Episode 085 – Jenny Hale

Jenny Hale  0:00  

By building virtual events when you market them correctly, and you host them correctly, and you get the right collaborators, and you target the right audience, what ends up happening is you build a pipeline of engagement and leads and conversation and that and because of the work, I do that conversation is a societal changing conversation. And eventually, if you nurture those people, that can be your next client that can be your next collaborator that can be your next bestie. And so the power of virtual events when run properly has really opened up doors for my entire business and really my career.

 

…

 

Richard Matthews  0:20  

Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I’m live on the line with Jenny Hale. Jenny, are you there?

 

Jenny Hale  0:42  

Hi, how are you?

 

Richard Matthews  1:17  

I am doing wonderful, I had a bit of a rough night with my family. They were, we’re all sick last night, but we’re still here. So where are you joining us from?

 

Jenny Hale  2:05  

Right now, I am on the East Coast, but I traveled the world. So last week I was in Mexico. So this week, I’m stateside and I won’t be here much longer. So I’m all over the place.

 

Richard Matthews  2:17  

We travel full time as well. We’re currently in St. Louis, Saturday, we’re leaving for Oklahoma and then Texas, the Florida Keys. We’re going to go up the East Coast this summer, so it should be a lot of fun.

 

Jenny Hale  2:27  

I love it.

 

Richard Matthews  2:29  

Awesome. Well, let me introduce you real quick for our guests who don’t know who you are. So Jenny is a visibility and marketing consultant who helps entrepreneurs with cause, advocacy, based, and socially conscious businesses. You build social media awareness, skyrocket engagement sales, and aims to turn pain and life experiences into businesses with a big social purpose. So tell me a little bit about that. Right. What are you known for today? Why do people come to you? How do you help people in the marketplace?

 

Jenny Hale  2:59  

So, my background, I started my first business when I was 19 years old, I was in college, and I was a local photographer, which I stumbled into was not something I was like, “Oh, I woke up one morning and I was like, ”Oh, I’ll go start a business.” I stumbled into it, and it was so rewarding. But, I originally just, “Oh, this is really, really fun.” But about a few months into my business, I worked with a client who had an infant. And that was the very first family photo shoot. Since the infant had been born. It was the first time they had professional photos of just the infant all on their own. And within about two weeks or so of the session, I was notified that the baby had passed away. And I learned really quickly in the very beginning stages of my business that business isn’t about making money. At least that’s what people think business is about. But for me, it was about impacting lives. And at that moment, I had given basically the irreplaceable memories to a family that they could have forever. And those little moments and memories and deep things were things that people can’t take away from them. And my responsibility as a photographer was much more than how many sessions can I book on a Saturday. It was so much deeper and personal. And eventually, in later years, as I moved into more online marketing, I took that lesson with me. And so now it’s about raising awareness, educating people creating results that changed their lives. And in general, what we’re able to do is use our platform for the greater good of society. And that has been my true purpose and calling and I’m so lucky that it led me to where I am today.

 

Richard Matthews  4:58  

It’s really awesome. Actually, my business that paid my college bills was a photography business. I was doing a wedding and portraits for all the local college students and families around there. And that’s how I pay to pay for college. So, I feel you.

 

Jenny Hale  5:13  

That’s how I did too. I love it.

 

Richard Matthews  5:16  

I actually, I discovered sometime right after college when I started doing it all the time, instead of just as a side gig to pay via college bills, that I didn’t like it as a profession. And that’s how I got started into marketing because I really liked the marketing side a lot more.

 

Jenny Hale  5:33  

I always said that too. I was like, I am a businesswoman with a camera. And while I loved photography, when I fell in love with was the creative side and what I fell in love with was the clients. And it was a natural progression into spending the rest of my career as an entrepreneur and doing marketing and getting to work one-on-one with clients. It’s the best part. 

 

Richard Matthews  5:59  

Absolutely. That’s why when I do my podcast, I can’t use like a regular webcam. I’ve got a $2500 Digital SLR and like lighting and stuff, because I’m totally a photography geek, just for personal stuff now.

 

Jenny Hale  6:11  

I love it. I love it. 

 

Richard Matthews  6:13  

Awesome. So I’m gonna talk a little about your origin story. So every hero has their origin story, where you started to realize that you were different that maybe you had superpowers, and maybe you could use them to help other people, where you started to develop or discover the value you can really bring to people. How did you get started on this entrepreneurial journey to get where you are now?

 

Jenny Hale  6:30  

So, moving from the 19-year-old photographer into starting my consulting at age 20. I’ve been consulting in the online space and local space for years and years -. Now, it was a matter of figuring out where my place was in that industry too. And a little under two years ago, I left home with everything that fit in my car and ran across state lines to seek help from a domestic violence shelter. And that was probably one of the biggest lows in my life. And it helped me reevaluate what I wanted to do in this world. And domestic violence. While it was not something that was easy for me to deal with or escape from. It’s a big part of my story. And it’s a big part of why I do what I do today. And while I had done consulting for all of these years, what I really wanted to do was give back and help other entrepreneurs build a sustainable business that in all honesty, I never put them back into the position that I was in, where I was stuck to a location. I was in a financial situation where if I left what was next? Where was I going to earn money? And entrepreneurship and working remotely and traveling the world gave me the freedom and lifestyle and income that allowed me to be able to be mobile and leave that situation. And if I didn’t discover entrepreneurship as a full-time option, I don’t know where I would be today. So it was something where I really want to help other entrepreneurs who have a deep story, a deep purpose. Learn how to run successful businesses, so that they to have that freedom and whatever that freedom looks like for them, whether they’re trauma survivors, or you know, they want to leave the corporate sector for good or they want to be home with their kids, whatever that looks like for them. For me, it gave me safety. And it’s something that’s deep in my soul and core and something I truly believe in. And so now I help online service-based businesses and entrepreneurs who have that bigger purpose they want to give back to the world more than just making money. They want to start a business and build visibility without paying for ads. I specialize in organic marketing, and they want to reach thousands online with their story and their message. And one of the ways that we do that is through visibility events, things like webinars and Facebook challenges, and Twitter chats. And we run that business from the core soul of we’re here to impact lives. We’re here to raise awareness, we’re here to educate, and we’re here to share our truth and our story, in the hopes that we’re able to reach somebody who needed to hear that today.

 

Richard Matthews  9:31  

Awesome. So how long have you been doing that business?

 

Jenny Hale  9:34  

This business has been a little under two years now. And I think we’re coming up on about maybe 18 months or so, since I’ve niched down into this.

 

Richard Matthews  9:48  

What’s your favorite success story so far in the last 18 months.

 

Jenny Hale  9:52  

In October, I ran a domestic violence awareness campaign. I partnered with over a dozen entrepreneurs around the world, survivors, mental health professionals, advocates, and supporters, and helped raise awareness for those who were healing after domestic violence and abuse, and learn new things that could help them in that healing process, whether that be coping skills, or just in general find a community of people who got it and understood where they were coming from. And that was really successful, we were able to reach 50,000 people organically, and we were able to build a hashtag that’s still being used on social media today, and we were able to touch a lot of lives. 

 

Richard Matthews  10:39  

That’s really cool. So it’s, the work you’re doing is working then.

 

Jenny Hale  10:44  

I hope so.

 

Richard Matthews  10:46  

That’s awesome. So I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers, right? This is what you do or build offer this world that really helps solves problems for people. And we have been framing this for my guests recently has been like this, right. So if you look at your set of skills that you have in your life. You might have a bunch of things that you’re really good at. But you have one of them that probably really enables the rest of them. For me, that’s been, I realized recently it was systems and processes was my thing. And a lot of the other skills I had, I developed because I had this other skill. So they were like derivatives. And I got really good at webinars because I could see the systems and processes behind them. And I got really good at some other things because of that one skill. So I’m curious for you, have you ever thought about it that way? What your zone of genius or what your superpower is, that really enables everything else that you do?

 

Jenny Hale  11:33  

Absolutely. So I’m really good at lead generation. I’m really good at sales. I’m really good at visibility, and I’m really good at teaching. But why am I good at all of those things. And the biggest thing that is the root of all of my success is the fact that I have mastered how to run virtual events. And those can range for different people, what that looks like for you. But webinars are one of them, Facebook Challenges or one of them. Twitter chats are how I’ve gone viral to almost 4 million people in a single day. It’s how I raise awareness through summits and contests and event-based marketing strategies. And that’s really where I thrive. And I love that because by building virtual events when you market them correctly, and you host them correctly, and you get the right collaborators, and you target the right audience, what ends up happening is you build a pipeline of engagement and leads and conversation and that and because of the work, I do that conversation is a societal changing conversation. And eventually, if you nurture those people, that can be your next client, that can be your next collaborator that can be your next business bestie. And so the power of virtual events when running properly has really opened up doors for my entire business and really my career.

 

Richard Matthews  13:06  

Awesome. I actually have a friend of mine who’s looking to run a virtual summit sometime this year. I’ll have to make sure I connect you to them because I know they need help.

 

Jenny Hale  13:13  

Thank you. I love running summit. I think they’re so much fun.

 

Richard Matthews  13:17  

And I’ve never done one. I’ve done a couple of the Facebook Challenge things before, obviously, I’ve done thousands of webinars for over the last 10 years or so. But like you say, the Twitter chat thing, and I don’t even know what that means. But I don’t use Twitter. 

 

Jenny Hale  13:34  

One of the things that really separates me in the industry is that I use a lot of strategies nobody’s ever heard of, and that’s why they’re successful because they’re not saturated. People haven’t tuned them out yet. That’s new, that’s different. And for advocacy and cause-based businesses, hashtags are really important. And Twitter is one of those places where you can start a movement online, and so for this particular community and industry, it’s a really powerful platform.

 

Richard Matthews  14:04  

Absolutely. I think I just got a notification the other day from Twitter, they said they, they kicked me off for policy violations. But I don’t know why. Because I don’t use the platform. So like I submitted to them, I was like, hey, what rule did I break? Cuz like, as far as I know, I’m not doing anything to break rules. I just occasionally have a couple of people I follow. I’ll check on the things that they tweet about. And then of course, our president tweets all the time. So I’ve like subscribed to his stuff to see what everyone’s talking about. But they kicked me off last week because apparently, you have to do things more than just watch.

 

Jenny Hale  14:41  

You have to use the platform.

 

Richard Matthews  14:46  

As an active policy violation, you’re gone. So I got kicked off of Twitter.

 

Jenny Hale  14:53  

I love it. I love it.

 

Richard Matthews  14:55  

Deplatformed. Put up a hashtag cancel, culture. No.

 

Jenny Hale  15:01  

I love it.

 

Richard Matthews  15:03  

So the other side of your superpowers is, of course, your fatal flaw, right? And just like Superman has his Kryptonite, your fatal flaw, it’s something that you’d have struggled with in growing your business and I think more importantly than what it is, but it is how have you sort of helped yourself overcome your own fatal flaw in your business? So people who are listening struggle from the same thing might learn a bit from you.

 

Jenny Hale  15:27  

So I think, in any business, one of the big things that stops a lot of entrepreneurs is we use the excuse of not having enough time. And I truly believed that when I was working in the corporate sector and running my businesses as a side hustle that, “Oh, it’s all because I have a full-time job,” or back when I was 19-20, “Oh, it’s because I’m going to school full time and I’m taking 18 credits a semester and I still need to get my 4.0,” or you know, whatever. Like, there was always some excuse And then I went full time into my business. And now it’s really funny. I’ll be like, I don’t have time to do that, even though it’s my full-time job. And so I think a big fatal flaw of a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included is that we make excuses for things that we can control. Because time is something that really is just if we reward it correctly, a prioritization problem. So what is our priority? And that’s when we start to say, well, we don’t have enough time when the real answer is we aren’t making that particular thing a priority. Now, whether that particular thing is a priority should be a priority or should not be a priority. That’s a totally different conversation. But I think as entrepreneurs, we need to recognize that we have just the exact same amount of time in a day as somebody who’s currently making a bajillion dollars an hour. We can make anything happen. Everything is figure-out-able in some way, shape, or form. And one of the ways that I’ve combated my own excuses of why I don’t have time to do that is by making sure that I never used that excuse. So my businesses, foundations are on the theory of automation. So the things that people feel like they’re spending all their time on social media, spinning their wheels, like not getting anywhere, scrolling all day, I’ve either done one of two things. I’ve either automated that process, or I’ve hired somebody to do it for me.

 

Richard Matthews  17:36  

I love it. I love it. Hiring people is is my new favorite superpower. It’s like, how you want it. You want to know how to turn one hour into 10. You hire someone and put together training for him in an hour and then they can get 10 hours of work done for it. And it’s an incredible form of leverage and then it dramatically overcomes up the amount of time you have available to accomplish things.

 

Jenny Hale  18:04  

And then it’s just a matter of reprioritizing what was left. And, time, there are only 24 hours in a day. And there’s no need to have your business run your life. But there are always systems and processes, as I’m sure you know, that makes that so much easier and streamline a lot of the work you do. Like I have multi-four figure leads that come to me through an automated sales funnel. I’ve never met them before, when they show up in my inbox, I have no idea who they are. They’ve never liked one of my things that never commented on my stuff. They just show up. And that’s a process that I’ve been able to implement in my business. And that’s why I help my clients implement too.

 

Richard Matthews  18:48  

That’s what we do as well. It works really, really well. I’m actually in the process of building that for our newest venture. So I’m looking forward to getting that up and going but yeah. We’re starting a company called Push Button Podcasts where we help business development podcasts do everything after the stop record button is hit. And like literally everything for them. So we’re in the process of building the sales pieces for that because we got the processes down path actually deliver it. 

 

Jenny Hale  19:14  

That’s so cool. I love it. 

 

Richard Matthews  19:19  

Show it to you after we’re done with the interview. But the setting up the automation and whatnot is just a huge, huge win. When you realize it’s one of those things that allows you to innovate in a space. Because automation is not something that a lot of people that really know how to use. And when you start implementing automation, you can take things that your competitors are spending 8-10-12-15 hours on and turn it into zero hours, or maybe a couple of hours for management. And that time differential is a is an innovation in your space, which allows you to do things they can’t do and spend more on leads or spend more on other things. Redirect your resources in ways that they can’t. 

 

Jenny Hale  20:03  

Absolutely. It’s literally the key piece to any successful business. You’re only one person. And mastering those basic things that can be automated. And it is, you’re right. You know, a lot of my clients come to me and they’re spending all day on social media, or they’re spending all this time on their business, and they’re not actually getting an ROI from it. And it’s like, well, I guess all this stuff that you’re manually doing…

 

Richard Matthews  20:31  

Is a waste of time on.

 

Jenny Hale  20:33  

That’s not what you need to be spending your time at that stuff gets automated this stuff over here, which takes five seconds is what’s gonna get you a sale by the end of the week.

 

Richard Matthews  20:40  

And then the other thing that we do with our clients for the brand building stuff is we always try to make sure that the stuff that you’re delivering is the stuff that can be delivered at scale. And when you can deliver at scale, then you can scale. So you can increase your income and impact more people but It also means that you can, if you automate the hard labor stuff, and then you can deliver at scale for whatever it is you’re doing, then you can manage a multi-six figure business on four to 10 hours a week.

 

Jenny Hale  21:13  

Absolutely. Everything’s possible and everything. As long as you figure it out, everything can be fixed.

 

Richard Matthews  21:19  

Absolutely. And I’m like living proof. I travel full time with my family and spend maybe 20 hours a week working.  And it’s cool. And you travel the world doing all this stuff. That’s cool. We just side note, when we finished traveling the country our plan is to start doing the world travel stuff. And like Airbnb in big cities, like go to London and stay for like three months and maybe go to Rio de Janeiro to stay for three months and Airbnb. We’ll see how that goes. But that’s our plan.

 

Jenny Hale  21:47  

Oh, cool. I did. What have I done so far? I did. Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Barbados, Jamaica. I’m on my way to Bali. And that started when I started this company.

 

Richard Matthews  22:05  

So cool. Since we started traveling, we’ve hit 26 states so far in the US.

 

Jenny Hale  22:12  

I love it

 

Richard Matthews  22:14  

In two and a half years, and we’ve been all over the place spent most of the national parks and all those states spent all sorts of cool things got to go to the Mardi Gras in St. Louis last couple weeks ago. And it’s been super fun. So we still got more to do. We’re going to go to spring break in Florida this year. And I get to we just got booked for the Keys in May. So I’ve never been to the keys before I’ve ever actually it’s in the Atlantic Ocean. So Wow, you’re gonna love it. I can’t wait will be super fun. Cool. So my next question for you. This is actually kind of interesting because of who your audience is. So is and this is called your common enemy. And the way that I frame this for our guests is if you could, with your clients, remove one thing from their life that you think would dramatically improve with the results that they get, and they see something you’re constantly fighting against, you know, a mindset or something that’s keeping them holding them back that you feel like you’re just banging your head against the wall you could just wave your magic wand to get rid of it. What is that thing for your clients that you wish you could just solve for them?

 

Jenny Hale  23:15  

It’s so funny cuz you’re about to say mindset. I was like their mindset. That’s exactly what we have to get rid of and reprogram. I’m usually my clients come to me with a fear of getting visible. Like that’s secretly why they’re holding back in their business. They’re scared to share their real story. They’re scared to put content out there that’s actually beneficial. They’ll hide behind, quote, graphics will hide behind, a stock photo, and I get it because I used to do the same thing. And especially after domestic violence, I was very scared to be a public person, a public figure, a public business that could be found. Since my clients are part of that, most of the time from that community or have to experience with that, they get that fear, too. And I know how hard it was for me to work through that. And so that’s usually the first thing we address with the people that I work with is, what is holding you back from showing up online. And sometimes it’s a matter of, well, I just don’t know what to do online, which is easily fixable. And sometimes it’s, well, there’s a fear that I’ll be successful that society will think differently, that my family will think differently of me, and that, I’m not good enough or that I don’t have enough experience or knowledge or skills or like why would somebody pay multi-four figures or more to work with me? You know, all I can sell is $100 X-Y-Z. And it’s so interesting now that I’ve done all that inner work and I’m on the other side of it, to watch other people give those same objections back to me as to why their business isn’t working or not understanding why their business isn’t working. And then you peel back the onion layers. And you see that these are all the root problems and root issues and root belief systems that society, their family, their friends, their partners, or even themselves have created for them. And that usually steps one. And it’s funny because a lot of the people that I work with, I will have a mindset program and I always say that’s step one. If you want to work with me, make sure that this is where you’re at first, because it can make or break the rest of your business and your business’s success.

 

Richard Matthews  25:38  

Absolutely. I remember. I do this podcast I’ve been doing this podcast for I started it three years ago and let it flounder for a couple of years because of all the work that goes into doing and I didn’t want to, but I’ve been doing it for a little over a year now. And I remember like one of the things that really held me back from wanting to do it other than all of the immense work that goes into putting in a video podcast together, every week, was actually getting on video and talking to people. And, I’m not naturally an extroverted person. It’s something that I’ve trained myself to be pretty good at, over the years, but I remember very specifically having that fear of I don’t want to go online and have people be able to find me. I’m terrible on social media. We mentioned Twitter a few minutes ago, they kicked me off because I’m not interactive, right? I do the same thing on Facebook. The only thing I post on Facebook is pictures of my kids, of my family. And I tried for the longest time to document our travels and post it to a page. I can’t do it because like, I just don’t care. I don’t like being found and all that kind of stuff. So like I, I get that. It’s not an easy thing to want to be visible. And I think the number of people who really like visibility and want to be visible is much smaller than the number of people who have a good story to share that need to get out and share that story. And it’s like an internal battle, you have to fight to put yourself out there. And then, for me, the thing that’s really changed how I perceive it is actually having started doing it took about six months of actually doing the podcast when I started getting feedback from people where they’re like, your podcast has changed my life, or I listen to it all the time. And you know, this episode with this person really spoke to me. And you realize that like getting out and actually doing it is if you don’t, you’re doing a disservice to those people you could be reaching. Absolutely. And it’s a change you sort of have to get to. I remember I’ll probably always remember the first time I got to my first superfan email where someone was like, I listened to every episode that you put out, and it’s at the top of my list and I’m like, “well,”

 

Jenny Hale  27:51  

It makes it worth it. It really does. For me, it was very similar. It was the first time I got a message from somebody. They had booked a four-figure package of mine without ever getting on the phone with me. And the message that they sent to me as I’ve read all of your content. And I’m a domestic violence survivor too. And I’ve never connected with somebody so much ever. And I can’t wait to work with you. When’s it start? I already paid. So, it really is. It’s that disservice to society, that there are people out there who need to hear your message, your story, your truth because you never know who’s out there struggling and needs to hear it. And for some of my clients, they’ve literally been able to save people’s lives, because they’ve hit somebody at the right time with their story in their message right before something tragic could have happened. And so that’s where we have a responsibility as entrepreneurs and as just human beings to be who we really are, be authentic and build businesses that have the platform to change the world.

 

Richard Matthews  29:08  

That’s actually why the reason I started this podcast for entrepreneurs, right? The guests that I have my show, that’s who the podcast is for us, for you guys. Because culturally, it’s always bothered me that entrepreneurs are always villainized. And like, we all go back to the cartoons, we watched his children, you know, it’s always whoever the bad guy, it’s always an entrepreneur. Dumping oil in the thing or,  doing stuff greedy for money. And it’s always bothered me, because that’s just not a reflection of reality. Everything that you have in your life that you’re touching us on a regular basis was at some point touched by an entrepreneur. So your life is what it is because of entrepreneurs, and I think they are rightly should be called heroes. And so that’s why we do this show is to just show people that heroes come from all over the place and we’re trying to lift them up and stuff like that. So anyway, I love having how messages like that touch people.

 

Jenny Hale  30:05  

So, I mean, it’s what brought me here. I read it and I was like, wow.

 

Richard Matthews  30:13  

Cool. So the other side of the common enemy, it’s something you fight against right? The fear mindset and stuff like that, being public, your driving force is the thing that you fight for. Right? So just like Spider-Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you guys fight for at your company?

 

Jenny Hale  30:31  

So I think what I’ve really focused on is fighting a couple of things. One, the stigma against what any of my clients or future clients or followers could have potentially gone through trauma looks different for everybody. Not everybody identifies with my domestic violence story, that’s okay. But they might identify with a different version of trauma. And I fight to give those people a voice in whatever that voice is. Whatever. Their story is that it’s valid, that they have the ability to speak now, and that they have the ability to impact other people. In doing that, a lot of people will take that pain life experience, that story, and find their purpose that comes out on the other side. I like to think that if I look positively at all my life experiences that they are all growth and learning lessons. And while none of them may have been deserved, or warranted, that I find something, something in them, that gives me some sort of movement forward. And finding my purpose in helping others has been a big part of that and sharing that story to do that, that type of work. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck at that point. They get stuck at, “Okay, well, I have this story. I have this purpose, I know it’s my calling to share this story.” But then they get stuck in the next part, which is turning it into a profitable business, turning it into something that can actually sustain them. And perhaps there’s a mindset belief behind them that they don’t want to make money off of tragedy, which is not what we’re doing at all. What we’re doing is building a business that has the ability to impact even more lives. You could become an author, you could become a podcaster, you could become a blogger, you could become a coach, you could become a writer of any kind. And all of those things can also help you make an income and all of those things, give back and share that story to the world. And those are good things. Because you can impact lives, save lives, change lives with that story, and moving the mindset into that but most people don’t get to that point because they don’t know the steps and the marketing and the strategy and the mindset needed to move into that space. And so that is one of the things that I truly, truly want to change is that everybody has the opportunity to build the life that they’ve deserved and that they dream of. And I want to help you make that a reality.

 

Richard Matthews  33:15  

It makes a lot of sense. And I know this because the topic of our show, which is entrepreneurs, being heroes is like, one of the common things that entrepreneurs run into is that fear you mentioned of, I’m turning my life or whatever, into an income because of that cultural understanding that profit is evil.

 

Jenny Hale  33:33  

It’s evil.

 

Richard Matthews  33:34  

And it’s not true. But it’s a mindset that people have. And so they let that hold them back from taking their story, their perspective, or whatever it is, and actually turning it into a viable business. Profit isn’t evil. It’s what makes the world go round. And it’s how you help people. And if you can take whatever you’re doing and make it a profit means you can do more of it, you can increase the ripple effect, you can positively impact more lives. 

 

Jenny Hale  33:58  

It really is. And if you’re a Woowoo. I’m a little woowoo. You can look at it as it’s an equal exchange of money. An equal exchange of energy is literally money. That’s all money as it’s just energy. So, you know, by you. I said this to somebody I was working with yesterday, they were worried about charging for something that they were selling, as well. And I said, who values free? And if you value-free, and somebody else is giving it to you for free, is there any level of resentment in that exchange? Where if you’re equally exchanging energy on a mutually beneficial level, then there’s no, everybody shows up to the table with our all and..

 

Richard Matthews  34:43  

Voluntary exchange.

 

Jenny Hale  34:45  

And that’s a good thing. And so, I gave the story as if you go and sit on a couch with your friend. And your friend, whines amounts and complains about X-Y-Z problem and you offer that advice to your friend. And your friend goes out and does whatever. But then the next week, your friend goes to their therapist that they’re paying out of pocket for that’s, seen as an expert in their eyes, and they’re charged for it. And they get the exact same thing you said last week on the couch for free. But now they come to you on the couch the next week and be like, “My therapist said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And you’re like, “But that’s what I told you and you didn’t have to pay for.” It’s because they see it from somebody that’s an expert that they paid for. And it’s an equal energy exchange, and sometimes free just isn’t valued. And it’s that mindset, and that was the example I gave yesterday was just a random one that I gave to one of my clients, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve totally been in that situation before” or, “I’ve totally been there.” And that’s why it’s not a bad thing to run a business and make money at it. Where I feel that running a business is different is that business owners have a responsibility to those clients that it’s not about getting the money out of them. It’s about doing what they need to be successful. And in my code of ethics, I personally will turn away clients that have money in hand if I feel like they’re not a good fit, or if I feel like I can’t help them. And that brings you back to your authentic core of why are you really an entrepreneur? It’s to help people and it’s not to find your pockets.

 

Richard Matthews  36:25  

And what’s interesting is when you actually change your focus, you end up money in your pockets. Is that whole, one of my core beliefs is that if you go into scripture and look at, Jesus’s sermon on the Mount, he gives a whole bunch of things. And I always think that it’s not like, this is how you should live. It was like, “Hey, I wrote the code for the universe, and this is how it works.” So when he says, “First give, and then you’ll receive.” It’s not like, that’s a good idea. It’s like, that’s the way the universe actually functions. And if you want to function in it you should like to operate that way.

 

Jenny Hale  37:01  

Right?  I mean, it’s so true. It’s why Marketing Leads with free opt-ins, free training, free challenges, free webinars. First, give, then built the know, like, and trust factor that leads to a potential lead.

 

Richard Matthews  37:16  

That will prove to them that you can actually help them by actually helping them.

 

Jenny Hale  37:20  

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  37:23  

And then they trust you like you actually already helped me and that changes the conversation quite a bit. So my next question for you is about your Hero’s Toolbelt. This is the practical section of our show. And you know, maybe you got a big magical hammer like Thor or bulletproof vest like you’re police officer, or maybe you just really love how Evernote helps you organize your thoughts, what are some of the tools you use today that you couldn’t live without for managing clients or managing your calendar or managing the deliverables you do? That they make your business what it is?

 

Jenny Hale  37:55  

There are a few. So, obviously, I love automation. So anything that helps automate things. I’m not a huge fan of investing a ton of money, I’ve pretty low overhead for my business. I mean, that’s why I chose the business style that I choose to work online and virtual. But the things that I will pay for are things that make my life easier. And I obviously will invest in email automation like no tomorrow, and I will invest in a good email company that makes sure my tags work and my flows are going where they’re supposed to go because that’s where I make the money. And I also for free love using scheduling tools. One of my favorite ones is called RecurPost if you’ve never heard of that, and I find it’s like more of a newer one that a lot of people have never heard of before. RecurPost changed my life. And no, I’m not an affiliate. I’m just a fan. But RecurPost for free will allow you to create 100 pieces of content, organize them into various albums and have them cycle out on social media for about three months or so. Before it has you refreshed your connection. And literally you upload it once, and then you let it go. And what that does is as long as you’re a business that runs evergreen content that is already tested and super valuable and already converts, it’s a great way to have a nurturing cycle of never-ending content on your social media platforms that you have already proven. Lead you to more leads and sales. So that’s one of my favorite tools to use once you have set up those systems. 

 

Richard Matthews  39:28  

That’s awesome. We’re not using any sort of social media posting stuff yet for our show, but we probably should be at some point but are we’re just posting new episodes every week. So that’s been our thing, but what we should probably do is look at seeing how we can pull some of our more popular episodes from the past and recycle them into republishing and showing up at the top of the feeds again.

 

Jenny Hale  39:50  

That’s literally how, back when I was blogging and I ran businesses that had a big blogging component on it like the photography. It was a great way to make sure I had consistent traffic to some of my most popular posts my best performing posts and things like that. So I think it’s really great for bloggers podcasters people who do evergreen based launching, and for people who just have general tips, advice, story-telling based content that can nurture your audience on any given day of the week.

 

Richard Matthews  40:27  

That makes sense. So who’s your favorite email platform right now?

 

Jenny Hale  40:30  

Right now, I am using ConvertKit. I was using MailChimp but I have fallen in love with ConvertKit and specifically fallen in love with ConvertKit because their customer service is incredible.

 

Richard Matthews  40:43  

My current favorite is the Active Campaign. Some ridiculously cool automation inside of Active Campaign that you can even do crazy stuff in there. Super, super cool. But that’s my favorite one currently. So, next question for you is your own personal heroes, right? So just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke, had Obi-Wan or Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad. Who were some of your heroes, were they real-life mentors, speakers or authors, peers? Who maybe a couple of years ahead of you, maybe your parents, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far?

 

Jenny Hale  41:15  

I think my heroes,  personal ones, honestly, that changed my life in some way, shape, or form. That secret behind the scenes heroes might not be getting the attention that maybe somebody on the front page of a paper would get, but sometimes those are the best ones. And I personally give a lot of credit to those that I have worked with, not only just my mentors, who I absolutely could not be where I am today without. But also my business partners and my clients because at the end of the day, I am so inspired by the people that I work with that it makes me like inspired to do more and show up more and show up more authentically. And so those two pieces of my business are a huge part. At the same time in my personal life, I have some really amazing friends that, at one point in my life, I had a choice between being inside a domestic violence shelter, which I had no shame around, it’s what I needed at the time, or my friend offering to let me live with them on the couch. And I built my business from the couch of a friend’s apartment. And I can’t thank my friends enough for changing my life and giving me the opportunity to stay alive.

 

Richard Matthews  42:54  

Absolutely. So I actually have a sort of random side follow up question for you on that because of your life and business moves as much as it does, how have you managed to keep your community, so to speak, to keep your group of friends and people that allows you to have those relationships and stuff, right? I know sort of how our family does it. I’m just curious how you manage that.

 

Jenny Hale  43:20  

Well, I’ve learned that it’s definitely quality over quantity. And I am very lucky that I have some very, very close friends that have grown with me. They’ve been there for me since high school or college or grad school, or whatever it may be. And then, I found new people along the way. New people that have had similar experiences to myself and who get what stage of the life I’m currently living in and what my dreams and goals are. And I’ve always been really supportive with that. And the best part is because my work is remote and I get to travel the world. I get to travel to see them too, and I The best part and,  I’ll be totally honest, I’m not the person that’s going to text you every single day. But if you saw me, 10 years later and we went on a vacation together, we’d pick up right where we left off. And that’s how I valued friendships that the ones that never changed, no matter how much time has passed. And I’ve always been the person that no matter how long it’s been, I’m loyal to the core. And if you need something, I’ve got your back and I’ve watched my friends do the same thing for me. So I’ve just really learned a lot from the friend group that I had on what unconditional love truly is.

 

Richard Matthews  44:38  

That’s really cool. And I know we’ve sort of had a similar experience where after we’ve been traveling for enough years, we’ve got friends all over the country now we can go and meet those people. We’ve also got our families that we go and see and whatnot. And it’s always now that we’ve traveled enough, it’s like we plan our travels around going to meet people instead of places. It’s super fun. And I imagine that you guys have got the same thing going on except now it’s international for you.

 

Jenny Hale  45:05  

It’s really cool to meet people all over the world and be able to say like, “Oh, I know somebody in that country” or “I have a friend out.” 

 

Richard Matthews  45:14  

So have you learned to speak other languages in your travels too?

 

Jenny Hale  45:17  

Not really in my travels, but I have been tested with the languages that I learned from like my time in high school, going to all of these countries and hearing it back for the first time in years and being like, “Oh, my goodness, how did I know this at one point,” and I’m very lost in the grocery store. Last week, I walked into the men’s bathroom on an accident at an airport, again.

 

Richard Matthews  45:46  

My favorite international experience so far, mostly because it was just crazy. I was in Thailand. And in Thailand, they do have guys and girls bathrooms, but they don’t particularly care which one you use. And it’s not really culturally relevant if you’re a guy or girl. So I was, I was like 17 or 18-19. It was a couple of years of college and I was in Thailand. I was at the bathroom standing at the urinal, and the cleaning lady came in. And she was like standing at the urinal next to me, and she was like, cleaning it. And she complimented me. And I was like, I don’t know how I feel about that. That’s like the first thing like my first international experience. I’m in Thailand. And I’m like, at you’re in a little lady sitting next to me. I was like, Whoa.

 

Jenny Hale  46:34  

Oh, my goodness. I’ve just learned that I need to look at the pictures better because reading the words is not working in my favor right now.

 

Richard Matthews  46:43  

That makes a lot of sense. So my last question for you. These are your guiding principles. Top one or two principles or actions that you use regularly today that you think to contribute to the success and influence you enjoy in your business. Maybe something you wish you had known when you first started out.

 

Jenny Hale  46:58  

I think the biggest thing is that you have to believe in yourself. It’s really hard to be an entrepreneur with a lot of opinions around you. Sometimes those opinions aren’t always positive. You’ve got society, family, friends, perhaps a significant other that’s influencing maybe your mindset surrounding your business. And a lot of my clients will come to me and be like, “Well, so and so isn’t very supportive of me doing X, Y, and Z.” And, you know, it’s pretty, it’s quite common. When I first started my first business, my parents were like, “Please don’t quit college. Don’t go full time into this.” And it wasn’t until I started making significant money in it that my parents were like, “What do you need? What can we buy for you? What do you need for Christmas to support your business,” that type of thing. So sometimes you have to go at it alone for a really long time. And it’s that’s a lonely road. And the only person that can get you through that is you and the community. You choose to surround yourself by. And so that’s where I choose to surround myself with other entrepreneurs, other mentors. I love doing podcasts, recordings and interviews, and blogs, exchanges with people because those people are fellow entrepreneurs who also get it. And, they always say like, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. And that’s true for entrepreneurship too.” Sometimes you got to move out into a different room and start getting yourself challenged. And sometimes, I’ve paid for those people in that room. And those are some of the best investments. Sometimes I’ve gotten them just through talking, sometimes they become Miss besties because I meet them in a mastermind or I meet them in a coaching program or whatever. But your success can absolutely depend on your mindset, believing in yourself and surrounding yourself with the right kinds of people.

 

Richard Matthews  48:57  

I remember the first time I got myself in a room full of people that we’re smarter than me, which is hard to do sometimes when you’re the kind of work that we do, and I felt like I’ve just gone into like the high school Water Polo, like a professional team and I was like the seven-year-old who couldn’t swim yet.

 

Jenny Hale  49:17  

It’s humbling. I think that’s another piece of it too. And no matter what level of success you’re at, you got to remember what got you there. And it’s humbling. Journey is…

 

Richard Matthews  49:26  

There’s always room for people that are way better than you are at whatever it is you’re doing.

 

Jenny Hale  49:30  

Absolutely. 

 

Richard Matthews  49:31  

And it’s a good place to be because that really forced my business to grow. And I also remember, in 2007, I dropped out of college to start my business. And I remember my parents both, you know, my birthday card my dad gave me said something along the lines of, “I don’t really don’t know or understand what you do, but I’m really proud of what you’ve done, who you’ve become, and where you are and what you’re doing for your family and whatnot. And takes a while. But they’ll come around eventually.

 

Jenny Hale  50:08  

Absolutely, they will. And if they don’t you just keep doing you.

 

Richard Matthews  50:12  

Keep doing you. So that’s basically it for our interview. Jenny, thank you so much for coming on. I have one last thing that we do at the end of all of our episodes, it’s called the Hero’s Challenge. It’s pretty simple. Basically, this do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine, and why should you think they should come on our show and share their story?

 

Jenny Hale  50:33  

I’m gonna shout out Jane Baker. She is a business coach overseas for us. And she just wrote a best selling Amazon book on high end selling and her book. It gave me huge aha moments. It’s called, She Lives Limitlessly. And her story is amazing. She started out as a really young entrepreneur, as well. She dropped out of school to run her business. And she earned seven figures running her first company, then gave it up to follow her passion for coaching which she has also grown into an incredible business. And she’s just an incredible person, an incredible marketer and an incredible entrepreneur in general.

 

Richard Matthews  51:19  

Awesome. That sounds really cool. I have to see if we can get her on the show. So Jenny, again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people find you if they’re looking to get help with their business? And more importantly, who are the right types of people to reach out and say, I’d like to get help from Jenny.

 

Jenny Hale  51:34  

So if you have been able to resonate with anything that I’ve said today, you’re a trauma coach, you’re a mindset coach. You are an advocate or you have a business that is surrounding that advocacy and Cosby’s work, I would love for you to come to join my community. I have a Facebook group facebook.com/groups/resultsinamonth and all my handles are also under that. So, Twitter and Instagram are all under at results in a month. And you can find me on my website at jhmarketingresults.com 

 

Richard Matthews  52:13  

Awesome. Thank you so very much for coming on. Again, it’s ResultsInAMonth and all of these social media platforms. If you are in that space, make sure you reach out to Jenny, obviously sounds like she knows what she’s doing here to help you grow your audience. So Jenny, before we hit that stop record button, you got any final words of wisdom for my audience?

 

Jenny Hale  52:30  

Guys, just keep doing you and never give up. There’s always a way to figure something out. I promise. Keep going.

 

Richard Matthews  52:39  

You heard her never give up guys. Thank you for coming on. Jenny.

 

Jenny Hale  52:42  

Thank you so much.