How to grow AND create more time for yourself with Kathy Guillory

Kathy Guillory 0:02

I could go back in time and tell myself anything when I first started the business, I think it would be like, enjoy this sweet spot, but while you're here, like enjoying these referrals and this work, start building your pipeline, because that's where I struggled. I was like, I'm going to be able to depend on this forever. And that dried up.

Leah Neaderthal 0:20

Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process, get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope wherever you are right now, wherever you're listening to this, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So when I was 17, I became a published children's book illustrator. Seriously, I was in a drawing class at my school, and the whole class was invited to submit illustrations for a children's book that was in the works all about Italy, called positively, Italy, and I drew a picture of a renaissance woman. Picture a woman, sort of wearing a hat that you'd expect to see in like the 1500s right, like, with a sort of structured hat part, kind of extending out to the sides, and a long, you know, veil that hangs down the back. I worked really hard on that picture of the Renaissance woman, and I felt really proud of it. And of all the drawings from my class that were sent off to the author, mine and a couple others were picked for the book. And so when my drawing of the Renaissance woman made it into this book, positively Italy by Virginia McLean, I became a published children's book illustrator. I mean, Have I done anything super artistic since? Not really to that level. I mean, I always say I'm creative, but I'm not all that artistic. And I mean, it's funny now, because anyone who knows me knows I'm like, okay at drawing. You know, if my kids say, like, draw a dinosaur, I can draw a dinosaur, but I'm certainly not an artist by any means, and certainly not to the level of a children's book illustrator, but I have a real appreciation for children's books, especially now that I'm reading so many of them to my kids, and now what's kind of cool is that my son can read, and he can sort of read those books back to me, and there's something so special about what a children's book can do, you know, the messages it can communicate and the way it can make us feel like how does a story about a monkey who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed show us that it's okay to stop fighting how we feel and just be grumpy, and in letting us feel our feelings, we actually start to feel better. That one is grumpy monkey. It's one of my kids' favorites. And children's books can help kids feel their feelings, you know, understand their environment and really bring concepts down to their level and just help them make sense of the world and their place in it. And that last one, making sense of the world and their place in it is exactly what drove the woman I'm talking to today to write her own children's book? Today, I'm talking to Kathy Guillory, who in her real work, you know, air quotes real work. She's a marketing consultant for multi location businesses. And when I started working with Kathy, she had been in business for a few years and had done, you know, fairly well, but like a lot of women, she was relying entirely on referrals from her network, and that, well, had kind of run dry. She had a couple clients, but no real sales process, no pipeline. It was kind of like flying by the seat of her pants, just figuring things out, project by project, which is interesting, although not really surprising, because she comes from a long marketing career, but you know, as many of us have found out, coming from a marketing background isn't the same thing as being able to market and sell your own services. So fast forward to today, and not only is she landing bigger, more lucrative contracts, but she's also created something most consultants think is impossible, actual free time, and in her case, time to do something she'd wanted to do for a long time, write a children's book, but not just any children's book. It's a story about a little girl who moves to a country where she doesn't know the language, she doesn't know anyone, and she has to find her brave. It's Cathy's story from when she came to the US as a political refugee from the former Soviet Union in the early 90s. Because I have the book, It's so heartwarming, and I'll let her tell you about it in our conversation. And I can't wait for you to hear how she was able to grow her business in a way that created the time and the space to pursue her creative passion. So in this conversation, you're going to hear this surprisingly simple question that Kathy started asking her CEO clients that completely shifted how they saw her and how she controlled her project timelines. You'll hear why having 18 years of marketing experience actually made it harder for Kathy to get clients, and the mindset shift that changed everything. You'll hear how Kathy learned to stagger her retainer clients so she'd have weeks of uninterrupted time, and that's the time she used to write and publish the book. And you'll hear about the exercise that helped Kathy stop optimizing for just money or just learning and start building a business that actually gave her space for what mattered most. Basically, you're going to hear how Kathy built a business that funds her life and gives her the space to create so if you've ever worried that if you grow your consulting business and you want to make more money, you'll end up working all the time, and you won't have time for anything else. I hope Kathy's story will show you that it doesn't have to be the case. So take a listen to my conversation with Kathy Guillory, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business, and then hopefully someday soon, you'll partner with us to help you build your consulting business, and you'll come back on the podcast and share your story. Enjoy Kathy, thank you so much for being here.

Kathy Guillory 6:25

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be in the hot seat.

Leah Neaderthal 6:28

The Hot Seat, it's, you know, it's a love seat. It's not a hot seat, it's a love scene. Kathy, why don't we start at the beginning? Why don't you tell the good people who you are and

Kathy Guillory 6:38

what you do? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm excited to be here. My name is Kathy Guillory. I'm a fractional cmo with bell bear market, and I was a member of the Academy for a year, and now, most recently, I also published a children's book that I'm very, very excited to talk about and share with all of you.

Leah Neaderthal 6:55

Yeah, I can't wait to get into it. So Kathy, let's sort of back up a little bit. What were you doing before you started your business?

Kathy Guillory 7:04

Yeah, I was in corporate I did corporate marketing for 18 years. So consumer facing corporate marketing. My last job was for a private equity firm where we managed marketing for 155 unique brands all across the country. They were in the pet care space. So it was 155 websites, 155 social media accounts, 155 like physical locations and ads and all of that, email lists, you name it. It was marketing on steroids. Oh my God.

Leah Neaderthal 7:31

Every person who comes from a marketing background who's listening to this, I think their head is exploding. That is a lot. And now you know what I want to push you on this. You know, you do marketing through Bell, very marketing, because you you don't just do marketing. Can you say more about the specific type of client that you work with? Because I think it's so interesting.

Kathy Guillory 7:53

Yeah, so my niche has always been this multi location, franchise marketing space, just where I have so much of my experience and the needs and challenges of businesses that really do have a large geographic footprint are so different, you know, you're trying to streamline marketing in New York City, and then you have another practice or another clinic in rural Texas, right? If you need really different strategies that you can scale at the national level to be able to deliver the same results and to have the same results from your marketing spend. So that's really where, where I've been focusing for the last two years, since the start of the business.

Leah Neaderthal 8:25

I think it's so cool. Because when you started talking to me about it, I was like, you know, it's not just like, high level marketing. It's really, you can bring it down to, like, the the location level, any multi location company, I mean, and you're really getting, like people through the door, absolutely.

Kathy Guillory 8:43

That's the whole point, right? That's part of that. So my, my ICP, when you really look at the ideal client profile, when I sat down and did that work with your team as well, through the academy, it was three or more physical locations that are delivering a service. So it's not necessarily a store, right? It's not like E commerce, which is its own subcategory of marketing. These are service driven organizations. So they're, you know, like lawn care companies, or, you know, vet clinics, pet care centers, med spas, banks. It's really like where your service is delivered in store or in the facility, and so you're trying to drive foot traffic in the door.

Leah Neaderthal 9:17

Yeah? I mean, it really is like classic marketing, right? Like, you sort of look at the historical, you know, use of that. And so a few years into your business, like, you know, what was going on when we started to work together, I always like to ask, you know, you reached out for a reason. What was the reason I reached

Kathy Guillory 9:35

out in, I believe May of 2024 that sounds right. It was May of 2024 but in the business for just shy of a year. You know, it had a couple of clients under my belt. All of them came through my internal network. I know it's something you talk about a lot in the program, right? You announce, like, Oh, I'm starting my own business, and everybody flocks to you. And you have a good like, six, seven months of business, and then all those leads, all those contacts, dry up, and you're like, hey, I started my own business. And then nobody comes through the door because. You already dried up your existing network, so you need to start selling your services to people who don't know you. But wasn't it

Leah Neaderthal 10:05

great for a time? I mean, wasn't that for a time, right? It was wonderful. If I could

Kathy Guillory 10:11

go back in time and tell myself anything when I first started the business, I think it would be like, enjoy this sweet spot, but while you're here, like enjoying these referrals and this work, start building your pipeline, because that's where I struggled. I was like, I'm going to be able to depend on this forever. And that dried up, right? So about six, seven months in, it dried up. And so around May, I had, you know, had a couple of leads. I actually first saw you. I can't, I can't remember what came first you it's either a LinkedIn post or a podcast, but they came very close together. So either, like, I found one and then found the other but it was something very, very specific about your business to consumer marketing is not going to get to your B to B consulting leads. And I was just like, wow, she is in my head, right? Like, that's exactly the problem I was having. Because, I mean, I've been doing marketing for 18 years. Like, how hard can it be, right? But sales process was different. The lead times were different, the different stakeholders I was talking to were completely different. Like, I actually needed to build a sales process at a sales pipeline, and that's something I've never had to do to that extent, right, with my consumer brands. Because it was like, you know, put up a vet clinic, do ads. People come in, they either don't come in or they come in, right? It wasn't like they wait six months to come in. So that one sound bite, really, you know, like, it's almost like, you know, you can't use your B to C marketing expertise, you know, it's not going to work to help build your B to B consulting business. And that's exactly what I was finding. So I remember I reached out, and I think I moved pretty quickly. I was like, Yeah, let's just do this, right? So I kind of jumped in and did a lot of the coursework over the summer. Started really following the content framework, the, you know, kind of building relationships based on trust, having one of these conversations, you know that a year later, has really grown the business to, I think, more than I was expecting in such a short period

Leah Neaderthal 11:48

of time. Yeah, well, let's talk about it. So, you know, building your pipeline, I think, as a marketer and now as a business owner, obviously you knew that was important. But what, like, what did you want it to do for you? Right? I mean, obviously, besides getting clients that will give you money, and, you know, all these things like do great work, what were you hoping that having a full pipeline would do sort of for you and for the business? I was hoping

Kathy Guillory 12:11

it would free up a lot of my time. So before I started my own business, I was working, you know, for a PE firm. It was very, very busy. It's working 80 hours a week. I just really needed a way to find better balance in my life. I want to be able to pursue other projects, like travel with my family and take a couple weeks off here and there. Right around the same time that I started the business, I started writing my children's book, and so it was very much in like, you know, kind of storyboard format. It had, you know, some like, rough AI art sketches for what it would look like, but certainly hadn't put me, like, time or thought or effort into it. And so I was, like, I really, you know, really want to set this goal, right, that I'd like to get this done, like, I'd like to get this book, you know, written and illustrated and published, and I'm not a creative person in those terms, like, I can't draw to save my life. So I knew I would have to find a publisher and an illustrator and kind of manage that whole process that also took time, right? So I, you know, started the business. I was so busy kind of getting pulled in different directions, I put the book on hold for a little while. I started with the academy. I did the coursework, I started getting some leads, I started building my pipeline. And then around the beginning of the year, I had some capacity in between clients, and so I was able to, you know, put head down, finish the story, finish the storyboards. I found a hybrid publisher, just kind of the best of both worlds. Their whole value prop is they're democratizing the publishing process. So before it was like three or four publishing houses, you had to go through to really publish a book, or you could do it yourself. But they're the best of both worlds. They like you put up a little bit of money. They put up a little bit of money. You kind of go in, and then once it's published and once it's out, you'll get a larger share of the sales than you would with the traditional publisher. So that's, yeah, it really turned me on to them. And then you also get full creative control and creative direction. And the story was, you know, it was my story, right? It was my immigration story. It was my, you know, the love story between me and my grandmother, who was the most influential person in my life, I would say, so far, at least. And so it was really, you know, I wanted control over it. I didn't want some old white guy in a suit, right, sitting in, you know, New York City, like, marking it up, going, Nope, this is wrong, right? This won't sell. Like, I wanted to retain that creative control, and they, you know, really enabled me to do that. So that

Leah Neaderthal 14:10

was awesome, yeah, of all the sort of creative pursuits out there, because you, you wanted to be able to, I'm guessing, you didn't want to go back to 80 hours a week, right? You wanted to sort of have this space and freedom to do this of all the things you could be doing. Why a book? And why this story?

Kathy Guillory 14:28

So why a book is like a question. I have young kids. The kids are five and six and a half, and we read a lot. You know, they're of the age where, like, they're reading the Bernstein bears and Paddington, and we've always just read to them since they were little. And now they're at the point where, like, they're starting to learn to read, and it's just such a big part of our culture, such a big part of, like, what we do as a family, right? They come home from school, we eat dinner, we read, and then we go to bed. And so, you know, I'm always looking for, like, good, kind of positive, affirmative messages, right? What do I want to teach them? Is there something that they're struggling with? And there's little material out there that kind of tackles some of the harder topics. For kids, right? There's a lot of like, you know, happy kind of fluffy type content. There's sometimes, like, a little bit heavier content, but for the most part, there's very little like in between. And this particular story was, you know, was my immigration story was about moving to an all new place where I didn't know anybody, where I didn't speak the language, where nobody really looked like me or talked like me. And so I just want them to kind of see the examples of like resilience and, you know, being welcoming to others who are coming in from perhaps a similar background. And then ultimately, the story is also about just building self confidence that has, like, this little affirmation theme in the middle of it, where it starts off with her grandmother, kind of telling her these three words, you know, you're kind, you're curious, you're brave, you can do anything. And then later on in the story, she actually looks in the mirror and says those words herself. And when she says those words herself, her magic cape appears. And so it's kind of this like transference of, like, her grandma's confidence. She's borrowing her grandma's confidence. And then at the very end, she becomes self confident. And sort of what that means. So it's a, think it's a positive message, you know, I think, in today's world with so much negativity around, you know, kind of immigrants and people who are not even immigrants, but just people who are kind of othered, right, who may be a little bit different than you for whatever reason, I think it's just important to think of the human side

Leah Neaderthal 16:11

of it, absolutely. And how old were you when you made that journey?

Kathy Guillory 16:16

So I was nine. I moved from the former USSR with my family, and I didn't speak, you know, barely any English. And a lot of it's like, very parallel, right? You know, packed up our stuff and we left. We actually came as political refugees in the early 90s. So I started a school where I was the only person who, you know, spoke Russian, didn't speak a lot of English. We moved to Los Angeles, and LA was a very, it was a very diverse community. So at least, like everybody there was also, you know, from somewhere else. So that part helped. But I remember the only native English speaker in my third grade class was our teacher, Miss Chicopee, and she was from upstate New York, like everybody else, either had Spanish as a second language. A lot of kids were from, were from Asia. There were a couple kids from kind of all over the place, but I was the only, I was the only Russian.

Leah Neaderthal 16:59

Oh, wow. I mean, it's one thing to come to a whole other country and have to learn that language, but and also to be thrown in with all of these other kids who have their own sort of languages, and, you know, getting comfortable in their own way, right, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh. So being able to tell this story, or, you know, a version of this story to sort of inspire, I mean, what did it feel like to sort of see this come to life?

Kathy Guillory 17:24

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So, you know, really, really exciting. The day we got our first couple of copies of the book was just super exciting. My girls were like, it's real. It's real. It's real because, you know, I would show it to them, like on my iPad, and I would show them sketches. They were my little internal focus group, I think, and parts of like, the drawings and all that. But definitely really cool to, like, feel it right. You just know that it's, like, tangibly going to be there. I'm really excited to share the story. I have a giant six foot polar bear cut out of the bell bear that's I'm going to take with me to some like, local book signings, and I'm going to try to go to their school. So I'm just excited to kind of share it with the world and see where it goes. I have a bunch of other stories in mind. I have like, three or four others in the back of my mind. So if this takes off and she becomes, like, a really popular character, I'd like to tell those, you know, some of the harder topics, like, you know, parents getting divorced or happy, to share some more of my personal journey to like, I was diagnosed with ADHD a little bit later in life. And, you know, I have a story in mind called Bell bear can't sit still, which, you know, might some kids might be able to relate to that, right? Just, just to kind of tackle some of those topics that aren't always talked about in children's books, or if they are, they're always talked about in a very, like, clinical way,

Leah Neaderthal 18:28

right, right, right? So I don't think we've said it out loud, like, what is the name

Kathy Guillory 18:33

of the book? Yeah, it is called the adventures of belbert. And where can you find this book? Yeah, you can find it on Amazon. You can find it in Barnes and Noble you can find it on it on walmart.com, a couple of other places. You can also find that on my website, Bill bearbooks.com, so I have it. I have it everywhere.

Leah Neaderthal 18:50

Oh my gosh. This is so it's so cool. And I love that you had the sort of space to do that Absolutely. Can we talk a little bit about how you were able to free up this space? You know, what are some of the things that you did through our work that you think made the biggest difference for you? What are some of those game changers?

Kathy Guillory 19:09

Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was getting confidence around those first few clients. So I, you know, started the business, and I had this inflow of work coming in from people I'd known was getting referrals, but again, no sales process, no real pipeline. What the academy really helped me do was, like, be thoughtful about who I was going after, so who I wanted to get in front of the specific problems I was solving, right? So my niche is pretty well defined, but it's also a pretty large when you talk about, you know, your total addressable market, right? And there are a lot of different franchise businesses. There are a lot there all over the country, like, what is the right size, what's the right fit, what's the right stage of business. For me, the part where I've always thought I could add the most value is going from small, right? So like, less than 10, and really scaling to that 2530, range as far as number of locations go. So that's where you start feeling some of the marketing pain points. It's like, do I need to hire more people? Do I need to invest in digital asset management? Do I need to build processes and playbooks like, when I'm opening a new location? How do I really make it easy, so that every single time I go put up a new location or have to start from scratch? So my work in the academy really helped me, like, pinpoint exactly, not just the type of business, but at what stage up business. So what are some of those, like, triggers, right? So, you know, we're expanding into a new market. There's a new CEO. Typically, a marketing leadership turnover is always a big one. So someone's gone through like, two or three marketing leaders, and they're in that transitional space where they need someone to come in and just evaluate, right? How are things going? So once I was able to, like, pinpoint, okay, it's not this huge, right, total addressable market of, you know, 5000 franchisors, right? It's actually this much smaller subset. And they're also across these three or four verticals where I've had the most experience, my conversation started making a lot more sense. I really was able to, like, unlock those conversations earlier in the sales process. And I could really, like, map out where I could, like, logically plug into the client's timeline. And it also made it a lot easier to figure out when the client work would be coming in. So a lot of it was like pipeline building, but then also managing the timeline of when that would start. I think the fractional model is a little bit different from just traditional consulting in that it's not always short term project based, right? So I'll come in and I'll do like a short term project. Typically, I start with a really comprehensive marketing on it that takes two to three months, and then that almost always leads to, like a true fractional engagement, where I am a member of the team managing their team as they're building this new infrastructure, as they're opening a new location. So these retainer contracts tend to last, you know, nine to 12 months longer, even in some cases, which is great, because it gives you kind of that predictability, that stability and income while you're looking for your next client. But realistically, you know, I couldn't manage more than two retainer clients at the same time, just because of my capacity. And you know, the people wanting like, overlapping availability for meetings, or overlapping availability for, you know, different like team based activities. So what it really allowed me to do was create a pipeline where they weren't overlapping. It was like, okay, one finishes, and then I have a couple weeks off to do whatever, and then I have another one starting. So really kind of staggering them where it makes sense. And that freed me up a lot in the kind of in between place, but also in the, you know, I've been working with this client for a few months now. It's a little bit on autopilot, right? I can, you know, take 1015, hours this week to really focus on my book or really focus on whatever this next project is, yeah.

Leah Neaderthal 22:37

So being able to build a pipeline around like your actual best clients, having better conversations, filling the pipeline, and being able to manage the time. I think this is really important, being able to manage the timeline of stop and start, because that is something that a lot of women consultants struggle with because of the nature of the work, right? You can go through times where you're it's almost like the feast famine cycle is different. It's like it's a busy, not as busy cycle, right? But a lot of women don't feel a lot of power in that, you know? They sort of feel like, when the client wants to get started, that's when they get started, right? Can you speak to how you were able to not just sort of predict, but, like, really direct how this goes? Yeah, I

Kathy Guillory 23:21

think a lot of it went through just really transparent conversations around that. And I explained to pretty much everybody I talked to that the fractional model is different from just traditional consulting, and that I'm integrated in your business. So I'm meeting with the leadership team, usually a member of the leadership team, at least for a period of time. I'm usually managing the team directly. You have to have at least one person on site doing marketing, otherwise it's not going to be a good fit, because you'll end up paying me to do marketing, and that's just not a good value. So I need, like, at least one person who's doing the execution, and usually in the fractional model, I'm managing them. So I'm having, you know, one on ones, some of the essences, like I've helped them write goals, like I'm actually there, right? Like an embedded executive, and that's part of the value prop. So what I try to kind of communicate up front is, like, what you're getting is, like, me, right, focused on your business, but in order for me to be focused on your business, I can't be focused on three other businesses, right? So kind of setting that expectation up front of, like, you know, we can start on your audit with a little bit of overlap with another client, but I can't, like, really come in and get under the hood until I have the capacity to work on that, and I think once they understand the difference, they've all so far in experience, have been really flexible around that, you know, I also try to set expectations around what I expect from them. So when I'm coming in and doing an audit, again, it takes two to three months. It can go as quickly or as slowly as they want to, and most of that discovery work is done. You know, my audit has 10 parts. It's pretty comprehensive. It's about an hour and a half discussion for each part of that because, like, we're digging into your environment, your competition, your customers, there's usually some prep work they have to do. So I always ask them, because nine times out of 10, it's going to be with the CEO and then maybe some members of either the marketing team or the leadership team, depending on the size of the organization. But I ask them. If they have the capacity right to really kind of sit down and look ahead at their calendar, right? So if I'm going to be asking you to spend, you know, 20 hours on calls with me over the next two months on these, like, really in depth discovery calls, is that something you can commit to, and that, in some cases, has led to, like, revision of timelines, or, you know, in some cases, like one time we did an audit in the spring that took five months, and which is perfectly fine, right? I just kind of took the existing engagement and stretched it out, and that gave me a little more flexibility, and them a little more flexibility, because they were in the middle of another project like once they can communicate what it actually entails, they completely get it. Because if they want my full attention, if they want my full focus, they don't want me doing the same thing for three or four other clients at the same time, because they're not time, because they're not going to

Leah Neaderthal 25:43

get that value. Yeah, one other thing I'm hearing here is that asking them, do you have the capacity for this? I think it's a really important shift that touches on sort of two things that we talk about in the academy. It's like coming in at a peer level, and this idea of make it so, right? If you had not asked those questions, you know, I think a lot of women consultants feel like the client is the boss, right? And they don't feel like they can't ask the hard question of, like you CEO, do you have time for this? Right? You it takes a certain amount of peering to ask those hard questions, right? And this idea of make it so, like, you can actually do it. You can say that, right? It's like, I totally, I can't do this faster than you can do it right, right? And so I think it's a really important shift when we sort of, you know, in service of, sort of teaching the client how to think about you and how to think about the work. I know that goes a long way. It does. I think

Kathy Guillory 26:37

it makes a really big difference. And that was actually one of my favorite modules in the academy, just the whole, you know, concept of like you're the peer, right? Like you're no longer asking, right? You're telling, and you're kind of going in on equal footing, which I think has been really, really beneficial. I don't know that I would have instinctively done that, you know, in relationships with CEOs, because most of the people that I work with that, I work really, really closely with our CEOs or their CEOs, in some cases, if their organization is big enough, but, you know, it's not coming in as, like an I report to you type of relationship, right? Like I'm coming in as a peer, and those are sort of the expectations, you know? The other piece I do is, shortly after someone signs a contract, I have this, like onboarding email, and I customize it a little bit, but I just kind of lay out the ground rules, right? I have a similar questionnaire, similar set of questions I asked the CEO, and it has things like, you know, your communication methods, right? What's your preferred communication channel? Right? What are your working hours like? When do I, you know, not contact you? How do you want to hear about emergencies or wherever else? And I'm pretty transparent, right? Like, I tell them that, you know, from four to 7pm every night, like you're not going to get a hold of me because I'm taking care of my kids. I'm picking them up from school. We're doing dinner, we're doing story, we're doing bath, right? Nine times out of 10 you're going to hear from me, like at 715 as I'm catching up on email and I'm scrolling through what I missed while I was out. But you know, if it's short of an emergency, like, don't expect an immediate response. And so I try to set those expectations out up front, and so far, like, they've been, you know, really well received, right? We have conversations about time zones that I know a lot of people are little nervous about, right? Like, Oh, I'm have a client in California, or have a client here. So I try to have those conversations, like, right up front, and set those expectations of, like, you know, I work East Coast hours, right? Like, you have access to, you know, this subset of my calendar, you know, this is what it means. And so far, you know, I really haven't had a lot of issues with boundaries around that.

Leah Neaderthal 28:18

That's great. I think all of that is so important, and you ended exactly where I was going to pick it up. What you're describing is boundaries, right? And I think that, like the fractional model, can be very challenging for boundaries, because they do get sort of all of you, or most of you, or a big part of you, right? As opposed to, you know, what we would consider traditional consulting, like air quotes, consulting, like, I come in and I'm sort of loosely associated with you, but I'm really here to, like, do a thing, and then I leave or whatever. And you know, that's why I think without these mindset shifts, fractional work can become a job, right? You are sort of being treated like an employee. And so is there anything else? I mean, you've already sort of shared a lot of how you set boundaries up front and, like, clearly communicate them. But like, is there anything else that you would offer about, like, how to maintain boundaries in a relationship that can become all consuming.

Kathy Guillory 29:15

It can. It can very, very quickly become all consuming. And I think boundaries can only be successful if you communicate them, and then they respect them, and then, you know, next time someone tries to push them, you communicate them again. So it's not something you can, like, set once and forget, right? You almost kind of like, always have to go back to them. And you know, that comes up, right? There's a call after hours that you can't make, right? Just, you know, let them know right away. Hey, that's outside of my working hours. If you want to record it, happy to listen to her the next day, right? Really, just like reminding them, like, of your availability, of any other competing priorities that you have. Something I do try to build into my fractional retainer contracts is a little bit of flexibility, and I tell them that up front. So you know, most of them are hourly based in some capacity, right? So it's usually like a bank of hours. We have 80 hours a month, or we have 60 hours a month, or something along those lines, and they all. Have a rollover. So I build that in. So like, I can roll over hours, or they can roll over my hours for up to two months, but it's capped at two months, and so that gives us flexibility for, like, a really big project. So for instance, I have a client. We just launched a website in July, and we spent a lot of time in July working on that website, right? And I knew that, I knew that up front, they knew that up front, and then I took two and a half weeks in August off to hang out with my kids before school. Before school started. So, like, a win, win. So instead of, like, you know, paying me a smaller retainer for that month, or trying to, like, nitty gritty, calculate all of that, right, all of that was already built in, and I communicated to them up front, right? They knew at the beginning of the summer it was, you know, hey, I'm going to help with this website launch. I know the team is going to need a lot more of my strategic support and, like, hands on testing right to bring this to market. On this timeline, July is going to be really over, but then August will make up for it. And I think they really appreciate that flexibility too, because that flexibility kind of goes both ways. Right at the end of the day, when you're looking at it on, like, a nine month or a 12 month contract, you know, it's going to balance out. It just takes conscious reminding them a couple of steps, you know, along the way, that that's what's going to happen.

Leah Neaderthal 31:04

Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else that you know, you mentioned a few things that really sort of changed your ability to create some of this space? Is there anything else that you learned or incorporated from our work together that really allowed you to sort of create this space, to work on the book and other creative things? Yeah, it's actually

Kathy Guillory 31:23

a really good question. So something that always stuck with me was the exercise we did early in building blocks, and it was the 3x of profitability, because I've never really looked at it through that lens, right? It was like, you know, professionally, like, what area do you want to learn and grow in? There was the, you know, financial profitability, right? Of like, how you know, how much money do you want your business to make in a specific period of time? And then there was this personal component to it. Next, component to it, and I forget if that's exactly what it was called, right? But it was like, you know, what other area of your life do you want to also, like, grow support? And for me, it was just free time to pursue other projects. And this book just happened to kind of naturally be there, right? I knew I wanted to bring it to market. I knew I wanted to document it and bring it to life. And so that made just the most sense. And so I think looking at it through that lens, right? I wasn't like, just trying to make as much money as possible, because then my approach would have been a little bit different, right? I wasn't just trying to, like, learn as much as I could, because then I would have taken on different clients or different projects. But here it was, like, you know, how do the three of those kind of intertwine, and where is that happy medium in the middle,

Leah Neaderthal 32:21

yeah, so, well, you got it really close. It's, it was professional, financial and emotional. You got it really, really close. And when you envision this, like, personal or, you know, the emotional part is that where you really wanted to sort of expand,

Kathy Guillory 32:36

it was, it was, that's where I wanted to expand. That's where, that's where the book was, because I had it on hold, right? So I, you know, I'd already had, like, an outline and a couple of rough sketches. I knew that I wanted to bring it to life. I just didn't know exactly when or how. And so when I was, you know, building the business, right, it was kind of the back of my mind. And I got to a certain point where I had, you know, a breaking client overlap, a little bit of capacity that freed up. And I was like, Well, this is the project I'm going to pick up and do, because it was already there, right? It wasn't like something new. I went to go find it. To go find it was just there on a shelf, and so I picked it up and was able to kind of bring it over the finish line this year. So it was extra, extra rewarding.

Leah Neaderthal 33:10

Yeah, it's so wonderful. Kathy, fill in the blank for me. I almost didn't work with you, because I

Kathy Guillory 33:18

honestly don't think I had that moment, because I think I saw that LinkedIn post or I heard that podcast, and I was like, I could actually learn something here. So I think I was one of those people you talked to where by the end of our first introductory phone call, I was like, Okay, where do I sign, right? And you were like, Oh, we have one more call, and you're gonna ask me questions. I'm gonna ask you questions. And I was like, no, no, no. Leah, like, I'm done. I'm done dating. Like, let's get married. Where do I sign? So I I honestly don't think I had that. I think by the time we spoke and by the time I listened, I was already, like, much farther along in the sales process that I already knew I was working with you. It was just a matter of, like, when do we start?

Leah Neaderthal 33:52

I love clients like you, but you know, it's true that honestly, by the time that a lot of people do talk to me or somebody on my team, you've done your research. You know you've listened to the podcast. For most people, it's not like whether you trust me, it's honestly, whether you trust you. That's sort of a lot of people's sticking point, and whether it's spoken or unspoken, right? And so if you were already on board and you trust yourself to do the work which you fully did, I mean, you dove in wholeheartedly. What else is there to talk about, right?

Kathy Guillory 34:25

Yeah, I just needed a couple of, like, the, you know, secret sauce ingredients, right? Like, I already knew marketing. I knew what I wanted to do. I had an idea. I just needed a way to translate that to that B to B marketing. And that was really it, right? Like, it was really that you talk about content. There's actually one you talk about content where you talk about, like, writing at the, you know, 303, level courses, right? Like, where you're no longer, like, kind of preaching to the one on one on one basics of what they need, but like, you're kind of really in their head. And that one, like, line, right? That one sound bite of, like, you know, your traditional B to C marketing tactics are not going to get you B to B clients. Like, it just stuck with me. And I was like, I'm really not so. I need to learn this. So there's a, you know, there's a plug for having smart content as well, right? Making sure that you're speaking your clients language and kind of getting in their heads of what their

Leah Neaderthal 35:08

problem is, yeah, and I teach you exactly how to do that. It's so interesting, you know, working with women who come from marketing, because you are probably doing a lot of things that are good, you know, we don't blow up anything that's working, right? We don't sort of trash anything that's working. We take what's working and make it even better. And you know, I think especially when you come from marketing, you might have a lot of the ingredients on the marketing side. But as you know, there are two systems. There's the marketing system and the sales system, you know, you can come from an incredible marketing background and and the sales system, you know, you're still sort of building that, right? That's the area that's lacking more.

Kathy Guillory 35:45

That was the piece for me. It was the the sales process, right? Because I'd never actually led a sales process, you know, I, I did a lot of sales enablement work, right, in terms of, like, what marketing brings to the table, but I'd never, you know, walked a client through, like, an offering and what it looks like. And I also had very, very limited experience with engaging with other stakeholders along the way, right? Because BSC marketing is so different. Like, you usually have one decision maker, maybe two for a big decision, you certainly don't have five or six who also need to, like, weigh in from like legal or operations or HR, like you don't have any of that. So that piece was particularly helpful, right? Like, how to define that sales process and then also just lead your clients through it.

Leah Neaderthal 36:24

Yeah, a lot of women I work with have been on the buying side, right? They've been in positions where they're hiring consultants, but the part that you see is only a fraction right, so seeing it and being able to lead it from the other side. First of all, it's a lot different than you think, and it does take a sales process and understanding how to, what we call navigate the jungle with, you know, different stakeholders and whatnot. Kathy, what would you say to somebody who's in the position that you were, you know, back then, before we were working together? What advice would you give her?

Kathy Guillory 36:55

Yeah, they could just do it right, like, just do it, you know, bite the bullet. Actually listen to a couple of podcasts, read some of the reviews on the website. I think those are really telling too, right? I love that. You know, you have so many other like, stories of different women you worked with over the years, and they're all kind of coming in in different verticals, offering different services. You know, I think it's always worth it to invest in yourself and invest in your business, and if sales and marketing is something that you are struggling with, I think this is very much a you know, program to do it through, right? You know, I learned a tremendous amount. I know, I've certainly recommended it to a couple of other consultants along

Leah Neaderthal 37:25

the way. Thank you. Thank you. And you know, for somebody like you who sort of has this other creative pursuit, and for all the women who maybe have something that they want to pursue as well, sort of on the side, or whatever, and you know, they're wondering, sort of how to juggle it. What advice would you give to them? Yeah.

Kathy Guillory 37:44

So my biggest lesson in life is what gets scheduled gets done, right? So I live by my calendar. I have with different client commitments, with different personal things, like kids in school, right? You know, family things, like things we have going on. If it's not in my calendar, it's just not going to get done. So, you know, if you want to write a book, or if you want to, you know, start training for a marathon, or whatever that pursuit is, like, put it in your calendar, right? Block off some time you're the keeper of your own calendar. Block off Friday mornings. Like, something that I do is, you know, I don't do, I don't take meetings on Fridays. I haven't since I started the business. If there's an emergency or if something drastic goes wrong, right? People know how to get a hold of me. Doesn't mean I'm not working, but I'm not in meetings, I'm not on Zoom calls, I'm not responding to like Slack or teams messages or any of that, right? So it gives me time and space to kind of either catch up from the week on client work or work on my business or work on something else. And so I just let people know that that's my availability. You know, you're going to have access to me Monday through Thursday and during these hours, right? Here's what this looks like. But Fridays, you know, I'm out of pocket. It's an emergency call this number, right? But, like, I've only had like, two phone calls ever, right? And they were for, like, actual emergencies. So set those boundaries and then just make it so, right? Like, you're the keeper of your calendar, so set aside the time to do that, because if you don't have a designated time, at the end of a long day, or at the end of five or six meetings in a row, you're not going to do it. Yeah, it's just harder.

Leah Neaderthal 39:07

I love that reminder that you're in control of your time, because I think a lot of women often don't feel like they're in control of your time, but I think the reminder that, yes, actually, you can carve out this space for yourself. I think you know, like anything, it's not just going to get done on its own, right? The same way that, like, laundry and dishes and all those things don't just get done on their own, but like, this is as important as that, if not more. So also, put it on the

Kathy Guillory 39:31

board, put it on your calendar, time, lock around it, and keep those commitments to yourself, right? I think you did an exercise in the beginning of the year where it was like, you know, it was like a pebbles and rocks exercise, right? So like, look at your rocks. I think you had to sit down, like, on a call, on an accountability call, and like, schedule the, you know, vacation you want to take, right? And then, like, put it on your calendar. Now, block off the time that you know you're going to take, if that's taking a week off once a month or at the end of the quarter, or wherever else. Schedule it in advance and do. It first, right? So, like, when you're building your calendar before you start communicating to the clients wherever else, like, schedule your things, like your time, your family time, your personal time, this emotional time first, and then communicate to them what is left over, not the other way around. Because if you just open your availability to people, they're going to take what they want when they can, and then, you know, you end up with, like, bits and pieces, 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there. It's not going to be enough to really pursue a meaningful project.

Leah Neaderthal 40:25

Yeah, well, and we're doing that training again coming up in the academy. Of my favorite ones, it's, you know, you're you're planning, but you know, if anybody's listening to this, and you've done a sort of exercise of like the pebbles and the rocks and the sand or whatever, the way we do it is a little different. We do have the rocks and the pebbles in the sand, but the rocks are you right? The rocks are your time, your vacations, your I mean, if anybody has ever accidentally, like, worked on their birthday or their anniversary or whatever, you know what I'm talking about, if you don't carve out that time, you will not take it, and somebody else will. So, yeah, that's a really, really valuable exercise when you realize that you're the rocks, right?

Kathy Guillory 41:06

And so make it a rock, whatever your project is, make that the rock.

Leah Neaderthal 41:10

I love it, yes. Kathy, where can people find you?

Kathy Guillory 41:14

Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Kathy Gilly, and then you can find me on my website, belberry marketing.com, and then I also have a second website for my book called Bell bear books.com, it's all under the big bell bear brand. That's where you can you can see me.

Leah Neaderthal 41:29

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story. Thank you for

Kathy Guillory 41:33

having me. It's been great.

Leah Neaderthal 41:36

All right, what a great conversation, right? I mean, Kathy's story is so inspiring, from building her business to publishing a children's book that tells her own story, I mean, not to mention the whole journey from her former life to the US. And if you want to check out the adventures of Belle bear, which I highly recommend, you can find it wherever you buy books, and on Kathy's website, at Bell bearbooks.com so as always, I like to pull out one lesson from these conversations that you can apply to your business, and the lesson I really want you to take from this episode is this, you don't have to choose between making money and having time for yourself. You can have both, but only if you optimize for both. So in the academy, we talk about the three types of profitability for consultants, we call it 3x profit. There's financial profitability, that's the money you're making. There's emotional profitability, which is doing the work you love with clients you enjoy. And then there's emotional profitability, you know, having fun, feeling good about your business, and having time for what matters to you. And here's what I see happen all the time. Most women consultants are only thinking about financial profitability as the measure of success. And I mean, of course, who would blame us, right? I mean, we've been told for years to think about the financial part as the measure of our abilities and our success. You know, that's what we thought about early in our careers. Maybe we heard that from our families of origin. It's why we went to college and got good jobs, you know, like when you were early in your career, burning the midnight oil because you were the most junior person and had the most sort of grunt work to do. No one was coming up to you at that point and being like, you know, you really need to think about your emotional wellness. I mean, at least that didn't happen in the years when I started working. And of course, you know things cost money, right? So, yeah, money matters, of course. But when you only optimize for money, then you end up in that trap of saying yes to every client, taking on too much work and having no time for anything else. And then you look up one day and you're making good money. You're great money, but you're exhausted and you have no space for yourself. And then, of course, it's no wonder that if you think about like, how do I make more money, people assume that you just have to do more and get busier, which can make you say, you know, nope, no, thanks, I'm good. And just sort of stay where you are with the belief that doing more is the only way to make more money. But when you think about all three types of profitability. You know, financial, professional and emotional. You start making different decisions. You start thinking about not just how much you're making, but also whether you like the work and the clients, and whether you have time for the things that fill you up. This 3x profit methodology is woven throughout our work in the academy, and one way we put this into practice is through an exercise that Kathy mentioned in our conversation, and I just want to sort of run through it with you. It's this rocks, pebbles and sand exercise we do to plan the year ahead, but we do it in a different way than most people do, because typically what you'll hear is people say, Okay, your big clients are the rocks, or, you know, your big projects are the rocks, and then the small projects are the pebbles or whatever, right? That's how most people have seen this done the way we do it flips that around. You are the rocks, your time, your vacations, your creative projects, your Friday mornings off. Those are the rocks. Rocks, and you have to put the rocks in first. You have to put your stuff in first before anything else, before you open your calendar up to clients, before you say yes to projects. You schedule your time first. Because here's what happens if you don't, somebody else is going to fill that time. If you're like a lot of us, you've accidentally ended up working on your birthday, you'll realize that you haven't actually taken any time off from your business in a year or so. You'll look up and sort of just wonder where the time went. But when you make yourself the priority, when you literally block off the time for what matters to you, then you build your business around that, not the other way around. And that's exactly what Kathy did. She blocked off Fridays. She staggered her clients so she'd have weeks of uninterrupted time. She told her clients up front, you know, here's when I'm available and here's what I'm not. And you know what happened? She made more money than ever before. She built a business she loves, and she wrote and published a children's book that's creatively and personally meaningful. And you know, this looks different for everybody. When we do this exercise, the rocks all look different. I've seen that the rocks are taking a week off for your birthday, or setting aside time to take your kids to camp or pick them up from camp. It's making sure you're taking holidays off. It's setting aside time to do a hobby. It's different for everyone based on what's important to them. So if you've been telling yourself that you can't make good money or have time for yourself, or that growing your business means necessarily sacrificing your life, I want you to let that belief go, because it's not true. You can have both. You can grow your business and make more money without sacrificing your time, but you have to decide that you want both, that you deserve both, that's important, and then you have to design your business around both. That's the only way to do it with intention and strategies and tools. That's how Kathy did it, and that's how you can do it all right. So if you know someone who would benefit from hearing Kathy's story, please send them this episode. I'd love for more women to hear what's possible when you design and work towards a business that puts you first. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai