Welcome to Visionaryā€™s Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and business coach and your host for this podcast.Ā I'm thrilled to have you here.Ā
Hello and welcome to episode 50 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. A few weeks ago, I got a message from one of you listeners telling me how much you enjoyed and appreciated this podcast, and it really meant a lot to me. Every time I sit down to do one of these episodes, my intention is that I can give you 15, 20 minutes of information, of ideas, of perspectives that will support you in building your business and continuing to believe in yourself and what you're doing so you can realize this vision that I know you really care about.
And now moving on to something that I'm very excited about today. As I've been teasing in the last few episodes, we are opening the Doors to the Visionary Mindset Program, and to honor the launch, I've cleared my calendar next week for Founder Consultation Week.
This means I'm opening five full days to have breakthrough conversations with founders and entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses, and who are growing themselves as leaders and founders of their startups.
Now, moving on to something I'm super excited about. As I've been teasing in the past episodes, I'm opening the doors to our Visionary Mindset program and to honor that launch, I've cleared my calendar next week for Founder Consultation Week.
This means I have five full days where I'm having conversations with all of you who are founders, entrepreneurs, or even those of you who are considering starting a new business.
These consults are an hour long. They're completely free. And what we're going to do is you and I are gonna get together and talk about what is something that is keeping you stuck? Where is an area you see an opportunity for growth? And my promise is that you're going to get a breakthrough.
So for those of you who are founders, entrepreneurs, visionaries. Who love what we talk about in this podcast, this is an opportunity to meet me in person and to have one hour where we're gonna focus solely on you and your business. Last time I did this, my calendar was completely booked within a day. So I encourage you, if this resonates with you, go grab a spot right now.
Here below in the description, you'll see the link to my calendar with all the available times. Just choose a spot that works for you and I'll see you next week.
So what I wanna do today in this episode is bring you into the conversation I'm having with the current students inside the Visionary Mindset Program, because I know what we talked about is relevant for any founder out there.
Last week we did our training on visibility. And by visibility I mean the practice of allowing yourself as the founder to be seen, heard, relate to your business, for people to get to know your story and to put a face behind your brand.
We started the conversation by talking about when or why should a founder make themselves visible. And listen, I know there's so many very successful businesses that we rarely hear, or we don't never hear who the founder is or the story as to why they founded the business. But what I do believe is that when we get to know the founder, when we get to know the story and the reason why that founder started their business. There is a deeper connection with the brand, I strongly believe that as we move on, having that human connection is gonna be a key differentiator for any business.
It's helpful to use ai. It's fun to see how fast we can create things, but we still build trust with human beings, with their stories, their faces. Storytelling has been in our DNA forever. That's what we remember. We rarely remember the list of capabilities a product has. We rarely remember what the ingredients of our product are, but what stays with us, what sticks with us is the story of the human being who started the business.
So my message is not that you should be visible as a founder. But that you should consider making yourself visible, sharing your story, sharing your why, why you started this business, and if you don't wanna do it, make sure that it's a strategic decision and not a decision out of fear, of being seen, of being criticized, of being judged online.
Because even if you don't put your face out there, your business is probably gonna be judged or criticized at some point. And it might feel personal. And because our journey as founders, as people who care about maximizing our potential, living up to our biggest vision, we shouldn't let fear stop us from anything.
so In the conversation with my students last week, we explored common mistakes founders make when they're making themselves visible. And I think being aware of these mistakes will save you money and will make you a lot more effective in your marketing, in your selling and that's why I wanted to share it with you.
So in the call with my students, we went over eight common mistakes . In today's episode, I'm gonna talk about three that I think are the most relevant.
I know many of you have heard about these common mistakes because they are very common but what I want us to do today is to understand the root cause of these mistakes so you don't fall on those traps.
So let's start with the first one. When we launch our business and we're eager to get new customers, we want people to get to know our brand, our product or service. Our immediate thought is that we have to be on every single social media platform.
I see it over and over again. New business owners opening an Instagram account, a LinkedIn account, a YouTube, a TikTok, starting a podcast. Listen, I did it too at the beginning. It's this desire to replicate what we see in the world.
When we look at other brands, competitors, and we see that they're everywhere, we wanna emulate that. And that is very hard to do well because every single avenue in which you're making yourself visible has its own strategy, has a lot of work.
And usually when we're starting our business, we're limited in resources, especially our time as a founder. So let's think for a second. What are the beliefs that we have about ourselves, about our business that encourages us to be in every platform? And it goes something like this.
Oh, I have to be everywhere so I can find clients. Oh, I have to look like my competitor. , In order to achieve certain revenue I have to be everywhere so people can find me and buy from me.
But the problem with this. is that it's a lot of work and we as founders have limited resources. We have so many things on our plate that the time to create good quality content is limited. So either start being inconsistent, showing up every now and then when we have a minute to do it, or we start burning ourselves out working 24 hours in order to keep up with all the content.
Or what I see the most happening lately is people using their favorite LLM to create content that honestly, everything's starting to look the same. We all know how AI sounds. With this, I don't wanna say that you shouldn't use ai. We use it inside our business all the time, but we use it as a thought partner as creating perspectives and ideas. But at the end of the day, this podcast, everything we put out is going through our own filters as human beings, as to what we believe about the brand.
And I think that's what's starting to differentiate brands out there. Now here, the conversation is not about should you be in every platform, should you use AI or not. It's for you to explore the reasons why you're doing it. When you have beliefs about yourself that you're not very good at marketing, that you're not very good at communicating, then you're gonna rely more on technology. Then actually trying to figure out the language that you wanna use that will resonate with your clients.
So what we do inside the Visionary Mindset Program is we first take a moment to take stock of what are our beliefs about ourselves as marketers, as people who are sharing a story with the world.
Because what I've seen is that if our core belief, when we're making ourselves visible is that we're not good at it, then we're gonna start looking for band-aids and things out there to help us sound better instead of asking more powerful questions.
Questions such as, what is it that my clients need to know, believe, feel, in order to buy my product or service? I strongly believe that the brand who becomes most obsessive to understand the needs and to serve their client's needs the best is the one that's going to win, not the one that is in every single platform, and that's creating content so fast just to fill the space.
So the other belief that drives us to make this mistake is not believing that there are customers in the followers we currently have.
When we don't believe that our customers are right there paying attention to us, listening to us, then we spray and pray. You know, we create lots of content, put it out in the world, and we pray that maybe someone will listen to it. My recommendation to my clients. It is to look at the 10 people, 5,000 people, 300 people in your email list as real human beings and to develop the belief that all the customers and clients you need already exist there.
When we believe that our customers are already here, that they're listening to us, that they're paying attention to what we say and how we say it, the content we create is going to feel more personal. When we write to that person who is sitting there listening to us, we are creating content that means more, that connects us more, that makes people wanna engage with our brand more.
So like I said in the beginning, we've all heard about the mistake of trying to be in every social media platform from the get go. What I want to invite you to do today is take a deeper dive and understand what is your belief about yourself and the people who are currently following you.
Do you believe those people are going to build your business, are gonna be your customers, or are you thinking you have to look out there for more people?
The second common mistake I see happening all the time is focusing on the tactics before the messaging. So becoming obsessed with hashtags, algorithms, posting frequency before, getting clear on who you are serving, what is the problem you're solving and why this matters.
I often see businesses who, looking from the outside in, you think their business are super successful because they have tons of likes, reposts, shares.
People are talking about their brands, but their ability to capitalize on all those followers is very little. And I also see brands that when you look from the outside, their Instagram maybe doesn't have that much action. They're not in TikTok or they're not in every single social media platform.
And yet when you look inside the business, they're meeting their goals, their revenue is growing, they're getting repeated purchases, they're developing strong relationships with their customers.
So again, let's pull back the curtain to see what are the beliefs that are creating these results.
And one of the beliefs is what they sell us all the time. You go into Instagram and it tells you when you should post. There's tons of articles about how you should use hashtags or that you need to do reels, or that the algorithm will only share X, Y, or Z. So we start chasing those metrics, but we forget to focus on what really matters. And it's our customers, their needs, their desires, their challenges.
So here is a perspective, a belief that I invite you to take on and really use when you're creating content to sell your products or services.
And it's to do it not for the masses, but for the one person who's your ideal customer. You can give that person a name, even you can find a picture that represents them and talk to them specifically. Do it with love and care. Let them know that you don't just see them as a transaction, but you see them as a human being and you care for their experience and do it using all the knowledge you have about what their problem is, how you're helping them solve it. I can't stress enough how much I believe that if you become obsessed with understanding your clients experience their needs, their wants, their hidden desires.
You will become the best marketer because you will know how to create a honest, deep connection with that person who will be a repeated customer throughout time, who will be telling their friends and family members why they love your company so much.
One of my mentors, she has a business that sells around 65 to $70 million a year, and she's done it all with basically no presence on social media. And like her, I hear so many examples of people who don't use social media or who, use social media, to have honest conversations and their businesses are booming.
And the last mistake I want us to talk about today is a little bit the opposite it's when we avoid visibility, because we think everything has to be perfect in order to show ourselves online.
So this is when you're waiting to have a perfect logo or a perfect website, or you don't like any of the pictures you took, so you're redoing it again and again. Or you're waiting for the product to have everything you've dreamed about in order to go out and sell it.
And again, if we look at this mistake closely, we'll see it stems from the belief that we need to be perfect in order to be successful. And as you know, you'll never be perfect. This idea of perfection is not true.
So what's happening underneath is that we are thinking that if we are perfect, we look perfect, the product is perfect, then we don't have to deal with the vulnerability of potential failure. But really what's happening is that we're missing opportunities. We're delaying growth and we're missing out on the process of learning the language that will ultimately land with our customers.
You can have the best team of copywriters. You can spend hours, days, months trying to nail the messaging. But truly, the only way you will know if the messaging works or not works is when you put it out there. You try it out and you see how people respond, and you iterate, you learn, and you make it better.
Making ourselves visible is vulnerable and one of the key skills we need to develop as founders, as visionaries. Is the ability to be with vulnerability, to allow ourselves to be seen, to be criticized, to be judged, to have others be wrong about who we are or what we're doing. And not let other people's opinions about us dictate how we're showing up.
Building a business is facing all of our humanity, our fears, our desires, our insecurities.
It's great to look online to see what's the latest tactic to get more viewers, more followers, or what's the newest social media platform that everyone wants to be on.
But if we don't address what's happening inside our heads as founders, we are gonna make mistakes that are gonna be costly in terms of money and time, potential customers and clients.
That's why the program I created is called the Visionary Mindset Program because we look at all the different aspects of our business by looking first at how we're thinking and what we believe in as visionaries.
When we, as the leader of our company have strong beliefs, are leading from integrity, from our true desire, we are gonna be much more impactful and grow our businesses faster and sustainably because we are becoming the leaders that our businesses need.
One of the beautiful things that happens in this program is that all the visionaries, founders that are in it, we start learning from each other. The group creates its own culture. The relationships between the students, start making each other's experiences stronger and better.
On one hand, it's because we see our own mistakes reflected in another person, and then we can become more aware of what's happening inside of us, and we feel less alone. We start seeing that these incredible people are also facing their own humanity, their own limitations. And then it makes it okay for us to do the same.
And when we stop judging ourselves because we start seeing that it's not a problem. Us, but it's a challenge of being a human being. Then we can transform, then we can change.
And we get inspired by others in the group who are maybe thinking in a way that is very powerful to us or who are handling certain situations in a way that inspires us to do it the same.
So to wrap up today, I want to remind you that you don't have to go at it alone. That you can surround yourself with other founders who are gonna be your mirrors to see maybe blind spots you didn't know you had, who are gonna support you in your journey, and who are gonna be there as you become the version of the founder and leader your company needs.
So if you're listening to this and you're realizing how important it is to pay attention to your mindset, and you wanna start thinking in better ways, in ways that are gonna make your business grow faster, more sustainably, where you're gonna create deeper connections with your customers, I want to invite you to book a one hour call with me during Founder's Consultation Week next week.
I would love to meet you in person, hear about your ideas, your business, you as a leader. One of my favorite things about Consultation Week is all the people I meet. Their stories, their dreams, their challenges, so don't miss out on this opportunity. It's a hundred percent free. It's one hour of having a deep conversation about your business and your leadership with me. The link to my calendar is in the description of the podcast, and I can't wait to meet you.
All right, my friends. I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.
If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions. as well as your team and your money so you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now toĀ carozuleta.com slash consult that is c a r o z u l e t a dot com slash consult and complete the form to book a complimentary call with me.
See you there!Ā
