This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Creating A Connected Community to Grow Your Business with Kami Guildner | 221

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Women supporting women is a hashtag we see all over the place, but are we really doing it well? In business, I know many women who hesitate to leverage their own communities to grow their businesses. So this episode is for the business owner that’s wondering how to do this. It’s also for the friends, and the loved ones, to learn to be and become women who support women. It’s not just a hashtag friends, it’s a way of being. It’s an ACTION. To help us be smart about leveraging and creating a connected community to grow your business, is Kami Guildner, founder of the Extraordinary Women Ignite Conference, host of the award-winning Extraordinary Women Radio™, and best-selling author of Firedancer: Your Spiral Journey to a Life of Passion and Purpose.  It’s my belief there’s a special place in heaven for what my sister calls “Front Row Friends” – the ones who show up ready to cheer you on, are the first to stand for the ovation, and are screaming support for you and whatever you do at the top of their lungs. Yeah. Get yourself one of those. Connect with Kami: Website: https://www.kamiguildner.com/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/kamiguildner/  LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamiguildner/  FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1386664118079263/  Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/extraordinary-women-radio/id1216249277  Free Trainings: https://www.kamiguildner.com/events/  Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: Email [e-mail] to learn more about advertising on the This Is Woman’s Work podcast. Want hundreds of thousands of people to learn about your offering? Let us help you take your business to the next level!

I'm Nicole Kalil, and I want to talk about a bit of a phenomenon that I observe a lot in the coaching work that I do with women entrepreneurs and business owners. This phenomenon typically happens in the early years of a woman's business. Right when she's getting started, when she just took a big leap of faith to start a new business or dug real deep to find the courage to take this risk, is doing all the mental mindset gymnastics to stay positive and committed to her new business, working her freaking ass off, is learning everything the hard way, doesn't yet have a team to delegate to, so she's doing all the work that would take a five-person team, but she's doing it by herself, goes to bed worrying about her business, wakes up with a to-do list longer than Santa's naughty list while managing all the stress, all the fear, and the doubts, and the worry, and the very real

concern if she'll be able to pay her bills with this product or service she's just invested all of herself and likely a good amount of money and time into. If you've ever started your own business, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You can probably see it, feel it, maybe even taste it. Even now, the feeling of being a new business owner is palpable to me. If you've never started your own business, you're just going to have to trust me. The pressure, the stress, the fear, and the head trash is real. You're so excited slash scared out of your mind and you want to do what any good business owner would do and start telling people about your business. Sure, that can mean marketing and a good website or social media, but mostly that means

telling the people you already know, your friends and your family. And here comes the phenomenon. You reach out to a close friend, a family member, a close former colleague, all excited slash scared to see if they would be willing to support you in some way, in any way, and they say no. Except most of them don't actually have the courage to say no. So they start avoiding you, ghosting you, talking about you behind your back, making weird, hinty comments that you would need AI to even begin to decipher. The phenomenon we're going to talk about today on This Is Woman's Work is when friends and family somehow forget that being a friend and family means you support the people that you love. That doesn't mean you have to buy their products or become a client, but it does mean that

in order to actually be a friend or supportive family member, you must figure out how you're willing to support them. Because if you don't, you're not a friend. And you may still be family, but you're acting like an asshole. So today, we're going to talk about how we can, how we must leverage our own communities for business. So this is for the business owner that's wondering how to do this and maybe experiencing this phenomenon for themselves. But it's also for the friends and the loved ones so that we can learn to be and become women who support women. It's not just a hashtag, friends. It's a way of being.

It's an action. So here to help us be smart about leveraging and creating a connected community to grow your business is Cammie Gildner, founder of the Extraordinary Women Ignite Conference, host of the award-winning Extraordinary Women Radio, and best-selling author of Fire Dancer, Your Spiral Journey to Live a Life of Passion and Purpose. Cammie shares my belief that women's voices matter. She's a connector, a storyteller, a business coach for high vibe women entrepreneurs, helping them raise up their voice, vision, and visibility for impact and business growth. Thank you for being here, Cammie. Clearly, I have some energy on this topic. So let me ask up front, is this a phenomenon you've noticed too? Do you see this happening in your world or with the women you work with as well?

Well, Nicole, well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I'm really pleased to be here on your show. And I have seen, I mean, it's such a journey and you're right. It's such a courageous step to take that move into starting your own business. And I go right back to those moments in those nights of, oh my gosh, what have I done? And where am I going? And where is this, where is this taking me? And, you know, I had the big dreams, but I certainly didn't have the big community around me. And in fact, I can go back to some of the community that I had was all my community that I

had was within my former corporate job. It's like, you know, I was, it was in my community that I had was within my former corporate job. It's like, you know, I was within my company that I'd spent the last seven years at. And that's where my circle of influence was, was in that space. And I think when I left the corporate world, I had like, I think eight LinkedIn connections, you know, I just, I didn't have community around me. And so, you know, yes, I had friends and family around me. And a lot of them were like, well, that's an interesting pathway. You're going to, you're going to do what? You've always had, you know, the corporate job that, you know, you've worked your whole

life to be this. And so I had a lot of raised eyebrows of you're going to do what, you know? And when I first started, I was, um, I, what, what drew me into the world of being an entrepreneur of all things was equine guided coaching. So I saw people working with horses and, um, they were doing leadership and personal development. I thought that's just the real, really the coolest thing ever. Um, so I was all bright eyed and shiny and thinking that's going to be so much fun to do that kind of work and bring forces. I was a former, I always had been a horse person and I remember my mother raising her

eyebrows and going, and my mother's always been my biggest supporter. You know, she's, you know, she believes in me to, to, to no ends, but I remember her at that moment going, I hope it works. I was like, it's going to work, mom. It's going to work. So, you know, it's just, I think when we make big shifts like that, people don't always see the big vision that we see. So I was going to ask, do you think that that's part of it? Maybe that's the missing part we're doing as business owners or as new entrepreneurs.

Are we missing the part where we share the vision or the why or even some of the fears or concerns? Is there a chance that part of it might be that we're not showing up real, right? Like we're showing up as this weird, polished entrepreneur version of ourselves that our friends or family have never seen before. And we're trying to do it all right and say the right things. And what they really want to know or hear is like, why? And what are we afraid of? And what are we doing this for? Like, why are we willing to take

this big risk? I wonder if there's thoughts on that. Is that maybe a missing piece? It certainly could be a missing piece. And I think when I, you know, this is 15 years ago that I left the corporate world. So it's been a long time since I was in that space. But the big ideas, the big dreams that we come up, that give us the courage to step out and say, yes, I'm going to go do this. Those sharing those dreams and ideas. And I think, you know, when we look at our friends and family, they're, they're literally, they're, they're, you know, they're wanting to, their concern is for us, right. At the end of the day, they're, they're wanting to make sure that, okay, this seems like a big risk that you're making. And, you know, I can tell

you, my husband was actually the one that encouraged me to make the leap. And I was like, I was like, you know, I'm, I'm an executive, I'm not an entrepreneur. And he's like, he says, well, and I had been interviewing for jobs and it was 2008 and there wasn't a lot of BPO marketing jobs around. And, and I was going to interviews going, oh my God, I don't want to go. Right. I mean, I don't want this job. I hope I don't get this job. And my husband finally said to me, he's like, well, what if, what if he says, you know, if, why don't you want to start your own business? I said, well, it's so risky. And he says, well, how much more risky is it than not being able to find a job than just

going and doing your own thing? So he was incredibly supportive. And I think what happens through this process is we start to find people that get excited about our vision that we keep leaning into. We find the people that we can say, you know, I had a girlfriend that I walked with every week early on in my business. Every Monday we would go on a hike together and we were both starting our businesses together and we fed off each other's excitement. And we had ideas with one another. And that's where, you know, you start to choose where you're spending your time. You start to choose that this gives me more energy to, you know, where I'm going versus this kind of pulls me down. And we have to

pay attention to the people around us that are going to pull our energy down because we really need that uplift. I couldn't agree more. And I want to dive a little bit into that how of all of that. But before I do, I think it's important what you said about risk and it is risky to not find a job or to have the choice of whether or not you have a job in someone else's hands, meaning somebody else could fire you or let you go. I also think that there is a risk in either finding or staying with a job that you hate or that you're working with people you hate, like the energy suck that that is and the things that it does to your mindset and your mental health, I think is a really huge risk. I couldn't have seen that. I

mean, when I was in it, I mean, I got laid off in 2008. So I always say that was first getting laid off as the first best gift I ever had. The fact that it was 2008 and the downturn of the economy was the second gift. So I would not have left because it was a good thing. It paid me a lot of money and I was traveling around the world and I worked my whole life to be doing what I was doing. And the whole perception of jumping and starting my own business at the time, it just was like, wasn't even on my radar. So the risk of, I would have stayed in there in that position where I had really started to feel the energy of me being sucked dry, um, where I had

been able to feel, I mean, I was, I was sick all the time. I had a girl, one of my, I had an employee who had worked for me at three different companies. And at one point she said to me, I don't even know who you are anymore. And so there was this, you know, I, I was in this really messy, you know, wash cycle, right? It was just, it was, I was in a really messy space, but I couldn't see beyond, I couldn't see beyond where I was. So was there a risk in staying in that space? Huge amount of risk of what that would have been for me in my life and what that would have meant. And I think, oh, I say, luckily, I feel like the universe kind of shifted me in different directions and helped me see a different perspective. I can, I can like the universe kind of shifted me in different directions and helped me

see a different perspective. I can, I can relate to that. Okay. I want to talk about building that community. What role does community play in business based on your experience and perspective? Everything, everything, everything. It's, I think, you know, I am in community. I think you know I am in community you know when I when I first started out I was looking for for community members in my space and I wasn't finding always the people but I was out meeting a lot of a lot of individuals and I thought that you know it's like I was always connecting one great woman to another great woman. So that was kind of where it started. And when I started doing that, that, that introduction, one great woman to another great woman, my community started to build, right. And some of those women became my clients. Some of those women referred clients to me. Um, so that was the foundation of where my business started. I had a group called Extraordinary

Women Connect. And I founded that it was like, you know, and it was just always about uplifting one another. And so that's been a very intricate part of my business and is still today. That Extraordinary Women theme, you know, carries forward into my podcast. It carries forward into my Ignite conference that I run. And people will tell you all day long, it's like they meet people in my community that they've become lifetime friends with. They meet community, you know, they become business partners together. They, you know, and I think that's something that we as women have this really innate gift to be able to connect and come together in circle.

We've been doing it for eons that we've been coming together in circle. And I think that's some of our best gifts that we have as women to be able to uplift one another. And I run mastermind communities today, you know, now, and it's, it's about the circle. It's about the community. It's about, you know, yes, it's about the teachings and all the other pieces, but all day long, the magic happens with the community. I couldn't agree more. One of the most surprising things about being an entrepreneur or independent, cause I'm very autonomous by nature, I thought I would love not having to have death by meeting and not having to get everybody's

opinion and basically collaborate on every single decision and sacrifice my beliefs for whatever. I thought I was going to be able to do it my way and not have to worry about anything or anyone else. What I did not anticipate is how lonely entrepreneurship and being a business owner can be and how much I missed and craved being able to walk down the hall and pop in somebody's door and be like, hey, do you have a minute? Or to be able to brainstorm an idea or to get different perspectives. And for that reason alone, and there are many, many, many others, but for that reason in and of itself is why I'm so pro mastermind or study group or community, especially of women and entrepreneurs.

I think it makes all the difference. A quick announcement for all the incredible women entrepreneurs and business owners who are listening in. If you are looking to expand your reach and showcase your products, your online courses, books, or services to an engaged and growing audience, well then look no further. This Is Woman's work is all about celebrating women, and we're now providing a platform where your business can shine. With thousands of engaged listeners who are eager to support female-led businesses, advertising with us is the perfect opportunity to grow your brand and connect with new clients and customers.

We offer a variety of customizable ad spots that are crafted to highlight the very best of what you offer. Whether you're launching a new product, promoting a bestseller, or looking to fill your latest course, we're here to help you succeed. Email us at podcast at nicolecalil.com

to learn more and let us help you take your business to the next level. Again, email podcast at NicoleKhalil.com to learn more about our advertising options and to schedule your spot today. I can't wait to partner with and promote you and watch your business grow. I hope you're as excited as I am. And now let's head back to the show. What's one piece of advice you'd give to start inviting more connection and more collaboration into our business and into our life?

Open yourself to the connections. And I think that's, it's like, be interested in who somebody is. I mean, it's kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier. It's like, be interested in who somebody is. I mean, it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier. It's like, are they interested? Are they cheering you on? Find people that you resonate with. And we're not going to resonate with everyone. But find people that you resonate with. And you're like, okay, you know, we have some of the same shared values.

We have some of the same shared values. We have some of the same shared visions or where we, what that we want to create and just start to be in community with them. You know, whether that, whatever that looks like it's, if it's, you know, coming together in community once, you know, coming together in a conversation, you know, once a month. But you start to, to know one another and another and be really generous with your connections to others. You know, like if you meet somebody, it's like, oh, you shouldn't really know this person because I think this person could be a really interesting connection for you to have. And so open your, you know, where you put on that hat of you're giving to that person from the perspective of being there for them, but also on, you know, who, who can you

connect them to that makes their circle richer? Every time we're always looking for how do we, how do we, how do we continue to grow our circle of influence? I agree from personal experience, the better connector you are of other people, the more it comes back to you and the better, the quality of the connections that come back your way. That was a surprising discovery. I didn't really think it would work out or play out the way that it has, but every time I make the effort to connect to people that I believe need to know each other, it comes back my way in spades. I'm curious. I'm guessing there are some people who are listening that might be wondering, what if I connect with people on a personal level? How do I maybe

transition or translate that into a business connection? So example, when I started early on many, many years ago, I got the advice to like join a church or, you know, and I'm like, I'm not going to go to church to meet potential clients. If I'm going to go to church, it's because I want to go to church. I'm going to meet people that I'm excited to meet. And then potentially they might be clients if it goes in that direction. So all of that to say, how do we sort of mix business with pleasure or how do we make a connection in one way and then try to translate it into another? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I, one of the ways that I did a lot of that was on the nonprofit boards that I sat on. I would get involved and engaged in nonprofits that were meaningful to me. And that always put me into communities of new people that I didn't I did that, my, my, you know, like I said, when I came out

of the corporate world, I had such a small silo of community that that those nonprofit boards really opened up my community into new spaces. So that was a really good way to do that and to give back in a way that was meaningful to me. You know, so it was, that was a great way to combine that. It's a great tip. What about, are there any ways that you've seen people try to build community or connection or collaboration that really don't work or they don't work more often than they do any than they do any that we should be avoiding? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think we probably all have been to networking events where people are like just stabbing their cards into your face. And they're like, you know, just different groups that were not my, were not my, my tribe of people.

Right. And I could tell like the moment I walked in there that it was the, the, the intimacy was not going to be built there. And I, and for me, I want to build real meaningful connections with people. I want to have meaningful conversations. And so when I would find community that made space for meaningful conversations and community, I'd lean into that kind of a community. And then I'd go to another one that didn't feel that way. And I just say, that's not my, that's not my community there. So you start making choices and you start paying attention to what feels right in your body from the perspective of this feels, this group of people feels like they are aligned with me and this does not feel that way. So it's,

it's a lot of testing and trialing different communities of people, um, to say, you know, this is my people and this is not my people. And, and I think it's, it's really a matter of, of, you know, some of the ones that I can think of were like venture capitalist groups that were like, they were transactional versus relationship. I guess my next question is around monetizing your community and collaboration. Any tips there? Yeah. So I, I teach a lot of marketing in my work. I mean, that's, you know, it's a, it's a pillar of success for, for my clients, right. They need to be able to market their businesses and bring people into them. And often when you see people teaching like marketing funnels,

you know, it's the top of the marketing funnel. It's like, you know, all, you know, how are you bringing people in and you bring people down to the bottom, you know, to bring them into your business. So that's a very traditional approach to, to looking at marketing. And I actually teach that I turn it on its head from the perspective of, yes, I mean, you can build, you can build all the ways that people can come into your business. But if you're look, if you start at the base of people that you already know, so I would say with a, with a marketing funnel, you're actually start with the people that you already know and you build, you know, you work off of those relationships

and you serve and you, you bring value, you understand who they are, you get into customer journey work. So you know who those, those clients are. But if you're starting at the bottom of your, of your marketing funnel, people that already know, love, and trust you. And I do say no love and trust versus no like, and trust they've experienced you. They've, they've met you and that's a really good place. And it can be referrals from people that you know. So something as simple as that to really delivering a webinar, for example, to a group of people that you've gathered and you really understand where they're at. So that's how you start to really monetize that.

And I think, and I can go back to the, the connections and the referrals definitely monetizes it as well. But the thing that I think is, you know, unique and what I teach is this, like, let's just turn marketing funnels on their head and let's just start with the community that I already know loves and trust you. Yeah. I think that that's so powerful because who can be better or greater advocates for you than those who've experienced your work or know you, you know, at a deeper level? I think they also can say things about you that you often can't say about yourself or don't feel so comfortable saying about yourself. Like they can be great cheerleaders. Any thoughts on who we collaborate with? The reason I ask is I thought as I started this business, I thought looking for people who were opposite of me would be the best. So like I could fill in a gap that they couldn't fill. So for example, I talk about confidence a lot. I was looking for people who didn't talk about confidence at all.

What has been interesting is some of my best collaborators have been people who also work in the confidence space, whether it's men and they're coming from a different angle, or women who talk about confidence in a different way, or even people who talk about confidence at a different level of expertise or collaborated with people who are more closely aligned in business. Yeah. But is there any different perspective or different way to look at that or any, any tips? I actually love that. And what I love about it is I think that, you know, each one of us is unique and, you know, there's nobody just like know, there's nobody just like you and there's nobody just like me. And when we can find something that we can jam on,

that really, that we both have this shared passion around, we're going to bring different perspectives, different life experiences, and it becomes this wealth of knowledge. And I, for example, I'm doing a round table next week with, um, with three other women and our businesses are aligned in some ways, you know, we can find ways that our businesses are aligned and we don't look at each other as competition at all. We look at each other as, you know, we bring great value together and we share our ideas together. And we share our, we share our communities together. So on this roundtable, I'm, you know, at inviting my people, and they're each inviting their people, and we're bringing all of our people together. And we're talking about something that we're

passionate about. And there's power in that there's so, so much power in that. And so I love it when we can find, you know, we can find ways to collaborate. When I do my Ignite conference every November, I bring in outside speakers and, you know, I share my stage with them and they bring great value to my audiences. And so it becomes very win-win, you know, I think podcasts are another great example of that, right? It's, it's, we, you know, I want to have you on my show. You're going to have me on your show and we bring, we bring great value to each other's audiences. And I think that that's really beautiful.

Agreed. Okay. My last question. I have this belief that people who genuinely do care and are interested and want to support might not know how or want to support in exactly the way you want them to, but they still want to. So like there's a way they can support that plays to their strengths or that makes them feel a little bit more comfortable. And it's sort of like our job to figure out how to get them to do those things versus just the one action we want everybody to take. So how do we find out how people want to help us or how people want to connect with us?

I think that's a fascinating question. And I think that when I think about that, it's like, I mean, it's literally asking, it's asking if somebody is saying, how can I help you? Well, let's explore that. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about, you know, what you're trying to accomplish. And I'll talk about what I'm trying to accomplish. And I think what happens in that is just the seeds of ideas get planted. So creating space to explore. And so if somebody's saying, I want to really help you out, tell me more how you could see yourself helping out. And I'll tell you ways that I might see you helping out. And it just becomes a real conversation.

I love that. And I would agree. So when I do that with people, we're very upfront about what we're doing. I'd love to learn about you and your work and your business. I'd love to share about me and my work and my business. And then we're going to come together and see if there might be any way that we can support each other, collaborate, introduce. So it's very upfront what the purpose of the connection is. And it doesn't feel all weird. Sometimes when you connect with somebody and it's not clear what you're both doing there, I think it can get a little, when you think you're on a date, but the other person's like, oh, we're here to network. This is awkward. Okay.

No, I think that's a really brilliant thing because it's just, you're just setting the tone. It's just like a sales conversation, right? If you're going into a sales conversation and you're saying, this is why we're here. I think that makes a lot of sense to do that. Amazing. If you are listening and you want to learn more about Cammie and her work, her website is CammieGildner.com and definitely make sure you check out her podcast, Extraordinary Women Radio. We're going to put that as well as her social media links and literally every way you can find and follow Cammie in show notes. Cammie, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about connection and building our communities.

Oh, Nicole, it was great to meet you and a great conversation. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Okay, let me wrap us up by saying that I try really hard to practice empathy and curiosity. And I know that there are multiple different perspectives for just about everything. It's just a really big pet peeve of mine when people claim to love someone

but are unwilling to support them, especially during a time when they're risking big and they need it most. That's not to say that people should or will support you only in the ways you want them to. So it's part of our jobs to figure out how they're willing or comfortable to provide that support. But unless someone is doing something illegal or that goes wildly against your values, you get to support your friends and family and old co-workers and community. I'm pretty sure it's actually part of the job description. If you don't, you're just being really shitty at your job. And if you're listening to this and you're thinking of someone you didn't support that you should have, give them a call, acknowledge that you were being an asshole,

apologize for it, and offer a few ways that you'd like to support now. It's my belief there's a special place in heaven for what my sister calls front row friends. You know, the ones who show up to the performances ready to cheer you on, are the first to stand for the ovation and are screaming their support at the top of their lungs. Yeah, get yourself one of those because I'm not 100% sure about much, but I am sure about this.

Being a front row friend is one way that you can make sure that you're doing woman's work.