AP 1121: I Started a New Brand, and Now I’m Overwhelmed. What Do I Do?

AP 1121 - I Started a New Brand and Now I'm Overwhelmed, What Do I Do

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1,121 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And today we're talking with Jill Gilbert, an entrepreneur who started out in the event space actually going to big events like CES, talking about technology and how it crosses over with health and wellness and doing amazing things there. Like literally doing that for over a decade. And now she's recently started this new brand, and she's feeling a little overwhelmed like we all do when we start something new. And it can be even more tough when you're coming from something so successful trying something completely new. You almost sort of expect different kinds of success rates because you've had success elsewhere. And yes, you can carry over and some of that can definitely help you, but some of that, especially mentally can drag you down. So we're going to talk about a lot of these things today with Jill and we're going to help her out. And so listen in, here we go. This is Jill from WickedAwesomeYou.com. Hey Jill, welcome to AskPat 2.0. Thanks so much for being here today.

Jill Gilbert:
Thanks for having me Pat.

Pat:
Absolutely. Why don't you take a quick moment to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Jill:
My name is Jill and for the past decade I have been producing a very big event that happens in January at the Consumer Electronics Show all around digital health and wellness and personal health and all that medical tech and all the things that bring technology and healthcare together. And this past January I launched a new brand of my own that sort of lives a little bit side-by-side to the work I do at CES, focused on women's health. And I'm helping women over forty kind of take back their mojo after they've given so much away to careers and their husbands and things like that. So that's my big focus now, is that side of the healthcare world.

Pat:
That's fantastic. And what's the name of the brand? Where can we learn more?

Jill:
It's called Wicked Awesome You and WickedAwesomeYou.com. And we physically launched on the twentieth of February. And we also launched an ebook that I wrote called Wicked Wellness and it's really about how we create the rituals and routines we need to. Before we start using technology and other sorts of products, how do we create the rituals and routines that we need to, to fit those things into our lives to create consistency, have better results, all of those good things. But it's truly focused around all aspects of a woman's health and wellness and body and family.

Pat:
Well, congratulations on the recent launch. I would imagine that after ten years of doing an event, and I've done a couple events before, I mean they're stressful. It's like all this work for just a moment during the year. What's it been like for you to now release a new brand that's sort of ongoing? And this new direction, a little bit more focused and very, very important obviously to you and the women who are going to be there. What's it been like? How's it feel?

Jill:
This is new territory for me, Pat. I mean, I love what I do. I get to sort of enable brands and speakers and lots and lots of brilliance on stage and help tell a story and create partnerships and all of the things I get to do at my show. There's a ton of pressure around that, but it's highly, highly rewarding.

Pat:
I'm sure. Yeah.

Jill:
I worked in the film business for, God fifteen years, and the fifteen years I was there, there are so many projects we developed that never came to fruition. There were a lot of great things that came to fruition and ended up on the big screen, but not everything did. And so I loved that all the work I get to do gets to be seen now and comes together in one event. So this personal brand though—what you guys do—freaks me out.

Pat:
Why? What's scary about it to you?

Jill:
I put myself back into graduate school last year. And my graduate school was of my own making. I pulled from experts like you and other brilliant people on the internet to learn about this whole new world of, it's not like you make a baseball cap and sell the baseball cap anymore. It's like you make the baseball cap, you have to then promote it and create—there's a whole social movement around it. You're going to create a Facebook group around how exciting the hat is and how this hat's going to change your life and all the different ways it's going to work. And then you're going to have discussions on a podcast or a YouTube channel. The world is very different-

Pat:
Right.

Jill:
I sound like an old lady, but when I grew up, like it's just different. Can't believe I just said that. I think it's a whole new world, and so we have to learn and discover what that world is and how to work within it. It's so fun though.

Pat:
It's a lot for sure. It is super fun, too. And you're already doing a lot of things right. I can tell even just in our five minute conversation already. Even just like those little quirks about yourself saying, "Oh, I can't believe I just said that." That gets us connected with you. And I've heard similar things about the way I say things and just who I am and putting myself out there. People connect with people, right? And that's the beauty of all of this. And you're showing up. You're putting yourself out there, which attracts your tribe. As my friend says, "Your vibe attracts your tribe." Chris Tucker, my good friend says that. So I know you're early-on on this, but where is your head right now? How can I help you? What might you need some help with? What can I serve you with?

Jill:
So as you can imagine in sort of schooling myself and learning, I listen to a lot of podcasts and most of the podcasts I listen to were around business, right? So how to do something better in business. How to have a better engaged Facebook group or podcast or whatever.

Pat:
Who else are you listening to? Just give a shout out to them.

Jill:
So I love, Donald Miller was the first person I listened to on Storybrand, which I love the story side of business, obviously from my film background and just what I do. But Storybrand, Donald, I still listen to him every single day in his videos. Amy Porterfield. I want to say the regulars. I almost wanted to do a page on my website just around all of you guys that have helped me. You, Jenna Kutcher, Rachel Hollis, and Amy Porterfield have been really helpful to me. And I said, you too, right? I didn't miss you, right?

Pat:
Yes. And thank you. And these are all great people to learn from. People who've done it themselves before. They make it easy.

Jill:
They give me some context, right?

Pat:
Right.

Jill:
So one of the things that they taught me, I'm an open book. There's very few parts of my life that I don't share. Maybe one part, like that's it. I just am an open book and I share a lot about what's going on with myself. It makes me feel connected to people. And so they taught me that that's okay to do publicly.

Pat:
Yeah. It's what allows us to connect with you more and faster.

Jill:
Yeah.

Pat:
That's great.

Jill:
But what I'll tell you, where I have been struggling recently is not only getting a handle on managing the business, because my day-to-day workflow is very different than my day-to-day workflow for doing my big event. That takes me a year to plan. So when I looked at podcasts, which I connected with, I loved, I was like, "Well do I do that or do I do videos where I'm sitting one-on-one? Or do I do those instead?" Because I was going to have a strong focus around technology and sort of introducing different things and tools that may help you up your game in your healthcare, there's the fields of digital therapeutics. How do we make the technology come alive for someone so they can understand the impact?

Jill:
I kept going back to, "Well, is that video instead?" Now I'm confused, because the way I was seeing doing them was I can't fly around the country and interview everyone and get them on camera, bring a film crew with me, have them show their technology. That would be-

Pat:
That's crazy. That's a lot.

Jill:
Lots of money, right?

Pat:
Right.

Jill:
So I was torn as to, God, I hate watching videos where it's just two talking heads. So I didn't like that either. Like a Skype call or something. Right?

Pat:
Right.

Jill:
So I didn't want to do that either. So I started to get really torn as to the direction I should take. Knowing that podcasts felt the most comfortable for me because I had been listening to them and I haven't been a big YouTuber. Right? My friends don't sit on YouTube all day and look at videos. So where are they going to be most comfortable? So that was my AskPat question.

Pat:
And this is a great question because there's a lot of things we can discuss here. There is the idea of well where would your target audience be most likely to consume this information? And how might they best receive this information? There's the idea of sort of video versus podcasting and there are pros and cons to each. There is the idea of well, could we possibly do both in a way, which I'd love to sort of just potentially talk about that idea as well.

Pat:
But the most important thing is what can you get excited about and what can you handle? And I think you've already started to note a little bit of that with like, well, I would love to film in person with these people and talk and have a conversation with them. But that's just logistically not going to happen right now. That's not what kind of lifestyle you want to live or what you'd want to do. And you'd just likely would burn out like a lot of people do who try to go to that level in the beginning. Maybe it could get there but you don't have to start there. I think that if I were to frame a question for you to begin this conversation, it would be: What's the transformation that you want your audience to have after whether it's a podcast or video or what, what's the transformation you want them to walk away with after hearing and or listening or watching what it is that you're going to create?

Jill:
Obviously depending on the topic, or depending on if the focus is like a product or a solution versus a new tactic, actually it doesn't matter. They need to walk away with inspiration and tactical advice to take the next step on whatever it is. Dealing with depression? These are tools that are out there that your mild depression, each level is big but you're dealing with mild depression and anxiety. Are there tools that immediately that I can go touch base with or are there practices every morning that I should be doing to help with mindfulness or whatever it is? Because there's a lot of areas that make up our bodies, right? So I am all about nitty gritty. So I like to get nitty gritty to be able to learn something, a new tactic, a new way of doing something, a new product that is going to help me. So I really hope people walk away with the steps that they can take to make change.

Pat:
I love that. So the inspiration, the next steps and obviously getting the results that you are wanting them to achieve.

Jill:
From someone trusted. By the way, the trusted person, I convene people, right? That's what I kind of have done for a living. I convene people that are experts in the field and I can learn from them. And of course I have become an expert in certain areas, but my goal is to convene those people, some along the way along with my own stuff.

Pat:
When it comes to inspiration and when it comes to motivation especially, which were the first two things you talked about before getting into the tactics and the actual tools. Along with your idea of being the person who is the connector, the person who can kind of create a forum or space for people to come together to share, which one, podcasting or YouTube, would be an easier place in your eyes to make that happen?

Jill:
Podcast.

Pat:
Hundred percent. I wanted you to say it, but yes, that's absolutely right. Because you could just get on a call just like we're on right now and we can have a conversation. My question for you would then be, because I know what you might be thinking is can people still get that motivation and inspiration and learn about these tools without watching them? This is the followup question. Can they still get what they need after listening to you and a person, have a conversation about something?

Jill:
I guess if we do a good enough job at sort of painting the picture.

Pat:
I would agree.

Jill:
I would say so. I'm kind of laughing internally here because we tell people we don't want to see a bunch of PowerPoints on stage. We want you to really paint the picture. Right?

Pat:
It almost forces a person on the other end to paint the picture if they don't have the visual which is really interesting. I think that's very clever to think about it in that way. And the other thing is the power of podcasting comes with storytelling. And when you want to motivate somebody, you can do one of two things. You could just tell them all the facts or you can put context around those facts and create something relatable. And I think that especially for your target demographic, it's just like you said even earlier, they're likely not going to binge watch a bunch of YouTube videos and consume in that way. So you have now easier production, easier to communicate and converse and connect with people.

Pat:
I would say though, the benefit of YouTube over podcasting is the search engine that is YouTube, the findability factor versus podcasts. A podcast is definitely more shareable after a person builds a relationship with you. It's more Netflix binge worthy than just kind of random videos about tools for example. But I can also see a situation where you happen to talk about a tool on a podcast and you could potentially reference, "Hey, by the way, we have a quick demo on YouTube about how to use this product."

Jill:
Great idea.

Pat:
Right? And then on YouTube it could be built for the search engine, a how to use such and such product. And it's a review of that and it stands on its own. But then you could also say in that video, "By the way, we talk about this product in this conversation I have with this expert. If you'd like to hear that, come over to the podcast." So you can kind of do a double-

Jill:
It feeds each other.

Pat:
Double whammy. Yeah.

Jill:
Yeah. I like that loop. That is great, because I will say where I personally use YouTube is to learn how to use something.

Pat:
Yes, exactly. I searched on YouTube the other day on how to fix our broken dryer in our laundry room.

Jill:
Did you do it?

Pat:
I did it. Yeah, it was like a twenty-minute video. Some random dude who was just like from Texas. He's like, "You got to open the vent here and do this thing." And I found like a sock and I was like, "Holy crap. This worked." Right? I'm not going to subscribe to him. But he helped me answer my questions. And I think that would be the purpose of your YouTube channel would be to service those who want help about those particular tools. That's not your community building area. Your community building area is on your website and through your podcast I would imagine.

Jill:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean we're starting with a group, I mean we're starting with the private group, but we'll eventually move into all these new, different business models. So all the new sort of membership areas or masterminds or all these new words that I've been [crosstalk 00:16:59] I felt that it was like Dr Evil mastermind.

Pat:
Right. Like villains in some room like planning the destruction of the earth or something?

Jill:
What's going on in there?

Pat:
That's so funny. Yeah. I mean the membership stuff, that's the sort of next wave of business in my opinion, in terms of bringing communities together in a free and/or paid model. We're already seeing this obviously with Facebook and groups and how popular they are. We're starting to see tools like Mighty Networks come out. And there's even more tools on the horizon to sort of have your own controlled Facebook-like community, but you get to own it. So, that's really exciting that you're already thinking about that. I think that's huge value for sure.

Jill:
Yeah, I mean it makes the most sense. It's interesting, I would imagine men feel this too, but when you're younger, you're in your high school, college, early working years, you're going out five days a week, you're meeting friends, you're building this community, right?

Pat:
Right.

Jill:
Things start to slow down. I mean in all honesty I think we have to, because we're so exhausted. So the community side, these businesses, and especially the one that I'm creating is so important because it's just not so easy to make those friends anymore. The opportunities aren't there as much.

Pat:
You are spot on, Jill. When you think about high school, it's like you have the option to go into any group you want because they're all there and you could find your band nerds, you could find your ROTC nerds or if you're a football player you-

Jill:
You identify with.

Pat:
Exactly.

Jill:
Right? Who do I identify with? I'm like, "Yeah, totally."

Pat:
And so when you are building this community, the piece of advice I could give you is be very clear on who it's for. Because once a person goes, "That's for me," they're in, right? And I'm sure you're already doing great things related to that; but on the podcast, even in your videos, when you start talking about the community and coming to listen to the podcast, be very clear with who it's for and people will start to gravitate toward you. You're going to see it and it's going to take a life of its own. And I'm just really excited for you because I think that the event stuff is great and it doesn't sound like you're moving away from that. But this just gives you added excitement for the rest of the year and in a community go behind it, too.

Jill:
Yeah. Well, events are great, and I love them. They are definitely on the table for this because that gives people even more of an opportunity to connect. And I know you have your big event that you do coming up here, not too far away, huh?

Pat:
Yeah, yeah. July. So yeah. The events are very powerful, but anyway, you are on the right track. Hopefully this helps you make decisions on just sort of the platform you're going to choose, how you're going to own that and potentially use the other to support it. I hope I've provided a little bit of clarity there for you today.

Jill:
Huge clarity. Thank you so much.

Pat:
You're welcome. One more time before you go, where can people go to learn more and be a part of your world?

Jill:
WickedAwesomeYou.com. On Instagram @WickedAwesomeYouXX (those female). And we also have a Facebook page, Wicked Awesome You which will take you to our private circle.

Pat:
Awesome. Jill, thank you so much. Good luck with everything and looking forward to hearing more about the brand just kind of organically as it grows.

Jill:
Me too. Thank you.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jill. Again, you can find her at WickedAwesomeYou.com. W-A-Y, like way. Know the way, Wicked Awesome You. This is the way. That's right. Anyway, thank you Jill for coming on. I appreciate you. You are amazing. Keep up the great work and I just love your enthusiasm and the energy. And I can't wait to see where your brand goes and grows. And I'm sure we're all excited, too. So hopefully we can connect in the future and catch up with ya.

Pat:
For those of you listening, if you want to get coached like Jill got coached today, that'd be super awesome. And I'd love for that to happen. You have to apply though, and then you have to get selected. It's not quite random because I do read the applications that come in, but there's a lot so you can't get chosen unless you ask me and you apply. So go to AskPat.com, click on the button to apply, answer a couple of questions, tell me your sitch, your situation, and then I'll see. I might reach out to you in the future and we can make it happen. And I hope that we get to do that.

Pat:
For those of you who are listening this all the way through, just, I appreciate you so much. Just so much love to you for all the support and all the just incredible notes and messages and DMs and public tweets and Facebook messages for AskPat. It's a labor of love for me. I do this every week, and I try to get as many people in as possible. I mean, we're over 1,120 episodes now and that's just incredible. And it wouldn't keep going if it weren't for the questions that come in, but also for the listeners that support, too. So just thank you so much. I appreciate you. If you haven't hit subscribe yet, please do so and leave a review if you have an opportunity. Thanks so much. And as always, #TeamFlynnforthewin. Peace.