Time To Rethink Your Relationship With Your Business? Gloria Chou Has Advice.

Get ready for a thought-provoking conversation with the remarkable entrepreneur, Gloria Chou as we challenge the go-to definition of success and dive deep into Gloria's transformative journey.

Gloria is an expert in helping small business owners, especially bootstrapped founders and women of color, amplify their message and be seen and heard in the world. Despite her unconventional path to the world of PR, Gloria has unlocked the secrets to success in her own unique way.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The driving force behind Gloria's passion for helping others be seen, heard, and valued.
• A deep dive into Gloria's early entrepreneurial days, where she shares her evolution, pivots, and the invaluable lessons she learned along the way.
• The pivotal moment that compelled Gloria to reassess her relationship with money and her tips for transitioning from a scarcity to abundance mindset.
• Insights into how Gloria shows up in her business and effectively leads her remote team.
• A fresh perspective on hustle culture and an alternative definition of success that will challenge your beliefs and inspire transformation in your own life and business.

Join Heather and Gloria as they delve into Gloria's incredible journey, from her background as a U.S. Diplomat to the rapid growth of her own business over the past two years. This inspiring conversation will make you reevaluate your relationship with money and redefine your own path to success.

Tune in now to gain powerful insights from Gloria Chou and embark on a transformative journey to redefine success in your life and business


EPISODE  SHOW NOTES👇
https://heathersager.com/episode204/

Chapters

• 0:00 Hint of Hustle Podcast With Gloria
• 13:50 Hustle's Dangerous Worth Equating Reminder
• 25:57 Exploring Business Worlds
• 30:16 Empowering Leadership for Remote Teams
• 34:43 Shifting to Abundance Mindset in Business
• 40:59 The Power of Speaking for Business

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I think because I never worked a day in PR, i didn't have any contacts or a guidebook on how to PR. Just by throwing spaghetti on the wall I was able to crack the code of how to do it in my way, which is through the back door. Now that's what people want. No one's really serving the small business owner. If you look at the traditional way that PR is done, it's very madmen-esque. You got to pay $10,000 a month on retainer and there's not really guaranteed results. I really think that what I'm doing is not only disrupting the space, but also really shining a light on so many diverse small businesses who traditionally have not been heard.

Speaker 2: 0:48

This is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants to make a big impact, who doesn't shy away from hard work but also wants to enjoy life along the way. Hi, I'm Heather Sager, former executive-turned-entrepreneur, and I've spent the last 20 years working with premium brands on sales, marketing and communication, And I've learned that when you become a magnet with your message, you only need a hint of hustle to achieve your goals. Get ready to be inspired and ignited each week with tangible strategies on sales, speaking, marketing and so much more. This is the Hint of Hustle podcast. Let's go Well. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Today I'm bringing you an interview with my dear friend, Gloria Chow, who I had the opportunity to meet real-time, in-person on a peer mastermind I was invited to. I felt super lucky to be invited to go to this peer mastermind. It was like I felt like look at me, I've arrived, I've been requested to come, which is a funny thing to say. It's one of my previous clients was hosting it in Phoenix and invited me in March, And so I very eagerly moved my calendar around to make it happen. I'm so glad I did, because one of the incredible people that I met there was Gloria, And instantly you'll hear this in the episode why I love her so much. She's real, She's vulnerable and she's so focused on helping business owners specifically women and underrepresented women in business small business owners get their message out into the world. Now she does that through media. It's a really, really great alignment to what I teach in speaking. She has built her business organically through media. She teaches people how to do that too. She has an incredible program. We'll talk about that a little bit on the episode. But here's the interesting thing Today I didn't want to have a conversation around her expertise in media, though we do talk a little bit about that and we'll talk about how you can learn more about that if her style resonates with you at the end of the episode. But today's conversation I wanted you to be able to connect with the heart that I connected to in-person And we had a beautiful conversation We'll talk about in the episode.

Speaker 2: 3:16

I finally will release part of the story around my third baby pregnancy. This is going to sound really weird, but it'll make sense in the episode around how Gloria is part of that story. That sounds really, really weird. You just have to listen to the interview for that full story. But we also talk about how her relationship with Hustle and her relationship of how she shows up in business has changed. Now, an interesting thing about Gloria's business is it has grown extremely quickly over the last two years. It's like a rocket ship kind of taking off. And the last 18 months for her specifically is she's really had to rethink how she approaches things. We'll talk about in the episode. We'll talk about the catalyst that really led to the change, But here's just some.

Speaker 2: 4:06

I have to read you this because you use getting some business advice today from a real badass. So, first of all, if you want to connect with Gloria, you can connect with her on Instagram. I will link to her Instagram profile in the show notes. We'll also link to all of the resources she talks about. If you DM her the word hint of Hustle, she has a special pitch freebie for you, So you can grab that from her and also just give a shout out and say I mean how much you love the show.

Speaker 2: 4:35

But her interview in particular was fricking a wonderful But Gloria's helped over 10,000 small business owners get a combined one billion Yes, I said billion, with a B organic freebies in top tier outlets such as New York Times, Vogue, Fast Company, Forbes, et cetera. Now, I see this because one of the things that I love about the what Gloria teaches is this whole idea that if you have something to share, it should be heard, And media outlets are a really great way for you to reach more people, and we want to see more diverse faces and voices in the media. Another thing that she's really passionate about is the idea that you shouldn't have to pay for media, So you don't have to pay to play You. Also, we talk about the end of the episode. You don't have to like subscribe to the gross marketing tactics that sometimes we feel like we have to use. She talks about how she ditched those and how they made such a transformation in her business. There's just so much good thing here, But one of the most beautiful things that I really want to hit on here is the one of the parts I love about Gloria's story so much is the fact that she had no formal background in PR.

Speaker 2: 5:50

She literally built her skills by cold calling and pitching media outlets as she built up her initial business, which was she was kind of an agency pitching on behalf of people, And this was like a couple of my first questions are like baffling because I'm like the idea of cold calling outreach makes my whole skin just like crawl. I don't love the idea of like putting myself out there. I am a total introvert. I know it's surprising, but I have mad respect for people who are able to like walk up to others and introduce themselves and strike up conversations. And the idea of reaching out to people like cold calling that is terrifying to me. I know that might be surprising to you, but the fact that that's how she developed the skills for what she teaches now that is just so badass. Like so mad respect for that path And you're going to learn so much. I know you're also going to be inspired and you're going to get goose bumps on this episode because Gloria has some insights that are just going to knock your socks off.

Speaker 2: 6:58

So, without further ado, as they say, here's my interview with Gloria Shal. Gloria, officially welcome to the hint of hustle podcasts. This is a long awaited interview. On my side, I'm so thrilled you're here. Woohoo, me too. I'm also laughing.

Speaker 2: 7:24

For context for those of you joining us today, Gloria and I had an hour scheduled for this podcast interview and we just spent the last 40 minutes just catching up and talking all things business, which is, I think, I don't know. I think, as business owners, when you connect with another person as I feel like you and I have connected over the last couple of months sometimes it's just really good just to catch up with people without the expectations of being on record. Yeah, 100%. So that was good. But now we're going to talk about the stuff that you all get to be part of. I am so thrilled for you to hear from Gloria today.

Speaker 2: 8:02

As I mentioned in the intro, Gloria and I had the opportunity to be in person in March and instantly we developed business and person crushes on each other. We just have a lot of shared kind of outlooks on things and just connect really well, and I knew you guys were going to love her. So today we're going to get into all the things. I want to hear more about your business back in, Gloria. So why don't we start by talking about? tell us a little bit more about your business model and how you serve your audience.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I am a small business PR coach that has never worked a day in a PR agency. I actually used to be a US diplomat. If changing careers is something that you were thinking of, this episode is for you. I started my business really during COVID. I was doing PR consulting. Covid happened, so all the retainer melted away and I thought how can I scale my time and productize my offers? I created my PR program, called the PR Sutter Pack, with my preparatory pitching framework. From literally I kid you, not cold calling thousands of newsrooms Came up with a pitch framework that works for any business to cold pitch and get a yes. The program has served hundreds of small businesses now from every single industry, whether it's service or product-based.

Speaker 2: 9:10

Yeah, i freaking love this. I didn't realize that you, your business, really took off from COVID being that time period. I had in my head that you had been doing this way longer than that. That's just a tribute to how much of a rock star you are. I'm curious, okay, around the cold pitching thing Is that natural for you when you went out of the gate and started cold pitching people? Is that a natural tendency for you or not so much?

Speaker 1: 9:38

I think I have a really thick, shameless skin. I always say there's never a no right, it's just not right now. How do you find the way to get a yes? I think that's just my personality. I'm really relentless. I love to do it when I can help other people win.

Speaker 1: 9:56

I just thought PR is perfect because you just elevate people and you get that journalist to say yes. It's absolutely game-changing for that small business. I think because I never worked a day in PR. I didn't have any contacts or a guidebook on how to PR. Just by throwing spaghetti on the wall I was able to crack the code of how to do it in my way, which is through the back door. Now that's what people want. No one's really serving the small business owner. If you look at the traditional way that PR is done, it's very kind of mad men ask you got to pay $10,000 a month on retainer and there's not really guaranteed results. I really think that what I'm doing is not only disrupting the space but also really shining a light on so many diverse small businesses who traditionally have not been heard.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, i freaking love that, because most often when people do think PR, they think of people who have agents or they're represented by agencies and you think like big names. I think about people who are on the Today Show or even on more regional networks. Television is what comes to mind for me, but you think there's something big behind it. What I freaking love about the work that you do so many things I'm just going to have a gush on you this whole episode The fact that you teach people how to do it for themselves. Not only do they get media appearances from it, but I would imagine their confidence in articulating the value of what they do and the value of their own voice is skyrocketed. Tell me why. I know that's one of the things that's really important for you helping people see, be seen, valued, heard. Tell me a little bit about really what drove that for you.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Well, i think, growing up as a child of Chinese immigrants, i never saw anyone who looked like me in the media and I was always told culturally to keep my head down and say yes, sir, and all these things. I didn't really fit in that. I think, through finding my own voice and breaking out of a really comfortable career. I was a US diplomat. I had a pension waiting for me, 25 years of career stability. After I just broke out of that, all hell broke loose. I was like you know what? I'm really going to, just lean into doing things my way.

Speaker 1: 12:07

When I started doing this work, i realized that there was really no one serving like the bootstrapping small business owner, maybe selling something on Etsy, or an author. The more I tapped into this online world, i realized that it's not the startup bros who are small business owners. It's really the people who are from different backgrounds, maybe first generation immigrants, single moms, military wives. These are the people who make up the small business fabric of our country. You don't really see that when you think about small business or the word entrepreneur. If I say the word entrepreneur, even if you do a stock image, it's mainly white men. I think that's really not representative of the landscape. My work is really to make media inclusive so that we can even the playing field, because it's really not the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world that's creating jobs for everyone. It's really the people in our local communities who are starting small businesses and making an impact in their community. Those are mainly women and women of color.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Yes, Can you all see why I resonate with this so much? I think it's so important for people to have not only the ability to raise their hand and speak up and use their voice, but having the ability to hear from more diverse voices. I think, I don't know. I love the work that you do. Let's go back to the early days in your business, When you were pivoting into this online business model. let's explore your relationship with the word hustle. I'm just curious out of the gate. when you hear the word hustle or you think about the term hustle, what's your instant reaction to it, or what's your interpretation of hustle culture?

Speaker 1: 13:42

Oh, circa before COVID, it was like, yeah, hustle is your golden ticket to being seen as successful. I think again from my immigrant childhood I was told that the more money you made, the more worthy you were as a human being. This was something that was passed down to me from my mother, from her parents. That's a survivalist mentality, because she was living in communist China When I first started doing this online thing. I was working 10 hours, 12 hours a day, seven days a week in front of my computer. I didn't even know what a funnel was, let alone email marketing. I had to figure all of that out.

Speaker 1: 14:16

I remember drinking coffee. I didn't even eat, I just drank coffee until probably 3 to 4 pm. I would have my first meal then and I keep going at it to the point where I pretty much burned a hole in my gut. I went to the acupuncturist and they're like you have all these issues because your body is full of acidic things. You need to create more balance in your life. I wasn't sleeping, of course. It was just a lot of uphill struggle.

Speaker 1: 14:41

I think in the online world, when you join the online world, you're always looking at the people who have achieved so much. You just see the gap of where I am versus where they are. It's just this insatiable thing that's like it's never enough. it's never enough. No matter what I did or how much I did, it was never enough. It's the point where I just completely burnt out.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Through that journey of really treating myself not as a human being, with the kindness I should have shown myself, but as really a robot and a machine. I started to realize maybe there's something deeper in the way that I equated my worth with hustle, that I needed to fundamentally rewire. because here's the thing I did achieve all of my goals, I did have the six-figure launches, and then I was absolutely miserable. I was such a terrible leader. I was berating my team. I was doing things I was not proud of. I was so focused on maybe the few people who wanted a refund instead of celebrating the success, that I just completely disempowered my team and myself. When I look back to that person, I feel bad for that person, because it was that hustle, that nonstop scarcity that drove me and everything that I did that I couldn't even celebrate the fact that I had that launch. I was just so focused on the things that I didn't have. I don't ever want to be that person again. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:58

I think it's a hard lesson. Okay, this is going to sound kind of weird. It's almost like it's also a rite of passage That burnout mode and hustle this is just my take on it is. I think there is this interesting belief in the online space. It's like one of two camps. Right.

Speaker 2: 16:16

It's like I gotta work my butt off because I love how you said the like that we see the benchmarks of other people and then there's like this uninsatiable chase of it, like the perfect word to describe that. So it's like the hustle piece. But on the other side I see a lot of like, ah, i'm not gonna hustle, i want it to be easy, i'm just gonna like do the minimum and be as efficient as possible. And I think that a lot of the biggest lessons that we have to have for ourselves come from doing it the hard way, cause we gotta learn what works for us and what doesn't work for us. So it's interesting when I think it back on my burnout moment. I think back with gratitude Like I'm sad. I'm sad for earlier me, as I'm sure you are for earlier you, but I also have like huge gratitude that for walking those paths because, holy crap, the lessons that we have now are ingrained in us of not doing that shit right.

Speaker 1: 17:10

And one thing I didn't tell your audience is, during that time when I was building my business, this insatiable hunger for more and just ignoring my husband. I remember we had like one date night and I was literally in the DMs like trying to get someone to join my program, and he looked at me and he's like you haven't talked to me all day and this is the one time a week we get to sit in front of each other. Is it really worth it? And I started to realize like I was being a terrible partner. Right, i was being a terrible person for my health. And through that time, the two years that I built my business at a really rapid speed, i discovered that I had a 11 centimeter fibroid in my uterus that just I don't know like. I think it's because I hustle so much, but I don't know how it grew so big and for me not to notice it And so obviously I had to get in kind of like a C-section that opened abdominal surgery to remove it. And when I saw that tumor it was literally like scarcity in physical form And I think for the first time in my life I understood how our bodies are so connected to everything that we're feeling And I think it just grew so much because of the fact that I was hustling. And here's a funny thing is, after I had the open abdominal surgery, which is like a C-section you're supposed to rest for many weeks right For any woman that's listening like you're not supposed to be getting back into it.

Speaker 1: 18:26

For less than four weeks after my surgery, i pulled off my first six figure launch. I was wearing bandages. I remember like giving webinars and I was like and I just feel bad for that person when I think about her like pushing herself to that end. And so after I had the you know six figure launch, i did it I went into a mental spiral. I had, like you know, repeating thoughts. I just was so burnt out where anything that went wrong in my business I just started crying And I had to go into bed and lay in a horizontal position, and so I think my body was like in complete meltdown mode And I was questioning. I was like, why is it that I achieved this benchmark right In such a short amount of time? but I was completely miserable and I was sad And I just, and then that's, i think, the one, the pivotal moment, where I started to really look at my relationship with money, my relationship with scarcity, what success means to me.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Yeah, oh, my goodness, there's like so much to unpack there, but that physical manifestation of stress and hustle I like side tangent here for a moment. I'm working with a client right now on her webinar And she actually talks about this the scientific link between how stress creates physical ailments in our bodies And she. I don't know anything about this, but we were going through her webinar slides and she has all of this like medical research backing up the physical manifestation of stress. So the fact that you're saying that it's very like timing is a really interesting thing, that that message has now shown up twice this week. So I'm listening to that right now as I'm in a stress season of life to like ease it out. But I think it's really something that we have to really consider with what you're saying here. Is that like wake up call of that physical manifestation of stress.

Speaker 2: 20:09

It's interesting that you achieved such a huge win right on the coattails of such a hard like obviously hard, hard traumatic thing that you went through. What's interesting is I don't know if you've thought about this before, but when you hear like look at you, you like pulled off a six figure launch less than four weeks after surgery Like you can easily hear that narrative go two ways. You can have like whoa, that is so impressive. And people being like, wow, that's so amazing, you're such a badass, which is an interesting celebration of that hustle, and it would. I think it'd be perfectly normal for people to celebrate in that way And I wonder if actually you felt that at the time. I have no idea. But the other way is, like the way that you said that you're so sad for her. Like that hit me deep right. Isn't it interesting that the same amount of facts could happen but we can have such different perspectives on those two like two scenarios.

Speaker 1: 21:04

Yeah, because I really felt what it means to have everything that people would wanted to achieve on the outside and feel absolutely terrible inside, And I think that's what happens when we disconnect from ourselves, right. And so I think I heard somewhere who was the person who was a CEO of Yahoo. She famously like took I don't know like a few days for her maternity leave and it was like celebrated. And I think there is a movement now of like anti-hustle, because I do think it's very toxic what we expect women to do, like after giving birth, and all of these things that are really kind of like heteronormative and also like wrapped up in white supremacy and capitalism. So that's really my journey that I've been trying to realize, as I have a lot of internalized capitalism.

Speaker 1: 21:49

growing up as a child of immigrant, like having money was your key to success, And I think that might have worked in my parents' generation where they were literally surviving, And I think I don't necessarily need that anymore in my lifetime because I have the privilege of not being raised in communist China and that survivalist mentality I don't need to carry it anymore. And so now I'm in my late 30s, I've done a lot of work and also around psychedelics and healing my childhood trauma and has really allowed me to release a lot of these narratives that led to me burning myself out and that led to me treating my body that way, yeah, so you said that with money was your definition of success, like that was the badge that you wore.

Speaker 2: 22:31

I'm curious now how do you define success for yourself?

Speaker 1: 22:34

Ooh, So that's. It's funny. You asked because I just took my team on an all-inclusive, expenses-paid team retreat in the Philippine Islands, right?

Speaker 1: 22:42

Yeah, Oh, she's antsy y'all, she's super antsy, and that chief And the Gloria a year ago would have never done anything like that. And I think leaning into this abundance of knowing that it's not just about, like, holding on to everything you have but letting it flow, has really helped me realize that, like money is, when it's held it's kind of like a toxic pool of water. I read this book by Lynn Twist called the Soul of Money. That like changed my life And I think the way I acted with money was everything I earned. I just tried to hoard and I didn't let it flow into the universe, right? And I realized that, like, you have to let it circulate into the universe so that you know the abundance can multiply. And so I'm learning that.

Speaker 1: 23:22

And while I was taking my team on a retreat and, as you know, i took a 30-day sabbatical, so I was not away from the business for 30 days I finally saw my mother for the first time in four years. The numbers weren't looking great Like my. All of the numbers were down to a level that I haven't seen yet in business. I've had my business. I was pretty lucky to have it go up, up, up, up up And it was like the first time that you know, we had like quite a negative month While I had all these expenses to pay right With the flights and the team retreat And I realized just being there and, like you know, getting all these dinners, and I didn't feel I felt happy for myself because I feel like the old Gloria would have been like pinching pennies and trying to like see how I can save, or maybe acted in a way that you know didn't didn't make me feel so present And I'm really glad that I didn't lean into that scarcity that really was my default wiring And instead just was like you know what we're here, like I'm going to just have the best time.

Speaker 1: 24:16

I'm going to have my team feel like the best. I'm not going to start like cutting corners now that we're here. So we just leaned all the way into it and it was transformational. Like we had team members who like cried and they said this was absolutely a transformational trip that they'll remember for the rest of their life. And you know you can't put a dollar amount on that.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Yeah, So for you now. so I'm going to answer with that context. Tell me again, how do you define success?

Speaker 1: 24:42

Ooh, I define success as achieving what I want, while feeling a sort of spaciousness in my body.

Speaker 2: 24:51

Okay, that's beautiful, That's really beautiful. Like, that's like a chill, like goosebump, It's just hit me. I love. I love that You know one of the things that I have. I've noticed in your language. people use certain words and a couple of the words that you've used in our conversation today, but it also yours and I's private conversations. You talk a lot about that contrast between scarcity and abundance. I'm curious was this something that you were always aware of or is this a more kind of recent, intentional thing that you've been focused on here in the last couple years?

Speaker 1: 25:22

I think, after I had my library tumor and then I got burned out and I had a lot of abundance in terms of revenue, i didn't feel that way. I started to understand, like you know, your client with the body. The body is always talking to us, the body keeps the score. I realize everything is psychosomatic, everything is connected And the funny thing is is the uterus is the sacral chakra which controls money, and I literally had a block, a physical block of stuck cells, and so I think, once I saw that and the location of that tumor, i started to connect the dots between everything. And so that word of flow and of, you know, scarcity, it just became just embedded in who I was, because I literally saw what it meant to have stuck energy inside of me.

Speaker 2: 26:08

Okay, i didn't know about the uterus and the whole money flowing chakra thing. Like that's new information for me And now I have so many questions around when you said flow, hello uterus and flow, and now I'm like I have a baby in my uterus, so what does that mean?

Speaker 1: 26:22

It means that you have a lot of amazing, creative, abundant energy And you're not afraid to use it.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Or for me, thinking about already having children, thinking about how babies cost a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I mean that's also why I, on a more personal level, is I never wanted children, like I told my husband on the first day, like we're never going to have kids. So I hope that's not a deal breaker for you. And only recently, through my trauma work through psychedelic assisted therapy, have I been able to like unblock my relationship with my mom, because I think that was what was keeping me stuck is because I had an unhealed mother wound And at the same time of healing that, for the first time in 37 years of my life, did I think maybe one day I might be, might want to become a mother. I didn't even freeze my eggs Like I just, I just always was not an option for me. But this was pretty recent. This was a few months ago where I had this And it was just like what is this feeling? I've never felt that before. So this is crazy.

Speaker 2: 27:24

It's. It was a kind of looping things together. That was one of the first conversations that Gloria and I had was okay. So I don't. I think I've talked about this before. I am not a small talk person. I have like very low tolerance for small talk. I don't do chit chat, i don't talk about the weather. Like when I meet someone and I connect with them, i want to know, like, tell me your inner fears, like what's actually, like what's going on right now? What are you struggling with? What's in your brain? What are you excited for? Like I want the deep stuff And I could tell you for that way too. So Gloria and I happened to sit next to each other at dinner when we were together in March at a peer mastermind And that what you just shared is what you shared with me at the dinner table And I shared with you.

Speaker 2: 28:08

I haven't talked about my story of how I got pregnant on the podcast yet or the whole story behind it, but I remember sharing with you that I had a vision, like in a manifest, like I was doing, like like the meditation work a couple years ago And I envisioned having a baby girl next to a Christmas tree And how was a very weird and I remember you looked at me and you're like who's pumps? This is a thing. Are you going to have a baby? Is it your time? And I remember thinking I don't know, i'm too old, like it's not in the cards, but I'm kind of playing with this idea again that I think I want a third baby, and could you not y'all? I got pregnant that weekend. I got home like literally two days after having this conversation with Gloria, i put a baby in my uterus. It happened Like that is part of the story. But you were like that conversation where we just like, were real and raw and talking was a huge part of me being open to that. That's crazy.

Speaker 1: 29:04

We're going to take a goosebumps moment for everybody. Let us think in.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Now everyone's thinking Heather is a baby girl. I don't know. We're going to be surprised. I have no idea if it's a boy or girl and we'll wait until that time comes, but either way I'm going to be happy with it.

Speaker 2: 29:17

But I just love how open you are when you're vulnerable, you sharing your stories. I'm very grateful for that. I know those listening are grateful too. I also love how open and willing you are to explore how the inside world for you is connected to the outside and vice versa. Like that's just a really interesting thing And it's it's really refreshing to talk about it so openly, because I think it's so easy for us to get swept up, caught up in all of the data, the processes, the like, getting everything dialed into our business. But you can go at a pace that on paper makes makes it look like you're doing really great right, but if your inner world is rocked, it's not really. It's not really working out. So I'm curious how has, since that moment for you with the cyst, with the surgery years ago, how has business for you changed?

Speaker 1: 30:07

Ooh. So that happened a year and a half ago And since then I've been focused on one thing, which is stepping into leadership. Because here's the thing about scarcity is, when you live in fear of trying to hold on to everything, you will never build a great business, because you're not going to be able to empower people, You're going to be nickel and diming people, you're going to be micromanaging people, you are going to create a team of robots who come to you with problems, not solutions. And because I didn't have the patience, i didn't have the abundance, i didn't have the energy to lean into truly investing in people, i saw hiring as very transactional, and I remember sitting one night and I was completely burnt out again And I said why is it that I have five people working with me, but I am doing everything? And then I started to realize maybe it's a reflection of me because, let's be honest, our businesses are a reflection of me, a reflection of everybody. And I realized that my weakness was not being able to really learn what it takes to be a leader, and that was what separates the really admirable business owners from the people who are just hustling and grinding.

Speaker 1: 31:15

And so I vowed to just really try to lean into leadership reading all the books, doing all the training, spending the time to have systems and processes and onboarding and really have the patience to invest in someone where maybe for the first 30 or 60 days you don't see an ROI, whereas before I was like, okay, you're here, go do this by, and then people left.

Speaker 1: 31:37

So my style of seeing my team is so different. I see my team as an essential part of my business, not just someone that I'm hiring to do a job so I can make money. I really see myself as this is the person I'm becoming by helping other people become the best versions of themselves. And so, through that team retreat that I just held two weeks ago, that was the first time in my business that I felt like I was truly stepping into leadership And, like I said, the numbers are down for the first time in my business. But it felt so great inside to be able to make an impact like that, because I know that the ripple effects of what I taught them and how I got them to think about their work will ripple throughout their career, whether or not they continue to work with me.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Yeah, i just got emotional as you said that maybe it's hormonal, i'm not sure. But contrasting that, what you said earlier, where four weeks post-surgery you had the best launch six-figure launch amazing thing and you felt like crap on the inside, compared to what you just said, where the numbers are down, that you're not, the quote unquote, performance is not there, but it was the best feeling being able to create that for your team. Like when you contrast those two moments, how does?

Speaker 1: 32:48

that feel for you. I feel like now I'm leaning into abundance, where I just trust that I'm doing the right thing And it's an energy right. We all feel it, because I think the old Gloria was like well, i did this for you, you need to do this for me, and it's very this kind of tit for tat thing. But when you truly lean into abundance and you invest in people and you don't need this like handcuff, that's like you're beholden to me people flourish, they can sense that energy and they naturally want to take care of you.

Speaker 1: 33:19

Because we know the research shows and through our own personal experience that people are not motivated by money, right? People leave jobs all the time. So if it's not the money that's keeping them there, how else do you get them to feel like they're a part of something bigger, especially when they're working across time zones and they also have other clients, right? So that's really now I finally understand why there's so many like webinars and courses on like leading during a remote time, because for us it's like everything is remote. But I realized like, wow, this is really what it comes down to, because there's so many, so many little moments of leadership that we don't talk about that is either missed or just not looked at when you're leading a remote team, and I think, being able to truly invest in them, with not expecting anything in return and just truly being present for them, like I felt, like those little moments were achieved- Yeah, i love that, and it's the idea of like when you have remote teams, which I think most people listening do is.

Speaker 2: 34:14

I think a lot of times people think of leadership as the moments where you're interacting with your team, but I think leadership has felt the most when you're not interacting with your team. It's how they perceive you and what's the culture look like and how they feel about their jobs and about the team when you're not around, and I think that's really hard for people to grasp onto because you're like everything's fine, like I only have to think about it when I'm on, but it's really the culture you create when you're not quote unquote on with your team. That's a really beautiful thing. I have one last follow up question and then let's talk about how people can stay connected with you and learn more about your CPR method and the things that you do in PR, because I'm sure people are like Heather, you teased us with all this great shit that Gloria does Like why are we not talking about that? This conversation was like way freaking cool today, so I know everyone got so much out of it. So we'll talk about your masterclass and where they can learn more about you, but I want to make this slightly, slightly tangible for a moment.

Speaker 2: 35:10

When you talk about the abundance piece, i know we hear it and I'm like nodding my head, going, yes, step into abundance, this is great. Do you have any advice or just words of wisdom for people listening who might be really in that mode of like, yeah, i hear you think bigger, think abundant, but like right now I'm just trying to figure out how to pay my mother fricking bills, like I like they're scraping to get by or they're really in that bootstrapping mode of their business, based on what you went through, right, maybe with them not having to walk through surgery or some kind of big life event, any like words of wisdom for them around how they could take steps towards that more abundant mindset?

Speaker 1: 35:49

Well, i think it's really about leaning into trusting your future self without expecting an ROI. So it's kind of like, you know, like the whole detachment theory, if you can realize that you're not in the business to just make money like of course we are but that money and abundance and all of those things that can flow towards you will happen when you truly give away your energy and service in a way that's not nickel and diamond people like, it'll just flow. So, for example, like I just I started to think about my business and I thought, why is it that we're in business? right, like, what is it Like? of course we want more people to join our PR program, the PR starter pack. But the more I thought about that, the more my message became really the kind of pressurey and the more I like was hard selling. People didn't join.

Speaker 1: 36:33

But the moment I changed and I was like how can I help people for free? How can I get so good at helping people for free that they just can't get enough of me and they want to be in my world, that's when I started to see the revenue numbers go up, because I tried all those hard selling tactics and it doesn't work Like all those pressurized timers. You know the false scarcity, like those funnel, funnel magic templates that we all use, right? I'm guilty of that myself. I realized it didn't work anymore, and so one of the things I did, for example, on my webinar, is I reveal the price at the beginning, thanks to my copywriter, brittany McBean, who basically told me this is you leaning into ethical marketing? Tell them in the beginning what you're going to sell and what the price is. Guess what No one really left People stayed on.

Speaker 1: 37:19

Another thing I got rid of is the value stack. How traditionally you have a sign and arbitrary number. You get this for $99,000. Today for $200. People are not stupid. I think we're past that time. I got rid of all that as well. Fake timers, fake urgencies, three spots left bullshit. It's really helped me. For anyone out there that's listening, think about in what ways are you brainwashed into the old funnel marketing things that maybe don't work anymore for today's audience At least, it doesn't work for my audience of diverse female founders. In what ways did I have to retrain myself and to see what was true for me? That has been a very beautiful journey of unlearning of what I have been doing. The data tells me that it works When you do things that are aligned for you, the money will come and it has. I'm living proof that it works when you do lean into abundance.

Speaker 2: 38:15

I love that. I think it's that nuance shift around one confidence in your future self. I wrote that down. I thought that was a really brilliant line, a little golden nugget right there. That other piece of shifting the focus if you find yourself stressing about money, stop worrying about the money or the tactics, the techniques to create the money piece and shift your focus to the person you're serving. I love that. That speaks to my heart and I love it so much. All right, gloria, where is the best place for people to go to learn more about your PR program and to consume all the things to learn how to be seen, heard and valued in the media?

Speaker 1: 38:51

I'm on Instagram at GloriaChaoPR, that's spelled GloriaCHOUPR. I also have my own podcast called Small Business PR Podcast. I interviewed journalists and we really just try to make PR accessible. I ask them all the questions what do you like to see in a pitch? What do I write in the subject line? All the different things that no agency will tell you. I ask them If you want to see exactly what the structure of a cold pitch looks like that has helped hundreds of small businesses get featured on podcasts and magazines and outlets, go to GloriaChaoPRcom slash masterclass and you can watch that right now If you DM me. If you DM me, hint of Hustle, i will give you a pitching freebie on Instagram.

Speaker 2: 39:31

We love free shit, heck. Yes, we will link to all of that and I'll type those instructions in the show notes so y'all will be got you there. Please send a Gloria DM at a minimum to tell her. Thank you for sharing her stories today, being so vulnerable and real and raw. This is one of the big reasons why I switched the show from the Heather Sager show into Hint of Hustle, because I wanted to have these real and raw conversations around what it really looks behind the curtain in these online businesses. We see the pretty shit on stage all the time, we see how people show up, but it's these real stories around what built our businesses, both from the structure but also from the beliefs. That's really what the heart of this is about, and thank you for showing up like a thousand percent today. I just appreciate you so much.

Speaker 1: 40:16

Thank you so much, Heather. You're amazing Back at ya.

Speaker 2: 40:19

All right, friends. Thanks for joining our episode. Hey, by the way, go definitely check out Gloria's podcast because my episode on her show also released this week. We will link to that there and you can do a little love swap back and forth between her show, my show. If you love this show, you're going to love her sassy style on there too. I love the fact that you interview. You ask all the questions of reporters and other people. You're a great interviewer. We're going to go bounce over there too. All right, friends, we will see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to another episode of the hint of hustle podcast.

Speaker 2: 40:59

If you're in the season of hustle, consider this the permission slip. You didn't need to take a beat. Go on a walk, stretch, call a friend, go reheat that coffee for the fourth time and actually drink it. Because those big dreams you're chasing, they require the best version of you. And if those goals include expanding your audience, establishing your industry credibility and selling your premium price programs, the best way to tackle this is through speaking. Your voice is your best brand asset and will teach you how to use it as a marketing tool. Head on over to the speakercocom forward slash, start and I'll see you there.