Susan Finn 0:09
Welcome to this episode of rise above noise. Each episode, I just love being able to, to shine the spotlight on somebody in our community who's making a real difference and helping others with their business growth. If we've not met yet, I am Susan Finn. I've been a digital marketing strategist with rise above noise for over 15 years, I've been working with transformation creators, right coaches, consultants, energy workers, and guiding them in their own roadmap for their own digital marketing journey. So together, we create your system for showing up in a way that feels generous. And in service, so you can show up with consistency, you're more likely to show up when you love what you're doing. And showing up as marketing, right. So people who are looking for exactly what you have to offer can find you and when that happens, your business is going to grow within your own flow, and with ease. So in today's episode, we have RJ Redden, RJ wants us, the heart driven entrepreneurs to know that when you embrace your difference, and then when you find an authentic way to communicate that difference through the content you create in the content you share. Not only do you stand out, but you're going to attract exactly the person that you're here to serve. I know you're going to pick up some great takeaways from today's conversation. So let's get right to it. We're here for the July rise above noise spotlight, where every month I get to shine a spotlight on somebody in our community who is making life easier, better, more attractive, more fun for so that they can grow their business right with more flow and with more ease. And when I spoke with RJ a couple weeks ago, we had been trying to get together for a long time because you meet RJ on a networking call and you're like who is this person? Right? Like, what's, what's happening there. There's like stars, the cosmos, she's wearing a superpower cape. And we started talking about if you guys know me, you know how I am so focused when I work with my clients who are heart driven, who are heart centered with their their transformation creators, there are people who spend their waking hours making people's lives better in some way. Right? They're their coaches, their consultants, their energy healers, and how can we help people show up in their zone of genius in a way that doesn't suck their time and their energy right away from them. And so if you guys have heard my presentation, my formal presentations, my webinar, I usually open with, we need to protect our time and energy. That's all we really have, we can make money. But it's much harder to make more energy or make more time in our lives. And so we have to be very, very careful with how we spend our time, particularly in our business. And I know that I'm not going to go into too much of what RJ is going to talk about. But within the rise above noise process. You guys have heard me talk about it a lot. There's this the pillar number four, which is organize and schedule, and that is really designed to protect that time and energy. Is there a way to stop repeating things over and over and over again is can you take a step back from trying to create? Can you take Can you take a step back from trying to research and create more content and more content and more content? Can you say to like all the things that are kind of sucking our time away? How can we get clarity, because that's the other thing I hear a lot too is how people have all these ideas and social media. This is what I picture RJ when the people that I work with are like okay, I get to work and they open their computer. And they're like I should. So first of all, they're shooting on themselves all over the place and like, what should I do? So what should I do? And then, and then they open and I feel like this. It's like a cartoon, like, all these things are coming at them, it's coming at them, right? And they're like, You should do this. And you should do that. And you should be on tick tock, and now you should be on threads all of a sudden, and all the things that come in at them, and they're like, No, shut the computer real fast. Or they're like, oh, I should and then they have 55 tabs open because they started to do one thing without a plan without that clarity. And so how do we give them the clarity? So as most people know, I help people with their email marketing and lead generation and list growth in a way that they're creating the automations to give people what they need to know they're consistent, and they're generous in their content. Okay, so
RJ Redden 5:56
yes,
Susan Finn 5:57
I forgot to open up my tabs. So hang on one second, you guys I am going to find the official bio biography. For today's talk with RJ RJ Redden is the owner of Black Belt bots. When I asked her to write a short bio, she said she she said I she said she is an unconventional traction strategist. Coaches hire her to show them outreach and engagement. So I love this, they can stop shouting into a black hole with their marketing. So right, so rise above noise and stop shouting into that black hole. That's the thing. That's why we're aligned. I asked RJ, what is her superpower and she said her greatest superpower is directly north of her cape, and it's her two years. Tell me more about that RJ.
RJ Redden 7:06
I, I am a person, I really believe that I cannot help people without listening to them. I can not help people without knowing where they're at. There's, you know, there are different types of coaches out there. And and I respect those who have, you know, putting people through a specified system and this step in this step in this step, I respect it. But I'm not that kind of coach. I'm a I'm a listen to you get down in the dirt with you. What do we need to do together because every person is different. And, and you know, there are many people out in the world who would be that's not scalable. I don't need it to be scalable. Because I don't need that many clients more than one on one clients to help my business for thrive. You know, I've set up in such a way that my pricing supports my taking few clients over many clients, the clients that I take, I can pay great amounts of attention to. And and that's, you know, that's one of the things that really struck me when I was an entrepreneur, I just thought, Okay, well, I'm, I'm pretty extraordinary. I'm going to stand out among the crowd. And then I immediately took everybody else's advice on what I needed to do. Without those people getting to know me whatsoever. And I thought that was going to work, believe me, I have bonked my head on that wall. So many times that now I can help other people avoid it. And that is? That was a long answer to a short question, Susan. No,
Susan Finn 9:00
but it was right on because I would have to say that was that's my impression of you. Like, yes, you stand out physically. You stand out, you got a great background, you get this thing going on. But it's more than that. It's that like, even through our zoom screen, work, like I just feel like you connect with people, right? It's the flies. It's how you you emote? And I would imagine you bring a sense of humor, and fun and adventure to working with your clients. Right. Am I right with that?
RJ Redden 9:31
I think not only do I do that. I suggest that all of my clients or anybody within the power of my voice, I suggest we add you know, if possible, add a little fun in there, add some character add some engagement in there. You know, we're not we're not sitting in elementary school class. We don't have to pay attention to the teacher because there's going to be a quiz later. We can, you know, I can open it up to fun and open it up a little bit personality in there, my own, you know, we all stand out because we each have an individual thumbprint that we need to make on the world. And they're all different. They're all different for me. Loving that difference, embracing that difference allows me to stand up and stand out in a way that I never would if I was following the rules.
Susan Finn 10:35
Oh my gosh, so true. That's how I actually got started in what I'm doing, I think was 2008. Right? When the economy was bad, I was like, I probably should go get a job somewhere, help out a little bit and took some advice from some coaches on or people that are in business, and they're like, Susan, you can't be that you can't be You can't be like, so caring, and you can't show you know, that woowoo side of you. And as like, Huh. I don't think corporate is for me, after all. And that's when I had to like, go, like, what's that all about? You can't be who you are. What is that all about? And the more that I and that's why I serve the people that I serve, right? energy healers, coaches, consultants, because that's who I want to spend my day with. And I want to feel good about it. Right? And, yeah, a sense of humor is just an add on to that. But and before we get to our topic, I know because I just interested in you and how you work with people. Do you find some resistance with that are Pete do people hold back a little bit and they're afraid to be their funny self, or their caring self or their whoo self?
RJ Redden 11:50
Yes, they they do, especially bringing that stuff out online. Because, you know, I have been called, let's see, if you resonate with this, Susan, I have been called to sensitive, you think too much, you feel too much. You need to be more aggressive, if you're going to make it if you're going to have your voice heard, I have been told all of these things in corporate and, and in entrepreneurship as well. People, heart driven, people get bullied all the time. We do by all of the aggressive voices out there, and all of the shouting out there and all of this stuff, quit being you, you're making me uncomfortable. You know, this is the message, and I get it. I get you know, I can I can try to put myself in those shoes to understand where that point of view is coming from. I get it, but I don't care. I get it. But I am no longer going to hide to make everybody else comfortable. I'm not going to not say what I need to say because it makes other people go well, what am I doing, then I'd rather have a conversation with you about it. But if you're just going to come yell at me and tell me that I need to stay in my little corner. Bless you, there must be someplace else you can spend on the internet. So near me.
Susan Finn 13:25
And so I think that's something that, and I know it is when I think about the people that I work with and the people in my communities, they must hear that there's a way to market. And we'll talk about AI and bots. So there's a way to do the things or a way to get the things done, that still feel caring that still feel personal. But it's saving their time and energy. So this is a good time to get into that. Let's talk what is AI? What isn't it? And how are we as heart driven coaches as heart driven consultants able to use the tools that you know so well to help us protect our time energy and get more clients?
RJ Redden 14:08
Yeah, well, so AI is a whole lot of things. There are lots of assumptions. There's lots of fear out there. And, you know, I mean, and there's people spreading fear, and then there's people spreading hype, and it really is so hard to find anybody who is not on either end or you know, one end of the spectrum, it's really hard to find somebody who's kind of you know, in the middle, I choose to approach the answer to this question without fear and without hype. I do not think that every person in the world needs to embrace AI to the point that they're using it every day. I am not going to tell you you have to use AI for your business. I'm not I'm On the other hand, I'm also going to say that if you have a business online, using AI, in other people's tools is becoming as ubiquitous as everybody carrying a cell phone. You know, I mean, I think we talked about this in our conversation the other day. It took, it took Netflix, two and a half years to get to a million users. It took Facebook, I think just over to, if I'm, if I'm remembering my numbers correctly, two years to get a million users, it took chat GPT, five days. Let's just take that in five days, a million users. That's how
Susan Finn 15:53
it feels with threads right now, too. I never heard of it. Heard about it three days ago, and now everybody seems to be running
RJ Redden 15:59
it right.
Susan Finn 16:00
You won't find me on there. I know. It was a meta thing. So I'm a little bit like,
RJ Redden 16:07
yeah, I am suspicious of every product, they turn out. Yeah, I with good reason. We won't get into that right now. But the, the, on on, on, told, you know, growth of that. Ever, it's a thing that you can make other things out of. So it's a thing where GPT gives you a whole bunch of cookie dough. And it's your favorite cookie dough, whatever, you oatmeal raisin right up here with dried cherries in it anyway, it's giving you a big ball of dough. And it's saying to you, hey, you can totally design your own cookie cutter, you want to make some cookies. And all of the developers out there are looking at it and going, ooh, we can collect information, we can summarize it we can compare and contrast, we can create a framework or a scenario or a cookie cutter for something else to happen. And they're all doing it. AI is everywhere.
Susan Finn 17:25
I recently so Constant Contact is a tool I've used for like 15 years now they have at HoneyBook has it like now it isn't showing up everywhere.
RJ Redden 17:34
It's showing up, it's absolutely showing up everywhere. Because what people are, what people have known forever is that we sift through every information every day that we shouldn't have to. There, I watched a video last night in this, this human has made a made a actually it's a Google Chrome extension that allows you to set up automations. He's set up some automations in conjunction with chat GPT, that now takes all the stuff in his inbox that he doesn't want to read and puts it in a folder and then prioritizes everything else. Well, that's that's the name of the show rise above the noise. Let us let us tune out the things that are inconsequential to us. And let us spend our energy attention and love on things that matter. That's just one of the many, many things that you can do with if you think of GPT as here's something that can take in information, analyze it, and then kind of spit this answer out. If you think of it that way, then you can you can engineer it to do lots of things. Now, if you're not a geek, it's fine. The geeks are doing it, I'm doing it, you know I'm doing it. But you can use it to set up automations that do just a tiny bit of actions on your behalf that you basically say, I want to hear from these people every single time they write me. I don't ever care to hear from these people ever. Here are the other conditions in which I'm here willing to hear from people. You can protect your space, you can save your energy for what matters. And it's not just that type of automation. It's a lot of other types of automation too. So in that way you can absolutely use. You can absolutely use AI. I will say that I mean it's everywhere and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. I almost made a meme Ah, Susan, that was, you know, gas stations have those those kinds of outdoor signs. Yeah, I almost made a meme with, you know, like, oil change 1999. And then just a great big speaker, that sticker that says now with AI, just, you know. But it is it's it's ubiquitous, it's, it's the change. It's the change that we that our society went through when TV entered the picture. When everyone started to get a personal computer, the world changed. When everybody got a cell phone, the world changed. A open AI and GPT and AI in general, this is this is another wave of change that we are experiencing.
Susan Finn 20:43
It's mind blowing. So tell when you work with, let's say, coaches, and they're like, I need you. What kind of things are you working on with them?
RJ Redden 20:58
Well, I, I really wanted I, I love my VIP program. I absolutely love it, I would love nothing more than to put everybody that I would love to work with in it. But it's expensive. Not everybody can lay their hands on the cash. So what I decided to do was put that program into a piece of software that people can use. And holy moly, over the weekend, Susan, I, you know, we've been creating something for a long time, and it finally came came to fruition. It's it, this bot takes in information about your ask you information about your audience, it asks you to supply with some pieces of writing. And then what it will do once it has all of those things saved for you. And to type of you know, the Susan Finn profile, what you can do is use my software to write a first draft, and 80% their draft of your next articles, social posts, blog, all of those types of things. This, what it will do? Is it most of those those AI writers out there, right, and there are a billion of them. You've soon yeah, I've seen them. What it will do is go hey, what do you want to write an article on? And then you type in a couple of sentences of description, and then it writes an entire thing for you. That doesn't sound like you and sounds like car, you know, it's cardboard? I mean, and it's a simple knowledge article that anyone else could write and put their name on. Yes. Okay. Nobody in the heart driven space wants to do that, ever. That's right. Yeah, we don't care. generate all of that that you want. It doesn't apply to me and my people. But what we've been working on is a system where you can generate it with your key point ideas, you can hit upon whatever values you want to hit upon. It takes into account your audience how they talk, and how they communicate. And it will generate for you an 80% there article that you can then take and judge, like the fashion people say, Judge it in Google Docs, make it your own and then publish. It's like starting from 80% Rather than starting from, what am I going to say today?
Susan Finn 23:45
Yes. Right, and then getting sucked into other people like research. I was just with a client yesterday and she said, Oh, I'm having such a good time researching. I'm like, Yes. And yes, but you have so much I get it. I'm addicted to learning. If anyone here anyone listening on rise above noise is not addicted to learning. I'd like to know about that. Because that's why we're all here. Yes, so you're right. So that's just going to take up that's going to take away hours and hours and hours. And then so then they're 80% there. And then you say all right now just add like reform. You're like reroll your cookie dough so that it's in your own house. Really your employee
RJ Redden 24:28
might taste the cookie dough and so not enough nutmeg, and blue. That wig good. Okay. You might you know, you might change the cookie cutter design a little bit. You it. That part where you're basically you're giving your article a hook. That part is key. That part is is the secret sauce. All I'm doing is taking away a lot of the busy work of of that I have that poster, that piece, I'm taking away the busywork of it. The structure of it, the you know, all of that. But in the end, this is you, I would never put something on the internet that I hadn't given a hug first. Because here's the deal. You print something on the internet? It's like your words forever. How many people do we know? Or have we read about that have had terrible consequences for things they've written on the internet? How many have had amazing consequences of things they've written on the internet? I would never put anything on the internet that I hadn't had a personal some personal time with a little cup of tea little. But what I really know I'm judging that line, that kind of thing. That putting your special sauce on it, reading it over and knowing that is a great A, we're going with it. That's, I often talk about the rule of epic engagement number 37, which is no excitement, no send. If I am not 100% delighted with how this thing is going to move my audience know send, just no send. But this is helping me keep up with the content machine.
Susan Finn 26:24
So is that it's so when you work with your clients? Is it mostly that helping them to figure out their content? Whether it is their own bio, or content they want to put on like you said, social media that blog, their website, that kind of thing? Is is it mostly content that you work with them? No, actually.
RJ Redden 26:46
The the, what I really what I really, really help people with the first and foremost, if I could only if I was stranded on a desert island, and I can only help somebody with one thing. It would be spend twice, three times four times as as much energy. Figuring out who your audience is, how they feel, and how you can connect with them. It's about you, it's about them. And it's about where you connect. The social media is there, too. It's like, you know, it's like this scarecrow pointing to the thing. You know, it's like, oh, you know, what I want to do is produce produce content. That makes it I still remember the very first time I heard a song by The Indigo Girls. It was many years ago, everybody. I was in my college radio station. And and I first heard the song watershed and I about hit the floor. Because these were things that I they were expressing thoughts that I had only I didn't think anybody else had much less, we're going to put it into lyrics and sing about it. The song resonated with me so hard that I went back to the CD closet, because that's when we had CDs and did radio. I know. I know. Weird, huh? It's okay. Stay with me, everybody. I went back into the CD closet to find more. I needed to find more right now. That's the kind of resonance that my clients have with me when I put out real authentic awesomeness. My The reason why I created the tool to help people create the authentic awesomeness is because there's an extreme lack of it out there, I saw a gap that I needed to fill. And I knew that if I could talk to enough people that are heart driven, that they would be interested in writing something that really, really resonates with who they are what they offer, and their audience just creates that. That tuning for kit. You know what I mean?
Susan Finn 29:08
So I think that's brilliant, because you just said two things, right? You said, Grant, you know, take the content that it gives you. It's going to be 80%. They're just shut up. Put it out there, right. So everybody's putting content out there. And then you said, figure out how you can be memorable with it. Right? If everybody's putting out content. Then how do you show up in a way that makes you memorable? So what is right like what's your secret sauce? What's your How do you do show up? So I know that you are running a community and you are attracting very interesting, very
Susan Finn 29:56
I would say thought provoking and engaging aged community. In the week, we kicked bought community, I'm gonna go ahead and put the link right into the chat. Tell me about this community that you're running.
RJ Redden 30:11
This community is full of heart driven folks who want to do their outreach, and their engagement differently, who are curious about different tools, people are posting about different tools they use all the time, I'm posting about AI in there, I'm posting, you know, it's a different type of community. Susan, it's not one of the we've all been in kind of what I'll call a top down community where we've got one or two or three people speaking kind of all the time and, and the rest kind of lurk. You know what I mean, kind of, kind of take in the information. And while I accept lurkers Absolutely, really what I want to communicate, or what I want to create is a group of people who are walking shoulder to shoulder together in their entrepreneurship journey. I, I'm okay with being a de facto founder of the group. But I am not the only one who had something important to say, or to discuss or to talk about, as, you know, we go through difficulties all the time, we go through changes all the time, wanted to create a place where everybody has an equal seat at the table if they want one. And where we can talk about what's going on, work through stuff help each other, we're better together we always are. So that's the we kick back community
Susan Finn 31:44
have to write this part in the notes. Were better to gather that. And then I have to spell it correctly. We're better together. Ladies, Gentlemen of the rise above noise community. Indeed we are.
RJ Redden 32:01
Indeed we are. It's, you know, I tell you, Susan, when I started marketing, I was I got so tired of fighting my instincts, fighting my instincts of you know, people tell you sales trainers, oh, you got to, you got to figure out a way to sell everybody, no matter what the conversation has turnaround it to what you and you're selling all of the things, right? What I'm fighting is that that instinct that we're better together when I'm fighting is that instinct of, hey, if I get vulnerable, and show my true self and say what I really think online, that's a heck of a lot more powerful than all these other things that people are telling me to do. What I'm learning right now is that there's no better time. There's no better time to stand for what you believe in. There's no better time to band together with other people who have amazingly awesome ideas. There's no better time. And so I just, I just wanted to say that because I just love in my experience on this podcast. This is so important. And it's so important. I love the I love the rise above noise as well, because there's so much out there.
Susan Finn 33:20
This and this, you know, when you think of the things that you've write, I'm gonna say from my entrepreneurship journey. I've had this group for quite some time and the community it started because I had started a networking group years ago when I couldn't I was like the antidote to BNI. Like, what is this 730 In the morning bring doughnuts thing like we get kids to get to the, to the bus stop like 930 Lo Fi Baba Baba. And knowing that when we tie our votes together, and we find like minded people who are willing to be a little bit vulnerable, who are willing to say I could use some help, or what do you think about that? I think that's really important. What I loved about the Women's Business Network, and what I love now about rise above noise is that I see the conversations that are happening because I know people pretty well in these groups, and I love the way that they're, they're shouting out to each other. People have started businesses together. They have doing webinars together, they're running workshops together. And I think, right, we can't learn in a vacuum, and certainly not with 55 tabs opening track open trying to figure out the right thing. You've got to find the people who are living authentically and who you align with, authentically and I think that's what you and I did RJ I know
RJ Redden 34:43
my boat is is has a line forever into yours. There's just my world is better. Because you're in it. And the you know, the great big lies that money is the only thing that's important It's BS, everybody, y'all know what it is. So I
Susan Finn 35:04
put the link to the to your website Black Belt bots in to the into the conversation, it'll be in the show notes, black belt bots.com. And then we have the black belts on circle that is your community, we kick bot community, is there anything else you think people should know, before we end our conversation today?
RJ Redden 35:33
Here's what I think you should know about AI, it's a tool, you can choose to use it or not. Both are a legitimate choice. And also, you just need to know. And this has nothing to do with AI that putting your thumbprint into the universe is very important. Standing for who you are, what you believe in, will draw other people to you. What if you didn't have to worry about marketing anymore? What if you just serve people and invite them serve people and invite them? I just want everybody to meditate on that concept for a little while.
Susan Finn 36:17
I'm loving it. Thank you so much for spending this time with us and in our community. It's been a pleasure, pleasure. from you guys. Go find the the we kick bought community. I'll see you over there. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this week's rise above noise spotlight as much as I did. Did you grab some takeaways from your talk? I'd love to know what you pulled away from this. I sure did. Right, RJ is on a mission. She wants to help us save time, show up with in our own zone of genius. And do that by creating content that communicates our unique value. She's helping her clients make the best use of the content tools within AI Artificial Intelligence right so that we can create more quickly. And then judge it as she says a little bit to make it in our own unique voice so that we are attracting the people we're meant here to serve. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Now more than ever. Our world needs you. Transformation creators to be successful in your ventures to show up in service and make a real difference in our world. When you find the tools and the people who help you do just that you're well on your way. Thank you for joining today and thank you for being a member of the rise above noise community
