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Can Women Succeed in Business with Kim Flynn is the topic of this weeks radio show.
Male: Preparing Business for Business is on the air. Join hosts Marcia Hawkins, President of the New York Shop Exchange and Kyle Clouse, Vice President for insightful and creative strategies to prepare your business for business. Listen in for great guests and great offers from our guests and sponsors, as well as thought-provoking dialogue. Preparing Business for Business offers usable content, insightful ideas and resources to jumpstart your business in an effective, economical manner and to prepare your business for growth and challenges. And now, your hosts for Preparing Business for Business, Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse.
Marcia Hawkins: Business Preparing For Business radio program on the Preparedness Radio Network. I’m Marcia Hawkins 
along with my cohost, Kyle Clouse. 2012 and wow, this whole month of January is just flying by. If you wish to participate in tonight’s show, we are opening up the phone lines, a first on our radio program, we are happy to say so if you have any questions for us or our guests tonight and I’m going to be a little bit of information about that in just a few minutes, you may call into the show. Our number here is (347)326-9604. Again, that number is (347)326-9604. And then you’re going to want to press one to be put into the host queue. Again, that number is (347)326-9604, press one and you’ll be put in queue to either ask a question or leave a comment. We’d love to have you all call in and we’d love to take your questions and comments.
So we do welcome you here tonight and we want to thank you for joining us here every Wednesday evening where we take an informative look at how we can help you prepare your business for business. Most of our preparedness programs aim in providing you with information on preparedness products for natural and man-made disasters. Now we essentially do the same thing here except we apply it to business. We have some great ideas and helpful information for you along with some exciting guests and informative commentary. That is our goal and our focus each week, we want to provide you with thought-provoking dialogues for taking action and helpful resources for you. If you’re looking to either start a business, grow your existing business or we can help find some solutions for you in some of these challenging times that we’re going through right now. Now let’s bring on my cohost, Kyle Clouse. Hi, Kyle.
Kyle Clouse: Hey, Marcia. Great to be here. How are you doing? I’m exited to talk with Kim Flynn about the topic Can Women Succeed in Business
Marcia Hawkins: I’m doing good. I just felt like I should have had you watch like a week’s worth of Lifetime this week because I realized, this is the first time we had a female guest on our show so now, you’re outnumbered tonight.
Kyle Clouse: I know it is. It’s the first that I’ve been outnumbered and it’s a – for me, it’s really exciting we’re able to get some new insight into the world of entrepreneurship and business and startups and really excited to have Kim on the show tonight.
Marcia Hawkins: So you’re not afraid of being outnumbered by the ladies tonight?
Kyle Clouse: I am not afraid of being outnumbered. It’s not the first time I’ve been outnumbered and it’s probably not the last.
Marcia Hawkins: Oh, that’s great. Listen, I’m really excited about our guest tonight. Why don’t you give our audience some information about Kim?
Kyle Clouse: Okay, sure. To be honest, I don’t need even know where to begin with Kim, she’s got quite an impressive resumé especially for someone talking about women in business. Kim Flynn is passionate about playing it big as a woman in small business. She is a speaker, trainer, workshop leader and a workshop leader for small business owners. She has like four kids and is the founder of five businesses and the creator of the plug-and-play business system. So really cool things that Kim has accomplished is she was a schoolteacher for three years and, which I’m excited to ask her about because I don’t think it applies necessarily to women but I know in men, most entrepreneur men like to act like a five and 10 -year-old so maybe she can add some insight into how she puts…
Marcia Hawkins: I’m going to leave that alone.
Kyle Clouse: Leave that alone for right now but you know it’s true. I do know that women can succeed in business and so does Kim Flynn. So do I. But in 2010, she founded Kim Flynn Consulting where she coaches, trains and inspires women to play big, play bold and play bold in their business. Her clients have been featured on the Oprah Winfrey show, the O network and the TLC network. Kim was also recently recruited by one of the Vanguard’s 22 international keynote speakers, which also included Stedman Graham and Stephen R. Covey. So very impressive.
Marcia Hawkins: Unbelievable. Well, welcome on our program tonight, Kim. Thanks for coming on.
Kim Flynn: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here and I’m so excited to represent women as the first woman on your show. Awesome. Glad to be here.
Marcia Hawkins: Well, I’d tell you, we – up until now we’ve had men on the show so this is wonderful for me. I really hope that some of our listeners will really seize the opportunity and call in. We – Kyle and I, all week long, have just been talking about just how excited we were to have you on board. So maybe give in a bit of information to our listeners about you, I was just wondering if maybe you could tell us and our listeners a little bit more about yourself in terms of what you would like to impress upon our audience tonight.
Kim Flynn: Let’s see. Well to all the women who are listening, what I really want to impress is that no one is holding us back. Men are not holding us back. What holds us back is ourselves and the key to growing our business and to taking it to the next level is simply giving ourselves permission and trusting ourselves to take that step in the dark. To get training, to start doing new things in business.
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah, that’s so true and you know now, with the birth of the Internet, which is of course not an incident anymore by any stretch but for me, I’ve been in business for 20 years and I must say though, I really – I listen to women many, many times say, you know, I was going to do this or I was going to start this type of business. Why do you think freezes – and not just women because we can apply this to men as well but since that’s your niche, what do you think it is that really paralyzes women from taking the action of starting their own business?
Kim Flynn: Oh, bless their heart. Well, I speak with these women all the time. I’ve worked with most people who have already started in business but so many times I see the mom at home who just feels this need to go out in business. And so she’d just start like a little service, business, a little selling headbands on the Internet and she keeps it so small. And I really just think it’s an intimidation factor. I think men have like, what – is it 7 billion times more testoterone than women do really? But they have this incredible built-in drive that just makes the move and women, we have to be pretty – pretty self propelling, we can’t rely on those hormones. We have to stand up and actually do the work and we are not pulled so much by that drive to compete so we have to stand up and do ourselves.
Marcia Hawkins: You know I was just – as I was listening to you talk about that and we were talking about the hormone factor I thought Kyle really doesn’t want us to go there, do you Kyle?
Kyle Clouse: No, we can talk about that…
Kim Flynn: Kyle, you don’t want us to talk about male testosterone, you really don’t?
Marcia Hawkins: No. I think for me, most of the women in business that I’ve interviewed in talking about starting their own businesses and sometimes it is, it’s like a service-based business, sometimes it’s selling a Mary Kay type product or something along those lines or they’re very, well-versed in a career that they had prior to having children and they have found a way that incorporate that into a home-based business, which is wonderful. But I must say and I know that you’re going to be able to relate to this and I know we could probably spend an hour just on this topic alone but don’t you really find beside the fear factor, the balance factor, how am I going to balance my children, the house? Many women wear many hats within the household in terms of what they’re able to do it especially now with the economy being what it is, many of their spouses have taken on even additional jobs just trying to get the ends to meet, so to speak. So I mean what would you say in terms of the balance piece of it, what would be like you’re best advise you could give to someone who’s either struggling to survive in their business or they want to start their business with that balance part of the business?
Can Women Succeed in Business
Kim Flynn: Oh Marcia, you’re not going to like my answer. I’m not going to make any friends on this but I’m going to say that women use that balance factor as an excuse to not play. And women more often than not hide behind their children, hide behind their house because of fear. So if there is a will, there’s a way. If you need to figure it out, you will and if you’re using that as an excuse, if you’re using children as an excuse, you are in hiding. And I encourage you just to throw that out of the window and there are 5,000,017 books on how to organize your time and you need to read two of those and you will be on your way. But don’t hide behind children anymore. I’ve got four kids, I love and adore my kids. I work mostly from home and I do travel quite a bit as well and this – it’s relationship. If you have good relationships with your kids, you can manage the balance. Is not about “Okay, if I spent 10 minutes here and then 20 minutes here and then 10 minutes here,” that’s ridiculous. So throw that whole time balancing out the window and just work on the relationship with your kids.
Marcia Hawkins: Well, I’m very glad we brought that up. We were going to get along great and I’ll tell you why. Can Women Succeed in Business is such a hot topic.
Producer: Marcia?
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah?
Producer: May I break in here? You have a caller on the line, it’s Kelly. And anytime you’re ready, let me know and we’ll mic her up.
Marcia Hawkins: Okay, I’m just going to follow-up with that question and then I’ll have Kyle introduce our caller. What I was saying Kim is that I told her we subscribe to that because I always feel that you get done in the course of the day is what you prioritize and I completely agree with that. And time management for me is prioritizing exactly what it is that I want to get done. And I must say in addition to raising my kids at this juncture of my life, I’m also taking care of my elderly mom. And that can be a handful and yet I still manage to run my business every day. It’s prioritizing. So I completely subscribe to that. So Kyle…
Kim Flynn: And if you’re…
Marcia Hawkins: Yep?
Kim Flynn: Oh, go ahead. I’ll just say, if you’re house is a disaster, let it be a disaster. But let’s put your effort into your children and your business and everything else can come secondary.
Marcia Hawkins: Excellent advice. Kyle, I know you’re chomping to get in here. Would you like to come on and then you can introduce our – I believe we have a caller by the name of Kelly, you can bring her on.
Kyle Clouse: Can Women Succeed in Business, let’s go ahead and bring Kelly on right now but I got something that I want to follow-up with you on what we’ve been talking about with organizations. Let’s bring Kelly on now and see what question she has.
Caller Kelly: Can you hear me?
Kim Flynn: Hi, Kelly.
Kyle Clouse: Yes, we can. We can hear you. Tell us…
Caller Kelly: Hi, I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if my volume was on for me. I don’t know. Hi, how are you guys?
Marcia Hawkins: Good, how are you?
Kim Flynn: Hey, good.
Caller Kelly: I’m good. It’s kind of random for me to be calling. I’ve listened to the show online for several weeks now and Kyle and Marcia, I really got to hand it to you, it’s very interesting. I’ve never called into a radio show before. I’m a little bit nervous actually but I’m really very impressed with what I’ve seen each week. And Kim, I’m just very impressed the fact that you have four children and you’ve been able to start five businesses.
Kim Flynn: Thank you.
Caller Kelly: And so anyway I guess my question is this. I’m not married and I don’t have children but I do have a full-time job so of course, I don’t have the children excuse or anything like that. But I’m just curious and this is a very general question but I’ve always in the back of my mind really wanted to start my own business kind of on the side but with a full-time job. Of course, it’s kind of hard to just kind of jump in headfirst and I guess, I just kind of want to know what are the first steps I need to take to get things going?
Kim Flynn: Okay. Well, first of all, do you have a business idea? Something that you’re pulled towards?
Caller Kelly: Yeah, I do. I’ve created some – I make lampshades, sounds kind of random but..
Kim Flynn: No, that’s fine.
Caller Kelly: Artsy and craftsy stuff. I mean, I have sold a few times on eBay, I used to have a store in eBay where I did that and kind of put it aside a couple years ago and haven’t really done it so much but I’ve also sold on FC[ph] but I don’t know. I guess just hearing that somebody who’s a mother of four children, I don’t have any excuse. I don’t have kids and I know I can do it. I just kind of want to know how to actually just get started.
Kim Flynn: Yeah. So Kelly, you say – I don’t want to jump in headfirst and actually, you wouldn’t be able to jump in headfirst because you don’t even have anything to jump into so…
Caller Kelly: What I mean is more just – I have a full-time job, I can’t just quit. And…
Kim Flynn: Got it, yeah. And that would be the worst idea for you to ever quit your job
Kelly: Exactly, exactly.
Kim Flynn: So what you’re going to do is you’re just going to put your toe in the water first. So right now, Kelly with everything that you know, what is the next step for you in business? Let’s assume that you know, what’s the next step for you?
Caller Kelly: I honestly have no idea. I guess maybe speak with people who have done something similar to me, which I guess I’m trying to do with your right now but.
Kim Flynn: Okay, perfect. You’re asking people around you who had done it before. Now you have sold on FC before, is that right?
Caller Kelly: Yes.
Kim Flynn: Okay and are you – currently, do you have any listings on FC right now?
Caller Kelly: I do not, no. No, I don’t.
Kim Flynn: So why wouldn’t you go back into FC? Are you – were you not loving that platform?
Caller Kelly: Oh, I’m not — I kind of always loved the idea working for myself and I know that FC provides that in a way but I guess I kind of want to break out of the – just mail-order thing and Internet sales. I don’t know, I mean ultimately, I would love to have a little shop but I mean that’s obviously – it’s even in strange for me to even be talking about this, it’s more of…
Kim Flynn: No, I love that.
Caller Kelly: I mean in the background but…
Kim Flynn: No, it’s perfect. Okay, so when you say I want a shop and you can probably imagine it in your mind, the shop, the creation and the window, decorations and all that cute stuff and that’s like three miles down the road for you, right?
Caller Kelly: Right.
Kim Flynn: And then you say, “Well, I don’t want to do FC because the shop is the goal. And what I want to propose to you is FC is actually a step along the path to get to the big goal. If you don’t take the FC step or another small step like that, you’ll never get to the big shop down there.
Caller Kelly: Sure because it means I’m creating things and I guess I could…
Kim Flynn: Yes! And don’t discount that. There’s no at least there. That is absolutely so important to you as a business owner. You have to learn step by step by step. So if you don’t want to go to FC what’s another route you could go to just to get that next step in business?
Caller Kelly: I guess maybe talk to some people ,friends or anybody else who’s interested in doing the same thing that I do. Yeah…
Kim Flynn: Okay, so I’m going to stop you right there.
Caller Kelly: Yeah, in the same area as friends.
Kim Flynn: So who is that friend you could talk to?
Caller Kelly: I honestly can’t think of anybody that I would trust, I mean I’m quite a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing so it’s kind of I think one of the things that’s held me back in the past is it’s hard for me to want to share the responsibility with somebody.
Kim Flynn: Okay, I’m going to stop you again there.
Caller Kelly: I have a vision and…
Kim Flynn: I got to stop you there, Kelly. We’re not going to go into story, I’m just going to ask you, what is the very next step? And you said, “reach out to someone” and you don’t know who that is right now, how could you find that person to reach out to? What could you do?
Caller Kelly: Obviously check things out online. Put an ad on paper or something like that.
Kim Flynn: There you go. So put an ad on the paper that’s a little bit old-school if maybe you’ll get some 75 year old to find – but you said check Google. Is that what you said?
Caller Kelly: Yeah, exactly.
Kim Flynn: Okay, so what would you Google?
Caller Kelly: I guess in my area, which is San Diego, a crossminded somebody looking for another one, I don’t – I’m not sure.
Kim Flynn: Okay, great. You could do a Google search for crafty business owners or women in craft businesses, anything like that and you’ll probably get quite a few responses. What’s your next step after that, Kelly?
Caller Kelly: Get in contact with people who respond…
Kim Flynn: There you go, there you go.
Caller Kelly: Meet and greet, the whole thing.
Kim Flynn: Well, you don’t have to know…
Caller Kelly: It makes a lot of sense when you have it laid out like this, it’s more I guess…
Kim Flynn: Yeah, just one little step at a time. You don’t have to know the whole path, you need to know the destination which you’ve already got and don’t you dare ridicule yourself for having that goal, I love it. I love that you want to own that shop, but just take one little tiny step at a time and every time you get stuck, just say, assume I knew, what is my next step? Assume I knew, what would it be?
Caller Kelly: You know, and that’s a very good point like you were saying actually towards the beginning of the show, if your house is a mess, let it be a mess. You know, don’t let – as a perfectionist, it’s hard for me to like, if I don’t have a plan to not actually, you know. I guess I do a lot of thinking as opposed to a lot of doing when it comes to this so…
Kim Flynn: And I want you to write this on your mirror. You’re going to write, “Fun is better than perfect,” and that is the mantra for all successful small business owners. It’ll never be perfect. Fun better than perfect. Thank you so much, Kelly. You’re wonderful.
Caller Kelly: Okay, thanks Kim. I really appreciate your time and great job, Marcia and Kyle.
Marcia Hawkins: Thank you so for calling in.
Caller Kelly: Sure, thanks a lot.
Marcia Hawkins: That was great. I liked the fact talking about the not worrying about the house being a mess but I wondered how many women don’t have children and their house is a mess and they’re listening. Go ahead Kyle, I want to get you in here.
Kyle Clouse: Sure. Now, one thing really quick and if you could – we just had someone, chatted that they’re asking for the name of the two books that you mentioned?
Kim Flynn: Oh, two books? That you read two books? I was being – but I can give you some books here. Let’s see. How about there’s a Julie Morgenstern book called Organizing from the Inside Out. It’s fantastic. I also have my own training that also happens to be fantastic, of course. You can find that at KimFlynn.com. And you look for the free five video e-course and I believe it’s the second video in that course that talks about time management.
Marcia Hawkins: And you send them one at a time, correct, Kim?
Kim Flynn: I do, they come one at a time. Yeah.
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah. I just got mine today, I’m quite excited about that. I know you can never stop dreaming so I’m really excited about that.
Kyle Clouse: I actually have Can Women Succeed in Business – Kim, have a question about organization and more so about organizing your time. When I went through your blog, I came across a couple of posts that you’ve put up and I have to say, this really does apply more to women than men but one of your blog posts you have, how to do business hair in three minutes. Number one is how to put on a five-minute makeup and I had to laugh but at the same time you know, it reminded me of – I’m going to drawback here to 2008 during the election period. When I believe it was President Obama and Hillary Clinton, they went to a warehouse early in the morning, 5:00 in the morning to speak to the employees of this warehouse and one thing that Hillary Clinton said was the difference between Senator Obama and myself is that I actually have to get up at 3:00 to get my dress on, get my hair done, get my makeup done and so the effort that is put into something by a woman seems to be much greater than what a man has to do to get business ready per se. So what are some things that women can do or I guess would apply to anyone that business owners can do to organize their time more effectively?
Kim Flynn: Awesome. So can I first touch on that women getting ready and that women beauty factor that we’ve got going on there? A lot of times people think, oh, it’s a disadvantage to be a woman in business so it’s a disadvantage that we have the extra time to dress ourselves and the people actually notice how we look, things like that. And they want that to be changed, they want us to be androgynous, they want us to turn into men and can I just say, I love being a woman on business. I love walking into an Internet marketing conference and being the only woman. What an incredible advantage. Seriously, what a huge advantage. And so we have such an advantage to be beautiful. We get to spend an extra hour to make ourselves look nice where men are pretty much stuck. I mean if they wake up having a bad skin day, unless they want to go out wearing full makeup, they’re just going to be stuck. And us women get the advantage of making herself beautiful so I love being a woman and taking that extra time.
Marcia Hawkins: I love that. I know. I know Kyle talks you know, just up in the morning and I’m sure he’s ready to roll and I’m still doing things and I’m talking and it’s so funny. So Kim, we’re going to take a break in a few minutes so I’m just going to have to ask you one quick question. If you had to give me the top three things of advice that you would give to someone thinking about starting their own business, what would those be?
Kim Flynn: Oh my gosh. The first one would be, just take a first step. Stop the analysis paralysis, stop overthinking things. Just take that first step and don’t think you have to have the full-time like Kelly did. She doesn’t want to take just one step because she wants the whole pie. You have take just one step at a time so that would be my first and probably my only advice right there is just take that first step.
Marcia Hawkins: That’s so critical too because I think sometimes people get so caught up in what is my logo going to look like and what is going to happen today for me? I really believe you kind of have to plan it as you go because it’s the variable that you cannot forecast that or going to throw that all out the window anyways and I think…
Kim Flynn: Absolutely and your logo will change three months into business anyway so you might as well just get one and go, hit the ground running.
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah and in that same vein, if you also find that sometimes people’s perception of what they think their business is going to be like, kind of cements them into that thinking and just kind of shut them down and doesn’t allow them to even think of another option and sometimes that can kind of hurt them as well.
Kim Flynn: Yeah. People got hurt a lot by mostly what’s in their head. If they would just look at the resources they already have and just ask themselves, what can I do based on the knowledge that I have, and the resources I already have to grow this business without having to wait until, oh I need funding, oh I need a business partner, oh I need a logo, I need all that. Just do the best with what you’ve got and you will move far.
Marcia Hawkins: Absolutely. I want to remind our listeners if they’d like to call in, if they have a question for Kim or for Kyle or myself, that number again is (347)326-9604 and then you’re going to want to press one to be put into the host queue. Again that number is (347)326-9604 and I’m hoping that was a caller calling in.
Right now, we’re just going to have to take a quick break and then we’ll be right back. Again, this is the Business Preparing for Business radio program on the Preparedness Radio Network. I’m Marcia Hawkins along with Kyle Clouse. Please stop by and visit us atNewYorkShopExchange.com and thank you for allowing us to help you prepare your business for business. We’ll be right back.
Alrighty, everybody. Welcome back. Again this is Marcia Hawkins along with Kyle Clouse. Our guest for tonight is Kim Flynn, can’t even speak after that break of KimFlynn.com. I certainly want to just take a moment to thank our sponsors, Lehmans.com, thewondermill.com. Just to make sure make sure I get that plugged in for them. I think along with the theme tonight being about women being in business, I think Kim’s resounding message is if you’re thinking about it, stop thinking about it. Just do it. I must say, there’s nothing like taking effective action to get your plan going and get your dream going. It’s just so so important. And also along the way kids, children, dogs, cat, the house, whatever, don’t worry about it. Have a good relationship with your children and get your business going and I just think that’s just really good solid advice. So welcome back, I’m going to bring my cohost back in here because he’s been very quiet. No surprise tonight, Kyle?
Kyle Clouse: No, I’m a little bit outnumbered and just like third will here is the two women entrepreneurs who are having a great conversation.
Marcia Hawkins: I’d like you to get in here and get involved.
Kyle Clouse: Absolutely. I did want to dive in a little bit. We’ve talked a little bit about makeup, hair and being the only woman in…
Marcia Hawkins: All the important stuff.
Kyle Clouse: All the important stuff, exactly, yeah, and the woman being the only person in a conference. But I want to expand on that a little bit, Kim, and ask what are some — as you’ve coached other women and as you’ve been in business for all these years and have had several startups and successful businesses, what are some unique traits that women – that entrepreneur women bring to the business field?
Kim Flynn: The first time I went to a high-end networking group with a bunch of a millionaire men business owners, and I was the only woman, I was amazed as they went around the table introducing themselves and it was “I am so good at this, I am so good at this, I am so good at this.”And women tend to not do that so much. I kind of wish they would a little bit but that’s one of the main differences is women downplay their successes and men upplay it, if that’s a word. They take a little of grain of something they’re great about and they make it into a very big deal. And they do that strategically to their advantage, which is great. But women can pretty much – you can count on them for being honest and their resumes so that’s the first difference, a little bit more honest and less bluffing in our resumés.
Marcia Hawkins: Kyle, did we lose Kim?
Kyle Clouse: I think we might’ve lost her.
Marcia Hawkins: Well, that was – that’s too bad because that was very good.
Producer: Yes, you did lose her. So I’ll get her back on just as soon as she calls back in.
Marcia Hawkins: Okay, sure. Well, Kyle, I think we could probably spend a few minutes while waiting for her to get back on where we can talk about hair and makeup. Is that okay with you?
Kyle Clouse: Oh, absolutely, yeah. In fact, I need to figure out how to get my hair and my makeup done a lot faster in mornings too, so…
Marcia Hawkins: Well, I was thinking, we talked earlier today on the phone and we were talking about how getting you out here on the Boston area the Monday after the Super Bowl so we could canvas the Boston area together and meet with some clients and I was thinking to myself, maybe I should just set the first couple of hours up where we could get manicures and pedicures and couple episodes of lifetime and then we can take it from there. How does that sound?
Kyle Clouse: Absolutely. I’m not above a good pedicure.
Marcia Hawkins: Well, we’re getting back to what Kim was saying. I do want to talk about it a little bit because I know, after the show tonight, I know you and I are going to have a lot to talk about. I think where Kim was going with that was of men upplaying their resumés and women downplaying the resumes. I mean you’ve been in business for quite a while. Have you found that to be true?
Kyle Clouse: Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, when I look at someone’s resume, like Kim mentioned, you have to look at that with a grain of salt. And do the research on your end and because a lot could be – a person can say a lot of stuff, half truths or untruths, on a resume and – especially when you been in business a long time. Everyone, whenever you ask most people about their business, what do they say? Business is going great. And especially in today’s economy and environment, that’s not always the case.
Marcia Hawkins: You know, interestingly enough, I found this really remarkable when she was talking about it. She said that they say it and they’re able to use it to their advantage. In other words, she wasn’t insinuating that it was as an egotistical type thing that they were like, “Oh, I’m so good at this and I’m so good at that.” They’re really…
Producer: Marcia? Excuse me for interrupting. Kim’s back online. You want me to mic her up?
Marcia Hawkins: Okay, sure. Kim?
Producer: All right, here she goes.
Kim Flynn: Sorry about that. I’m not sure what happened.
Marcia Hawkins: That’s fine. Kyle and I were just – we were happy to fill in the spot here with – we were talking about when he comes out, we’re going to go for manicures and pedicures and get our hair done. But the last thing I said to him before we were able to bring you back on was the fact that I was struck by the fact that you were talking that when men really play up their accomplishments, they’re not doing it to be egotistical, they’re really doing it because that’s what they’re good at.
Kim Flynn: Yes, yes, it’s completely strategic and it serves them. It absolutely serves them. So I keep trying to tell women I coach, my clients, to talk good about themselves and take that one little thing that they think is insignificant and blow it up and show the world how great that is.
Marcia Hawkins: Oh, I got to tell you, of everything you said tonight, I think that that’s one of the things I will really take away from this conversation, because I really – looking back at conversations that I’ve had with other women and even men, you are spot on with that. So Kyle, let’s bring you back in again before we get geared off track again with the manicures and pedicures.
Kyle Clouse: Marcia, you and I have been working together for I guess going on a year now. We’re coming close to a year. And when your partners with someone in business, you get to know them very – on a different level, on a very business-rigid level so I understand your personality when it comes to business. I understand your personality when it comes work ethic. And what I’m hearing from Kim is the same things that I would be hearing from you as well. There’s parallels between the two. One thing that I did want to also talk about is when you’re hiring employees and especially when you’re in the first stages of your business when you’re on the start -up stage, maybe you’re getting funding or trying to really bootstrap your business, how do you hire employees when you can’t – if you can’t afford to hire employees?
Kim Flynn: Got it. So that’s one of the big things that I teach is you organize and systematize your business. And then as soon as you can, you hire out every little piece that you can, hold on to just leadership on your own. I grew my biggest business that I sold earlier this year that employed about 30 people. I grew it to the point where – or I organized it to the point where it really did run itself. So I was running that business on two hours a week. And a lot of people don’t believe me on that but it really is possible if you just organize it and then hire all those pieces out.
So that’s one of the first questions I usually get on that is well, I’m running this business and it’s taking all of my time. And the only way I can see to the grow it is to work more hours. What can I possibly do? And of course the answer is you have to hire out. And then of course, the reaction is I don’t have any money to hire out. And there’s the principle. When you started out in business, you had no money coming in and yet you invested to start your business. And it’s the same thing when you’re going to grow your business, you don’t have money coming in beyond what would keep your business going but you need to grow it. The same principle applies. You’re going to have to take that step in the dark and you’re going to have to invest even though you don’t have the money to.
Kyle Clouse: Yes absolutely. What are some – obviously there’s different niches of business and different structures of business but I’m sure that there are some universal laws to business organization to get to that point where your business was running itself and only required a couple of hours on your end of management. So what are some universal laws that a person can use to organize their business and structure it that way?
Kim Flynn: I’m going to point you to a very common book that’s known in the business world, and that is the e-Myth, so it’s the letter E – M Y T H, the e-Myth, and it talks about how to structure and organize your business and pretty much sums it up like a franchise. And as soon as I found that book, I did that to my business. I structured it all out and I had it all out and it worked like a charm.
So the basic principle is you just organize your business, you break it up into five different chunks, five different pieces. And those pieces are number one is finance, so what you would do is on a piece of paper, you would write down all of the things that you do on a regular weekly basis in finance, whether that’s recording expenses, paying bills, whatever it is that you do for finances. That’s your first piece.
Second piece is customer service, and again you write down everything that you do on a daily or weekly basis to keep up with customer service. This is answering your e-mails, answering the phone, anything like that so deals with customers that are already working with you. And again you just line item that out, write everything down that you do with customer service.
Third piece is product development. And I work with a lot of coaches and speakers and trainers also, and for some reason, we love to create more and more and more products as a comment I see in women and so you’re going to write down product development, everything you do on a daily-weekly basis to create or keep up with your products.
And then two more pieces here, the next one is marketing. This should be, and I put should in emphasis, it should be your most busy center of your business. You should spend most of your time in marketing.
Marcia Hawkins: We know a thing about, don’t we, Kyle?
Producer: Excuse me, Kyle and Marcia. We have a caller on the line. It’s Michelle. When you’re ready, if you would like to talk to her, just let me know and I’ll mic her up.
Marcia Hawkins: Okay, thanks, Larry. Go ahead, Kim. Let’s finish that last piece. That sounds important.
Kim Flynn: Yes, absolutely. So marketing is number four and then last one is leadership. And leadership is the only piece you cannot hire out. I see a lot of people trying to hire this out when they’re like “Well, I’m stuck, I don’t know how to do marketing, I don’t know how to set up auto responders. I’m really – I don’t know enough about marketing.” So therefore, hire a VA and they will know how to do it. And that is hiring out leadership. That’s something you cannot do. You can’t hire out leadership.
So once you get those five pieces all ironed out, your whole business down on paper, you just have written everything that you do on a daily-weekly basis in those five areas, then you simply pick which one you like the least, and that’s usually finance, and put an up on Craigslist or Facebook or wherever you want to put it and say I’m looking for a finance person, and then you get rid of that piece. You then take the time that you want to spend on that finance and you don’t invest that into TV watching time. You don’t invest that into I don’t know, whatever it is that you want to do, play on Facebook. What you do invest that into is marketing. All of your time should go into marketing and leadership. That’s where you want to spend your time.
Marcia Hawkins: It looks like we got that nailed, Kyle, huh?
Kyle Clouse: Yeah, absolutely.
Marcia Hawkins: Well, let’s bring the caller in, Kyle.
Kyle Clouse: Okay, let’s go ahead and do that real quick. I want to follow up on your product development in a little bit as well, Kim. Now let’s go ahead and bring the caller on right now, Larry.
Producer: Yes, she’s on the line. Go ahead.
Marcia Hawkins: I think her name was Michelle.
Caller Michelle: Hi there, how are you?
Marcia Hawkins: Hi, Michele. Welcome to the program.
Caller Michelle: Hi, Marcia. Thanks so much. And Kyle and Kim, how are you this evening.
Kyle Clouse: Oh, great.
Kim Flynn: Hi, Michelle.
Caller Michelle: Hi. My question, Kim, it was just – I had a question with regard to time management. There’s truly not enough time in the day. And I wanted to find out what is – I wanted to know what is important staying focused on that task to follow through to completion and then going from creating that list per se?
Kim Flynn: I’m sorry, what was your question? You want to know how to…
Caller Michelle: About time management and how to find out what is most important staying focused on that task.
Kim Flynn: Oh, my goodness! Well, I have a whole program for that so I can’t cover that in one second. Let’s see, how could I answer that in a nutshell in sort of a two-day training? Let’s see. Well, a lot of people do the pick your one thing that you want to get accomplished that day and focus on that and then as far as finishing that one task, I see a lot of people write on their to-do list. They write goals instead of tasks. So a goal would be like grow my Facebook following or something like that. And that’s the result that they want but that’s not the task to actually get them there.
And so when you pick your accomplishments for the day, choose a very small task. For example, if you wanted to grow your Facebook following, you would reach out to five friends and seriously, that is the task. So pay attention to goals versus tasks and then also I would never ever, ever, ever write anything on a to-do list that takes me longer 30 minutes to an hour to do. If you have a big project and you just put it on your to-do list as this one giant project, build website, it will never happen because it’s so scary and huge. So you really are just going to take one little bite at a time. You’re going to eat that elephant one little bite at a time.
Kyle Clouse: Can I ask you real quick? On the tasks portion, if you pick a task in the day, isn’t it – especially when you’re running a business because if you’re not generating income, your business is dead. You’re going out of business. And so when you’re picking a test to focus on in a day, shouldn’t your most important task be an income-generating task and not something that is not directly tied to generating income?
Kim Flynn: Yes, I love that you said that. I have my own spin if you know Steven Covey’s quadrant system. But I have my own quadrant system, it’s the Kim Flynn quadrant system. And the Q1 tasks are things that need to be done now and make you money. And if you evaluate your marketing, just I’m talking to any business owner in general, if you evaluate the things that you do for marketing on a day-to-day basis, a lot of those marketing tasks do not immediately generate income. So if you’re in a state in your business where you need income now, focus on only those Q1 tasks, things that bring you money right now.
And those marketing tasks that are Q1 are often the ones that people do not want to do. Taking that perspective client out to lunch, knocking on doors, whatever it takes, it’s usually those face-to-face a little bit harder things to do to close those sales to get the money coming in now.
Kyle Clouse: Well, that’s – that actually works to our advantage because Marcia loves the face-to-face contacts.
Marcia Hawkins: I do, I do, I just love telling people about my business and sometimes probably to their dismay.
Kim Flynn: And that’s something only another business owner could enjoy, right? I love that you got articles in businesses as well. We can talk about it all day long.
Marcia Hawkins: Yup, exactly, exactly. Well, I just find that my enthusiasm for the business cannot come through a phone call or an e-mail. I know that every appointment I go on – just a couple appointments I was on today they were saying “Oh my gosh, I can just see how excited you are about this!” And I really am because I’m very passionate about what I do so – and I know it comes through on the skin-to-skin contact as opposed to on e-mail where they just certainly can’t – I can’t generate the enthusiasm that I can in person. So…
Kim Flynn: Yeah and that’s actually the emotion that sells the best. So happiness, security, love, peace, all those are wonderful. But excitement, enthusiasm is the emotion of sales. That’s what makes it go by.
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah and I think conviction. I have a lot of conviction about what I do and I completely 150% believe in what I do. And I think that, that comes through in person and it just really cannot penetrate via an e-mail or a phone call for sure.
Kim Flynn: I love it, I love it.
Marcia Hawkins: Yeah. Kyle, you all set?
Kyle Clouse: Yeah, one thing that I want to talk on Kim was just – or actually bring up, it’s not necessarily a question. But you talk about how you and other women business owners that you know your – you like product development, you’re into product development and to me that’s an income generating task is developing a product. And there’s a good book out by MJ DeMarco called the Millionaire Fast Lane, and don’t let the title fool you. The title of the book is a ploy off of marketing to the masses. But he talks about product development and there’s two types of people in general in the world. We have producers and consumers. And the consumers are the ones spending the money. The producers are the ones making money. And so product development falls right in line with being a producer, that was very interesting.
Kim Flynn: I love that, I love that. Just a little quick comment on that. I see a lot of my clients get stuck in the trap of having a lot of products or different products to sell and they haven’t produced marketing plans to sell those products that they already have and so they move on to develop more more and more products. And so product development is wonderful but let’s sell what we got first.
Marcia Hawkins: Oh, amen.
Kyle Clouse: Sure, yeah.
Producer: Kyle, Marcia, you have – this is Larry again. Marcia, this – we have a caller. Bethany has a question for Kim.
Kyle Clouse: Oh sure, bring her on
Marcia Hawkins: Welcome on, Bethany.
Producer: Just a second, I’ll put her on right now. There she is.
Marcia Hawkins: Okay. Hi, Bethany.
Caller Bethany: Hello. Hi. I’m excited to call in and ask Kim a question. I’ve actually been taking the very first videos in her site’s free video course and they’re wonderful. They’re very inspiring. I have online business called fit2b studio and it offers online yoga workouts and Pilates workouts to stay-at-home moms. And what I’m caught up in right now is I’ve had this business for a year, we launched it and we’re in the black. But we’re not really making the time and we are not in the place where we need to because we’ve been able to do everything ourselves. What I’m running into right now is that it’s just scary playing big because there’s a lot of big names in fitness that I’m up against. And they teach very differently than I do. And some of them are very anti-mom. They just don’t know how to train moms. And I get a lot of flack and sometimes some outright criticism. And what I want to ask Kim is do you have any encouragement for somebody that’s in my shoes that I just often, and I left this in the chatbox too, I just kind of feel like a mouse among lions. Like have something I want to do, I’m different than all of you but people assume I’m the same. How do I show I’m different but not put you down? How do I play with the big people but not be like them? That’s probably 12 questions all at once, but…
Kim Flynn: I’m loving you right now. You are darling. First of all, I want to congratulate you for plugging your business. Good job. Can you plug it again? Again, tell us your website again.
Caller Bethany: Oh, it’s fit2b studio and the website is fit2b.us. And yeah, it’s mom-friendly, family-friendly modest home workouts that are on videos, streaming HD videos for the family. So but it’s just really different. We don’t dance around in our skivvies. And we don’t do – but we do a lot of other stuff and I get a lot of criticism for that.
Kim Flynn: Awesome. Okay and criticizing you? The big guys are criticizing you?
Caller Bethany: Actually, no. It’s the everyday mom that just isn’t there – well, you know you’re different. Well, wait. But I haven’t seen your sixpack, I mean not literally, like well, I haven’t seen you naked, are you – do you really have something – literally how does – what are we messing?
Kim Flynn: I love it. So Bethany you just hit on a phenomenon that astounds me almost every day. And that is when another woman stands up to play big, it is not the men that is – that pulls her down. And it is the other women. It’s also not your competitors that usually pull you down, especially the ones that are playing big, they want to help you, encourage you. It’s the normal everyday women that for some reason, we see another woman playing big and we want to yank them down into that crowd bucket.
What advice I have for you, all I can say is I totally relate. I completely relate to that. It’s just one of those things where you have to – I just went to a training last week and this guy said, “Haters are hurters,” you know that kind of thing. And so whenever some woman stands up to criticize me and I get criticism from all over the place as well, I just have to think, bless them, they must be hurting, and then do everything in your power to never pull that other woman who’s trying to play big.
Marcia Hawkins: Oh, Bethany, we’re going to be running out of time here for a moment so we do want to thank you for calling and website again real quick?
Caller Bethany: fit2b.us.
Marcia Hawkins: Okay. All right, Bethany, thanks so much for calling in. Call back in on another show. I’m sure we’ve got more stuff we can talk to you with. And again, we are unfortunately out of time, but I got to say, Kim, please, please, please tell us you’ll come back.
Kim Flynn: Yes, I’d love to. Can I also put in a free training call tips for all the listeners here today? I’m doing this call next week. It’s called – you can go to FreeTrainingForWomen.com. Men are invited too, you just have to be extra brave to be on a call that’s entitled Free Training For Women. We’re going through some rockstar content on that and that’s next week again.
Marcia Hawkins: Perfect and we’ll post that on our Facebook page as well. So I do promise we will be back next week, Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m. We want to thank you so much for listening. We also want to of course thank our sponsors and of course our guest tonight, Kim Flynn at KimFlynn.com. And of course to you, our listeners and our callers tonight, please be sure to check out her website. She’s got lots of great stuff there. This certainly was an uplifting and informative and preparative show. We sure hope you’ll visit our site,NewYorkShopExchange.com, and get your business moving with video on your very own Video Business channel. We look forward to sharing an hour with you all next Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and again, thanks so much. I’m Marcia Hawkins along with my cohost, Kyle Clouse. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.
Male: You’ve been listening to Preparing Business for Business with your hosts Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse. Questions or comments? Email the show at info@newyorkshopexchange.com. Also, find them on the web at NewYorkShopExchange.com. Until next time for the best tips on how to manage and grow your business, tune in again for Preparing Business for Business with your hosts Marcia Hawkins and Kyle Clouse.
10061 N Sage Rd W Cedar Hills, UT, 84062 USA
kyle@kyleclouse.com • 480-200-4222
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thoughts as well as objectives to the recipients. A communication process becomes successful only when the message is interpreted by the sender as well as receiver in its right way.
