Fix Your Messaging to Attract Your Buyer
Meet Ashlee Klevens-Hayes, the owner of Rx Ashlee, an executive-level career coach for women in health care. Ashlee stopped by to pick my brain for solutions on how to get unstuck in her business.
It’s not easy to sit in the She Talks Business Hot Seat and spill what’s not working! But it is a fantastic way to build courage, grow as an entrepreneur and get a coach’s view of what’s holding you back. In Ashlee’s business, it’s a case of mixed marketing messaging!
What do you do when the clients you attract are NOT your ideal buyer? How do you up-level your marketing to reach this new person? Ashlee has done a great job creating content and marketing her services, but there’s one lethal mistake she’s making in her messaging. Tune in to find out what it is and see if you’re making the same mistake. You’ll also hear the steps I recommended Ashlee take to attract MORE ideal buyers.
Are you coming across to your potential clients as an influencer or an expert? What’s the difference? There is a huge difference and only one of them will win you your ideal client. It depends on what type of business you own. Listen in to hear which one you want to be in your business.
Are you coming across to potential clients as an influencer or an expert? There is a huge difference and only one of them will win you your ideal client. #SheTalksBusiness Click To TweetWhat’s in This Episode
- How to identify if you are an expert or an influencer
- The lethal messaging mistake you may be making
- Tips for using your LinkedIn recommendations in your marketing
- The must-have copy for your homepage
- The book I recommend to clean up your marketing messaging
- Tips on how to audit your own Instagram feed
What To Do Next
- Sign up to be notified when I run the next Roadmap Workshop.
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- Join Thought Readers and connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs in this popular book club for business owners.
Up Next
You’ve got big dreams for your business! How do you achieve the goals you’ve set? The answer is… with your marketing strategy.
Tune in to episode 10, The Second Sale Strategy, where I ask you to forget about traditional “Getting the sale” thinking and instead, focus on how you can lay the foundation for a long-term relationship with your buyer.
Books Mentioned in This Episode
- Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
- Marketing Made Simple by Donald Miller
- The 50 Year-Old Millennial by Mark Pettipas
Where to Find Ashlee Klevens-Hayes
- You can connect with Ashlee on Instagram, Facebook or via her website.
- Check out her new book, Influential Dad, Empowered Daughter, being released on June 19th.
Episode Transcript
CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
Lisa Larter (00:01):
Welcome to, She Talks Business. If you’re an entrepreneur, business owner or aspiring mogul, chances are you want to learn more about marketing and mastering and monetizing your business. She Talks Business is where you’ll learn all of that and more. My name is Lisa Larter and I’m an entrepreneur, high school dropout, wiener dog enthusiast and your host. Let’s get started.
Lisa Larter (00:25):
Hello, everyone. And welcome to the show. Today, we are going to do something a little bit different. I’m going to be in the hot seat, well, kinda, sorta. I am going to have a conversation with Ashlee Klevens-Hayes, who is the founder and executive career coach and strategist of our RX Ashlee.
Lisa Larter (00:50):
This woman is a former Director of Clinical Operations and Staff at the University of Southern California. And she now runs a business where she helps other women in healthcare navigate their careers so they can have a voice at the table, they can be seen for the value that they can contribute, and they can get to the places that they want to go next. And what we’re doing on the show today is we’re having a conversation about positioning. So Ashlee has some questions for me about things that she can do related to her brand. So, she’s essentially picking my brain. And the reason that I sat on a hot seat is I gotta answer these questions and I need to help her, which is a little bit stressful because she’s not a private coaching client so I don’t really know a whole lot about her. But we had a great conversation.
Lisa Larter (01:45):
And some of the things you might be interested in hearing is the journey to deciding between are you an expert or are you an influencer? That’s one of the things we talked about. We also talked about some really interesting ways that you can utilize all of those great LinkedIn recommendations in your marketing. And we talked a lot about messaging, positioning and writing copy for your intended buyer. Great conversation with Ashlee. She is a super, super likable person. If you don’t follow her on LinkedIn or Instagram, I highly recommend you start. And I hope you like the show. Let me know what you think of this format? My intention is to do one or two of these per quarter, and I hope it is enjoyable.
Lisa Larter (02:37):
Hello, hello. I am here with the one and only RX Ashlee, who you can’t help, but love when you meet in-person because she is just so damn likable. All right. Ashlee, let’s talk. Tell me a little bit about your business? And see how I feel like I am the one in the hot seat here because I gotta try to help you, tell me how I can help you today?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (03:04):
You’re so funny. Thanks, Lisa, for having me. This is genuinely an honor. I look up to you in so many capacities. So, I appreciate you taking the time and giving me this platform and this opportunity to connect. So, my background and expertise is really an executive level career coaching for women in healthcare. My background as a pharmacist and a hospital administrator and a consultant really teed me up for that about five years ago when I saw women in my network, colleagues, friends struggling to land the jobs and really kind of elevates their career in the capacity that they wanted to. So, the people I work with primarily focus in healthcare, but they also come to me because they struggle with articulating and communicating their value to key stakeholders, whether that’s their boss, their manager, patients, clients, whatever capacity that is for them. So, I’m reaching out to you today for… Well, we could do this for six hours if we really wanted to, which I would love, but there’s so many things that we could talk about.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (04:09):
But I think totally transparent, one of my number one struggles is that my clients tend to be older than me, and I feel very honored and trusted that they come to me. But I think my gap is because I come off, I’m kind of young in the sense of the entrepreneur world and the consultant world that I don’t want to be misperceived as not having high results or high success just because of who I am. I’m bubbly, I’m energetic, I’m outgoing, I’m a keynote speaker. I have a ton of energy, so I don’t want to be missed especially online. Now when I’m in-person it’s different, but online it’s that quick snapshot version of who you really are. So, I get the feedback sometimes, especially from older clients, not clients but prospective clients and just friends-
Lisa Larter (05:12):
Or people like me?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (05:14):
Yeah. I was trying to avoid that topic. You know what I mean? I have value and I really want to make impact and I want to continue to grow and scale and make an impact on my client’s lives. But I don’t want my young newness about me to be misconstrued for not having the strategy and not having the education and knowledge to help them. So, I think with LinkedIn, I’ve been pretty good with navigating that because I can post blogs, I can post my writings, it’s just so different than Instagram or other social media channels like Facebook. But I think the Instagram is really where I’ve struggled because I have a tendency to play small on that platform.
Lisa Larter (06:08):
Before we talk platforms, because I’ve looked at your website and I’ve looked at LinkedIn and I’ve looked at Instagram, tell me a little bit more about who your ideal buyer is? Describe for me the type of person that you really want to help and can help? Who are they?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (06:28):
Yeah. So great question. I can help a lot of different people, right? I think that career coaching is for everyone who has a career. But my most ideal sweet spot of a client is between the ages of about 35 and above, but really 35 and 50 that’s who I tend to attract. Mid to upper level, women who have experience, 10 to 15 to 20 years of work experience. Now what I tend to attract on Instagram or younger clients and LinkedIn too sometimes. But those people to me are a little bit challenging to support in a career coaching capacity because I tell them you guys just need to go out and work, get experience, get your feet wet, get in there, do overnight shifts, do patient care, just come back to me at least in a couple of years so we can talk shop about what you can transition into?
Lisa Larter (07:25):
They need different shops and they won’t go, they’re impatient, right?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (07:30):
I mean to some extent, it’s hard for me to say that too, because before I turned 30, I was managing a multimillion dollar drug budget with 40 FTEs under me. So, I’m not trying to knock the age here, but for me in the capacity that I want to support my clients and the influence that I want them to have in their careers my sweet spot is really, and they also to be honest, the 35-50 year olds have a little bit more money than the fresh new grads, so if I’m, from a business perspective, it just makes more sense.
Lisa Larter (07:59):
Okay. So really you can help anybody, but you’re really good at helping women that are 35-50 who have some career experience already. They’ve got a bit more discretionary income, they’re ready to invest in help and maybe have some experiences up until now that haven’t allowed them to manage or control their career to the level that they want, but they feel like they’ve put in the time and they’ve given the value, but they’re not clear on how to articulate that, to get to where they want. Am I hearing you right?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (08:39):
Totally, yes, exactly. And also, just clarity, next steps, they want autonomy and more opportunities. And in order to get more opportunities, you really have to learn how to showcase yourself as a value add in the marketplace right now. It’s such a competitive marketplace, especially, I mean, in all career facets in all businesses, but in healthcare, it’s so windy. So, I like to help them unwind that a little bit.
Lisa Larter (09:05):
Right. And so my assumption is that age doesn’t really matter, what matters is that A, you have enough experience, B, you are being undervalued so that is you can actually articulate why you’re being undervalued. You can explain what you do the value and where you’re getting stuck, and there is an actual way to help that person get beyond. You’re not somebody who’s just fresh out of school in your first job for three months, who’s unhappy because you’re not making enough money, it’s a different person. It’s someone who has, they’ve got a bit of experience under their belt and they’re bumping up against something that’s getting in the way and they want you to help them manage their careers, is that?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (09:50):
Yeah. And it’s regarding the age thing and the experience level, most of my clients who are healthcare providers, graduate school and go into a six-figure job. So, it’s not the salary necessarily, the money, the income. Now they’d probably have student loans, but it’s more the mindset and more of the determining what they want from their experiences, not from just thinking that they want something. And so what I tell those fresh-ish new grads under five years is go out, start a side hustle, get your feet wet, do something, go travel, invest in yourself, invest in traveling or a house, or just get some life grittiness to you. And then if you want to change your jobs in a couple of years, I’m happy to support you with that.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (10:41):
In the meantime, I do give them access, well, paid access to my content in my online courses, which I think is a great subset for them. Now after they take those and a couple of years, they want to go back, I’m like, okay, let’s go back to the drawing board. But the clients that I really, really just feel have the most opportunity to leverage their experience and their tangible skills are just the people who have a vision and who are experienced.
Lisa Larter (11:12):
So my sense is that your most powerful work is done one-on-one with people because you are such a strong connector? You’re able to establish rapport and build trust with people. And you’re also very nurturing, positive, and supportive. And so my sense is that when people do decide to work with you privately that is your zone of genius, is that true? Do you feel that as well?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (11:42):
100%, yeah. I mean, I ran a membership-based program for just about two years and I loved it, it was huge revenue generator. But it was hard for me because I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like I was connected as much with the big group. And it was a younger crowd too. So I don’t know, I agree with you in the sense that I love working one-on-one with clients. I love relationship building, I’m not here for the millions. I would love to just have 50 clients over a million followers whatever. That doesn’t matter to me, what matters to me is that when a client signs up to be with our… It’s actually to be with me, with my community that they feel supported, listened to and heard.
Lisa Larter (12:31):
Okay. So I have some stuff for you.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (12:34):
I love it.
Lisa Larter (12:34):
The first thing that I want to know is have you read Donald Miller’s book, Building a StoryBrand?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (12:41):
A while back. But yes, I think you recommended that to me a long time ago, but yes.
Lisa Larter (12:46):
I want you to read his book. I think there’s another one called Marketing Made Simple, but essentially what I want you to do is I want you to look at the StoryBrand brand script, which is essentially how he describes writing the copy on the homepage of your website. When I went on your website and I looked at your website, I did not find the messaging to be super clear. I also didn’t find it to be as up-leveled as it could be in terms of really articulating who you help? How you help them? Some of the challenges that they run into? So if you go through the StoryBrand book, he talks about how to position yourself as a guide? How the header image on your website really needs to speak in clear language? Exactly what you do and how you help people in your messaging is really about building your mailing list.
Lisa Larter (13:45):
He talks about demonstrating a strong understanding of what is at stake if you don’t do this work. He talks about messaging around, essentially, your services and your value proposition and the process that you take people through. And so I know that you have reviewed resumes, I know you do interview prep, I know you do a career strategy, consulting, advisement, all that kind of stuff. But you know, when you put that three-step process on your homepage or four-step process, and you just say to people, this is how it works when you engage RX Ashlee, then it helps them to see what is possible. So the first thing that I would say is you need to read that book and you need to take a look at the copy.
Lisa Larter (14:33):
Now I will tell you writing this copy by yourself as hard. Our team does this for people all the time, that’s basically our methodology. And I don’t subscribe to the fact that it’s got to be precise for every single person. But if you find yourself getting tripped up on writing, get somebody to help you. Because sometimes when we are writing about what we do, we self-edit and we let our own egos get in the way of really clearly messaging how we help others. And so that is the first thing that I would say that you should do.
Lisa Larter (15:10):
The second thing that I would say is I watched the video on your website and most of the women in the testimonial video on your website, they come across to me as being more junior than the women that you’ve described that you work with. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I think maybe a little bit of framing in terms of, “Oh, meet so-and-so. She is a blah, blah, blah, at such-and-such healthcare”, whatever. And has worked there, maybe a little bit of narrating in between the video edits for you to tell a bit of the story about the people might be helpful for me, because then I could potentially see myself.
Lisa Larter (15:55):
I know that the names and where they work kind of flash up there quickly, but it doesn’t necessarily give me context around the work they do, the role they’re in, the challenge they had when they started to work with you. So I would recommend maybe looking at how you can increase the impactfulness of that video. They’ve all said great things about you, but I’d like a little bit of narration in there from you talking about the work that you did with these people.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (16:23):
Okay. That’s good advice.
Lisa Larter (16:25):
The second thing that I would like to see you do more of from an Instagram perspective, and maybe even on LinkedIn is seeding your work or talking about your work a little bit more. So, for example, you may say something like I worked with a Manager or a Director in health care yesterday and we mapped out a five-step plan for her to get promoted in the next 90 days. Then all of a sudden people are thinking, “Oh, you have a five-step plan to help somebody get promoted at 90 days, what does that look like?” And, “Oh, you work with director level people? That’s really cool.” Or, “Oh, I worked with a VP in health care yesterday and we had a really great conversation around why women are underpaid or why women are afraid to speak up at the table?” I think that if you can start to maybe show the people, show examples of who you work with, it makes it easier for other people to see the different roles that you provide support to.
Lisa Larter (17:33):
And I see you do some industry trend stuff, I would continue to do industry trend things. I might even look at, you’ve done 400-plus a pre-interview… I forget what they’re called, I’m sorry, but I saw it on LinkedIn because I was reading your bio.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (17:50):
Interview prep.
Lisa Larter (17:51):
Interview prep. You’ve done 400 and some interview prep with 100% success rate. You should go back and interview those people, do surveys with those 450 people and gather some data that would be valuable to other people that are considering doing that work with you. So that’s another thing that I would say. You have a lot of really, really, really well-written testimonials on your LinkedIn profile recommendations that people have written. My sense is, and answer this question for me, would you rather be known as an expert and consultant in your industry or an online marketing expert in your industry?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (18:41):
I don’t consider myself an expert in online marketing.
Lisa Larter (18:44):
No, but I mean an online marketer in your topic or a consultant and expert in your topic? Because to me they’re two very different things. If you were to look at some consultants out there they’re not riding two horses with one bum. So if you were to go look at Colleen Francis, for example, she is a woman who is a sales expert and she works with big companies. And she’s a consultant, she goes in and she helps big companies, she works with sales leaders and their teams to really help them with growth. What you don’t see on her website is you don’t see internet marketing type of copy or landing page layout, it’s a little bit more professional. She’s an author, she’s a keynote speaker.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (19:35):
Yeah, that’s what I want to be. I mean, I want to be that influential keynote speaker, author, notable person, not the influencer or the marketer. And nothing against them, whoever’s listening out there in the world, that’s that person.
Lisa Larter (19:52):
No, you’re just picking a lane.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (19:53):
Exactly. Because I am academic too, I have years and years of graduate school experience, so I definitely. That’s a great question, I’m so glad you brought that up because I would love my voice to be more on the authorship.
Lisa Larter (20:09):
So here’s my feedback for you then. On your website instead of making your testimonials look, internet marketing, make them look like LinkedIn recommendations even if you use LinkedIn as you view screenshots of the recommendation. Add the LinkedIn badge to your website. If you go into your settings, there’s this really cool new badge that brings people to your LinkedIn profile that you could add to your website. Add some copy that says I’ve been endorsed by a lot of people on LinkedIn, if you would like to read what people are saying, please click here. I think it’s deciding which you’re going to be on and then making sure that the way the copy is written to the consultant expert space.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (20:58):
I’m so glad you brought that up. I not trying to interrupt you because you’re on a roll and I really appreciate it. That is so challenging, that was a challenge for me when I first got into this position.
Lisa Larter (21:08):
That’s okay, you can do both, but I’m going to tell you more in a second, you can do both. You don’t have to give up the programs, it’s not about not being able to utilize online marketing, it’s about positioning. It’s about positioning. Are you positioning yourself? And really online marketing is probably the wrong word, it is influencer. Are you positioning yourself as an influencer? Are you positioning yourself as an expert? I think you want to position yourself as an expert and therefore you don’t want to make it look like you’re trying to be an influencer because that diminishes all of the expertise and depth that you bring to the table.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (21:47):
I agree with you.
Lisa Larter (21:49):
You need to change the header on your website homepage, don’t make it an opt-in, make it something that speaks to exactly what you do. “I help professionals in healthcare take charge of their career and have a voice at the table”, whatever messaging you want it to be. And then have a call to action, let’s talk, schedule a call, get in touch. And then below that header either tell me how you do that? I have a consultation, we do a strategy, whatever it is. Either have a three-step process there or have a value stack there, again, this is Donald Miller speak, which is essentially the outcomes. So the outcomes might be more courage and confidence to speak up, better career opportunities, more money in the bank. Because essentially those are the things that happen. So if you put those below then I know what the outcomes are of doing the work with you.
Lisa Larter (22:51):
I need more copy on the website that speaks to what you do. It’s not 100% clear to me what you do. And when I go to the top of your website to work with Ashlee, to me, that sounds very influencer online coachy. I think you should have two things on your top navigation. I think you should have services and programs. And under services, you would have career advisement, you would have interview prep, you would have executive career coaching. And these are the consulting services and maybe the navigation even says that, consulting services. And then you’ve got the dropdown. And then under your DIY or under your programs, you can call it DIY programs or you can call it programs, that’s where you put the dropdown for the courses and things that people want to take if they don’t want to work with you privately.
Lisa Larter (23:49):
So it’s not about not being able to have that online program, it’s about separating them. Because when I go to that top nav, I only see two options. And when I click on both of them they take me to these pages that look like internet marketing pages. And you want to be really careful with that because you want the way that your pages are structured and written to be optimized for SEO as well. And that means you’ve got to be able to link to content that is valuable for the people that are buying from you, different when you’re selling an online program. But if you’re describing your consulting services, you need to have really strong copy there for when people are looking for what you do in the search engines.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (24:31):
Yeah, I agree with you.
Lisa Larter (24:32):
All right, the next thing I’m going to say to you, it’s again, it has a little bit to do with SEO, but it also has to do with just who your buyer is, you need to improve readability. When I look at the very last blog post that you have on your site it’s all text and the text is really close together and it’s really hard to read. There’s no headings, there’s no subheadings, there’s no images, there’s no breaks, it’s just all text. And so if I was looking at that, I’m going to fall into the TLDR camp, too long, didn’t read, really hard on my eyes. You need to be mindful of the fact that people are viewing on computer. I find it hard to view on a computer, imagine what it would be like to view on a mobile device? Going to be really hard. So just be mindful of that and write for your buyer and make it easy for them to read.
Lisa Larter (25:26):
In terms of your online presence, what I would say is, an older boss of mine said to me, what makes you good makes you bad. All right. And so what makes you good is you’ve got this really energetic, bubbly, enthusiastic personality, you’re super, super likable. But what makes you bad is that super energetic personality can come off as more youthful or less experienced than you are. And so what I would recommend is just be conscious of being a tiny bit more serious when you’re doing anything that is video related. I’m not saying lose your personality because your personality is what makes you great. Your personality is why people like you. I’m just, a little tiny bit more serious, step more into the expert role of speaking to people versus the influencer way of speaking to people, which tends to be more jokey fun.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (26:29):
Right, right, right, of course. That likability thing, I kind of just want to get, I wish. As a woman, as a girl, you’re taught to be likable because that’s how you get it, that’s how you advance. It’s not about how much you know, it’s about creating influence in the workplace and getting people on the same page as you. But that’s not really serving me anymore, it got me so far, but what got me here, isn’t going to get me to the next place and it’s unwiring that likeability.
Lisa Larter (27:02):
No, I don’t think you need to unwire it, I don’t think, that’s not what I’m saying. I said be a tiny bit more serious. I didn’t say lose your likability, I didn’t say unwire, it unwind it. Don’t dial it all the way back and lose what makes you good. Remember what I said first? I said, what makes you good makes you bad. What makes you good is your personality. All I’m saying is dial it back a little tiny bit. And when you are doing video, what I want you to do is I want you to pretend you’re speaking to a room full of your best buyers. I want you to think “I’m speaking to my ideal client right now”.
Lisa Larter (27:45):
“I want to behave the way that I would if I was speaking to my ideal client.” And if you turn that keynote speaker role on when you’re creating any type of video content then you will just come across a little bit more expert-like, and a little bit less influencer-like, that’s all. Don’t lose the personality because they buy your personality. People buy you because they do like you, they do trust you, you are able to connect and build rapport. Do not lose that, so don’t misunderstand my message here.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (28:16):
Not.
Lisa Larter (28:17):
All right. And then the last thing that I would say to you is with respect to Instagram, and this is just minor stuff, but I know you want hows. I would just say, do an audit of your Instagram feed and ask yourself if you were your ideal buyer and you were creeping you, if what you see in the feed would tell the story of how you help people like me? I think you have co-mingled, and I’ve done this too, so I’m not telling you anything I don’t see in my own feed at times, I think you’ve co-mingled personal stuff and professional stuff. And what I would recommend you do is maybe do the personal stuff in the stories. Do the odd, if you’re going to do the fun picture with your daughter, or if you’re going to do things that are not 100% related to the professional side, maybe intersperse them more into the stories and have the actual feed really targeted at who your ideal buyer is.
Lisa Larter (29:23):
And we talked a little bit earlier, I mean, you could be using some of those great LinkedIn testimonials as swipe-able content on Instagram. You could be using some of the insights that you have from “Seven mistakes I see people make on their resumes” or “Three things you need to consider when you’re prepping for the next interview”. I want you to talk about your expertise more often, I want to see it on Instagram. And you do that sometimes because I’ve seen it, I’ve commented on some of your things that have been really smart and really good. The things that I’ve commented on are the things that I would say you should do more things like this. The only thing that I would say is always anchor it in the healthcare professional, because sometimes I think on Instagram, it can feel like you’re talking to everybody if you don’t specifically say, “Hey, if you’re a woman in healthcare, here’s what you need to know.” You want to just be really clear that you’re speaking to that specific audience.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (30:31):
Okay. Super helpful.
Lisa Larter (30:32):
Does that make sense?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (30:32):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lisa Larter (30:32):
That’s 10 things, you can do with 10 hows.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (30:34):
Yes. I love it.
Lisa Larter (30:35):
Any follow up questions?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (30:38):
No, I just need to start implementing that, and this was so helpful. Thank you. I have a lot of work to do.
Lisa Larter (30:45):
You know what? Our businesses are always a work in progress.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (30:50):
I agree.
Lisa (30:51):
And writing copy for your website, yourself is hard, I know because I am in the midst of doing it for myself. And I think that we have to remember that updating your website isn’t a one and done thing, it’s an iterative thing. It’s always changing, it’s always about tweaking and going back and looking at things and looking at your bios and looking at your service descriptions and paying attention to how you write things and updating old testimonials with new testimonials. It’s a lot to keep your website maintained. And so what I would recommend you do is if you go back and you listen to this, and I’m happy to send you the recording before the podcast goes live, but if you go back and listen to this and pull all the pieces out, just start to build a master list. Prioritize one thing at a time that you want to focus on and get done in your business.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (31:48):
Yeah, I agree with you.
Lisa Larter (31:49):
But I also think there’s another opportunity because you started this conversation with the vast majority of your clients are often older than you. And you also referenced people who sometimes want to work with you that are maybe not quite ready as being younger, maybe there’s an opportunity to talk about that, why age doesn’t matter? Why experience and value trump age and how maybe it’s the problem with young people today and the problem with old people today? Because it doesn’t really matter how old you are, you either have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. And so I would rather have a young person with a growth mindset any day than a really, really experienced person that has a fixed mindset and absolutely will not budge in their thinking in any way, shape or form.
Lisa Larter (32:47):
So I think you have an opportunity to kind of talk about the pros and cons of the new generation versus the experienced people that are there and why you need a combination of both in the workforce and even how these people can work together? Somebody who used to work for me years ago in my corporate job wrote a book, you might even want to look at it, you might get some ideas from the book in terms of the work that you do. His work is different, but it’s called The 50 Year-Old Millennial. His book is a leadership book and it’s really about kind of the new way that we need to lead. And you’re kind of in that in-between space, right? You’re not 50, but you’re not 20 either, right? And so I feel like you are in the space where I hate to tell you this my dear friend, but you’re not going to get any younger.
Lisa Larter (33:47):
And so you’re in this real unique space right now where you can almost really relate to the people who are a few years ahead of you, but you can also relate to where you’ve come from. And there’s probably a way that you can use that in your marketing. I bet there are things that you’ve seen, trends that you’ve seen with people in their 20s and their 30s and their 40s and their 50s, and there’s things that you could talk about on this journey of building your career. I remember sitting at the table one time with a group of women executives that I knew when I was in my 40s, and they were all talking about the fact that your career basically ends at 50 because you stop getting promoted after 50.
Lisa Larter (34:28):
And they were talking about their industry and they were like name one woman who’s over 50 that’s in an executive level role? And we sat at the table and at that particular time there weren’t any. So every level is a new devil and there’s probably something you can talk about there that kind of showcases that in your work as well. And because you are not on either end of that spectrum, you’ll probably be a lot more relatable in that space too.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (34:58):
Yeah. All good points, Lisa. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Lisa Larter (35:01):
All right. Any other questions, my dear?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (35:04):
Now I’ve got to go out and work.
Lisa Larter (35:05):
You got to go do some work. You got to go do some work and then come back and tell me whether or not it helps? So here’s what I want you to do, here’s my ask of you. I want you to go away and over the next 60 to 90 days, I want you to implement some of these ideas, and then I want you to come back and tell me if they worked or not?
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (35:21):
Okay. Sounds like a plan, love it.
Lisa Larter (35:24):
All right. So I just want to say a special thank you to Ashlee for being the first person to have a conversation like this with me. This is something that I really want to do on the show on a regular basis, but I got to tell you it’s really uncomfortable for me, and it’s really uncomfortable for the person. Because while I know Ashlee, she is not a private coaching client of mine, I know Ashlee to a certain degree, but there’s not months and months of coaching history to help me help her. And I wanted to do shows like this because I want to be able to provide, and this is not Ashlee because Ashlee actually does have a strategy planning session with me in a couple of months, but there are people out there that want a little bit of help, but maybe they’re not ready to invest in help. And so I really wanted to be able to use the show as a way to help people and to showcase thinking and showcase some of the challenges that people have in their business.
Lisa Larter (36:28):
So if this was helpful for you in listening, then let me know. Leave a review and let me know which of our shows are your favorite? The solos? The conversations with colleagues? Or these Lisa in the hot seat? And thank you again, Ashlee. I really, really, really appreciate you being here. And it has been great having this conversation with you.
Ashlee Klevens-Hayes (36:51):
Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate it.
Lisa Larter (35:54):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of She Talks Business. If you enjoyed the show, you know the drill, leave us a review, tell someone about it and join the conversation on social media. Thanks for listening and until next time remember, done is always better than perfect.