Erin (00:04):

Hello ladies. Welcome to the Hourly to Exit podcast. I'm your host, Erin Austin. My goal with every episode is to share information and resources to help you achieve the next level of growth in your expertise based business. We all know that generating income from our expertise, well, that's the easy part. The challenge is in scaling and building a business that can run without you. Join me on the journey to building an asset that can be used to fund your goals and your legacy. But before we get started, one little disclaimer because well, I'm a lawyer. The information I share on this podcast is general in nature and is provided for information purposes only. It is not to be relied upon nor construed as providing legal advice or opinions about any specific issue or set of facts. Now let's do this. Welcome to the Hourly Exit Podcast. Ladies, I am so excited for the episode today. I'm very pleased to welcome Eva Janata to the podcast. Welcome, Eva.

Eva (01:20):

Hey, Erin. I'm so excited.

Erin (01:22):

Yeah, me too, me too. I've known Eva for a while. You're going to really enjoy our conversation today. But before we get going, Eva, would you introduce yourself to the audience?

Eva (01:33):

Yes. So this is Eva Janata. I use she her pronouns, and I am a thought leadership advisor and trainer for women entrepreneurs.

Erin (01:44):

Wonderful. Yeah, I mean, you can even tell I, she is positive my first guest to use her pronouns, and that will be part of what we're going to talk about today. Eva is a leader in the, I'm going to call it equity and inclusion, although I know that's more of an employee employer type of terminology, but it's kind of the way that I think about Eva is super inclusive in the way that she markets herself and in how she provides services. And so that DEI, equity and inclusion, we see it all the time in the employment space. DEI consultants can't get enough people to help them. They're so busy providing those services, but we don't really see it in the B2B space. It's like, well, if they're not your client, if they can't afford you, frankly we hear that all the time. If they can't afford you, then they're not your client. Right? And you're a for profit, you're not a non-profit. You gotta make a profit. And I feel like you've done a really good job of balancing all those things. And so first I wanna say that in your bio that you submitted to me, you mentioned, I cannot pronounce this, but the ancestral lands that you live on in Phoenix. Tell me about that, why you include that, what that means to you.

Eva (03:06):

Yeah, thank you. So I realized when I was introducing myself, I thought, shoot, I should have pasted the names of those tribal lands in front of my face so I could have said them right at front with my pronouns. So that was a quick learning moment for me as I just think about all the ways I wanna prepare to introduce myself. So I'll say it now. So I do live on Odum, jid, ael Odum and Haku Ancestral land in Phoenix, Arizona. And that along with the pronouns and some other, I guess, small accumulative choices that I make and I seek to model are some of the ways that I strive to be inclusive and to think about equity. And I must tell you, Erin, it was very meaningful to hear you describe me as a leader in that, because I don't identify that way in terms of the fact that I don't offer services specifically about D E I B or anything of that nature. I'm in thought leadership and it's kind of companion, which is marketing, but it's really meaningful to me to hear that as someone who's in my audience as a colleague, that you have that impression or that experience of leadership from me. That means a lot because I do think about it often and try to do what I can always improving to make that a priority.

Erin (04:25):

Yeah, absolutely. I literally have not heard other people talking about it in the B2B space. So I am very inspired by that. And of course, this podcast is about the mission is to help get more wealth in the hands of women because, and I think you believe that we do better things with it. And so I love to see that. So we are going to talk about your services, I promise, <laugh>. But one of the things I'll say that you have in your business is you have, I don't know, sliding scale is the right term to use, but you have different ways for people to get access to your brilliance and tell us about that.

Eva (05:01):

Yeah, thank you. So I rolled out this concept that I did not invent called equity pricing. I actually don't know if there's one person responsible for kind of coining that term, but the concept of equity pricing is based on the work of Kimberly Crenshaw. And she published what's super well known now, her intersectional theory in 1989. And that's the idea that if you have multiple historically marginalized identities, they don't each exist in a vacuum, they all can compound each other and impact your access to resources, your ability to feel like you belong or are welcomed in different spaces and on and on and on. So the notion of equity pricing is to allow someone who's purchasing a group program with me, So if they're enrolling in my micro marketing method program or in my exponential audience programs, depending upon the identities that they live, that they identify with, that will impact and reduce the total amount that they invest to be in the program. And it's partly material, they do pay less to enroll. But it's also symbolic because I wanna provide my clients with the experience of their identities, which in some ways may have been barriers to access over the course of their lives. I want them to have the experience of their identities being a benefit, like a tangible financial benefit, and have a really material experience that they're welcome here and their perspective is desired. And one of the ways I try to make that clear is through the equity pricing offer.

Erin (06:48):

And what feedback have you gotten from people who come to you just based on your profile as a marketing thought leadership marketing person, and they find this out. What kind of feedback do you get from them?

Eva (07:00):

So far it's been very positive. So I work at this time exclusively with people who identify as women. So I find that the women who come to enroll in my programs are overwhelmingly like surprised slash really delighted because most of them, or maybe all of them, haven't had this kind of experience before. And you mentioned the concept of a sliding scale. And so many of them have purchased a service with a sliding scale, which can be really important. But this is different because it's tied closely to how you self-identify. And what I do is I give my client a list of potential identities. Some of them might be visible identities, some of them might be identities that aren't so visible such as chronic illness or mental health challenges. And I just ask them to give me a number. How many of these historically marginalized identities do you experience? They don't need to tell me what they are because if they wanna keep that private, I understand. Although they're also welcome to share if they wanna do that. And they just give me a number. And from there I calculate what their total investment in the program will be. And everyone that I've offered this to so far has loved it

Erin (08:12):

<affirmative>. That is fantastic. Yeah. And so did you have any fears about this going in? because again, you know, are a for-profit business, in order for you to continue to share your message, you have to stay in business. Did you have any fears about doing this?

Eva (08:26):

One concern I had is I work in my group of programs and I work privately one to one clients. So one concern I had is I was worried that my private clients would say, Hey, how come you don't offer equity pricing to me? And so far none of them have asked that. So my fear about having to address that with them, I haven't had to yet. But even if I did, what I made sure was clear in myself is, and this speaks to just what you mentioned, Erin, which is the fact of being a for-profit business is the way my business model is now because my work for private clients includes a lot of deliverables that I pay other workers to help me produce. I need to keep my profit margins at a certain place to be able to afford to provide those services. And my hope down the line is that my group programs will continue to grow.

(09:22):

And since those are more scaled offerings, the more people I offer them to, the more I can make a profit on those. So I'm hopeful that over time I will be making enough of a profit off the group programs that I will be able to afford to offer equity pricing to my private clients. I don't know <affirmative> how slash when that will come to be, but that was something I had to think about before I kind of debuted this equity pricing model for the group programs is just how do I make sure that I convey why group and not private <affirmative>. And I'm hopeful that should any of my private clients raise that concern, I'd be able to address it comfortably with them.

Erin (10:00):

Yeah. And what's interesting about this, one of the things that I have emphasized to business owners is sometimes our businesses are just about maximizing our income so that we can downstream use it for the things that we care about for charitable giving or following, whatever your passions are. And so maybe it's not in the business that we have to give away our services or do things like that, but it's like you found this kind of really interesting balance of being able to, one, maximize the value of your expertise while also providing benefits within the context of a for-profit business about supporting people that you wanna support. So that is so cool.

Eva (10:48):

Thank you. Yeah. You know, make an interesting point and if someone listening, if your goal is like, I wanna maximize now cause I've got big plans later, I think that's fantastic. And if you're clear on how that's going to work and you're content with it, then cheers. <affirmative>. And I know, but I know for myself, for many of us, and I think identify as a white woman, so I'm going to speak just to my experience, but I know for myself and many other white people that I know, the murder of George Floyd in 2020 was a huge wake up call. And my ego would love to be able to tell you that I was already practicing anti-racism in my business and I was already being public about some of these decisions, but I wasn't like many, many, many white people. We kind of knew there was a problem and that was of the extent of the actions we took about it was just sort of like, yeah, I know it's bad and I sometimes donate.

(11:42):

And that was sort of the end of it. But when that happened, I realized it felt non-negotiable to immediately to make changes and to use my platform as small as it is to be the change. And to also just walk my talk. I got my undergraduate degree and gender and women's studies and it was a very intersectional education. And it was the first time I understood why things are the way they are and they are the way they are, not just because of gender oppression and just to live with myself. That was part of it. But also to be a leader and to, I think especially again, talking about white people, we have such a rich legacy of doing nothing and that changes with every single one of us doing something, even if it's a little something to start with. So over the years, since 2020, I have just wanted to try to do a little bit more and a little bit more. First I have to do it within myself and then sharing it with others. And so the equity pricing is one of those things. Donating 1% of our profits every quarter to an organization led or serving black women or indigenous women is another. So my hope is that the cumulative effect of those things has a small but mighty ripple effect. And not just the impact of my actions, but how the people in my community might be inspired to do the same or similar.

Erin (13:15):

Yeah, you used the word legacy. Many people think the legacy is that big grand thing that we do at the end, but it's the little things we do every day. We are creating our legacy every day with the things that we do, how we impact the people around us, our communities, the environment. That's all part of our legacy. And so yeah, you are a great example of doing something every day. So thank you for that. All right. So what do you do? Who do you do it for? How do you help people? Why do they come to you?

Eva (13:51):

Yeah, okay. Just a little question, little couple of questions there. So thought leadership, training and advisory, that's what I do. But what does that even mean? So first I wanna just define thought leadership. So this is a phrase in the business world that has a jargon flavor. It's like tossed around a lot. It's maybe not always clear what it actually is. And a very basic definition is that thought leadership is the expression of ideas that demonstrate you have expertise in your field. So that could be through writing or studies or books or speaking podcasting, and that's a serviceable definition. But I work with my women clients on something a little deeper, which I call magnetic thought leadership. And this is to provide provocative insights and a strong position in our unique voice to make an intellectual impact and position ourselves as authorities so we can build wealth and power and drive social change.

(14:53):

So what that means to me is of course thought leadership has a lot of power for business applications. It's dynamite for marketing, for prospecting, for pitching yourself to opportunities for becoming known, building a body of work, of intellectual property. And that's all great. There's another aspect of it which I think doesn't get as much air time in the marketplace. And that's the self-actualization of really committing yourself to discover or to excavate what do I really think? What is my insight into this that might nudge against the status quo? What strong opinions do I have and how can I build the courage muscles to share those strong opinions? Because strong and bold and provocative opinions are magnetic know bland stuff is not measurable <laugh>, right? A lot of the thought leadership that I come across, and probably you and anyone listening does, it's like pretty bland.

(15:51):

It's maybe repeats the same stuff or it doesn't stop you in your metaphorical tracks. And then the final aspect I'll share about the work I do to clients, which practically speaking is usually teaching them how to write their magnetic thought leadership, writing and reading are my love language. So that's my thought leadership specialty as opposed to, I know you've interviewed Carol Cox, our colleague who specializes in public speaking thought leadership. So mine is writing. And so I'm helping my clients to, through the process of ideating, excavating the ideas, unc censoring themselves through drafting, through polishing and formatting and making the thought leadership asset really magnetic to read. And that stops the scroll. And a key part of that is helping my clients to use their unique voices. And throughout schooling, and if you've had a corporate career, often you're, you're kind of trained to quash your unique voice. You're not supposed to swear, you're not supposed to be goofy, you're not supposed to be playful, you're not supposed to use slang, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes it's important to be able to communicate a certain way, but when you are trying to magnetize people to work with you and hire you, the more you can be, the more you'll stand out and attract your right fit people and repel those that aren't the right

Erin (17:18):

Fit. There's a couple of things I hope that I made a good enough to here that one was, you know, use the term bold and provocative and you work with people who identify as women. And so do you find that in particular with this group, that we have the most trouble being bold and taking risks because we're women <laugh>. And so just sometimes it's a little harder for us. So tell me about how that plays into how you work with your clients.

Eva (17:48):

Definitely. So being bold is not a item you check off your to-do list, but an ongoing process of self-discovery and trial and error. And so some of the things I work on with clients is just building and feeling safety in the body. How can you start your thought leadership practice in a way that doesn't send you into fight or flight or that doesn't open you up to negative feedback or strong pushback that you might not have the confidence or the kind of resilience muscles to address comfortably. And all of that is built with time. And that's why I talk about thought leadership as a lifestyle, not like a one off <affirmative>. This is something I recommend that people do over time and that I do for myself over time. And so part of it is, yeah, it's not sexy, but the more you practice, the better you get at something and the more confidence you build.

(18:45):

So there's that very practical aspect. But the other thing that I need to be very careful of as a white person is my likelihood for getting pushback or negative criticism or someone asking me to put in the receipts, cite the studies, proves my voice, my likelihood for facing that is much less than a woman of color. And so I need to be mindful of that when I'm working with my women of color clients to just have a level of awareness that the advice I might give to myself or another white person might not be safe or appropriate or applicable to a woman of color's experience or her more likely situation. And that's the case. I just try to listen, Never gaslight never misbelief anyone, but just do what I can to suggest other ways that these women of color clients can practice building resilience, encourage muscles, but also do they need to take extra measures? Do they need to cite studies more than I would have to <affirmative> circumvent or try to avoid that kind of pushback? That's an unfair reality <affirmative>, but it is a reality that I do my best to acknowledge and address.

Erin (20:07):

All right. I'm going to hit on that and go back to my other point. That's just like how did you come to this? Is this through working with women of color that they gave you the pushback that made you aware of this? Or is that part of your studies or how did you know that you needed to bring this sensitivity to this for your different audience?

Eva (20:28):

So all of the above. Some of it came from learning and reading. And like I said, my undergraduate education in gender and women's studies, which was an intersectional field, really helped the thought leaders I was exposed to back then really helped lay the foundation. And now I would say it's a combination of the women of color, of leaders that I read and follow, and also my women of color clients who are so generous with their feedback and their perspective and their stories. And so I just pay close attention to what they're telling me. And just every instance of that is just another kind of, it goes in the back of my mind and the little filing cabinet in my brain of like, okay, this is how it is for some people and you're going to remember this and apply this forward. So I'm always just very grateful to just anyone who teaches anyone anything <laugh>. So many people are just generous with their stories and their experience and those can be very tender and very vulnerable. So I really cherish the relationships that I have with women of color just in my personal life and also professionally and their willingness to be open with me about their experience so I can be a better steward of my work with them.

Erin (21:41):

That's awesome. Well that kind of ties into the point I wanted to go back to, which was kind of evolving from our corporate voices to having our individual voices as business owners and as thought leaders. And the challenge I talk about getting out of that hourly mindset and getting into a profit based mindset instead of just an income based mindset. And for you stopping the corporate speak but being more yourself. And that's different for everybody and can say, personally for me, my writing has evolved. <laugh>, if I went back two years to my LinkedIn staff, it would all the, this is what I mean, it really legal, very, I mean it would just be just terrible <laugh>, but I'm not even saying that what I'm doing is so brilliant now, but it's feel, it's me, it's me. It's easy. I feel like when I'm writing my newsletter, I feel like I'm talking to the person who's on the other end. I don't feel writing a newsletter. Wonderful. And it just makes everything slow, honestly. And so it's not, when you're trying to be someone that you're not like it just affects everything. And being able to get comfortable with that is so important.

Eva (23:07):

And you hit on a couple of the ways that we are able to do that. One of them is practice <affirmative> and also not judging our past selves too harshly for the fact that we were inevitably not as good as it back then as we are now, or will be later <affirmative>. But yeah, like you said, being yourself, feeling like you're addressing one person or a close friend, that's really the energy that I encourage myself and my clients to bring to the table. And truthfully, I think you do great at this. And I actually have a screenshot of one of your LinkedIn posts in one of my presentations because I think you do a really good job of being engaging and educational and it's valuable and it's often a little bit funny or a little unexpected. All you hit on a lot of these points that make social media posts likely to stop the scroll and you know, ask how do we do it? And it's practice and it's certainly tricks. Picture one person or other maybe writing advice that you've heard is a big part of it. I think also it just takes time. And so being really patient with the process is hard, but really important. And I'll give you an example that that's actually has an application, not outside of thought leadership itself, but I recently had the experience of doubling my prices for my private clients.

(24:34):

Yay. Yes. Hour, hourly to profit mindset. And this really defied the conventional wisdom I'd received, which is that you never raise your prices for existing clients, you only raise them for new clients or you only raise them by 10% a year or something very fragile. And I actually doubled my prices for nearly all of my long term thought leadership clients, my private clients, some of the newer ones had already been raised that rate, but many of the ones that had worked with me for a few years were at a much lower rate. And it was time to change that. And I was extremely nervous, but I had a really helpful conversation with my coach who helped me write a template for these price increase conversations. And what worked so well is that the template was super honest and in my voice. I didn't make myself try to persuade them in a certain way.

(25:26):

I didn't act like there was this specific reason like, oh my expenses have increased and that's why I have to do that. No, I just explained that this was what me and my business needed and I hoped that they would continue to work with me and I would understand if they didn't. And so that is another example of how having practiced for so many years, really using my voice and having learned to trust that my voice is enough, that I don't need to rely on persuasive arguments all the time, especially in these long term relationships was so valuable. But I wouldn't have been able to do that a few years ago. It was only now that I think I had the courage and the practice to be able to do that with confidence.

Erin (26:11):

Absolutely. I love that. Well one place where we have worked together is your round table. So tell me about your round tables and how they work and all the

Eva (26:20):

Things. Thanks for asking. I love these. So my round tables are, they're called the women leaders round table. It's invitation only, but the way to get an invitation is just by asking me for ones, anyone listening, if you're interested, once I describe them, reach out to me on LinkedIn and I would love to have you join one. So I started this series because I'd never met a networking opportunity I liked, even though I identify as an outgoing person, I love making new friends and meeting new people. If I never have to go to another networking happy hour or luncheon again, it'll be too soon. I just <laugh> want nothing to do with those. They tended to feel very transactional, very rushed. They were often kind of overstimulating environments and the way I most enjoy connecting with people and what I find most nourishing about it is in much more intimate contexts.

(27:13):

But as we all know, one to one now is not very scalable. So I knew I didn't want my full time job to be coffee dates on Zoom or whatever. Yeah, <laugh>, right, Virtual coffees. So I started, was actually introduced to this concept by my colleague Isha Conor, who's also here in Phoenix. She invited me to one, it was a 90 minute zoom call with a couple of other people and she had some slides and they each had a few questions on them and we all took turns answering them. And I was extremely skeptical cause I thought 90 minutes with some strangers it seems kind of risky. But after the call I felt so filled up and there was something really nourishing about being in that smaller, having someone lead the conversation but with enough room for breakout talks to happen. And so I started hosting these myself, coincidentally when Covid kicked off and they are covid approved.

(28:07):

So that worked in my favor. So basically it's a 90 minute conversation between me and Max for other women. I share some slides, we take some turns answering questions about ourselves and our work. And what is so valuable about it I think is that the format, because it's mostly structured with time for spontaneity, ensures that people who identify as introverted or shy or extroverted and outgoing all have the space to share but not over or unders share <affirmative> cause it's taking turns. And I get overwhelmingly positive feedback from women who attend these. And it wasn't for about, I don't know, a year and a half after I started doing them, but I came across some research by, I can't remember the name of the researcher, unfortunately, Shelly something maybe. Anyway, she had done some research that found that women let, we respond to stress. We have the spider or flight or freeze response that everyone's heard of.

(29:05):

She identified an additional behavior that women participate in to alleviate stress that she titled tendon befriend. And what it is is plugging into social networks and bonding and relying on social ties to help alleviate stress. And I thought it was like a light bulb because these round table conversations are providing exactly that this intimate, safe, confidential container to really share what you're working on, what's going well, what's a struggle. And while it might seem unlikely to get that stress release from a couple of strangers, what I've found is that it actually works really, really well. You don't just have to talk to your mom or your best friend or your sister. You can actually get these same tendon befriend stress relieving benefits from talking with people who you just met

Erin (30:02):

<affirmative>. Right. Well as a participant I can also provide a point of benefit as well. I mean I wonderful women there, super smart people, which is, that's why I like that curated element to it. It's not just anyone that invitation and the small setting so that you all do participate. I am actually an introvert, so I tend to, if it's a large group of people, I'm just going to hang out. But being everyone on the screen coming together and having those prompts encourage participation and we've all been in those groups for somebody hugs the mic so to speak. And so it is a wonderful balance of all of those things and continuing to be in touch with those ladies and absolutely have building relationships. So it is wonderful. So thank you for that and thank you for sharing that. Now one of the things that you mentioned is that you don't consider it intellectual property. Property. Why is that?

Eva (31:03):

Do you mean the round tables particularly?

Erin (31:05):

Yeah,

Eva (31:06):

<affirmative>. Yeah. So this is interesting because I remember in our round table conversation because the other women knew that you were an IP person and a lawyer. Someone asked like, Well would Eva's round table format be considered ip? And I believe you said no. And I forget why you had good forget, I don't remember. But they made sense. And I guess in my not as educated mind compared to, you'll be able to really lay the knowledge on us on this, but I didn't invent it. I got the idea from someone else. And I share the idea widely, my main, this can't really be ip, I don't make it up. But also I guess that raises the question for you to answer, which is where are the lines between IP and not ip? And that's a tricky one with written or spoken thought leadership too. I mean there's that phrase, there are no new ideas.

Erin (32:05):

<laugh>,

Eva (32:05):

How do you determine if something's yours? What makes it yours versus something that's part of the public domain?

Erin (32:12):

Yeah. Well you are correct that ideas are not intellectual property, but how you execute on them can be if it is original to you. And so let's take the example of your round table. I mean lots of people do round tables, that's not unique to you, but you have a structure to it, you have prompts. So the way that you lead your group through that experience, if it is backed by slides, questionnaires, prompts, things like that, exercises, those things combine to create a system, a process for your round table that could be protectable ip.

Eva (33:00):

Well I have a follow up question. So in your experience, Erin, how do you help people determine, is this I public domain idea that I'm applying in a unique way that might be IP able

Erin (33:16):

Appealable, I'm writing that down,

Eva (33:18):

<laugh> might be IP able. How do you help your clients determine if it's worth really going through the process to make something a protected piece of your ip? Cause there's probably various things that could be or could not be depending upon the different variables you mentioned. Do you ever find that clients are like, Well is it even worth it for this

Erin (33:41):

<affirmative>? Yeah, I mean, first of all, something might be, I'm going to start with the public domain, just cause of things like internet doesn't mean it's on a phobic domain. Just because it's publicly available is not equal public domain. It's public domain means there's no copyright protection on it. So no, something written by Shakespeare or Beethoven's Fifth, these things are in the public domain. Other things you can get on the internet, but they're still owned by someone has a copyright on it. And so what do you wanna protect? Well, I mean they, Does it have value to you? That's the question. Is it something that you are selling that has an long-term, even if it's not something that you're selling, maybe some marketing piece that you're going to , it's a long term. You have an ebook that has your manifesto on it and you don't sell that, but it obviously has value for you.

(34:32):

So where does it fit? And people generally don't copyright things like their websites because it's fluid, it's changing. I mean, I know if I knew how to offer, if I knew how to work with it more, I'd change it more <laugh>, break something while I do it too much. But there's always something, things that are always changing, blog posts, newsletter, I don't, but things that have longevity and that have value. Training programs a framework perhaps. And certainly if you have a brand that's a very strong brand and you wanna protect it under trademark, that may be worthwhile as well. So really, I mean it's an investment and so what will be the roi? It's an ROI question, right? So yeah,

Eva (35:22):

You're making me realize that I would guess that most people are underprotected like their IP is. Is that true?

Erin (35:33):

Well, I don't know underprotected only because most people's IP is cutright things that they write, webinars, things like that. And so you own it when you create it. So you don't have to register it to own it, you own it because you've created it. Where they might be is good old contracts is if they're not using contracts and therefore they're not controlling how it's being used. <affirmative> is where it's not the registration that's the problem, it's the usage that's the problem. And so making sure that you're controlling who has access to it, if it's a client deliverable, that you're not giving away your own kind of preexisting IP <affirmative> if you're hiring a subcontractor, making sure that you're getting all the rights to what they're making for you. And so that's usually where people are missing something.

Eva (36:29):

Got it. Yeah. So I guess going back to the round table example, I could see how if I were to certify people in doing it themselves or really train it at a greater scale or have a more unique name for it, maybe those would all be indicators that it's my IP versus something more general

Erin (36:51):

And that Yes. And so something that you're going to split like that a hundred percent and you want that registered, I wanna to say, you know, have a copyright protection even if it's not registered, but you can't enforce it if somebody infringes it until you register it. So

Eva (37:05):

Fascinating that why we need lawyers. Yes, yes,

Erin (37:10):

<laugh>. All right, enough about me. So as you know, this podcast is about helping women make that journey from hourly to exit so that we are building sellable businesses. And so creating exclusivity in our businesses scale predictability of income. Where does your work fit into that hourly to exit journey?

Eva (37:35):

So it's really about building your body of work. So what my experience when I started regularly spot leading, as I said earlier, it's a practice or a lifestyle, not a one off is. I found that the more I did it, the more unique terms of phrase or ways of thinking about a concept or applying a finding from this field to my field, more and more of those connections started to present themselves to me. So I became known for things like social media, monogamy, which is a phrase that I coined to describe the fact that I only use LinkedIn, I don't use any other social, the concept of magnetic thought leadership, the idea of building an exponential audience. So all of these terms, I am becoming recognized for them. They give me concepts I can bring onto podcasts that I can pitch in speaking engagements that I can share with clients, really convey to Ryan, these are the kind of philosophies that we stand behind that we will help you with.

(38:37):

So I feel like it's building the asset that the intellectual assets of my company and what we're known for. So it has these really valuable long term marketing benefits. The social media monogamy, monogamy thing is from 2020 and I still talk about it and I still get great reactions to it and people bring it up to me and they tell me they remembered it. So those kind of memorable nuggets are just helping to build the momentum of my company and the powerhouse of my company and position me to be able to double my prices and offer group programs and offer equity pricing and have the systems and the foundation in place to do that.

Erin (39:17):

Yeah, positioning is absolutely an asset. It is a mark of exclusivity. And so having that is super important. But this is a very meta podcast working with women who hopefully wanna build a business to sell someday day. Have you thought about selling your business?

Eva (39:38):

I haven't thought about it in the short term, but I have. It's kind of marinating in the background. I'm 33, I just turned 33. And so I hope to be working for much longer and to keep building my business. I have big plans for it and ways that I wanna make an impact, but this conversation is making me realize, well, even if it's 20 years down the line, you could start laying some of that brick work now. And so I have a lot to marinate on that front because it's new territory for me. I started this company when I was 25. I didn't have a sweet clue what I was doing. And so a lot of it was building the plane as you fly it. So there wasn't much like formality or planning or anything of that nature. But now I'm at the point where it's enough that I can start to think more long term and consider what assets I would need to build or how I'd need to position myself for that eventual end. So I mean if slash one I'm ready, I know who I'm going to call

Erin (40:38):

<laugh>. Okay, well by the way, you are not alone in building the plane as you fly it because I so many, especially, I mean post corporate people, they out and they just use their expertise by being basically a freelancer, for lack of a better word. And that is their business, but it's not really a business. But they grow it, they figure it out as they go along, how to make it a natural business and not just an income stream from selling their time. And we all go through that evolution and you make the point that it's things that you wanna do to build a saleable business. Those are the same things that you do to build a scalable business. So you wanna be doing those things for the next 30, 40 years, however long you wanna run your business so that you have that big juicy sale at the end. So finally, to wrap up, we've talked a lot about building more equitable economy, so we'd love to talk about organizations and people who are doing great work in that area. Is there one that you'd like to share with the audience?

Eva (41:43):

Yes. So I was really inspired by my client Chiefer til Sheen. She is the author of Inclusion on Purpose and a well known HBR contributor. And there are lots of other things I could name after her name, but I'll stop there. She's a client and a lovely person and very inspiring to me. And something that she did when the new Supreme Court decision removed protections nationwide for abortion access, people who get pregnant is she pledged to donate $10,000 to 10 different organizations facilitating access to abortion services and reproductive justice for women of color. So I was really moved by that and she found and researched some excellent organizations and one of those is Indigenous Women rising. So we donated the 1% of our profits from last quarter to that organization. It helps provide reproductive services and abortion access to indigenous women. Don't remember where right now, but you can find all that information on their website and you can also find more organizations like that on cheika TIL's website, which is arul sheen.com T U L S H Y A N. So R T U L S H Y A n.com. I'll share. Share that link.

Erin (42:58):

Yes, we'll absolutely share all of these things in the

Eva (43:00):

Share. You don't have to summarize it if you're driving. I did wanna make sure she gets a lot of misspellings of her name. So I like to always fill it properly when I have the opportunity. So I'll provide that link as well. So you wanna look at the other organizations she researched.

Erin (43:14):

That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Now where can everyone find

Eva (43:18):

You? So as I mentioned, you can really only find me social wise on LinkedIn. So I'm the only Eva Gen on LinkedIn with spelling of my name. My company is Medusa Media Group. So you can find us on our non ID website as discussed medusa media group com. And from there you can also join the short free email course I have on the five magnetic pillars of thought leadership. You can also go to letter five, magnetic pillars.com, get access there or from the website itself. And as I said, writing and reading are my love language, so I learn to send emails to my list. So my favorite content goes out there first. I just adore that medium. So that's that. And LinkedIn are the best ways to connect with me. And as I said, I love meeting new people. So send me a direct message, reply to an email, say hi, and introduce yourselves. Cause I love to meet you.

Erin (44:11):

Fantastic. This has been a wonderful conversation, Eva. Thank you so much for sharing yourself so generously with the audience and hope we can do this again sometime.

Eva (44:21):

Thank you, Erin. This was really fun as I knew it would be.

Erin (44:27):

Thanks for listening. Do not forget to check out the show notes for links to connect with today's guest and for the resources, offers and organizations that we discussed. You can also find the links@hourlytoexit.com slash podcast. If you got value from this episode, please subscribe and I would be so grateful for a review. I'm here to support your journey.