Ep. 299: Creating a Powerful Brand Strategy for Your Side Hustle with Kyshira Moffett of The Power Collective

Shannon: Kyshira. Thank you so much for being here on pep talks for side hustlers today. Can you let our audience know a little bit more about you and what you do?

Kyshira: Yeah. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm super excited. Um, as you mentioned, my name is Kyshira. I am a full time business owner. I am a brand strategist and business coach, so I actually specialize in helping small and midsize businesses with their digital marketing and sales strategy. So I know that's a lot of buzz words, but essentially what that means is I've helped women entrepreneurs in particular go from idea to full on launch, helped other women who've already been in business, creating more consistency in their revenue. And I've also helped women PR I actually rebrand maybe get out of what they were doing and get into other things. So my specialty really focuses on how can we leverage the internet to do that and how can we do it organic. So I try to make sure that we're not spending money on ads. I actually prefer the organic style of marketing and my clients. I've seen a lot of success around that. So I'm an author. I do a lot of speaking. I've hosted my own women's conferences and now I do retreats. Um, and I've also worked with corporations and done corporate facilitation and training on personal branding. So that's like high level.

Shannon: I'm like, Oh my gosh, you're totally speaking. Like, that's amazing. I want to dig into like the backstory on this, but you're totally speaking my language when you're talking about like organic marketing strategies, because they think that that's, um, you know, it just feels more authentic to people so we can get into that, but I want to talk, um, like what's the backstory, like why, when did you get started doing this? And, and, um, what's the, the superhero origin story as

Kyshira: I love that. It's so funny. I'll just tell my mom, I'm like, do you want to let me know that I'm super girl at any point in life right now is I love to have some super powers, but I fell into entrepreneurship. And I love telling that story because this was not my dream or my goal at all. I want it to be, you know, executive and corporate America. I wanted to be a chief HR officer. I went to business school, I have an MBA like that was the path I love to wear my suits to work. And I worked in HR and I was in a hybrid world where I was working in diversity and inclusion. I also worked in corporate recruitment and then I worked in training and development and training. The development was my personal favorite, but I really aligned with what's called talent management, where you're basically looking at your company and trying to figure out who has the potential to be an executive and who do we need to now develop and coach and mentor.

Kyshira: So there's always been this coaching aspects of what I love and also the training aspect. So when I was in corporate America, I was also writing resumes on the side. That was my first side hustle writing resumes. And I was doing it because all of the people I went to college with were in jobs. I didn't like. So I don't know if anyone listening can relate where you just took the job, offer fresh out of school, just so you wouldn't have to move back home and you had bills. And so everyone gets in this job and you're like, I'm miserable. I realize I want to do this other thing. So I was writing resumes and then my friends would come back and say, well, can you help me with the interview? Or I need a cover letter. And this was back in 2013 when LinkedIn was really hot.

Kyshira: And so I would then rewrite their LinkedIn profiles. I would help them use the platform to network and that some people get six and seven figure jobs. Like I even worked with like mid-level people because my friends would have parties with their parents. So that was what I was one on the side. Right? And so at that point I was getting reviews on my LinkedIn profile, which are called recommendations. And so an entrepreneur found me because they were doing some searching, came across those reviews and messaged me and said, Hey, I don't know you, but I've seen what you can do. I want to hire you the brand, my LinkedIn profile to attract clients. And I had no idea what that meant, but I said, okay, I felt the fear did anyway. And I worked with them. I pulled out my old marketing textbooks and our desk set up their profile and they really enjoyed it.

Kyshira: They saw some results from it. So they hired me again to help them with website stuff and to help them with social media. And I was just like, okay. Yeah, my name is I'm away. So I started to just make sure I was immersing myself in marketing content. So along the short of it, this entrepreneur refer me to all their friends. So at one point in life, I'm working with entrepreneurs on their branding. I'm working with career professionals on their resumes. And I'm like, I love the entrepreneur more because I don't have to fight them as much. And I don't know if anyone has ever worked with people on their resumes, even just like a friend, they argue so much about their own skills. Like you have to convince them that they're brilliant. Whereas the entrepreneurs, because they're full time, they're like, yes, I'm terrified of what you want me to do or what you want me to put out, but I'm going to do it anyway because I want to get clients.

Kyshira: I want some, my business grows. So that's why I started to work with entrepreneurs. I was blogging at the time. So I rebranded my blog from just career contents, business content started to leverage at that point in life, Twitter to really build my brand. And then from then on, I started to grow, actually grew my side hustle to be a six figure business before I quit my full time job, which was important to me. So I have bills. So I did do that. And then I became a full time business owner, which is what I was telling you earlier with all the things I do now.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I love that you built your business to six figures before you quit your day job. I also did that. It took me like three years of trying to figure it all out. Like, like you did, but I like, like you I'm like I've got bills to pay. I can not just in a leap and like hope the net appears, right?

Kyshira: No. Yeah. That's just something. I just, I don't know. Maybe it's the Virgo in me, but I just need a plan. I need to make sure things are viable. And it was important to me to see that this thing is to stay in a bowl to the point where I can, and it was a service business and it was one-to-one. I wasn't selling courses. I wasn't doing group stuff yet. It was all one-to-one. So I needed to make sure if I'm at my top capacity, am I still able to, you know, be operate at this level? And then since quitting my job, we almost doubled revenues revenue increased about 80% since quitting my full time job. And so even now, just having a little bit more space and time to execute more strategies and ideas, it's like, it's something you want to go up from here.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I, that is so exciting. That is just amazing. So can you talk to me a little bit about, um, you know, what I, what I talked about earlier? Like why organic, why do you focus on organic strategies?

Kyshira: Well, it's one of those things where I did play with Facebook ads and things like that for a little bit, but it just, I just didn't like the results. I mean, you can make sales, you can get clients, but it just wasn't the right fit. And I just feel like to your earlier point, where again, there's just a little bit more authentic. And for me, it just helps with the vetting process of attracting the right people, especially with someone who was hosting events. And I care a lot about curating the right experiences with the right people, working with the right clients. I'm really big on energy and alignment and things like that. And I found in my organic marketing brings the right people to me. Is that maintenance more work? Absolutely. I'm creating a lot more confident. I'm having to be way more consistent online.

Kyshira: But to me that's just part of being a business owner. Right. And so I just feel that organic just brings me right, the right people. And then a lot of the clients that I work with, it's like, they don't necessarily have big marketing budgets right now. It's like they scraped together what they pull it to pay for their sites and to, you know, get their CAMBA account. And of course the hire me to buy some of the templates that they bought. I'm not going to tell somebody to put their last $500 because of some ass that we're not a hundred percent sure we're work because you could have the right Pappy in the wrong targeting or the wrong right. Targeting the wrong copy. And ads are like almost gambling. Like you have to continue to play around with them. So you buy your rhythm and it can be forever before you see results. And so I put people to take the organic route, invest that elbow grease and initially learn how marketing actually works. And then if they do decide to get into ads, at least they know enough information about who their audience is and what they want to convey so that they spend the money. They hopefully get more of an ROI on it.

Shannon: Oh my gosh, I love how you said that. And I've never really like, thought about it the way that you've said it before is, you know, the ad itself has to be a certain way to like catch someone's attention and say the right words and convert and all the things. And that might not even like be in alignment with what you have to do in an ad may not even like align with, with everything else that you're doing in your, in your brand in order to like break through and like catch the attention of someone. And I've never really thought about, I personally, like I dabbled in ads as well, and I'm just like, I never could figure out how to like, be me, be with me in this ad and get it to get it to convert the way I thought it should convert based on what everybody else says about.

Kyshira: Yeah. I mean, for some people, ads are like the way to go. I also have the, if it's not broke, don't fix it mentality. And you know, again, I just feel like I've had clients come from ads and they've been okay, but I've had clients who've come from organic. Who've taken the time. Understand my I, my way of teaching methodology, my thought process that makes sales calls smoother. That makes the relationship easier because they also have more trust that I add. Rather, you follow me for three months before you pulled the plug, then to see one ad, and now you're like a difficult client to work with, or you don't understand, or you're not really into it and committed. And I like for my clients to trust me, because as you know, as entrepreneurs, when we're talking about, you know, getting our live stream for the first time or pitching yourself, right?

Kyshira: Like these are scary things. And so you have to trust your coach when they're telling you to do this. And so I just think, you know, I just finished enrolling and enrolling people into my new mastermind program. And I've had ladies who've been in my tribe for over a year. Who've just bought digital products and they're now ready to take the leap. And the sales call was all of five minutes. Cause they're like, I already know, I just need to know what the price is and where to send my deposit. You know, I felt as the types of discussions you want to have.

Shannon: Yes. And can you, you talked about like, you need them to know your method. You need them to know your process. Like they need to know that like you're the right person to work with. You. Can you share a little bit more about like what, what that is for, for someone working with you?

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. And I think every coach or consultant has like their perspective right there. It was almost like comedy, right? Every comedian has your style, their timing to stay with the coaches, right. We all go about our approach. And so for me, you know, some of the things that are very consistent in how I teach is one I teach high end offers. I teach people how to sell things that are over a thousand dollars, which is a different, whole different style of marketing anyway. And so I consistently reiterate some of my core frameworks, magnetic messaging, interactive sales, things like that, where it's, when you come into the program, I don't want you to be surprised that you're going to have to get on launch, drink. I talk about this all the time. It's a part of how you need to sell. I don't want anyone.

Kyshira: That's like I to say prepared like, no, no, no, this was, this is consistent. Right. You know, I have another framework. I called the founder's mindset. You know, I'm a business coach where I talk a lot about mindset and I tell people that you're going to have to make a shift. And I need people to know that before they come into the program, because I struggled, I don't know about you, but when I started my side hustle, so I had all kinds of limiting beliefs and I was scared to charge over $50 for everything. So when that's how yeah, so you get me, right. So when I have people come in, I had a coach come in, who was only selling things. You'll not believe for $5. That's all, she would sell her stuff for. And she was the money coach. And she, she would help people with budgeting and things like that.

Kyshira: And she had this, she was projecting her limiting belief as a hard client. She argued with me for two weeks. Finally put the four figure price tag of her first client paid in full. Right. And so it's those kinds of things where it's like, I talk about this so much in my free content that when you come into the program, you're comfortable, you know, from Kashara, you're getting mindset, you know, you're getting messaging, you know, you're getting packaging, you know, you're getting how to sell on online stream and how to sell on sales call. So when you're coming in, you already understand what you're going to be getting, and now I'm breaking it down to you versus someone who's completely caught off guard. And they're like, I'm not prepared for this. I need you to already mentally accept that you're going to be stretched when you accept my invitation,

Shannon: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. And yes, like all of the, all of the mindset, things, you know, that you were talking about, just, you know, for me, it was like, I learned to build websites for free. Who's going to pay me to do it when it's so easy. And I learned online for free. Why wouldn't they just do it for free? Do it themselves for free. I can't charge that much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like all the things like back in the day. And now I just think about like how to even get me to charge a thousand dollars to build a website for someone. I wouldn't touch that project with the 10 foot pole now, like knowing, knowing what that is. But I had to like go through like having that mindset just like challenged and challenged and that discomfort the whole way through to like finally have that, that, um, switch flipped. And I still run up against it all the time. But what are some of the other, what are some of the biggest mindset, things that you see with your clients that you help them through?

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, money mindset is so important and it does come about. So my client's mindset is not a stop and start process. It's continuous evolution because listen, no one told me they have, once you make a hundred thousand dollars, you have to now get comfortable. Aren't in a million. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is never ending. Right. And so, you know, money, of course. Um, you know, self-confidence just around their own capabilities. I have had women with doctorate degrees just cry and, you know, doubt themselves. And it's like, we're given, you know, whatever religion you are, right. You know, from spirit, from stores, from that you're given these talents, you know, when you have your own unique touch, that just no one else has. And we doubt it. But people who are scamming and copying are proud and loud on social media about what they're stealing, but people who actually have the skillset we're like shying away.

Kyshira: So I've seen that a lot. I've seen the limiting beliefs around being on camera, around, you know, being judged on appearances of words. And I'm like, I'm the perfect person because I used to have the same issues. I was so scared to get on the camera. Um, but that's where, you know, we can build trust and people would say, you know, it wasn't a watch me and it was going to see me. I had a discussion with someone in my Instagram comments who was so worried that no one would watch her last year. And I clicked on her page. She was like 6,000 followers. My man, what are you talking about? And she's like, I just don't think that's enough. And we have these, they're actually these arbitrary standards. I have to talk people down from it. Comparison syndrome, imposter syndrome, you know, the, the guilt is also one, that's been more recent biz guilt around pivoting where people have, are like kind of holding on to old business ideas, ideals like something, their family member implanted in them.

Kyshira: And they don't want to do it anymore. They want to do this other thing. And they're feeling really called and, and passionate, but they're like, there's this guilt around releasing the old thing. They don't want to be viewed as failures. They don't want to let people down. Right. Even though this new thing is keeping them up at night. So then having those discussions. So that's something that I've noticed a lot more lately, just being comfortable with change and recognizing that it's normal. It's not, it's not an admission of failure, you know? Right. It's just, it's just a redirect. And so those are all things that, you know, when I first started, I never thought I would encounter. And so I've made sure that I've invested my time and also learning how to recognize things and how to talk people through it because it's not as simple as get over it. Right. That doesn't work. It's not as simple as do it. Anyway. It's really talking to, talking to people to understand what's the root cause of this and then create an ed plan to work through it. Because like you said, you know, you still see your money box for your soda. Why, you know, I still tremble every now and then when it comes to, especially my corporate contracts, pitching five figure and you know, numbers, it's like, but breathe, you know, recognize where it's coming from and move through it.

Shannon: Oh my gosh, I love everything you just said because like I do, I still like my hands still sweat before sending certain emails. I'm like, why are my hands wet right now? Like why I'm sitting in my office by myself? My face is red. My hands are sweaty. No one can see this because I'm about to click the send button on an email, like pitching something or, or whatever. And it's just like, you know, these, these things are real. And if, if we don't have help and we don't have someone that we can talk to that can give us some different thoughts to think in a new perspective, like we're likely to just clean off our desk and send that email. Like never because we'll just distract ourselves with something that's easy. And I just, I love your approach that your approach to like marketing and business building includes so much mindset work. Because I think that that's, that's like one of them that's, what's going to either prevent you from taking action or, or compel you to take action is, is that I think it's so important.

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. I'm just saying so many people self sabotage along the way, if we don't address that because I, you know, I tell people, I can give you the exact blueprint, the exact steps to follow the exact thing to post the exact email templates. But if you have doubt, if you lack a belief, that's what you're going to attract. You're going to attract no one engaging, no one buying, no one's signing on. And then you're just going to use it to validate what you were thinking. And it's going to be a self fulfilling prophecy that literally never is. So again, it's like, like, I mean, you can tell when you're posting, because you have to versus actually being energetic and passionate about getting your message across. Like we can tell when you halfway did this email wrote this email, whatever else. And so I encourage my clients to be careful with, you know, how they speak about their business, how they think about their business, because energetically like that is literally what you will attract.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I love it. I love it. So I'm just getting back to some of these organic marketing strategies. You know, my audience is side hustlers, they're new. They are just getting started. They're working their way through all these mindset blocks that you talked about, which the on camera thing I think I do want to like circle back to, cause I hear that from my audience all the time, but what are some of like the beginning steps that you give someone, um, when they're just getting started with their organic

Kyshira: Marketing strategy? Yeah, absolutely. My very first step is to pick one platform at a time and just learn everything you can. I know that it's, it's, you know, the, the chic thing to do to be everywhere, but that that's the advanced version, right? Like one platform, one platform, and really get to know it. So that's like Instagram, which is like the hottest thing right now learn every aspect of its features. You know, organic marketing is more than just posting to a fee. You know, there's stories, there's highlights. There are stickers. There's, you know, all of these new interactive things, of course there's live stream that's as IGTV. You have to learn how these things work and then you can start to run tests. So start looking at your marketing as experience. It's a series of experiments to see what works versus associated with your personal value.

Kyshira: Right? What happens? We post a picture or we post a quote before, like, okay, people, no one like this, they don't like me. You're learning how an algorithm works. So you're learning how an app works should not, this is bad about personal thing, right? And so this taking the time to get to know it, even if you're not a digital marketing person, still just go on social media world or one of the marketing sites and just understand how the features work and how the algorithm works. So that's step one. Then the next step is I encourage you to maximize builds, features, run experiments with it, you know, try to post to your feed, try a short three minute recorded video on IGTV, try stories, try going live, but just know when you try these things, we need to try them more than once. So I like to have marketing experience for at least 30 days so that I can get accurate results because some people will do something for two days, drop the ball, pick it back up a month later.

Kyshira: And they say, nobody's liking me. No, one's no one's responding or engaging. Well then the algorithms reward consistency. So you do need to post and do these things more often. And so that's where again, actually learning how the platforms work is going to work in your benefit. So, you know, with every platform, there is a certain number of posts per day, which all of that stuff is accessible via Google, but it's repairing yourself to run these experiments. So, you know, that's like the major part. Then the next thing too is now that you've started to build up a following to see what works and what doesn't. So I didn't announce it to, to, to what's actually engaging. My audience was now making them take action in the form of commenting or subscribing or buying or whatever else, because sometimes we pay attention to what gets us the most likes versus what's getting the most action.

Kyshira: And in my world, the most likes doesn't always end to end up with the most money. You know, I've had posts where it does seemed like it underperformed, but I probably got 10 people booking consultations from that post. Right. Which Instagram connect actually tell you, it'll tell you now how many people actually went to your profile because of a post. Right? So that's the stuff that I care about. Where are they taking the action and then starts to duplicate that? I think sometimes they just get so caught up in what the hot new thing is, is that we don't build a best practices for ourselves, understanding what works and replicating it until the wheels fall off.

Shannon: Oh my gosh, you said so many good things in there. And I just want to, like, I just want to highlight the, um, the, the, it's not about your self worth. You're learning how an algorithm works. I know that five years ago when I was just getting started with trying to figure out how to market myself online and if I would do something and I wouldn't get results, I talk about this all the time, but I'd be like, I suck. My idea sucks. This course sucks. Everything. I need to throw all of this away and start over and try something again, put it out there once or twice, not get any results, go back, rename it, re brand it, change it. You know, all the things. It must be my website. I need to redesign my website. It must be in psych. We just get stuck in this never ending cycle. Like if you don't give up, because you know, you just like, we didn't want to do all that work. You put your work in the wrong place. At least that's what I did. I put my work in the wrong place in the very beginning. And it was like, rebrand, read this, read that rename, like create something new. And I cannot emphasize enough. Like, what you said is like, you have to just put aside all of your fears about it, not working out and literally just like show up like a scientist.

Kyshira: Yes, yes, absolutely. And then once we've removed ego, that's when we get to the creative piece. So we started getting all of these different ideas and starts to see things working differently. And so just start to run those experiments. Of course, we already said, every platform has its own best practices. That stuff is easily found through Google. You can easily find out how hashtags work and how to find the right ones. Like you can easily find the right times to get on Twitter and what to say on YouTube. Like those things are there. But where we tend to get caught up is we're not really thinking about how we want to creatively express ourselves. And we start in the generating, generating those content ideas that communicate with our audiences that also demonstrate our value. But most importantly, people don't actually sale. I don't know if you've seen this with some of your clients, but when they say that they don't have, you know, they're not getting sales.

Kyshira: You start to go into audit yourself and it's like, there's no buy button on the website. Or there is no call to action. I had a discussion with someone earlier today and I'm like, your pictures are gorgeous. Your captions are really engaging, but you're not actually telling me that the only thing and no one's going to pay us because we're pretty, no one's going to pay us because our captions made our captures, made them think, they're not going to say, Oh my gosh, this was so good. Let me go and find a reason to give you some money. You have direct people. You have to say, click this link, go do this, go sign up, go book people, underestimate the power, the power that those, you know, two or three little words have, but you have to instruct your audience. It's like going on a first date, the first date can be amazing.

Kyshira: But if you don't ask me out again, guess who you're not here for it, right? So again, don't leave your customers hanging actually in good fight them into your space. And if you're uncomfortable selling at first and invite them to accept what I call a low risk invitation, invite them to join your email list, invite them to download something free, subscribe to your webinar, join your Facebook group, subscribe to the podcast, right? Those are low risk invitations until you get comfortable actually saying, okay, now book a call with me. Now go buy from me now enroll in my course.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I love it. So can you tell, like, talk about, you know, one of, I just want to hear like about client transformations. Cause I love that. Like, do you have a client that comes to mind when you think that has like, kind of all of these mindset blocks and then, you know, really just like blossomed all the way through to come out on the other side, like, you know,

Kyshira: Yeah. I mean, I've had so, so many. Um, so we've talked about the money coach who was selling morphing, your clients. I had a, um, another client who was retired professional, who had no experience online, who was really nervous, that that lack of experience would impact their business. I mean, especially if they need to have a paycheck, excuse me, a PayPal account. So we were able to get them up and launched within 40 days. And she was able to sell 10, $800 packages without the website even being done yet. We were a week behind the website. So, and we use live stream and acuity scheduling to sell those packages. Um, I've had another client in the education space who was a career coach and you know, this person, had a lot going on when they came to me and I had to really emphasize that scaling back.

Kyshira: The number of offers you have will actually increase your revenue, which is a whole other conversation. And immediately once we just honed in, you know, this is the entry level, this is the high end. And that's all we're going to have. Your book is like a nice bonus to people in the door, instant enrollment, instant revenue, you know, instant opportunities. And so, you know, I think with each of those people, they were all in different places, but even just like there had to be a change in the status quo. There had to be a change in their approach, in their outlook, in how they were operating on a regular basis in order to see these results.

Shannon: I, uh, I love what you mentioned about the first one, the, the, the person who retired and then wanted to get this started like minimum viable tech set up. I mean, that's huge because, you know, I teach DIY web design and I'm like free five day website challenge, get your website up in five. And then people are like six months later, still messing around with it. And it's just like, you know, if you have the right message to the right clients with the right offer, you literally just need enough tech to get them to be able to like book the thing with you. You don't need the end, all be all, set up that can come later as you, as you like grow and scale and iterate and start to like automate and put some of these, these more, these bigger systems in place, but like a minimum viable offer, like, let's get it going.

Kyshira: Absolutely. Right. And I've had to tell people if I have very pointed conversations where I'm like, you know, this person feels like they can't get started because they can't afford lead pages and all of these other things. And I literally have to say, I'm like, that's an excuse. Yeah. You're actually using this as a crutch to not get started versus moving forward with what you have access to. I'm like, I made six figures with Squarespace. I didn't have any of those tools. I'm just now getting over to Kartra and webinar. And I'm like, I don't need webinars. I'm getting rid of this. Right. And so again, it's just like those excuses that we create in our heads, because for whatever reason, we're comparing ourselves to a six figure earner or a seven figure earner or somebody that's just been doing this for five to 10 years.

Kyshira: And it's like coming out of the gate, you're not wanting to look like Marie Forleo and that's okay. You don't have to look like that to make money. Right. And so thinking about, again, understanding your customers, understanding how to reach them, having that authentic messaging through social platforms, you can get your first couple of customers. And I just think that we have to just recognize that a lot of those things are nice to have, those are not required in, there are too many businesses that operate without websites or without funnels with all these other things for us to feel like that's the only path to success.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I love all of that. So I know I keep saying it, but I've just like, everything you're saying is like speaking my language. Um, so can we, I want to switch gears a little bit and like, just dig into the, behind the scenes of your business in your day to day. So is, do you, do you have a team supporting you? Um, what does that, what does that look like behind the scenes?

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a team of three, so I had to double check. So I'm like, yeah. Have to take the three. And so the first, the first hire, I was an administrative assistant. So I do have an administrative assistant that helps me. I have a lot going on in my business and a lot. So, um, yeah, that helps me with a lot, you know, I actually manage my own email. I prefer that, you know, I'm like, I don't want anyone else to find the, my emails. I know what I want to ignore and what I want to reply to. So, you know, that person helps with like my Facebook group, my calendar management, my analytics, which is so important to me building out my dashboards and things like that. Um, and then I have a graphic designer, which in my line of work, I need an in house designer.

Kyshira: So this person is forever making these slide decks for webinars stations, um, media kits, press kits, uh, social media graphics, website, banners, like this person. She's amazing. I'm glad she's so patient news, I never know what I want. So I have a graphic designer and then I actually have a project manager who, whose sole purpose in life is to help with my corporate contracts. So I have a major corporate contract here where I live in the city of Pittsburgh. Um, that's very hands on. It requires me to be out at a couple of different events every month, coordinating events, doing a lot of speaking and training. And so I hire someone specifically to help with that. Cause that's a separate newsletter that separate social media promotions and attendee questions. And that one is way more times get something because like what I'm being paid to do is offer free support for business owners.

Kyshira: So I'm, you know, that person helps with like with the correspondence, the email, the venues, the events, speakers, and just a lot of different things. So I hired someone to help me with that so that I wouldn't fall off in other places. And then typically actually like to hire interns in the summer and I do pay them. I do buy some, some, you know, business school students to give them some hands on marketing experience because I wish I had an opportunity to intern for a business owner. When I was in college, I went to the super corporate route. I was working at Morgan Stanley as a sophomore in college. And I was like, dang it, I wish I would work for a business owner. So I do like to bring my interns in the summer who will help with a number of different things. I tried not to give them busy work. So it's typically very strategic work. Like we're thinking about, you know, SEL type projects and things like that, but Oh, so he'd want it back in. I did build my own websites, um, as well. So I don't have anyone that does like web stuff, but in the future, I am thinking about bringing on someone to help me with social media. So that'll be like the next big thing I do all my own social. I'm pretty anal about it, which is why I do that. But, um, that's what my, like my backend support looks like.

Shannon: I, um, I do have an assistant go through my inbox, but like, I answer, like if she answers anything, it'll be as her, you know, because I'm like, I don't want, you know, like us to pretend like we're, you know, doing different things, but, but I feel bad for her because I'm always in there before her. And I'm always, she's just like, you want me to do this, but you won't let me do this. I'm like, I know, like I can't help it. It's just a habit that I can't break. Yeah.

Kyshira: Like I gave my sister her own email and then I have people who fill out inquiry forms through the website, go to her and then that helps. So that way what's important is she'll handle the rest.

Shannon: Yeah. It's like, you have to cut yourself off of some of those things at some point, like technically to set yourself apart. No, that's really interesting. I always, I always like to know, um, you know, how people are running their business, it's like asking for a friend. So how do you run your business? And then like what's a typical day look like for you? Cause I know, you know, we, as, you know, you side hustled for a long time, so I'm sure like me, you were packing it in all around all those business hours when you quit the day job and you were like totally in control of the schedule, like, what does that look like for you?

Kyshira: So, um, I actually, when I was blogging, I learned the art of like batch content creation. Right. So that that's like my, my old days. And so I actually applied that concept to my business. So I try to allocate, it's not a full day, but at least like a half hour, a half day block towards like certain types of tasks. So for example, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, these are typically days that I'm doing client calls and sales calls. So typically unless I'm launching something, I'm not taking calls outside of that, cause I need to be in the mindset to be out valet. Right. Um, and then Monday I actually typically allocate for getting caught up online and then professional development, because I need to make sure that I have a coach that I hired. Who's very pricey and I want to make sure that I'm showing up in the best way.

Kyshira: So I actually leave Monday as a day for me to sharpen my own skillset. And then Thursday is typically like content creation, marketing day. Um, and then Friday. So typically my admin day, like anything, paperwork, email, invoicing, legal, all of that stuff. Um, then Friday I also work on my corporate contracts up the bat. That stuff typically is in the evening when I have to go out. So in terms of it's a glued like Tuesday, um, I tend to get out of bed between on a good day at like six 30, but typically I'm pushing seven 30. I'm not even gonna lie to you now because of my creative spirit. And I hated it. I'm working on it so much that I want to sleep at a regular hour, but seven 30 typically is when I get up. Um, and then after, you know, freshly ended up having breakfast and coffee, which coffee is required.

Kyshira: Um, the first thing I'd do, that's when the first 30 minutes I do go through email first, mainly because I'm in a client facing business. So I need to make sure my clients are okay. So I spend the first 30 minutes going through email. So in another 10 minutes, just checking DMS and Facebook group stuff, even though that stuff is automated, I to make sure people, you know, people have questions I'm available to them. And then from there, I'll check in with my team via Google chat just to make sure everybody's okay. And was there any questions, anything come up while I was asleep, which can happen? You'd be surprised what you wake up to. And then from there, you know, I'm on zone for the bulk of the late morning and afternoon. Um, and then from there, once I wrap up with calls, typically in calls around three, three 30, I spend the last hour and a half delivering to clients. So I don't do any done for you work, but I do, you know, give my clients like outlines of our notes from our calls and what their tasks need to be, or if they need templates from me or video trainings, we have typically just following up on those emails and any outstanding requests. Um, and then from there, um, take a break, watch TV, workout, whatever.

Kyshira: And then I actually try to do a live stream in the evenings. So if I don't have any space during the day with Tuesday and Wednesday, I typically don't. I try to do a live stream around six or seven o'clock and then S the under the desk, um, on an administrative day, this is actually probably more interesting than measuring of day. I spend my day in Dubsado, Stripe, and Kartra, those are the three tools I am looking at the absolute most. So ended up SIDA, um, signing contracts. I am, you know, processing invoices, I'm adding notes, the client files from the notes from Tuesday and Wednesday that I forgot to put in, um, you know, looking at prospects who I need to follow up with, you know, Dubsado is everything. And then Kartra is like, if you've ever used Kajabi or ClickFunnels, it's like, it's like that where Kartra does like my email marketing, my sales pages, my digital products, my course, and membership sales.

Kyshira: So I'm in there looking at everything, the analytics, the email, open rates, how the funnels are performing, who just signed up in a course, you know, I have a client classroom, so I'm really in need of looking at all of that. Um, and then of course it's striped just to make sure people's payments aren't declining. Um, and then we actually built our own analytics dashboard in Google sheets. Cause I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to stuff like that. And I just use so many systems. I need to see everything in one place. So at the, at the first business day of the month, my assistant goes in and plug out of the analytics. So Squarespace website, social media growth, email, open rate, and visual products, sales, service sales. And I plug in when I need to do some Stripe, cause I need to see all of this and once snapshot for the whole month so that I can do my analytics and figure out what needs to shift, change or adjust for the following box. So that's what my life looks like.

Shannon: Oh my gosh, I, so I do the same thing with batching my week like that. And I do the same thing with Monday. I find that really interesting that like, I think you're the first person that I've talked to that does the same thing. I like have this motto like Mondays and mornings are mine. Like Monday. I am not scheduling anything if I, you know, if I have a meeting on a Monday, it's like, because I really wanted to get a meeting with that person. And I like opened up Monday, but it is it's my day to just, you know, it's kind of like my life day to, you know, like back when we were in corporate Sunday was like, Oh, you gotta do laundry. You gotta grocery shopping, gotta do all this stuff. Now I like enjoy Sunday. And I do like all that stuff on like Monday.

Shannon: And, but I also keep it for like my professional development, my projects, all those things. And I just think, you know, for everybody listening, like we spend so much time, like we're solopreneurs, so, or, you know, or, or growing small teams. And so we're not only helping our clients. We're also growing the business at the same time. Like you gotta carve that time out for yourself to like, do work on like the mindset stuff and work with your coaches and work on the things that are going to like help you move forward. And I see so many people like that, the big excuse, I don't have time. I don't have time. And you know, like you've got to create the time. Yeah.

Kyshira: The make it, you know, you're spot on. I'm so glad we have in common. I thought I was crazy, but I'm like I do professional development on Mondays, but it's just so important because we still have so much to learn obviously as we're growing, but they knew that we're both in industries that are changing so fast. I feel like there's always a new development with website development, with Squarespace and Wix and WordPress and new apps and new SEO things. And so we also just can't afford in my opinion to fall behind on what's happening. So it just gives you time to just get caught up, get immersed. And then I think it just makes us better service providers too, because we can always provide our clients with the most accurate information. Um, so like it's important. You know, we, we, when we, I don't know that you, when I was working nine to five, I just craved the freedom of controlling my schedule. And now that I have that, I don't, my business is not going to run me. I am not going to be abused by my business. I am going to take the time that I need. And even if that means I'm working a little bit later on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, that feels much better to me than just giving away that, you know, the time that I know that I need to spend working on the business versus being in the business.

Shannon: Oh my, I can relate to that so much. And, and I love that. You're like how structured you are. And I don't know. I wonder if you experienced this too, like your friends will be like, Hey, let's go to lunch. Hey, let's do this. Hey, let's do that. And like, if I can rearrange things, I will. But like most of the time I'm like, Oh, well I've got me, like, I've got a client call. I can't, I can do it this day. And they're just like, well, I don't understand, like why, you know, don't you work for yourself? Like, I'm like, yeah. And I want to make money and I want to run this business. And this is important to me. And it's not, I don't not work just because I don't have like a job. So I wonder like what you're doing.

Kyshira: Yeah. I used to, I used to, but I think I've just done a really good job of communicating that my life just doesn't work like that. And it didn't work. I had a full time job, like, you know, lunch breaks or from working on business or whatever else. And so I'm at a point now where people know that you really need to ask me a couple of days before if I want to go somewhere. And typically I reserved like Friday afternoons for stuff like that. Like Friday lunches, whatever else. So they have never worked just an hour, three hours. Exactly. Then you want a cocktail. They know I can not go back to work this. So yeah, typically, you know, Fridays and weekends and things like that, but it does help that now, as I've grown my business, I've also just paid for more experiences like conferences and masterminds and higher end things where now I just have a different friend group, you know, I have an old friends, I have like a different friend group who also just gets it, who understands. And that just makes life a lot easier.

Shannon: So can we talk a little bit about the masterminds in the coaching and different things? Um, I know for me at the beginning, I was like, I don't need that. I'm going to do it all on my own. I can figure it out. I'm techie, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I know that that held me back so much now because I'm like, just because I can do, like, I can do all the things to implement like a business online. Right. Like I have all the talents and skills need to like build all of the things, but I did not have the, the mindset. I didn't have the, the vision I didn't have. There were so many things that held me back that like once I got help and I like say, quote, unquote help, because it's like, I thought I needed another course or training or to learn more. I knew everything I needed to know. I just needed like the mindset stuff. And for me personally, like I see so many people like just struggling out on their own, try to do it all themselves. And like, what I know now is that that is such a waste of time. You think you're saving money, but you're wasting tons of money by not getting help. I just wonder like what your experience was in the beginning of,

Kyshira: Yeah. I was not paying for any of that. And I was like, Nope, for what? I thought it was a scam and I didn't know any better. Right. Like I would spit like, you know, self paced courses, digital downloads. I would probably never been more than a hundred dollars on anything. Cause I just didn't get that concept. I was like, wait, what are you saying? I'm like, what is this about? And I had to just really dig deep and realize that again, that was with the money mindset issues. Like, listen, you just have to chip, you have to recognize that you're valuable. Right? Like I actually created an affirmation cards for business owners. And like, one of them talks about how I am worth every investment. You know, every investment I make is so and seeds into my future. Right. And so I had to ship that.

Kyshira: And so, you know, it took a while. Like it really took me a long time, but I will tell you, the first investment I made is $500. And it was so scary to me at the time. And I worked so hard that week to make that money that I probably had never made in that short of a timeframe ever in my life. But I realized then that, okay, now I have some skin in the game. It's making me show up a little bit differently. Right. And it's hard to believe that when you feel like you're always showing up, you're always disciplined. You're always consistent, but it makes you just show up differently. You are now attracting different types of people because of the actions that you're taking and how you're now moving. Or you have a little bit more urgency behind what you're doing because you need to see this investment come back. And so from there,

Kyshira: The next one was 1500 and that was like terrifying. And I was so scared. I had three people it before I did and let them talk to them right through people who went to like, you know, again, saw what I did see, right? Some of us have people around us who, you know, they have limiting beliefs themselves. They're going to talk to you out of it. But I was fortunate where I had people around me who saw my potential. They saw my talent, who knew that I was in my own way and was like, you need to go ahead and do this. And I hired a coach who was so different than me. We're still close to this day, but she's like, you know, super like engineering mindset. She's, she's, you know, I'm the super creative and you know, kinda like out here and she's just like this.

Kyshira: And I hired her because I knew I needed her, her insight. And she blatantly would talk to us and they never told me, she's like, you know, you are in the way, you don't even need my program. You are here because you need me to validate you charging a certain amount of money to get to where you want to be. And I'm here to tell you, you need to do it. You are the one that's in the way. And I remember I'm not sensitive like that. So I knew that it was coming from a place of love and support because this person is like, you know, you don't need me to teach you how to get clients. You have clients just get past your fear of charging four figures or more for what you do. And you know, it was in that moment that I, this is why we pay for these programs.

Kyshira: We have to pay to be around people who understand our value, who can see potential in us, who are going to love, who are going to challenge us to be different and get out of the status quo, who will not let us be mediocre anymore and stay in that place of comfort. And so when you start to pay, pay to be around people who just have different views and different experiences, it just automatically forces you to level up and have a grade. And even now to this day, I can see you to up the investments that I'm making every year, just to make sure I'm consistently in a place where I'm able to grow and expand.

Shannon: I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And I do the same thing and I, it's hard for me to describe the transformation that happens when you part with that investment, because I'm like you, like, I work, I don't need anybody to tell me to work. I don't have like this whole, I don't have time. Excuse like, that's just not on my radar. It never has been, but it's also like, you know, there's just something that happens in you when you're willing to like, make that kind of like, and I love how you said that earlier. Just like, you know, I am worth this investment, you know, that's just so powerful. And there's something that happens when you're like willing to believe in yourself to that level, you know?

Kyshira: Absolutely. I mean, you just hit the nail on the head and it just, it just changes things. And then also just makes you get a little bit more comfortable with your prices too, because it's like, Hey, like, you know, I'm charging a thousand, but I spent 3000 on myself. And so it's also like, again, that mindset piece it's like part of it is when you start to recognize that you're worth spending the money, you recognize that you're worth receiving the money. Right? And so it just, it's a continuous, like ebb and flow. It's going to be very hard to sell something for a certain price tag, if you don't even feel you're worthy of that price tag. And so sometimes taking that action is literally the first step towards shifting that money, frequency that we're vibrating now, because we're going to start. If we don't change that we might not attract customers who operate like us, who don't see the work, who don't see the value who have limiting money, beliefs who are then going to make your own limiting beliefs worse, because you're going to take it personally. Right?

Shannon: Oh, like I, everything that was just everything and capsule. That was like my whole first two years of business. Like you encapsulated in like one sentence.

Kyshira: Yeah. Right. It's like, I mean, it's, it's, I've lived it, you lived it. You've seen it. And that's why we're so passionate about it. It's like, we're not saying this because we just want you to hire it. So it's like, I tell my audience, I don't want you to make those same mistakes I made, I don't want you to have the same hangups. And I don't want you to have to take three or four years to figure it out. Like I did. My purpose as a coach is to help speed up the process.

Shannon: I could not agree more. And you know, and I said it a little bit earlier, too. It's like, you waste more money the longer it takes you, you leave more money on the table, the longer it takes you. And you know, sometimes you do need to hire someone to believe in you a little bit more than you believe in yourself to get you, to get you all the way there. And, and I think that that's, that's really been my experience in investing in coaching is like, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will do the work. Like that's not the issue it's, you know, but it's like, it's that extra level of, I don't know, insight and belief in me that I don't have in myself that I can, that I can get there. That that is, um, that's been really transformational. It sounds like for you to, and that's what you do for your clients, which is amazing. And we all need that. So I have just a couple more questions for you before we wrap up. Um, the first one is, you know, a lot of our listeners are new side hustlers, early business owners. Um, you know, what one piece of advice would you give someone listening who is struggling to get traction in their side hustle?

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. It definitely, you know, keep going and keep pushing. Please do not drop the ball, but please be comfortable pivoting. So recognize. And it's something that you may be going right now. Isn't working and now try something else. So have you been consistently maybe just posting on social media, nothing's happening start the test style video and it's not the test out loud stream would just continue again to run. Those might be an experiment until you start to see what is starting to get conversions and then continue to do that.

Shannon: I love it. And what about like pivoting with like your service or your message? Do you recommend that you know that early on or is that something that you would say hang tight with what you're doing for a while till you start to see some?

Kyshira: Yeah, I mean, I do, I do think it's important to hang tight with your offer for a while because you know, it takes a while to build an audience. And so sometimes we give up before we even get to see get people's eyes on what it is. But I do challenge you to think about who you're trying to reach and double check that the way you're delivering your offer makes sense, because sometimes we're trying to sell somebody the right solution, whether it's the wrong delivery mechanism. Right. So if you're trying to help really busy people, I probably wouldn't sell them a 12 module course. And I think they're going to, it does not, it's just not going to align. Right. So really just double checking, like,

Kyshira: Is the offer for the right person? Is it solving the right problem? Am I delivering it in the right way? Okay. I'm now not communicating it in the right way on the right platform. And here's the thing with that with changing up your content, changing your content, it's going to you to figure out how to say the same thing over and over again, which is what messaging is right. Messaging is how you're choosing to convey what you're selling and what the value is. And so by now, changing mediums, changing up the frequency change in how you're describing it, you're going to find your footing with the messages. So those things kind of come by way of trial and error.

Shannon: Oh my gosh. So good. And this is the last question that I ask everybody who comes on the podcast. And that is what belief about yourself. Did you have to change to get where you are today?

Kyshira: I had to change the belief that I was capable and worthy of earning a hundred thousand dollars. I say this affirmation every day, it's still important to me. Um, but, and you know, I used to just say, well, I just, if I could just make a cute 40,000 a year, I'll be all right, girl taxes. No, you're not going to be okay. So I had to change how I viewed money and how I've viewed, where that is. And did affirmations are really important to me, but I literally would write every day, I'm sitting at my desk. I have a car in front of me, which, you know, my revenue goal for each month or for the year, so that I see it everyday. I say it every day. And so I had to just recognize that my talents and my skills are worthy of earning, you know, six and seven figures every single year with ease, what I add on there as well. Um, but yeah, that's something that I had to change about myself, for sure.

Shannon: Chills, chills, chills. Oh my gosh. It's been so good. Talking to this podcast is just full of such good advice and mindset and all of the things, where can everybody listening go to learn more about you and all of the awesome things that you're doing?

Kyshira: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm all over social media. [inaudible] Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. My website is the power collective.co. And I have a ton of free downloads in April, some classes at the power collective backhoe, backslash resources. So I actually have to build your five house, a little weekend ebook, and I try to keep everything on one page to make it super easy. But I also, people start there, get to know me by with me a little bit. Um, but yeah, that's where you can find me. And again, again, I'm at the Shire. So if you forget the website, just type in my first name, it'll come up.

Shannon: Awesome. And I'll link everything up in the show notes. I, I could talk to you for another hour. Yes. So thank you so much for being here. And everyone definitely go, um, connect with Kashara, get on her list, follow her, get connected with her. This is someone that you definitely want to be following and learning from. So thank you so much for being here.

Kyshira: No, thank you for having me. This was awesome.