What's your why?
My why is really a lifestyle base, to be quite honest.
My why is I wanna have the freedom to be with my family
and be with potentially the third member that's coming.
I wanna be present and I wanna be happy.
I also want to leave something behind
a little bit better than I found it.
And how I do that in my business is again,
by helping the clients that I do.
I don't like to, like I said in the beginning, it's okay.
We all like money, but it shouldn't be the first reason
you choose to work with someone.
Sometimes you can just feel it
that this person has a mission.
They're here to really help people
and that's what they're trying to do.
I have a great client first of all,
who just popped into my head as I said this.
Her whole thing is that she helps women over 40
and figure out what's next.
Figure out what they're doing.
Like they've been,
maybe they're already reaching the top of their career.
They've been married for a while.
They have a couple of kids and now they're like, well, what?
What next? How do I serve?
And I get to help her find those people who are lost
and reclaim a new part of themselves.
How flippin' exciting, I love it.
So that is part of my why.
It's very much, I can't say it's one thing,
but it's definitely a little amalgamation of it.
And it's that feeling of freedom and choice
that I crave the most.
Yeah, and the one thing you said is freedom.
And that's the freedom to help when needed, right?
And then to be present.
I think that when I became a real estate agent,
that was my thing too.
I need to be more present with the people that support me,
100%.
And so when we as entrepreneurs decide to do this job
and decide to go this way,
it's definitely because there's a bigger picture.
And I hate to say it, a bigger why.
You know?
Yeah.
It's a bigger why.
So when the pandemic happened,
how did your business take off or what shifted?
Oh my gosh, people are gonna not hate me,
but I love the pandemic.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
I love the pandemic.
The introverted me was thriving.
What?
I don't have to go anywhere.
I don't have to do anything.
And my husband gets to be home with me all day, thriving.
But even from a business point of view, it was great
because I had entered literally just like,
I think a year before.
So I had already made a lot of my big mistakes before,
and I was entering a phase where I was in a rhythm.
I was closing clients.
I had been there, done that a little bit.
And then everything was online.
And all of a sudden people like me
were the most important thing.
And if you weren't investing in marketing,
you were probably looking at,
how do I do this Instagram thing?
How do I do this Facebook thing?
I don't have a website.
What happens now?
So for me, to be honest, like the pandemic was great.
It was probably like the best my business has ever done.
And I knew that it would be like that
because all the attention had to be online.
We couldn't go outside.
We couldn't, TV and other platforms weren't that exciting.
So if you wanted to get your business shown,
you were doing ads.
And what's really funny is that when the pandemic started,
a lot of big advertisers left the platform.
A lot of big advertisers left the platform.
And everybody was like, oh, well, why should I be doing ads?
I have this tiny like $10, $20, $100 a day budget.
Like if they're leaving, why should I be there?
You should have been there because they left.
Because the way advertising works is basically
it's like a bit, right?
If I have $10 and you have $100, your ad,
my $10 ad is gonna be as small as this phone, right?
You can still see it.
Yes.
And the $100 ad is gonna be as big
as like the screen behind me, which is pretty big, right?
Now both can be seen.
It just means this one, because it's smaller,
it's gonna take longer for people to see it.
Whereas that one behind me, a little bit of a billboard,
people are gonna see it a lot faster.
So that person gives you the illusion
that they can get results faster,
because you have more, right?
It must be the same thing in your niche
where you have a lot of inquiries
over a house that's beautiful,
over a house that's like, mm-mm, incredible.
Yes, yes.
So I loved the pandemic.
I thought it was great.
The pandemic also brought something
that I find very interesting is that
because we were forced online,
we learned about all these new jobs like business coaches
and self-care and entrepreneurs
and all these different avenues that I didn't know.
So I also got to work with a whole bunch of people
and I learned to sell in different ways.
I remember everybody and this,
everybody and their cat had a webinar.
Everybody was saying, come to my master class,
come to my, I'm gonna show you.
I'm like, we don't sign up to those things anymore.
Maybe they don't resonate as much anymore
because we know we have to sit through
a 60 minute presentation
and someone's gonna sell us something at the end.
Yeah.
But back then, we didn't know that.
We just knew this person told us
that they were gonna give us the secrets.
We just stayed around till the end.
Yes, yes.
So it was great when we got all this education
and all these different ways of figuring things out.
And like you said, it all comes with how marketing changes
and just the lay of the land.
It's very exciting.
Yes, and I love how you,
a lot of people may get upset about the pandemic
and loving it.
We lost a lot of people
and I think that's the downside of it.
Of course.
Gotta rest their souls.
However, like you said, it was,
I feel like the pandemic either made you or broke you.
And so when it came to the point of the pandemic
and everyone starting the business and everything
going online, it did make it a lot easier
because that's the only connection that you had.
And for myself, and I'm sure you in hospitality,
we were, as an introvert, you don't need the people,
but we need the people to thrive.
You know what I mean?
And so it was a different type of connection
that we had to make over the internet,
which was pretty awesome
because now we're talking to people
all across the world, right?
We don't have to fly.
I think that's why airplane tickets
are becoming a lot cheaper.
No one's flying.
There's no point in going there.
We can literally-
Sound that.
Yeah, that's it.
We can even have one of those little things
where our phones follow us around the room.
It's a whole different ball game.
So I'm truly elated that you found the positivity
in something that was so challenging for the world,
but it also created your vision and heightened your vision.
Like you said, you had already gone through
the challenges prior to.
Now all it did was like, okay, hone in on my business,
hone in on my family,
and try to get a deeper understanding
of where I get to take this vision
once everything is all over.
And I think that that is just amazing
for you to be able to find joy in that
and increase your business.
How many clients have you helped
since you began your business?
You know what?
That's so funny that you asked me that.
Cause the other day I was doing this exercise
and it's kind of one of those Marie Kondo exercises
with like, what brings you joy, right?
Like decluttering is basically what I was doing.
I was doing a digital declutter
because sometimes we hold onto things
and we don't even know why we're holding onto them.
Whether it's a project we never gonna finish,
whether it's past clients,
whether it's different iterations of things.
And I actually found one folder
where I had like the first iteration of my business
and it said clients.
And then I still had like so many things
and I was like, oh my word.
And I sat there and I actually counted from now to then,
I think I'm really close to like 80 people that I've helped.
And that actually is like weird to say out loud
because it doesn't, firstly, it doesn't feel like it.
And secondly, it also is very humbling
that little old me helps these people.
And I already know the magnitude that their businesses had.
So I'm like, wow, and I'm just me.
And this is like a small little thing.
To me it's like, it's just me, I'm Carol.
And imagine what other people are doing
or like bigger companies.
You're like, if you help a thousand people, 10,000 people,
I'm like, this is incredible.
So yeah, I actually did that exercise.
That's why I know that answer.
Yeah.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.