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Carol Cox:
As the marketing landscape shifts, creating strategic collaborations is going to be more important than ever. Learn more During my conversation today with Cara Steinmann. On this episode of The Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. We’re continuing our new series on how marketing is changing. Oh, yes, lots of big changes and new approaches you can take to more effectively connect with your audiences and with prospective clients. Last week, I kicked off this series on how we’re ditching the traditional Hero’s Journey framework for marketing. Yes, this may be a surprise to you, especially if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while and how we’re approaching marketing going forward. As I was thinking about putting this series together, I knew I had to have on as one of my guests, Kara Simon. I met Kara last fall, and when we had a consultation call and I learned about the work that she does around relationship building and strategic collaborations, I was instantly intrigued.

Carol Cox:
I got to know Kara over the past few months as she went through our Thought Leader Academy and as she developed her thought leadership message and her framework. And I learned even more. I knew that she would be an excellent guest to come on. In this episode, Kara and I talk about what strategic relationships and collaborations look like. So Kara gives us examples why who you see as a competitor may actually be the perfect person for a collaboration. Why you don’t need to be an extrovert to be good at networking. So yes, we talk about networking, but rest assured it is the kind that you would like how to go about building strategic relationships and collaborations. And then Kara shares with us why she decided to join the Thought Leader Academy and what her experience was like going through it and creating her signature talk. Kara is a business development strategist who helps purpose driven women entrepreneurs build strategic networks that lead to rapid referrals and more ideal clients. And of course, through these strategic relationships and collaborations that she believes in and she has seen and I have seen how much that can truly help to build our client base, build our business, but also to provide more speaking opportunities as well.

Carol Cox:
Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to the podcast, Kara. Thank you, Carol. I’m excited to have you on because we are doing a series this month all around marketing specifically how marketing is changing and what used to work online isn’t necessarily working now, and it’s definitely not going to work in the same way in the near future with all the changes that have been going on. So, Kara, you and I have gotten to know each other as you went through our Thought Leader Academy in the beginning of 2023. And I know that you focused so much on the work that you do with your clients, on helping them to build deep relationships with other strategic partnerships and collaborations, especially for business development and brand strategy. So I really wanted to to do a deep dive with you on what exactly that means, what that looks like for yourself and for your clients, and then for those listening, how they can start thinking about it for themselves as well. So before we dive into the details on that, can you tell us a little bit about what you do now and how you got into that? Oh.

Cara Steinmann:
Right now I’m working with service driven women entrepreneurs who want to do more relationship marketing and build more referral networks so that they don’t have to market traditionally so much because it’s a lot of work and it doesn’t work very well anymore, especially if you’re a solopreneur and you don’t have a huge team behind you. Right? And so I landed here because I worked in content strategy and marketing for like 15 years. And it it didn’t work very well for me at a certain point, and I didn’t really enjoy it. And then I completely melted down and had to go back to the drawing board and figure out what I was good at. And it turned out relationships had always been what I was kind of good at. And so I realized that I had built my business over the first ten years, that I was doing content marketing without even having a website, because I always just prioritized relationships. And at a certain point I kind of like got dabbling in too many little things and got too many items on my services list. And then I wasn’t very referable. So I kind of had to go back to the drawing board. And that’s sort of how I ended up helping other people figure out how to do it right.

Carol Cox:
Okay. Have a lot of two more questions. Just pop into my mind that are not on my list. So first, I want to I want to talk about scale, but we’ll get there, right? This idea of scaling relationship marketing. But I want to talk about that right at this moment. We’ll get there. But let me ask you this before we get into the relationship part, do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

Cara Steinmann:
I actually kind of consider myself an introvert. Okay.

Carol Cox:
Because I was gonna say I no, we’re talking, you know, strategic networking and building relationships with others. And as introverts, I’m. Great one on one. I can have a two hour long conversation with you, and I’m good. But the idea of going in networking someplace, I. It is. I do not like it at all.

Cara Steinmann:
I will tell you, Carol, a lot of people were upset when COVID happened and they had to stop going out in public. And I was not one of them. I literally loathe in-person networking, and I know that I’m supposed to do it or whatever, but I would I would so much rather just have a conversation with 1 or 2 people that’s meaningful.

Carol Cox:
Okay, good. All right. So for for those of you listening, you do not need to be an extrovert or like this outsized personality to be good at strategic relationships and strategic networking and building relationships with others.

Cara Steinmann:
This is not your Uncle Ted’s networking. Okay, great.

Carol Cox:
I love it. All right, Cara, so can you tell us, how do you work with your clients? What is an engagement look like?

Cara Steinmann:
So I have two ways that people work with me right now. I have a LinkedIn outreach strategy that I’ll work with people one on one for to help them figure out who to reach out to strategically. Because it’s not a numbers game. You can have just a handful of people that you build really deep, meaningful relationships with who happen to serve your same clients or the same audience that you want to reach. And that’s all you need. You don’t need more than that. And so I will help them understand who to reach out to, how to do that tactfully in a way that feels good to them, and then build that relationship, build on that relationship. And then also I have some strategic networking communities online and I call them relationship marketing communities because networking is a little bit people don’t love that term. It needs a rebrand. And so I have those and I have one for service driven women entrepreneurs who want to build referral relationships. And then I also have one for micro agencies to connect with specialty contractors in the marketing and creative realms.

Carol Cox:
Oh, okay. That sounds really cool. I didn’t know that. All right. So Cara, let’s talk about what is this idea of relationship marketing mean?

Cara Steinmann:
Actually, it means building really meaningful relationships with people who can market on your behalf to your clients because they’re so invested in your success and they understand you and they love you and they also want their clients to win. So it’s it’s about the trust that is transferred. When someone else refers you.

Carol Cox:
Now, does it need to be an equal exchange in the sense that I am helping to promote someone else’s to my audience and then they in turn do it for their audience? Like, does it have to go both ways?

Cara Steinmann:
No, I think it has to be a really organic kind of natural. Think about the relationships in your life like your spouse or I think of my my best bestie, Melissa. Her and I have been friends for almost 30 years and we’ve been besties for like 15 of those, if not more. And I have spent probably she figured 80% of her revenue over the past ten years has come from introductions and connections that I’ve provided to her. That’s not the same the other direction. But because we’re good friends, in addition to being strategic partners, she’s there for me to cry on her shoulder when I need that, or she’ll edit something. For me, it’s about reciprocity and you kind of just feel whether that’s right or wrong in a relationship, right?

Carol Cox:
It’s not like a keeping a scorecard of they did this and they did that. It’s more like, does it feel like you’re getting something out of the relationship? It doesn’t have to be the same thing on both sides.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be the same thing. And Melissa’s probably like the way her career trajectory is going. She’s probably never going to be in a really great position to refer me. But she refers people to travel to the community all the time, and you help people in different ways. I don’t I don’t think referral fees are a good idea. I don’t accept them and I don’t pay them because I think it squashes the reciprocity. I frankly would rather have the reciprocity.

Carol Cox:
All right. So, Cara, let’s talk about where do people and people, meaning those of us who are entrepreneurs, where do we go wrong when we start thinking about building relationships.

Cara Steinmann:
Two big places. One is we look at other people as competition. We we allow ourselves to feel like other women are competition if they’re doing something similar to what we’re doing. And so we hesitate to reach out to them and build a relationship, even though they might have completely different types of ideal clients than we do. So I love the idea of niching and specializing and really getting to know who you are as a person so that you know what your personality is and what your ideal clients look like. Because then the more honed in on that you are, the easier it is to reach out to somebody on LinkedIn who does what looks like something close to what you do and say, Hey, I see you do this thing. So do I. I have recently niched and my clients may not be the same as yours. I would love to see if I could potentially send you business when it’s not a good fit for me. I have literally had nobody ever say no to that.

Carol Cox:
No, no one’s gone. No one’s going to say no to that.

Cara Steinmann:
It’s a really and it’s genuine. It’s like, I don’t want to work with clients who are not a good fit for my personality. I’m really kind of wiggly and wobbly and I’m not very like organized and structured, and that’s okay. But some people need that. And so I need to be. To refer those kinds of clients who need that because they’re not going to get it from me.

Carol Cox:
Okay. So definitely thinking that other people are competitors versus potential collaborators, what other stumbling blocks?

Cara Steinmann:
The other big one, I think, is that it’s people think it’s a numbers game. They’ve got this list. They’ve got to check off ten new people they’ve got to connect with or they’ve got to reach back out and talk to ten people that they were connected with. And I don’t think there are times when we need to connect with a lot of new people. Maybe when we’re making a transition in our business or we’ve shifted in some way and we need to add to the handful of people that we rely on to help us promote our business and find referrals. But it’s it’s about the depth of the relationship. We have to go deeper with these people because we have we can’t just build relationships. We have to build rapport. And that’s when we get to the point where we’re actually invested enough in someone else’s success that we’ll stop what we’re doing and we’ll send an email to make that introduction. Otherwise, we’re just too busy and we’re not thinking about them.

Carol Cox:
How many people do you think it’s possible for us to have these type of deep relationships with where there is that true sense of genuine rapport and that we are invested in their success?

Cara Steinmann:
I do think it depends on the person to some degree, depending on weather. I mean, probably a lot of factors, right? But I mean, Dunbar’s number. Dunbar Robin Dunbar is a researcher and he a social scientist. And he says you can’t really have more than 150 ish people in your community or tribe or whatever you want to call it that you can know. And I’m not talking about LinkedIn connections. You can have thousands of those. And those are people maybe we recognize their name and their face, but those are not people we know. And so 150 is not the number of people that you can really know deeply. There are maybe two people in your life that you will know very, very intimately and then maybe maybe 15 people I would say that you can count on to send you referrals. That’s what I would guess.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. I was thinking somewhere like five, 10 or 15 probably depending on the person. But but I agree. It’s definitely not 50 or 100 or 500 people.

Cara Steinmann:
No, it’s the it’s the type of person and the quality and whether or not you guys align on a values match.

Carol Cox:
So then is it okay, so imagine that either we are working with you, Kara, and you’re helping us to do some of this LinkedIn strategy, relationship building, or we’re doing it on ourselves. So we’re looking. We find say we find a couple of people who we think are a good fit for potential relationship building. What what do we do? You know, obviously we reach out to them on LinkedIn. Is the goal to do a Zoom call so that we can have a chat And then and what types of things are we are we do we want to talk to them about?

Cara Steinmann:
I think the first thing I do when I reach out to somebody is I tell them something. I have a formula. It’s it’s cat, cat. And in any order, it’s you have to have context. You have to give them context. Why are you reaching out alignment? Tell them how you’re aligned and then give them a task, a call to action, which is like, let’s connect. So the alignment part’s really important, right? And you have to give them a reason. So, hey, I saw this. I heard you on this podcast. You were brilliant. I totally aligned with what you were saying about XYZ. Let’s connect. Like simple as that. Most people love to be commented, and I’ve found that a lot of people who create podcasts and on podcasts don’t get that kind of feedback very often. They’re like, Oh, I thought nobody listens to my stuff. It’s so nice to hear. So you get connected and then you just kind of find out if you have things in common. If you would like to take it further. Most people these days, thanks to COVID, unfortunately, are really okay hopping on a quick coffee chat or something like that.

Carol Cox:
So, okay, so we we we find a couple people, we do a zoom call, we get to know them a little bit. We find, okay, yes. Like we’re good alignment with our values, with our kind of philosophy methodology. We’re not competitors, but we have similar audiences or similar types of people who come to us. And so then is it a matter of kind of just keeping them top of mind? And when a potential client comes through that it’s not a good fit, you send them over or, you know, I remember reading articles about this years ago and said like, well, if you see a news article that you think would be, you know, interesting to that, to that person that you’re trying to keep top of mind with, send them a link to that article. Are those the kinds of things to do?

Cara Steinmann:
I mean. Yeah, yeah. If you’re building a relationship, it’s about a lot of it has to do with reciprocity and staying top of mind. I use a little hack with meditation, mindfulness, meditation. So I found the more that I practice mindfulness meditation, the easier it is to catch the little thoughts. When I find myself connecting the dots between two people or an idea and a person that might appreciate that idea. And so then I’m able to, you know, grab that, grab on to that and take action so it doesn’t just like run away.

Carol Cox:
Oh, yes. Know I know about all those random thoughts, which.

Cara Steinmann:
There’s so many, so many. So we have this idea, right, that we connect with all these people. We use LinkedIn, for example, like here’s this social platform and we’re connected on LinkedIn and that’s all that is, is a container that we’re visiting to connect with people. But it’s really big and it’s really impersonal. Unless you are super strategic about how you’re interacting and most people just don’t have the energy for that, right? They’re trying to do their do their thing. So I, I encourage people to take the. Internships that they really want to nurture and put them in a smaller container. Start your own little community, join, invite them to join a community you’re already part of so that you can interact with them on a more regular basis. In a less official like Melissa and my friend that I was talking about, she and I have a text thread that’s a container. We’ve added a couple people to it. That’s a container where we’re all talking about something together that we care about. And you just pretty soon you’ve got their their phone number and you’re texting them and that’s where it becomes more than just a referral relationship. And I don’t think it has to be all about business. I think it’s when we take it personal and we really connect with people who care about the same things we care about, that that road is really short from business to personal. And that’s okay. That’s good. That’s what we want.

Carol Cox:
Well, I’m thinking about some of my friends who are also entrepreneurs, women in my life, and I’ve known many of them for, well, six, eight, ten, 12 years. And I think about so many of the opportunities that I’ve had have come from them, not because they felt any type of obligation or again, because like it was a tit for tat, it was because something came along. They’re like, Oh, Carol would be perfect for this speaking opportunity or for this client or whatever it happened to be.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah, they know you, they know what you’re good at and they like you and they they want to see you win. When I find people or start looking for people that I want to strategically connect with for myself, I look and anybody should do this. This is like across the board. I start looking for people who care about the same kind of things. I care about the change that I want to see in the world, like smashing the patriarchy. I’m trying to find another way to say that, but dismantle systems of oppression. Okay, let’s dismantle systems of oppression. The feminists. I’m looking for the feminists, right? And so when I see people, women who are who are working for the same kind of change that I want to see in the world, that’s a really easy connect because we see each other that we’re like, I need you to win because I’m going to win when you win and we’re all winning. And that’s what we all need to do. We need to really, really get clear on why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why are we bothering with all this business nonsense if we’re not trying to do something positive to make a change in the world? And when we can figure that out and we know exactly what we’re trying to change, it’s really easy to recognize the rest of those people. Oh, I love that.

Carol Cox:
Kara. Like, yeah, like really thinking about the mission.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah. And it’s easy to see what people people write copy on their websites. They put social media content out. People use language that gives away what they care about. They’re the words are in there. Like I look when I vet people for because I personally vet every member of our referral community to make sure that they have the same core values that everyone else in the group shares. And so I look at their website and I say, What kind of language are they using? Do they mention authenticity or connection? And those are dead giveaways that they care deeply about those things if they’ve put them on their website copy.

Carol Cox:
And in addition to looking at what they do say, I also look for where have they emitted talking about certain things, especially things that, you know, have been very much in the news and very much of concern for many of us over the past few years? Is there just the void where they just have pretended like none of the stuff has happened, whether it was like Black Lives Matter, the MeToo movement, the LGBTQ movement, whatever it happens to be, if they’re a complete void about it, either on the website or on social media, then I start to wonder, you know, are they aligned with the values and mission that we have?

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah. And in that sense, you probably wouldn’t be magnetized to that person anyway. I mean, you’re very purpose driven, Carol, so you’re not going to you’re going to probably notice somebody who is talking about those things. More than that other person would just kind of fade away. So you’re not going to get noticed. You know, marketing is a lot different than it used to be. We we know that it’s really hard to get noticed and it makes it a lot easier to get noticed when somebody can really, really clearly recognize your value system and it helps them trust you more more quickly.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, absolutely. So, Kara, can you share with us an example either yourself or for someone that you’ve worked with, you can just kind of like anonymize the details if you want to, of where this approach to strategic collaboration, strategic partnerships have really paid off. I mean.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah, a few years ago it paid off really well for me. This is, this is an example of, of my friend Melissa. She, she’s not been in a really great position to refer business to me, but I so I was in a Facebook group fiddling around and this gal posted something about I was doing SEO consulting at the time and this gal posted a message asking if anyone knew it was not even a marketing channel. It was something totally different. Does anyone know a good SEO consultant with a fitness background? And that’s where I started. I was a fitness content writer and so I was like, Oh my God, this is like totally up my alley. And so I wrote and I said, Hey, this is my background. I would be a really this is a good fit here. And then I called Melissa and I said, or I texted her and I said, Here’s the link to this chat. I need you to go in there and tell her that I’m the best you’re going to find. And she did. And I wouldn’t have asked her that if she didn’t. If I knew she didn’t agree with me, of course. And so she did. And I got the job and or the gig and it was great. But that’s, you know, an example of how you can leverage your relationships in a, you know, thoughtful way. Don’t ask her to do stuff like that all the time. But when arrives.

Carol Cox:
Know that that happens so often organically for so many of us. Someone’s in a Facebook group or a LinkedIn and they happen to to tag us in a comment and say, Go check out so-and-so. But I love that you were very proactive about it because again, it was a great fit for you. You knew that you could ask your friend Melissa to do it and it wasn’t going to seem like a really like out of left field request. Or she’s like, Why are you asking me this?

Cara Steinmann:
She’s like ten four good buddy. But, you know, that’s a kind of a weird one. But on a day to day basis, like inside the community, raveled community, like almost daily, I’ll see somebody say, Hey, does anybody know somebody who’s good at this? And a person will pop into the chat and they’ll say, Oh, you got to talk to so-and-so. She’s in the community. Maybe you didn’t connect with her yet. So and I’ve seen this. There’s a loyalty that starts to develop where the women inside the community and this I know this happens with just regular friendships. They’ll get suggestions for outside the community and they’ll respond and say, You know what? Thanks for your suggestion. I’m going to go with the gals inside of here first. But if that doesn’t work, then I’ll reach back out. So building that rapport and that deep relationship in community is where you’re going to find the referrals because people, they care about you.

Carol Cox:
That’s such a good point. Yeah, I see the same thing happening with some of the communities that I’m involved in. Cara You mentioned a little bit ago that mindfulness meditation has helped you to remember these otherwise fleeting thoughts that happen to all, you know, we’re in the shower or we’re in the middle of doing something and we kind of think, Oh, that’s a good idea, That’s a good, you know, a suggestion for so-and-so. So can you share with us a little bit about maybe like, what does that look like? Do you have an example that has happened recently where that you want that you can share with us?

Cara Steinmann:
Oh, I mean, just like I got an email the other night from somebody advertising a friend of mine advertising an introverted summit thing, and it just just flitted through my mind really quickly that another one of our gals in Ravel had said she was thinking of leaning into serving introverts because of how she feels about being introverted. And so I just forwarded it to her and said, Hey, do you want a personal introduction? This guy’s really cool. I think you guys might have a lot in common, but I might not have made that connection if I hadn’t been able to grab that thought. I know it’s a weird it’s probably a weird strategy, but it works for me. So. Yeah. No, maybe it works for someone else.

Carol Cox:
No, I you know, I can imagine you probably have a good memory for these types of things too. Like, naturally, maybe have a good memory for remembering people, what they do, what they’ve said, maybe.

Cara Steinmann:
I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s any better than anyone else’s. I think we remember what we pay attention to, what we care about. So maybe if you’re not and you know, this is a personality thing too, maybe you’re not. Maybe your disk or your you’re not as people driven and you’re more task driven. So you might have a different strategy that you want to employ to connect the dots to people. Maybe you can use AI to create an algorithm or something, I don’t know. But, um, but I do know that if your people driven at all this, that works really well.

Carol Cox:
Well, I’m thinking even like in a CRM system, we use Asana, which is project management. It’s not really as robust as a, as a dedicated CRM system, but we keep a list of prospective clients and clients in there. And I would even I’ll go in and add notes because again, like, you know, we have a lot of women we’ve worked with over the years, but they say like, if I’m searching for someone in particular, I’ll go back and search and then I can find them.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah, same I have. I use Clickup and I have a database of people and I keep information on their about their Myers Briggs, what I think their Myers Briggs is or if I know it, what it is and you know, details like that so that I can just, you know, that helps to understand people and how they fit together, you know?

Carol Cox:
Do you have any an inkling of an idea of why you feel like you are good at relationship building, kind of like these deep relationships? Because obviously you gravitated towards this now as the business that you’re focused on. But even before this particular business, like where do you think this came from?

Cara Steinmann:
I think this is just something that I was probably born with. I think the career that I ended up with in marketing was something that I landed in on accident because I liked to write, which was probably only because I had to write because I couldn’t use my voice, because as a child, I mean, I was I was a talker as a kid. I always loved to talk. But we get conditioned out of some of the things that are natural strengths to us because of, you know, the patriarchy or unsafe home conditions where maybe it’s not safe to use your voice. So you turn to your diary and then you spend your life thinking you’re a writer instead of a speaker. So, I mean, it happens. So I landed in marketing, which I’d never really cared for and was never really probably terribly good at until at a certain point I was just like, This does not feel like I’m supposed to be doing this. Like I just was so uncomfortable. But I felt like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. So for me, it took basically firing all my clients and spending like six months figuring out who I am, blowing through my savings. But going back and looking at my StrengthsFinder and my Myers-Briggs and my Colby and evidence from my past, what are my core values? Asking people, asking my family and my friends, What do you think? My superpower? You get some weird answers when you ask people that it’s fun and and kind of putting that all together. I have a dossier on myself now that has all that information so that I can look in it and say my top five strengths are fully aligned with what I’m doing right now. And it’s never felt more easy to be in business. It’s it’s incredible when you align yourself with your strengths and your core values and you actually just go with it. Things start to work.

Carol Cox:
Kara Do you know what your strengths finder’s top strengths are? Oh yeah. What are they?

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah. Number one is connectedness, which is actually less about like, connecting with people 1 to 1. It’s more about connecting thoughts, disparate ideas, and believing that there’s a reason for everything that happens and then input strategy, learner and activator. Those are the top five zero of my top ten and execution. But I know that about myself.

Carol Cox:
And you know, so I took the StrengthsFinder years ago, probably more than ten years ago, and I go back to it periodically to remind myself because I think so many of us fall into this, and I know I have over the years of feeling like not that we have to be someone else, like, you know, as an entrepreneur or as a marketer. We see what everyone else is doing. We’re like, Oh, they seem successful. Like they’re right. They’re the big names and they have lots of followers and they seem to be doing well in their business and we feel like we have to do what they do. And yet we but we know that their personality is different, their strengths are different. What they enjoy about marketing or about being online is different. So I go back to my strengths to remind myself, okay, like if I double down on this, this is ultimately not only going to make me more successful, but I’m going to enjoy it so much more than trying to trying to like check the boxes of what I see, quote unquote, successful people doing.

Cara Steinmann:
Oh, absolutely. I think we spend so much of our time looking at what other people are doing and maybe we try it on and it doesn’t feel very good. I mean, how many times have you, like, tried to do something and then been like, Oh, this is why are they doing this? This is not fun at all. It’s funny how we discount our strengths. You know, we think so much of the time we grow up and whatever we’re really great at in our strengths, they can be so powerful that especially for women, if we are maybe very sensitive or very talkative or what’s another one that people get chastised.

Carol Cox:
For, like being bossy, like girls who are bossy.

Cara Steinmann:
Yes, bossy. Stop being so bossy, Cara. Okay, fine. So I’ll stop it. But you know, you turn that into a liability when really it’s a strength and you spend the rest of your life until you hit 40 and melt down, trying to shore up your weaknesses, which is a lot of work, when instead you could just lean into your strengths and hire somebody else to deal with what you’re not great at. So like and we have what we have to do, I think, as women especially, is really take a look at what has been framed for us as a liability. What what did we get in trouble for as a kid? What have people told us? Stop being so blank, whatever, and say, okay, I own that, but let’s take the emotion out of it. Let’s make that neutral. I talk a lot. That’s neither good nor bad, right? And then we can reframe that and say, Well, how could that be a superpower? How could that be really valuable in today’s society? And then put that all together and you’ve got a really great little recipe for what you should be doing with your life that you’d be really good at? That’s easy for you?

Carol Cox:
Yeah, absolutely. Two questions for you, Kara. Number one, when are you launching a podcast? Oh.

Cara Steinmann:
I recorded the first one yesterday afternoon and I was like, Oh my God, I’m so out of practice with this. So much editing happening here. No, but it was fun. I’m hoping hopefully I want to do it by the end of the month.

Carol Cox:
Oh, okay. Then in March. So by the time this episode comes out. Yeah. Okay. So let me know so we can put it in the show notes. What is the name? Will you come.

Cara Steinmann:
Be on the podcast, Unravel radio?

Carol Cox:
Absolutely. Yes.

Cara Steinmann:
Not to put you on the spot or anything?

Carol Cox:
No, I would say yes even if we weren’t live well, live. Live to tape, as they used to say in TV. All right. So that was my so my second question for you is, are you ready to claim being a leader?

Cara Steinmann:
Oh, yes, I think I am. Now. I had to reframe that a lot, too. I think I told you that story about, you know, being in elementary school and being trying to organize everybody and being really bossy and saying, you know, this is what we’re doing, come on over here. And the teacher being like, Kara, stop it. You can’t be in charge all the time and being embarrassed, like like I felt really embarrassed, like, oh, I’d better, you know, back off and let somebody else tell everybody where we’re going. And that really stuck with me. And I had used, like for a long time, had a visceral reaction to anybody, even inferring that I might be any kind of leadership material. And it was really interesting to kind of dig into that and figure out why, because my mom always said, Oh, you are such a leader as a kid. And I was like, What? I sure don’t feel like it as an adult, But that conditioning is really powerful. Yes, especially.

Carol Cox:
In young ages, because they, they, they imprint and we don’t really know why. Like we don’t we can’t parse it as a young child why these things are happening. So they just kind of stick in there.

Cara Steinmann:
Absolutely. And if it threatens your belonging in any way, that’s a very basic human need to belong. So as a kid, you’ll turn that off before you before you try it again.

Carol Cox:
So true. Well, and in that, you know, the sense of this idea of belonging kind of circles back to relationship building and having these deep relationships because that’s, you know, if we can show up as ourselves to a handful of people who really know, they know us, they believe in us, they get us. That, to me is the the best sense of belonging.

Cara Steinmann:
I’m a really big advocate for shining a light on women’s mental health, especially women entrepreneurs. A lot of us are solopreneurs, a lot of us have families. We’re doing the double duty thing, all the all the stuff and our mental health. It’s really we’re struggling. And a lot of it is because we’re isolated and we’re afraid to look like maybe we don’t know what we’re doing or we think everybody’s further along than we are. And when you get down to it and you start talking to other women entrepreneurs and you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you find out they are in the same place you are like the imposter. Everybody’s having the imposter syndrome. Nobody knows what they’re doing. We’re all pivoting. We’re all struggling with, you know, our teenagers or whatever it is. And we can we can be so much better together. I can’t tell you this. I’m probably more proud of the Ravel Collective, this community, than any other professional endeavor I’ve ever tried to do because of the vulnerability that the women inside the group are expressing to one another and how safe they feel. And it’s making a huge impact on their ability to do do well in their business and feel good in their lives. Our mental health is a lot better because we have each other.

Carol Cox:
Yes, I could not agree more. Like you have to find that group of women who you can be yourself with and you can share, you know, all the self-doubts and the fears and uncertainties and yet another pivot. Yeah.

Cara Steinmann:
I mean, it’s always going to be something, right? And it’s the process of our self-discovery as human beings should be iterative. I would hope that we’re always kind of discovering who we are and figuring out more about what we should be doing and what we’re great at and what our contribution to society can be. And so like, why not do that together, lean on each other?

Carol Cox:
Well, think about, you know, from the civil rights movement in the 60s and the and the women’s rights movement in the 19 late 60s and 70s. And so much of that movement came out of small groups of people getting together in people’s living rooms and kitchens to talk about shared experiences. But they didn’t realize until they shared it that they weren’t alone, that other women or other people were experiencing the same thing that they were, but they had no clue.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah, I think I would have given up a lot of times, a lot of different times over the course of the various times I’ve been an entrepreneur in my life because I did go back to work a few times when I had to, but I’m unemployable, so I have to figure out how to do this. Entrepreneur. Because I can’t do that other thing. But if I didn’t have Melissa to reach out to and be vulnerable with, I think I really would have given up because it’s it’s hard to feel like you’re the only one who’s maybe can’t quite get it or figure it out. And, and, you know, you have successes, too. And it’s really sad when you feel lonely and you can’t share the successes either. Like, you got to be able to share your wins with people. Yes. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
To celebrate to when things go well. Yes. Cara, you went through a thought leader Academy. You started in January and you just you graduated in March. So just a week ago at the time of doing this podcast recording. But a month at a time that this airs, why did you decide to join the Thought Leader Academy and what was your experience in it?

Cara Steinmann:
I decided to join the Thought Leader Academy because I had a really strong feeling inside that I wanted to start speaking more and sharing sharing the thoughts that I have about relationship marketing and women coming together to help each other succeed. And I was struggling to find the words and it felt really uncomfortable. And I was hoping that if I came through the Thought Leader Academy, I would be able to find the courage and the thought process, the organization to be able to share some of these thoughts in a way that would make an impact and not just be kind of jumbled up.

Carol Cox:
All right. And and how and how are you feeling now having gone through the eight weeks that we were together?

Cara Steinmann:
Fantastic. I feel so much better about being able to to speak about the things that I care about and, you know, promote my business and promote other people. And just it feels a lot easier to share my thoughts in a meaningful way without a lot of the fear that was I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what your voodoo is, but somewhere along the line, just a lot of that fear went away.

Carol Cox:
Oh, well, I’m glad to hear that. Maybe it’s like exposure therapy.

Cara Steinmann:
Well, you have a really you create a nice little safe container to. I felt really safe in the Thought leader Academy with the other women and everyone was really vulnerable and expressing stories and sharing their hopes and things that they’ve they’ve experienced in their business and or in their career. And that was pretty much the effect, I think, as I felt, okay, I’m not alone here. Everybody, a lot of other people feel the same way and we’re just going to do it anyway.

Carol Cox:
Yes. And we absolutely need as women to do it.

Cara Steinmann:
Yeah. And of course, you have the you have the structure. You know, you help. This is how you organize it. This is how you.

Carol Cox:
I’m very structured. It’s very good.

Cara Steinmann:
Highly recommend. Ten out of ten.

Carol Cox:
Oh, thank you so much, Kira. All right, so I want listeners to be able to connect with you. We’ll include a link to your LinkedIn profile, of course, in the show notes so that they can do that there. And if they’re interested in working with you either through the LinkedIn strategy or through the collective, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Cara Steinmann:
I would say apply to the Ravel Collective, apply to join us. There’s a seven day free membership trial, so it’s really risk free or whatever. And I mean, there’s an application process, but that’s where I am most of the time. I’m in the Ravel Collective hanging out with that community. But you can also reach me on my website at Kara steinman.com and that’s there’s a link to Ravel there and then information about the LinkedIn engagement strategy as well.

Carol Cox:
Okay, fantastic. I’ll make sure to include all those links in the show notes and as well as hopefully your brand new podcast will be out by then. Can’t wait to listen to that. Kara, thank you so much for coming on the Speaking Your Brand podcast and for being a thought leader, Academy grad and a member of our community. I appreciate it.

Cara Steinmann:
Thank you, Carol. I appreciate you so much.

Carol Cox:
I hope this conversation with Kara got your wheels turning as much as it did mine. I encourage you to make a short list, maybe just 3 to 5 people of who you want to start developing these strategic relationships and strategic collaborations with. You may already have some people that you’ve been doing with this with, and you could kind of keep it more top of mind, but also see if there’s other people who may be good to start reaching out to. Next week we’re going to be talking about regenerative marketing. If you’ve ever felt a little bit icky about leading with pain points and problems in your marketing and messaging, you’re not going to want to miss this episode next week. I’m talking to Wendy Kendall about her regenerative marketing framework, and I have a huge light bulb moment in our conversation. And then following that, we’re going to close off our marketing series talking about PR and media. If you would like to enroll in our Thought Leader Academy, you can get all of the details by going to speaking your brand.com/academy. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/academy. You can enroll right there for our next start date or you can schedule a call if you would like to chat first about your goals and to make sure that the Academy is the best fit for you. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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