zoe’s. The Magical Meetup is a one-hour event created to help you connect with other service-based business owners around the world who can help you spread the word about your business. It's also a great place to find guests for your podcast, and to find people for whom you'd want to be a referral partner.If you’re still wondering what this referral partner business is all about, stay tuned. You will learn all about it in this episode. Plus you’ll learn how Zoe met her Swedish boyfriend. I thought my friend Andrea’s story about meeting her now-husband on YouTube was wild, but this is next level. Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionWant to connect on Insta? Find me hereDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a travel and wellness show for expats, the expat curious, and globally minded citizens of the world. We are the travelers, the culturally curious, the experiences and not things kind of people, and we know that freedom is about more than getting on a plane. It's about becoming the most heroic versions of ourselves, which is why on this podcast you will hear insider travel secrets, inspiring expat stories, and advice on how to live abroad. but you will also hear episodes that will help give you the clarity, focus, and skills you need to create a life that will set your soul on fire. I am your host, Sarah Micatel, a certified clarity coach trained in the Enneagram, and I first moved abroad on my own at age 18, and I have been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. If you are ready to make some big moves in your life and want my help moving from someday to seize the day, visit live without borderspodcast.com.

A few episodes ago, you heard me talk about location independence for beginners, and my guest Jeremy and I discussed how starting a service-based business was one of the best ways to get started. And Jeremy mentioned that he grew his business through referral partners. And in this episode, I'm diving deeper into that topic with my guest, Zoe Linda Pollard. Zoe is an English expat living in Sweden, and she specializes in teaching other people how to grow their online businesses through referral partnerships. And Zoe's actually hosting a free event called the magical meetup on April 7th. And you can find out more about that by going to sarahigatel.com slash Zoe. That's ZOE. And the link will be in the episode notes. And if you hear this after April

7th, then I will just link to another one of Zoe's great resources. But this one hour meetup was created to help you connect with other service-based business owners around the world who can help you spread the word about your business and just make other connections in general. If you've got a podcast, you can find potential guess it's going to be super fun. And if you're still wondering what this referral partner business is all about. Stay tuned. You will learn all about that in this episode. Plus, you are going to learn how Zoe met her Swedish boyfriend. I thought my friend Andrea's story about meeting her now husband on YouTube was wild. But Zoe story is just next level. Enjoy the episode. Welcome. Zoe, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really excited.

You have a location independent business. I'm shocked that you didn't like London and wanted to return to the countryside. But I guess this was your opportunity to become location independent. And now you're running your business from Sweden. So I would love to hear a little bit more about what prompted that move and what has that transition been like this year? So the prompt to move to Sweden is kind of a long story. So essentially, do you mind me telling a kind of long story about this? Go for it. Yeah. So essentially, like, when I lived in London, I was with my partner at the time. And when I moved back, like we both moved back to my hometown in Suffolk in the UK, like the countryside, middle of nowhere. And I started my business. And I was doing that for like three years. and then I broke up with my partner. And then I sort of took like a 180 and pretty much like throughout the entirety of 2019, I didn't really do much work on my business and I got really into video games and streaming on Twitch.

And this was my like entire 2019. It was just like playing video games, talking to friends all day, streaming on Twitch, growing this community in a completely different place. then where I had built my, you know, online business community, which had its own challenges and still does because I still stream. But from that kind of experience of, I guess, like, going through a breakup and learning, you know, a new kind of passion, I met my now boyfriend through a video game. He actually killed me in the game. And I recognized his name, like on the

screen when it shows you who killed you. I recognized his name from, streams, like from him streaming and like being in streams that I was in. So I found him on Discord. I don't know if you know of Discord, but I found him and was like, oh my God, you just killed me. And he was like, I'm so sorry. And I was like, oh, we should play some time. And he was like, yeah. And then we played. And when we started talking, it was like that instant like, oh, we feel like we've known each other for like 10 years and we'd never even spoken before. And it was this really like instant connection. And then that was in 2019. And then, And when Corona hit in March 2020, it was like I didn't see him for six months because of lockdown and him not being able to travel.

Oh, he's Swedish, by the way. That's the important link here. Yeah. So he can travel, I can travel. And when it got to like June or July, and I was having a bit of a tough time at home because all of my family were also like in lockdown and we were all living on the same land. in different houses essentially, but yeah, on the same land. So we were on each other's doorsteps all the time. And it was a lot. So after that, I was like, you know, I want to move because I don't enjoy this environment from focus. Like it really affected my work. And I was like, I can live anywhere because I have

a business that allows me to live anywhere. And I was like, I might as well just move to Sweden, especially before Brexit kicked in. I wanted to get over there, like, whilst I could. And I was like, you know, even if it doesn't work out, then fine, but I'm quite optimistic about stuff. So I'm like, you know, probably be fine. And at least I'll have gotten before Brexit. So I decided to move to Sweden. And that's where I am now. I love that story. Just really quick for people who are not part of this like tech world. Can you just say really quick what Twitch is and also Discord? And were you making money through Twitch? Or were you just having fun? So, well, both. So, Twitch is essentially like, like imagine Facebook lives.

So basically going live, but you're screen sharing a video game. And you're also, sometimes you have your camera on so they can see you and sometimes not most nowadays and not because I just can't be asked with my hair, makeup and everything. But you're essentially like showing a video game that you're playing and people are watching you like live, almost like watching, you know, a TV show or something. You're kind of like entertaining them. you're talking to them in the chat. Like you would talk to people who show up to a webinar,

but you're just playing a video game. So you keep the engagement high and all of that. So on Twitch, there are ads. The people watching get like served ads at the beginning and like random times throughout the stream. But they can subscribe to your channel for, I think it's like $5. And then they don't get any ads. And then they get access to these like little, I guess,

emojis that come with your channel that you can add and design. So I have some little emojis that I commissioned an illustrator to create. And then they can use those emojis like on Twitch and other channels. So that's the main reason like somebody would subscribe and that's how you earn money from Twitch. So yeah, I did like I do earn a bit of money from Twitch but it's not ever going to replace my business income. And yeah, it's a bunch of fun. Like I've made so many friends from it. I've built up a really great community.

It's so nice to have like my space where I can just like fully, I guess. I was going to say like fully be myself, but I do feel very much myself in my own business. I'm not showing a face or anything. But I guess just showing up and having fun and really, you know, setting boundaries in that space. Like Twitch can be a very toxic place with lots of streamers who say a lot of bad words and have very exclusive communities. And it's kind of my my vision on Twitch to have a place that is welcome to everybody and respectful of everybody. And that's kind of my like drive to stream. Just because there's not a lot of spaces on Twitch that have that vibe.

That's great. And I know that's very important to you in your business as well being inclusive and having safe spaces and all that. Exactly. And because I didn't say, Discord is essentially like Slack, but for gamers. So it's basically Slack. And it has the way that Slack has channels, you can have voice channels that you can go in at any time. So it's kind of like ongoing calls, I guess, that anyone can pop in and out of.

So it's great for being in there when you're playing a game because you can talk to people you're playing with rather than being on like a Zoom call or Skype or something like that. So it kind of replaces the need for another, what would be the word, like communication tool whilst you're playing games with people. So you help business owners reach their ideal audience through strategic word of mouth and clever collaborations. I would love to dig into referrals. So a few episodes ago, I talked with somebody about like location independence for beginners. And he was talking about one of the ways that he grew his business was through client referrals. But we didn't, or just referrals in general, but we didn't like dig into that topic. And so that's what I wanted to do. with you today. So just to start off, what is a client referral program? Essentially, it's word of mouth.

I like to say it's word of mouth with a finder's fee. So basically, you encourage your past clients or connections to recommend potential clients to you. And if they book, if they book your services or, you know, buy your offer through that recommendation, then you reward the original person with a commission or it could be, you know, an incentive of some kind. It doesn't necessarily have to be a cash payment. But there's some kind of reward that incentivizes them to actually refer people to you. So I know that you one year increased your income by 139% through referral. So could you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. So when I first started my business, I was like very like I'm quite introverted and especially when I first started my business I had a lot of social anxiety and I was fine showing up online you are behind the screen but I would always like someone would invite me to have like a Zoom call or a coffee chat and I would just I would say yes and then on the day I'll be like I'm ill I can't go because I'd be like so nervous but then I think it was like beginning of 2018 or 2017 I think I was like you know what I'm just going to do it I'm going to show up.

I'm going to book loads of coffee chats and try and get myself out there. So I spent pretty much like all of January like on calls of people and trying to, yeah, like expand my horizons, cast the net out. And from that I ended up with like a load of referrals. And I even had, I think it was the next year or the year after. No, it was 2018. I didn't have my services page like live on my website the whole year because I was sort of restructuring some things. And it was the year that I really got into affiliate marketing

and or affiliate programs and I was kind of repacketing some things. But I was booked out like the whole year because I just had clients referring new clients to me and then those clients referring clients and I just didn't need to spend any time marketing. And I still actually don't really spend much time marketing my business because my business is just like referral based. I get so so many sales and clients from referrals. Yeah, I think this is a dream for especially for introverts and new business owners who are like, oh my gosh, how do I, how does this even work? So can we talk a little bit more about like where to even begin? We often hear about starting with like friends and family. Would you recommend that? There's usually going to be at least one person who

know somebody who is going to benefit from what you offer. I think especially if you have a pool of like if we're talking complete beginners, like you haven't even started your business yet or you're just getting started, then yeah, like your friends and family, just even looking at your Facebook profile, your Facebook friends, just kind of getting the word out there, having, having some like DMs or something with people. But if you have at least one client who you've already worked with and you did a good job with and you know that they're happy, just sending them an email that's like, hey, you know, I would love it if you referred new clients my way and I can give you X amount per booking in return or X percentage commission or I'll give you a

Starbucks gift card or something, some kind of incentive. But usually, yeah, like your, the best referral partners are people who are right underneath your nose, past clients, current clients, people in your mastermind, people in memberships that you're in, people who you've maybe collaborated with in the past. Even just like scrolling down your Instagram DMs, there's probably people in there who know people who would benefit from what you have to offer. Yeah, and previous people we've worked with in regular jobs, like, you know, any kind of job, really. Yeah, exactly. It could be a good place to start. When we're moving beyond that sort of immediate friends, family,

former colleague or even former client circle, what are some factors we should consider when we're trying to find new referral partners? Who should we be looking out for? So I think the most important thing, like people who have the same audience as you or the same ideal, I guess, like, avatar or, you know, profile as you, because you could partner with people who can reach a lot of reach a lot of maybe like potential people, but they might not be like ready for what you have to offer or it might be a bit of a harder sell. So that's the main thing is making sure that your audiences are aligned. I also think making sure your values are aligned is really important. There have been times when maybe I have like gone to invite someone to be an affiliate or referral partner of

mine. And then I've seen like certain things that they have posted. And it's like, I don't like that for me personally, like in my brand, that is really important. So I'm deciding, you know, I'm not going to invite them. And that I think is some kind of, that your values is kind of like a guiding, your values and your audience being like a guiding, like a North Star when it comes to reaching out to potential referral partners. Yeah. I like what you said about values because I think that's not generally the first thing that we think about when it comes to this type of stuff. But it's important. Number one, because your value is already important to you, but also, like, they would be representing your brand, as you said, and you wouldn't want to be working with people who are not

aligned with how you view the world and how we should be interacting with the world. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then just going back to what you were saying about people with, like, a similar audience. So let's say I'm a copywriter. A good idea could be like partnering with like a web designer or something because we'll be having like similar clients, presumably, like people who are starting businesses and need a website and also a copywriter. So making alliances like them. I also think there's a value in reaching out to people, as scary as it may seem, like reaching out to direct competitors because there are a few instances where people will be turning down clients. Like maybe they're booked out or the client isn't a good fit for them or maybe they don't do

exactly what that client is looking for. Like, you know, for example, in copywriting, like maybe they do email copy, but they don't do sales page copy. And they might get reached out to for that. And another copywriter might be able to reach out and say, like, hey, I just wanted to see, you know, like if you had any clients that weren't a good fit, instead of just sending them off into, you know, like the internet abyss, you can send them to me and you'll get commission. So you're still kind of earning from that, the time that you spent talking to them and generating that. lead. So it's not just like it's not just shoulder industries. It's like people that are also offering what you have to offer, but you do it in a different way and you can kind of position that

benefit to them. I really like that idea. And it's similar to podcasting or what I've done with podcasting is yeah, that whole collaboration over competition thing and going on to shows who like they have quite similar shows. But it's been really fun to build up relationships that way. And I think this kind thing. I know we haven't really spoken much about affiliates, so I don't really want to confuse things, but I think that this kind of thing works well with client services less than it does with promoting products of some kind. Because I think there is more of like a competitive situation there sometimes. Whilst with client services, it's such a, it's such a, like, there's such a personal kind of side of it. So in terms of,

of, you know, collaborating with your quote-unquote, like, competition, it works well for client referral programs, but it's, yeah, I don't know if I would like recommend it for for affiliates. While we're on the subject, what's the difference between a referral partner and an affiliate partner? So, yeah, the main difference, I would say, like, for a simplicity sake is that a client referral program has, like, no tech and it's just manual tracking of referrals and word of mouth and an affiliate program has affiliate links and affiliate tracking platforms involved. So it sounds like referral partners are great to help promote services, like maybe one-on-one services that are more expensive. You're working with fewer clients, whereas affiliate partnerships

are more like when you're selling online courses or there's a way to like track that purchase back to that specific person. Yeah. And it's much more, it's much more, scalable because you could have like, it doesn't matter if you have like 10 affiliates or like a thousand affiliates in terms of the tech, like it's all going to work. It's all automated. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, I think when you're like on the earlier side of your business, the referral partners is a

much easier way to get started. It sounds like. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned that you're an introvert and, you know, originally you were just too scared to do the coffee chats. I would love to talk a little bit more about personality and growing your business and like what ways do you suggest reaching out based on personality? That's a really good question. So yeah, I think that there are a few ways that you can kind of reach out and make that connection.

There is much more of like a passive way of doing it, which is kind of what I originally used to suggest, but I don't really do this myself anymore because of how my personality has changed. But there is that kind of way of just kind of following somebody, subscribing to their newsletter, liking some of their posts, commenting on a few things, just kind of being there. And it's like, yeah, I exist here in your space. And then maybe at some point, emailing them or DMing them or something and trying to keep that conversation in text format if you don't really want to get on a call or you don't want to have that, you know, I guess if you're nervous about. it like I used to be and really avoid any kind of calls or anything. You can still connect with people

just through emails or through texts. If you are a bit more, you know, wanting to, I guess, make that connection and make more of an impact straight away, something I suggest is, and I've been doing this myself recently, is when I find people on Instagram, I just go straight into their DMs with a voice message. It's like, you know, hey, I'm here. I exist. This is, I think what you do is amazing. And I think our audiences align really well. Like, let's get on a call, see where we can collaborate or, you know, kind of just like gauge interest from them and then get on a call.

And it's when you get on a call with them, it's so, it opens up so many ideas that you might not have thought of otherwise because they have their own strengths and they have their own personality types, right? And so it's kind of like about, it's about leaning into like, it's like meeting them where they are at with your, in your own way. And obviously, like, you know what works for you and you know what you're good at. So if you know you're particularly good with, you know, lives versus writing emails, you might be able to collaborate with them in some way of, like, being live in their group

or doing something in their membership or going on their Instagram stories or something versus being able to be like, oh, okay, I can write, you know, like custom promotional emails for you around my service. And I can provide those to you, like, free of charge and you'll still get, commission on anyone that books. Like these kinds of showing up like where, in a way that works for you, but on a platform that is their strength. I love this idea because it just,

it takes the pressure off in a certain way where you're building a relationship rather than stressing out about, yeah, I don't know, it just, it seems to me that it's a more friendly and organic way to grow your business by building real relationships.

Yeah, and it's like, it doesn't necessarily matter like, the platform or the format of something, like as long as you are spreading your message, I like to see it as like, it's like a win, win, win, because it's a win for you because you get to show up in front of people that you wouldn't have shown up in front of before. It's a win for the referral partner because they're going to help serve their audience with an area that they aren't the expert in or they aren't the go-to person in and they're going on some money or some kind of reward. And it's a win for the people who literally like probably

wouldn't have heard of you if it weren't for this person. And you get to serve them and help them with what you want to help them with. I love that. So win, win, win. And a way to grow your audience. So I know that you've worked on things like JV webinars, Zoe. Can you explain what that is? JV webinars are essentially you have a go-to talk, some kind of workshop or something that you can deliver for free. But instead of promoting it and delivering it to your own audience, you basically like host it in front of somebody else's audience. And that would be the JV partner. And the JV partner would do kind of all the promotion around that webinar, but you would show up and, well, they would host it, but you would show up and do your training, do your workshop.

And then at the end, you would pitch something. And then whoever buys during that webinar or in the following days that the offer is available, you and the JV partners split the sales. And typically for JV webinars, it's a 50-50 split. And then at the end of the offer period, you sort of say like, hey, here's the amount that was made. I'll pay you, you know, after the refund period has finished or, you know, ongoing if there was a payment plan of the product or the service and then you go about your merry ways. But it is actually a common misconception that people think JV webinars only work for products, but they do work for services. Like I've been on a few JV webinars actually where someone pitches a service at the end. It doesn't have to just be like a course or a high ticket group program or something.

Like it can work for a service, especially a productized service where they can basically like check out straight away instead of completing an application or something, even though an application is is also like having some kind of call to action at the end of the webinar. But it's not just great for sales. I mean, like you said, it's great for audience building. Like it's really great for list growth because typically you would, they would, the JV partner, like promote the webinar but the registrant would sign up via your landing page and go onto your list. So it's great for list building and it's great for just like building rapport with new audiences. Like the, I mean, I'm no expert in video, but I know the power of video and I know like showing up in that way in front of people that haven't heard of you before, haven't seen you.

Like it just it just saves a lot of time. It's kind of like a shortcut to the to like the no like can trust because they really get to know you and your personality can shine through. And I know there will probably be people listening that's like, oh, but I don't want to be on camera. You don't have to be on camera. I've done JV webinars where I am not on camera or the person who, you know, I'm hosting it and the other person is not on camera. You don't have to be on camera. But I think just showing up live in some way and providing value in your training, like actually helping move the potential customers along the journey in some way and giving them either like a mindset shift they can walk away with or food for thought or an actionable step of some kind, whether they buy your thing or not,

that's going to make an impact. And if they're not using video, I imagine they're using slides or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually with a JV webinar, you have some kind of presentation or something, you know, like to keep the information on the screen and keep people engaged. I mean, especially in terms of like accessibility like I think having having slides on there with most of like what you're saying on the on the screen is recommended there's all sorts of things that you could do with a referral partner they could be interviewing you in like their Facebook live or on Instagram or there's like so many different things that you can do I think I've heard you mentioned freebie swaps before yeah yeah yeah so if you have a freebie and like a lead magnet or opting freebie

or whatever the buzzword is nowadays. And your referral partner also has a freebie. And you know that they, I mean, they should work well for both of your audiences because technically, you know, like you should both have audiences that are similar if your referral partners. Otherwise, who are you referring each other to if it's not a good fit? But essentially you say like, hey, I have this freebie. I think would be great for your people.

I saw that you have this freebie or let me know if you have another one that you think would be good for my people. how about in a couple of weeks we just send out an email each on the same day. I send people to your freebie and you send people to mine and it's just like a one email thing. And I've done that a couple of times myself and it works really well. It's just like kind of a nice bump of like people that again wouldn't have heard of you otherwise. It's not a huge amount of effort aside from maybe repurposing some promotional copy you already have written for your freebie and sending that to them. But when I did it before, actually, the partners I worked with just wrote their own copy to promote their thing.

And I wrote my own emails to promote their thing in my tone of voice. And yeah, it worked really nicely. So I'm sure people are wondering, like, how much should you pay referral partners? That's a really hard one to answer because I think it is really dependent on a few things. Firstly, what you're comfortable with because I think everyone has different money mindset. Though I would say one thing about mindset, and that's to remember that most of the time, you wouldn't have made that sale otherwise, if not for the referral partner. And you have to kind of see it as like not giving money away. And this is a really big like roadblock that I see people hit of like wanting affiliates

or wanting referral partners, but they don't want to give money away. And I always say it's not that you are giving money away because you wouldn't have made that money if not for that person. So it's like it's not like you're giving, you know, it's like, not like with a 10% commission, you know, on a $1,000 offer. It's not like you're giving $100 away. It's like you're getting $900 essentially for free because you didn't really spend any time marketing or selling. And then the $100 is due for the person who referred them. So I think, yeah, it is a bit based around, you know, what you're comfortable with. Also your overheads, like things that you have to pay for monthly to sell your,

service, if there are certain things in place, kind of considering, you know, what actually goes into your service and what can you, what is left over after you kind of take that out. And also considering the, the kind of like lifetime value of a client, like if you have an introductory offer that typically like cascades into something else, then it's not just that original kind of offer. I actually was a client of somebody who had a referral partnership where they would give, the, it was like a three months minimum retainer for their services. And if you referred someone their way, they would give you the entire first month's payment as a referral fee because they knew that these clients would stay on for much longer than three months. So it was like a,

you know, you get the first month and then I'll take it from here kind of thing. Because I know that I'm going to make that money back from like future months. So considering that is something that I know isn't a first thought because you're trying to think of like profitability of that one client and that one sale. But you, I mean, we all know, you know, your customers, especially if you do a good job, like your customers and your clients are going to come back to you. So yeah, if you have other offers, kind of just bearing them in mind when you do come up with a fee. So if I had to, and I know that there's a ton of different like factors that go into all this like you just mentioned, but if we had to just do like a quick and dirty like rule of thumb,

could you say like 10% for services that are generally more expensive and then if you were doing like online products like 30 or 40% or something like that? Yeah so very very yeah like very standard and again like this is not one size fits all advice but 10% for services is a really nice kind of starting point see how good that feels obviously the more you offer and the more incentivized people are then the better and then for digital products or courses or anything like that I think I think I usually suggest between 20 and 40%. So again, just kind of playing around with the numbers, like seeing what that actually means to you. You know, if you have a recurring membership or something that might feel a little bit different,

like maybe you want to go on the lower side of that. Or maybe you just want to give like a one off fee or something. It's just like it's how long is a piece of string kind of thing. But I think like you said, yeah, 10% for services, 20% to 40% for for product, digital products in some way. So you have something called the client referral toolkit. Can you tell us what that is? Yeah, so the client referral toolkit is essentially like it's everything you need to get started

with your client referral program. It's very like action oriented. So everything, every like template you could need systems, SOPs, this kind of thing to actually like just get started and get the ball rolling with it. I've had people who have, like, started their client referral program in, like, an hour or less from, like, using all the templates and actually, like, just get started reaching out to people. Like, no more excuses. Actually, you just get out there because you have everything done. I love that you just kept it simple and, like, really easy to move forward.

So, as you said, you can, like, start in two hours. There's not, like, this 20-hour course that you have to do. Oh, yeah, no. I'm, like, nothing against courses with, like, modules and, like, modules and, like, lessons and all of that. And I try to avoid using the word course with my with my toolkits because I have like the client referral toolkit and I have some other toolkits. And it is very much like I want people to spend less time sitting around learning and more time actually like taking action because I think there's so much you can learn from taking action. So what has Sweden been like?

Because we're still as of this recording in lockdown in both the UK and Sweden. I mean from what I've experience so far, which, as I said to you before this, is not very much. I basically, like, came to Helsimbori and got in my flat and have been, you know, maybe like a mile or two out, like a radius outside of it, but that's pretty much it. And, yeah, like, Sweden isn't really in a lockdown, per se, but it's definitely quiet, but then I know that the population of Sweden isn't very high anyway, So I also could think, you know, like especially coming from London, which was extremely busy all the time, coming to a city where the population is just lower. And but it still feels like a big city. But it has such like a local vibe to it.

And it just feels really nice. Like I always see people on the high street that live in like the same building as me. Or I see like the same lady who works at the bakery like down my street and then I see her in the high street and then I see her at the park. And it's like you actually like get familiar with faces, which you wouldn't get, I don't think, in somewhere. I never had in somewhere like London, even kind of like going about my same roots every day. But yeah, in terms of the experience, it's just been, it's just so lovely here. Like, everything is so clean. What time are you in specifically again?

Helsin-Borty. Okay. Yeah. Now, before you told me that I had never heard of that town, but then I looked it up and it looks so charming and beautiful. So I know that you don't know much about it yet, but if we did want to go there, like, what is the route people usually take? Do they take a ferry from Copenhagen? Or? Yeah, so you can go from, no, there's a town or a city opposite in Denmark. It's called like Helsing something. It's like a very similar name. But that ferry, like basically my flat is like not 50 meters like to the sea. So I can just leave and I can see the ferry going to and from, you know, like, Helsimbori to wherever it goes in Denmark.

And I can see Denmark, you know, on a clear day when it's foggy, not so much. But oh my God, it's so nice, like being by the sea as well and they have a really beautiful port. So sometimes, yeah, I have a dog. So sometimes I'll like walk my dog up there and she loves it. And there's like a really long, I can't remember where it's called. It's like the Grosignigen. Grunig. Oh, my Swedish is so bad.

But there's like a really nice long, I guess, like, park or kind of like promenade. We might call it in English or in England, but by the sea. And it's not the type of sea where maybe you would like sunbathe or whatever because there's no sand or anything. But it's just like, it's just really nice and really peaceful. And there's this really nice. It's called the Sharnan, Sharnan, or Shannon, this old castle. There's not really much left of it. But there's this old castle and this like big surrounding gardens on top of this big hill.

And oh my God, those steps are like the bane of my life. to get up there and I'm like let's go to the castle my boyfriend's like you sure and as soon as we get to the top I'm just like sweating buckets like this was a bad idea but you can like look down on the whole city and it's such a nice view it is just so charming it's just and it has like it's that big city but it feels just like it feels like a town and the architect architecture is so not I mean I'm no expert but like it is so nice and yeah I just I'm really glad because I'd never been here before I just like basically picked a random place that was easy to drive to because I knew I was going to move with my dog. And my dad offered to drive me from England to Sweden.

And I was like, well, if you're going to drive me, I'm going to pick somewhere like really far south in Sweden because I don't want you to have to drive like an extra day to go further north. And my boyfriend wasn't particularly like sat on him staying in his hometown. So I was like, well, this place looks cool. And I'm just feeling very lucky that it actually is very nice. I love your spirits, Zoe, because it didn't occur to me that you would have picked this place. I had just assumed that you moved in where your boyfriend was already living. But this is like a new start for the both of you, I guess. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I could have moved in with my boyfriend, but I would have ended up like in his mom's basement. So I'm like, you know what? No, let's get a place by ourselves because he's a little bit younger than me so his you know I'm thinking like you know when

I was his age I didn't have my own flat that I was paying for and all that but yeah but yeah no it's it has been definitely like more of a challenge for me to actually like move countries but um it's been nice that it's like new for both of us like yeah it's not like I'm trying to settle into like his already established you know routines or connections like in his town very cool Well, I'm excited for your adventure and for COVID to end, so you can, like, fully explore your new area. Well, this has been great, Zoe. Where can we learn more about you and your programs? So you can find me at zoelinda.com.uk.

And also, I'm on Instagram, like, all the time, at Zoe Linda with an underscore at the end. All right. Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. As you heard in this episode, word of mouth and relationship building, our great ways to build a business that gives you more freedom in your life. And if you have been putting off finding referral partners because it seems too complicated, I actually have Zoe's

client referral toolkit and can confirm that you can put together a plan in an hour or two. And I became a referral partner of Zoe. So interviewing people on podcasts is a good way to build rapport and see if people are a good fit as we talked about in this episode. If you want to jumpstart creating your referral circle, then join me at Zoe's a magical meetup where you will meet other online business owners who can turn into referral or affiliate partners. So visit sarah micotel.com slash Zoe to find out more. And that's April 7th. And if you miss it, then I will link to another handy resource of Zoe's. That is all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the

I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.