Susan Finn 0:08
Well, hey there, welcome to this week's rise above noise. Each week I have the honor of shining a spotlight on someone in the rise above noise community who's making a real difference who's helping others with their business growth. If you and I haven't met yet, let me introduce myself. My name is Susan Finn, and I'm a digital marketing strategist, with rise above noise where for the past over 15 years, I've been working with transformation creators, that would be energy healers, lightworkers, coaches, creatives teachers, guiding them on their own personal journey with their own personal roadmap, so that they can have their own system to show up in a way that feels generous, and it feels that they're in service. That way you show up with more consistency. And that way more people can find you because they're already looking for you. Your business is going to grow with flow and ease. You know, when you do marketing, you reach people.
Bethany George 15:00
Well, there's a, there's a three word phrase that I use a lot that really helps guide this. And that is when you're interacting with people you want to serve, invite and engage. Hmm.
Susan Finn 1:11
And often we think of marketing as relationship building. So even when you're doing networking, all these speed networking calls or boosts or communities that were in meeting people one to one is also considered marketing. And when you do meet someone, it's important to be strategic to be intentional. How are you going to build, build the trust, build that relationship? How do you simplify your own systems, so that networking follow up? Doesn't seem heavy, it doesn't become overwhelming. Well, today I'm talking with Bethany George, and around these parts. Bethany is known as the follow up boss. She's a whiz at helping you make the most of new relationships. She's on a mission to help us feel that sales can come naturally when you have a strategy and that follow up. When you have these follow up strategies. It actually ends up revolutionising your business. You're going to grow a business without without burning bridges. Well, let's not wait any longer. Let's get to it. Let's start my conversation with Bethany George. Morning. Taking a deep breath here in New England, it is spring. Well it's get it's spring, right? It's it's it's getting nicer out the energy is high. There's so much more to do. Bethany was just commenting on my plants behind me. And I was like, oh, yeah, that was my COVID thing. houseplants became my thing. And now that we're like out and doing more, I'm like, Oh, right. Something else to take care of. Like I now I gotta pay attention. I get the puppy. I'm making sure. So all of the things right. And that's why I really one of the reasons I'm really glad Bethany is our guest today, too, because of all the things in our business that we need to take care of. It's our relationships. And how do we keep drawing people into our world in a way that feels like flow, and it feels like ease and I can't wait to hear all of Bethany's nuggets, I'm going to quickly share my screen. Many of you have seen this before. But I think particularly today, it's worth sharing. And if you're listening to the podcast, don't worry, you'll understand what it is. And you can also always download the rise above noise five pillars that will be in the show notes. So let's, let's get that to go. So the rise
Susan Finn 3:56
above noise, I have it built on five pillars and all of them are so that you can master your time, really dig into your core values. And not only gain control of your messaging. But make sure that you're like we talked about not wasting your time so that you are attracting clients, and referral sources who align with your values and the five pillars and rise above noise. The first one is you need to know who you're talking to. And you need to know what your core values are, what your non negotiables are, what your own boundaries are. And each of these five pillars I'm going to talk about Gosh, when we talked with Bethany and just a little while they all tie in because she'll be telling you about when you when you are tracking your contacts. You want to know who you're talking to. And you want to make sure that your contacts if their referral sources, understand who your ideal clients are, and if you're talking to people and they may or may not be or you don't want to waste time with people who are not going to be Want to serve you one way or another. So you got to be really clear on who you're speaking to every step of the way, marketing contact relationship. And then if you when you are doing your marketing, you want to make sure that you're creating compelling content. You've heard me mentioned a million times frequently asked questions. If you haven't heard me say that before. I'll put a link in the show notes to frequently asked questions will be your best friend, your best takeaway for creating the content that people are searching for man, we're so busy, right, we're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And if we're scrolling and looking for something in particular, we want to see a story. We want to see that you understand what we're going through how we how we are, you know how we're in looking for an answer, and that you not only have the answer, but you can guide us in a way that we solve our own problems. And that's part of the rise above noise to is sharing stories of how you've helped other people, we're all looking for ourselves in the stories that you're going to share. The fourth pillar in rise above noise is organizing and scheduling. I can't again, I can't wait to hear what Bethany has to say about this. I know for me, it's how do you organize and schedule your, your, your digital marketing posts and your blogs and your emails? And how do you do that in a way that feeds your soul. It's not soul sucking, it gives you your flow and your ease and your joy, to show up with consistency and generosity and not not being silly. Of course, you want people to get on calls with you, of course you want them to sign up for your programs. But nobody's going to do that if they don't understand you. And then when you do that, you want to make sure that you're doing the things intentionally and saving your time and your energy. And all of that is to keep in touch right? So this is where we're going to spend a good amount of our time today. How do you keep in touch, I do it with email marketing. I know people who are great on on the phone, I know all my Send Out Cards, friends, friends are amazing at sending the little touchpoints and send out cartel ever you do it and today we're going to talk about the way that Bethany helps her clients keep in touch however you do it, it's so important. We're meeting people, we don't want to waste those connections. And all of that is so that you can show up consistently feel like you're in your own flow and show up in service to others. So that being said, let me get right to the heart of this that I love. Anyway, which is shining the spotlight on somebody who can help you as an entrepreneur as a transformation creator, make more out of your business find that flow and ease so. Bethany George, I asked Bethany about herself. She said that she's she's been an enterprising entrepreneur since she was a young child. She's a problem solver at heart and she loves to serve the needs of others. Entrepreneurship is a part of who she is. She is a mom to five kids. And so between being an entrepreneur and a mom to five kids, she is pretty busy. The kids and I might be out seeking adventure and wild herbal medicines. Oh, I don't think we had that conversation. Bethany we're gonna have to talk about her business is the follow up
Susan Finn 8:33
boss and it comes from yours in the sales world. She was struggling to find leads struggling to not feel salesy while also making sales you are speaking my language my friend, struggling with the overwhelm of managing dozens of relationships in and around her business. Then she discovered the methods to grow authentically through personal connections, encouraging sales to come in and more organic way and overcome frustration. And now, she's helping entrepreneurs do the same. I asked Bethany what her her superpower was is and she said that it's the ability to gain others trust and empower others to be themselves. That's where I'd love to start, Bethany. Well, how did you decide that is your superpower?
Bethany George 9:31
Well, it was more of an insight that came to me a couple of years ago. When I realized that was at the time I was working a corporate job for a short bit and all the interactions I had with people. I started to realize that what I showed up, I actually did like in house courier courier delivery. So like I saw lots of people in the company. They would usually smile and they saw me walking up because they know that I would come up and I would engage with them in a very personal way. I remember their name, I remember the previous conversations. And I wanted to just be authentic with them. And it kind of hit me as like a light bulb moment that people found me very trusting. And they enjoyed my company when I showed up, which was a really warm moment. And something that I, I value, and I always want to make sure I earn that trust as well. Mm hmm.
Susan Finn 10:32
Awesome. And so. So, in that using your superpower in creating this business of your own, how did that all come to be?
Bethany George 10:42
Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things I've I've kept in mind. So as you know, in the bio, I mentioned, I've been entrepreneur, been entrepreneurial. Since I was a little kid, I have always sought a very creative, I always look for ways of like, okay, I need to make money, what are ways that I can make money while serving others fill a need. So we can create a win win. And so what that meant was people people is what build our business at the end of the day, doesn't matter what you do, your business is built around people. And the key phrase around all that, that I always said just constantly in my head is you have to build know, like, and trust. And understanding and kind of the anatomy of trust is about connecting with people in a way. So they feel that you see and hear them as a person, that they're not a commodity, we cannot be transactional in a space where we need to build those relationships. You know, it's what was the phrase I used earlier today, I came up with a phrase that I was like, Oh, I gotta use that more often. Businesses not like we think of business as transactional. You know, you give me money, I give you products or services. And we think of it very transactional, but we need to stop thinking of relationships as transactional. They need to be intentional. And that is the difference.
Susan Finn 12:07
I love that. So So tell me more about that. So how, what is what is it that you do with your clients, to guide them through, it's really a mindset shift as well as tools, I would imagine.
Bethany George 12:19
For sure, for sure. So there's two main pieces we work on. And there's the one piece which is tools. It's programs and, and systems and things like that, that will help us work smarter, not harder. Help us keep track of the data and the information that's that very left brain side. And that's for most entrepreneurs, that's kind of what I usually meet them out. They're like, I need a tool. And we've kind of been sold this, this bill of goods of that, like if you have this tool, it will solve all of your problems. And I come at it with tools are amazing. And because we're working with people, number people aren't transactional people, it's about being intentional. What we need is an understanding of how we build that trust. How do we build that relationship in an intentional way, there's a way that we can do that, to make to simplify it. So it doesn't become overwhelming, because I know the first thing, when I talk to people is like, you need to build long term, like a long term concept of building these relationships, you can't just meet somebody one or two times, and hope that they're gonna buy from you. And that's the, that's all you need to do. And you just kind of walk away from them otherwise, which unfortunately, a lot of people do. In the sales world, there's a phrase, or there's a there's a statistic, that you need eight to 12 touches or interactions. It's like 90% of sales happen in that eight to 12 interactions. That's a lot.
Susan Finn 13:51
That's a lot, a lot.
Bethany George 13:54
And what I what's really fun is when I can sit down with one of my clients and go, let's look what that looks like. Have you connected on, you know, connected through your social media? Have you had a one to one? Did you do a follow up email? You know, have you introduced them to somebody like we just go through all these different options, that things that can do and when suddenly we have 1520 different ways that they can interact with one person without much thought they could just basically like I've done this, I've done this, I've done this haven't done this. And they're like, really what that is it's the opportunity to interact with that person. But more importantly, it's about interacting with them beyond just let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you
Susan Finn 14:45
so so give me some examples of that if you can, I'm sure you can react to interacting beyond right just the initial and then the sales process. What would be some examples of that?
Bethany George 15:13
And what it does is it helps you get out of this transactional mindset. Many people that consider themselves heart centered, are very good at serving. And so serving can be doing an introduction with somebody that I think would be a good like collaborator with them. Or you know, someone who I think would they would really jive with whatever. So introductions are serving, providing valuable resources that I think they enjoy serving as anything they can do to like, give to that person, right? The strength of that is you give value, you know, it helps build knowledge and credibility, what you do, what the disadvantage of that one alone is that it doesn't necessarily reengage them with you. So the other two, so engage is purely community conversational, we forget the power of conversation. Perfect example of this would be is if I interact with somebody, and they say, Yeah, my son's having a basketball game this weekend. And I make a note, basketball game this weekend, reach out next weekend, or next week. So next week on Wednesday, I pop in the Facebook Messenger go, Hey, how was your son's game? How did it go? And that's all that's all my entire purpose is to ask how his basketball game went. Or any other thing that is, you know, relational, it's about them and what is happening in their world. And then invite, invite, it's kind of fun, it's kind of multitiered. You can you can tie in your business asks into invite. But you have to realize that in the early stages of relationship, they're not ready for a big ask. And I do love plants I mentioned embryology, I'm gonna pull this little guy over here. He's just, he's just a little succulent. But like, people are like plants in the sense that when you first meet them, they're just this delicate little seed, you put it in, and they're just this little tiny sprouting, you have to be delicate, you have to let them grow roots and leaves and strength in the relationship, the connection. And then when they get to a point where that relationship is stronger, then you can step into so an early invite would be, come join me in a networking group with those mutual benefit. Come check out this thing I'm doing. I'm speaking at a conference here in central Ohio this summer. And so that's an invite for me, and you'll come join me at this conference and see me speak if it sounds interesting. And then later invites, as we have built that trust, I understand the value of what I do, and it's something they would need, I would invite them into the things that I'm doing specifically come join me in this program. So I'm curious now to explain that for UCS. And can you kind of see how that breaks down into multiple options?
Susan Finn 18:10
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I also see that there's a lot so yes, to that, I love that tenant, right, hold on, I have to look at it, because I'm typing at the same time I'm talking. So serve, engage invite. And I see also that it's very specific, but it's also gives the client right or the entrepreneur leeway to do it in their own in their own way. So for an example, one of my favorite ways to let's see, I guess, maybe it's invite probably engage is probably all three of them, is to invite people that I identify as great referral sources, as well as somebody who can serve my, my, my clients to come and be on the spotlight with me. Because that means we're going to have a few conversations. We're going to have a conversation, what does that look like? And then we're going to have our pre pre discussions back and forth. How do we do this? Right? And then we have the thing and then I have the follow up, and then you get to share, and we feel tied in one of the things oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm gonna I'm gonna say this out loud. years ago, my father said to me, when you ask somebody to do a favor for you, like a nice, light favor, it almost time makes them feel more beholden to you. So not not beholden, necessarily, but tied to so if I say to you, Bethany, will you come and present to my group? It's like, you're doing me a favor, but it's also going back and now we're tied in like, we've got this little thread that ties us together in a very, I would say generous and engaged way. And what's the other word just aligned. We're just we're lined and I'm so fortunate. Yes, yeah, with my community. I have a really clear idea of who's in the room. As above noise community, right. And I think that it's people who want to do all the right things, who need to protect their time and energy, and want to spend time with people that either they can serve, or who they feel like they would like to spend more time with. Right, right. So knowing that that's the thing. Now I know people who are really great at LinkedIn and do all the LinkedIn messaging and have the all the systems and the and the spreadsheets. I just got off a call today with my success champion networks. If you guys haven't checked out success champion networks yet, um, hit me up, I'd love to tell you more about it. This one blew me away. And it was a different way of looking at referral sources more than referrals. But how to keep track of it in a very simple way nobody was using they were just using, like Google Forms and Google Sheets. But you intrigued me my friend, because you know, I love all the tech, you said that you use Pipedrive. Is that correct? Right? Can you tell me about that? Yes,
Bethany George 21:03
well, I'll tell you something that will kind of relate to Pipedrive and to serums. In general, there are three things I tell people that any CRM you're considering. For those who don't know the term customer relationship management. A good CRM is meant to hold in, not just contain, but like help you track and have all the information around contacts. And I any good CRM that I look at and suggest my clients, it needs to be a tool that you use regularly because it holds the relationship in one spot one place. So when I open up Pipedrive, I can look at one contact, and I will know our entire history together. And some of that is a little bit of manual entry. But a lot of it is not a lot of it has been pulled in through emails, and through conversations. It shows appointments we've had and all that kind of stuff. But the three key things that Pipedrive has that I suggest any good CRM should have is it should integrate with your email, because your email is such an important tool when it comes to tracking conversations. So it needs to be integrated with your email. So you can see the history of interactions back and forth and know where you are with that. Secondly, it should have customized data fields. Some serums don't do this. Ironically, for me, I have a lot of customized fields that helped me have links directly to their social media platforms. So like if I want to pop over to LinkedIn and see what they've been posting, I can do that with one click, I can make a note if I have a conversation over and say Facebook Messenger. So I know I need to go refer to that real quick. And also has data fields like what timezone are they in? What pronouns do they use? What is their introductory pitch, like in the elevator pitch, or whatever? Because I do a lot of introduction. So I always like what how do you want me to describe you is what I'll ask people. And I'll save that. And hint, it also lets me use a template to pull that in when I create the introduction email. And then the third thing it should have is reminders, it should have some way for you to have like a to do list created on a daily or weekly basis, you know exactly who you're who you want to check in with this week. And what this does is say, there's someone I talked to, and they're like, life is crazy, I don't have time for anything right now, check back in with me in six months, who's gonna remember in six months, and I don't know about you, I would put I used to put things in my calendar. But like, if I got busy and I didn't see it the day up, it's gone. When I put it in, I put it in Pipedrive as an as a reminder now, and then it's just I taught my daily weekly list. And I can check in on that and do that. And so like, if I don't get to one week, like two weeks ago, when I'd COVID My whole family was sick, and didn't do anything. The next week, I could pop in and be like, what is it that I need to do and what things can I put off till later. And nobody knows what I missed? Because they're my reminders.
Susan Finn 24:09
That's right, oh, it's so important to have reminders. I've got reminders everywhere, so that that's so important too. And I know that you've looked at not that we're doing a sales pitch for Pipedrive. I actually use honey book. And I'm just now learning how to use some of those things that you're talking about the custom fields and the reminders and the tasks. And then the email stuff, which I'm still I'm still learning about that. But you looked at all of them.
Bethany George 24:35
I'm sure. I've looked at quite a few. I can't say all of them. There's a lot.
Susan Finn 24:40
A lot of them. I was just like I said this morning and somebody was talking about kartra And I was working with a client on kartra and they were just it has so much capability. It's overwhelming. It was overwhelming. And they weren't using it to its best capability so we switched them to something else. But not they not as a CRM as an email marketing tool. How did you land on Pipedrive?
Bethany George 25:04
Um, really what happened is, is I had tried a couple of myself. And I reached out to some people, when I first started this business, I was trying to figure out what exactly people needed. And what I started out with was like my first service, real quick background, my first service was let me help you take out those business cards that you collected at networking events that I know are sitting on your desk collecting dust just like they were online. Let's do something with those, those people. And so that was step one. And so that was really helping understand what is it that people need when they're networking? What is it that they're missing? And as it grew, I found Pipedrive through talking to other entrepreneurs who use the tool who were system people, you know, like, there's those people who just get it. Yes. And as I learned it, there was just there was an intuitiveness to it. And a focus on that on the people in the system that I liked better than some of the other programs out there. That feel they just feel more transactional, they feel more about focus on like the sales pipeline, or some things like like honey book, they tend to be more focused on the end side of it of like the client acquisition. And it's harder to keep track of all of those random contacts
Susan Finn 26:23
that you've made. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh, my God, I know that we could talk about this forever. And I feel like we probably should do like, Okay, now this now we've talked about this, let's take it to the next level, we're gonna have to do that sometime soon in rise above noise, but I want to be mindful of your time and the time of our listeners. First of all, you must have an affiliate link right for Pipedrive. You can pop that in the chat, and then I'll put the URL share that in the show notes and on the Facebook, Facebook chat. And how else can people get in touch with you?
Bethany George 26:57
So I like to say that I'm I'm on most social media platforms. I'm on LinkedIn by my name, Bethany. It's Bethany and George. I'm on Facebook, Bethany and Rachel George, I do have two middle names. But I'm also on Tiktok and Instagram, bide the follow up boss. It's the follow up boss, because there happens to be a CRM that's called follow up us. Ironically, it's intended for realtors. So I'm on all those places. I post regularly because I love doing videos. I love sharing tips and tidbits. And I also have a website that is in progress. But you can check it out. It's called the follow up boss.com. Yeah. Oops. And I can I don't know if I can I have one free thing going on? I do. Sure, sure. So actually, starting tomorrow is the beginning of it. I am launching the follow up focus sessions on Friday mornings, Eastern Time, 930 to 1030. And it's a live zoom, and the intention is to pop in and talk about your follow up. Who did you meet this week? Who did you follow up with this week? What worked? What felt weird? Why is this hard? Like how are you losing track of people. And I'll share even like the things I'm working on for the week and what I'm learning. So it's kind of a work session. And it's a way to just get some real, practical interactions. And as we have more people, we'll have a community talk through these things.
Susan Finn 28:29
Awesome. And so you'll give me the link to that. And I'll make sure that people know about it, you know, just you know what it is to it setting aside that time each week, uh, you know that I work with Kathleen Lawson. And on Friday mornings, nine to 10. We have CEO power hour. And we go through, like all of the things but I almost need to do maybe you start at 10 instead, next time, like maybe I go from that one to yours. Because I last week, I was going to spend my whole hour going through I had three networking events last week, and I just wanted to follow up and still haven't done that. Yet, right. So if I had that hour earmarked, just be in held accountable to that it's so important to do that within our business right to be really focused instead of feeling scattered. I appreciate you, I honor you and I'm so very glad that you were able to, to be here and kind of give a taste of what what it could feel like to be organized and totally in control of our of our networking and our follow up. Thank you, Bethany.
Bethany George 29:37
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Susan Finn 29:41
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this week's rise above noise spotlight as much as I did. Bethany made it so clear to us that the follow up is where the fortune is in our business success. We need to realize that that follow up really begin is at the beginning of the introductions and she wants us to know that the key to making it all successful isn't fancy scripts, or fancy tools, or even the right timing. It's really just about being relatable as a fellow human being and staying present for our contacts. Arise above noise community is revolutionizing how service professionals show up in their marketing so that we can all make a real difference in the world and now more than ever, our world needs our transformation creators to be successful in your ventures to show up and service and make a real difference in our world. I want to thank you for joining today. And I do look forward to seeing it in our rise above noise community. And I can't wait to share my next rise above noise spotlight with you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai