Real People, Real Business

After working as a Human Resources (HR) manager with one company, Human Resources Strategist, Candice Elliot branched out and began working with a variety of organizations bringing to bear all the expertise she had developed around HR best practices.  

In this episode, you’ll hear how Candice started her own business, Fortress and Flourish, offering her own brand of HR helping impact-driven leaders develop workplaces that provide a sense of community, safety, and meaningful work for their employees.

Candice discusses her mission to help growing companies create HR sustainability, how she defines sustainability in human resources, her Do HR Differently  methodology she uses to guide her clients towards an HR sustainable approach, and the different ways clients can work with her. 

Candice shares her early business journey, how she evolved her offerings as she aligned her skills with what she wanted to bring to the world, and how she positions herself to attract clients who are the best fit for what she offers.

Finally, Candice shares the transformation she brings her clients, the “horrible gift” the pandemic has been to the work world, and the direction she would like to take her business in next. 

Find Candice  at:

Website: https://www.fortressandflourish.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortressandflourish/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candiceelliott/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIH8KTvtAnh58vdlQbQXvlA

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After following his love of Spanish and majoring in Spanish communication in college, Richard Blank landed an internship with Telemundo and the Importers of Corona which prepared him for a once in a lifetime opportunity taking him from Philadelphia to Central America. 

In this episode, you’ll hear how a friend’s offer to teach English in Costa Rica launched Richard's entrepreneurial journey. By working in his friend’s call center, he learned the ins and outs of the business, gaining the confidence to become an entrepreneur himself, founding his own call center company - Costa Rica’s Call Center. 

Listen in to Richard’s refreshing, positive, and relationship-centered approach to building a successful business. Learn about the fun business culture he has instilled in his company, born out of a very unique hobby that goes the extra mile in creating a positive experience for both his employees and customers.

Richard reveals the complex nature of running a call center business in a foreign country, the differences between offshore centers and near shore centers, and how he combats attrition.

He goes on to discuss the type of clients he gets the most joy working with, the criteria he uses to determine if a client is a good fit, how he differentiates his business from his competitors, and the old school approach he follows that has led to his business growth.

Running a call center has its challenges and Richard describes how he navigates them, the impact the pandemic has had on the call center industry, what he predicts happening in his industry in the future, and the importance of human interaction in creating a positive customer experience with a company.

Finally, Richard shares the 3 things that convinced him he could be an entrepreneur, the number one core value he remains committed to in his business, and the one difference between what is out there in the business world and what is real.  

Find Richard  at:

Website: https://costaricascallcenter.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Richard15050746
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richardblank44/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/businessprocessoutsourcingcallcenter
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPZJ_skJXFg&t=13s
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/costaricascallcenter/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/richardblank

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Many people stumble into entrepreneurship never intending to become business owners, and Business Coach & Strategist Lianne Kim is no different. Lianne’s story is one that a lot of women will relate to going from a successful corporate career to shifting her priorities after becoming a mom, which ultimately led her to starting a business.

In this episode, Lianne shares how she went from 15 years working in sales, to her first foray into business selling her own product, and how reaching out to her local community of moms led her to what she does today as a Business Coach & Strategist helping women build profitable businesses at Mamas & Co.

Lianne describes how she discovered she loved serving women business owners, how she started her business as a side gig outside of a full-time job, the tipping point when she decided to bet on herself and turn her side business into a full-time career, and her advice for anyone contemplating leaving steady work for full-time entrepreneurship.

Lianne speaks candidly about some of the roadblocks she faced building her business, how she navigated tough conversations with her husband who was not 100% onboard with her going full-time in her business, and how an unexpected family hardship taught her the importance of building a resilient business to withstand unexpected events.

Lastly, Lianne shares how she was able to grow and monetize a thriving community, her biggest piece of advice for how to grow your business faster, the lessons she learned about building a membership, the invaluable advice she has for other coaches, and the biggest myth she sees between what we hear in the business world and and what is real.

Lianne dropped so many golden nuggets in this episode that you’ll want to take notes so that you don’t miss any of them!

Find Lianne  at:

Website: https://www.mamasandco.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liannekimcoach/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MamasandCo/

Podcast: “The Business of Thinking Big” at https://www.liannekim.com/blog

Visit Stephanie at: https://stephaniehayes.biz/

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Like many people, Kristen Zavo climbed the corporate ladder and achieved success in her career, but even with all she had achieved, she found herself deeply unhappy at work. After switching jobs, she found more and more people asking her how she did it, so she began helping them make the same switch on the side of her corporate job. 

After walking the talk by taking her own advice, Kristen authored an international best-selling book, Job Joy, to help others find success and meaning in their careers. Her incredible journey led her to the work she does today in her business, Find Your Job Joy, as a holistic career coach helping high achievers who desire more impact and fulfillment at work and in life.

In this episode, Kristen talks about the path she took from decades of working in a variety of corporate roles to becoming a business owner, the impact she believes the pandemic has had on work, the recent rise of entrepreneurship, and the shift employers must now make to retain talent. 

As a holistic career coach, Kristen describes the approach she takes with her clients, why it’s important to choose the life you want before choosing a career,  creating a story to market yourself to potential job or business opportunities, and the importance of personal branding for employees and what to watch out for.

Kristen details how she actually made the transition out of corporate life and into entrepreneurship, the one area she had to get good at to grow her business, what it was like to bet on herself and make “scary investments” in her business, and the one thing she’s learned that she would tell her younger self.

Finally, Kristen talks about what’s next for her, how she’s incorporating somatic work into her services, how she’s growing the corporate side of her business, and what she thinks is the big lie in the online business world.

Find KRISTEN  at:

Website: www.findyourjobjoy.com

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@findyourjobjoy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristenzavo/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristenjzavo

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kristenzavo

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Yvonne “Yvi” Heimann is a Business Efficiency Consultant who helps digital entrepreneurs dramatically increase profits and reclaim lost time by teaching them how to implement proven processes, systems, and automation.

In this episode, Yvi shares her journey from being an electrician in Germany to doing web design and business consulting in the United States, how she uses her super power - seeing structure where others see chaos - to help her clients scale their businesses, and her approach to helping clients streamline their operations so they can be more productive and enjoy what they do.

Yvi describes how you can scale your business without hiring a team, what led her to using ClickUp as her project management tool of choice, and how she has evolved from being a ClickUp solution provider to guiding clients to a more encompassing solution that meets them where they are at so that they can scale.

Yvi discusses her newest focus of her business which is using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to help clients build interpersonal connection to create happier teams and reduce turnover, the biggest thing she thinks people get wrong about scaling their business, and how she helps clients not only systematize but future-proof their business.

Yvi goes onto talk about the importance of aligning your business around your values, the Systemized Optimized Automate (SOA) framework she developed and how she uses it with her clients, the importance of systematizing and optimizing not only your processes but your people, and the differences between optimizing digital entrepreneurs vs. offline businesses.

Yvi goes into how her focus on digital content creation has helped to grow her business, how she decides what content to put out, the key consideration for how often to put content out, the importance of content repurposing and tools to help you do it, and the really exciting new resource she is creating to help people create content.

Finally, Yvi lets us in on the book project she is working on, what her goals are for the future, and the difference between what we hear about the online business world compared to what is real.

Find Yvi at:

Website: https://askyvi.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/askyvi
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AskYvi/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askyvi/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/askyvi
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/askyvi

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Find Ellen at:

Website: https://www.itsellenelizabeth.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsellenelizabeth/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsellenelizabeth
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_its_ellen_

Visit Stephanie at: https://stephaniehayes.biz/

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Jaime is a brand strategist, creative director, and consultant who helps small businesses craft comprehensive big agency caliber branding with the customization and accessibility exclusive to one-on-one consulting.

In this episode, we learn about what took Jaime from Los Angeles to living in Japan, how she went from design school to working in an interior architecture firm, and how she made the leap from agency work to freelancing and consulting as a designer serving international clients.

Jaime works with wellness and socially conscious small businesses and explains what drew her to that niche. She describes how a cold pitch to do free work launched her business, the parallel she discovered between branding and living in a foreign country, and how she approaches growth in her business. 

As a branding expert, Jaime shares how she defines branding, the importance of feeling “right” in your business, the 2 frameworks she uses to help her branding clients, the difference between building a personal brand vs. a business brand, how to know when it’s time to update your branding, and what she thinks is the biggest misunderstanding about branding. 

Finally, Jaime tells us how she finds clients, the one thing she wishes she knew before she got started in business, what she’s looking forward to in the future, and what she thinks is real as a business owner.

Find Jaime at:

Website: https://www.studioaiuto.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimedidio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimedidio/

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Leah is a Business & Life Strategist, Serial Entrepreneur, Professional Organizer, Writer, Speaker and independent mom. She has a deep passion for redefining success and a curiosity about what it really takes to truly thrive.

Leah is celebrating 30 years as an entrepreneur where she started in health, wellness, and fitness. Over that time, she ran 5 different businesses in 4 different countries, performed a variety of roles from marketing and finance to business development where she learned what it takes to thrive in both business and life. 

Her path led her to what she does today as a Business & Life Strategist where she helps purpose-driven female entrepreneurs learn what it takes to be the CEO and go from surviving to thriving.

In this episode, Leah shares how she took her observations of what was working and not working in business and created a 7-step methodology to help business owners create freedom on their terms. 

Leah goes deep discussing the root of what comparisonitis really is, what to do to conquer it, how our beliefs and stories shape our relationship with money, and how to work through the stories and beliefs that aren’t serving us.

Lastly, Leah discusses her core beliefs and how they got her to where she is today, the point where “all the magic happens” in life that we can all get to, the powerful question she asks all her clients and herself, what she envisions for her next chapter in business and life, and the profound thought she has about what is real in the online business world. 

Find Leah at:

Website: https://www.leahgoard.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leahgoard/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leahcgoard/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/LeahGoard/

Free resources from the episode:
The Business of You Free Workshop: https://www.leahgoard.com/businessofyou/

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Michelle is a Body Compassion and Movement Mentor who helps busy online business owners make time for self care to better manage their energy and reduce stress and burnout. 

In this episode. Michelle discusses how she knew from an early age that she wanted to own her own business and help people, how she first tested her entrepreneurial skills as a diabetes coach under 2 different brands, and how a near death experience changed the trajectory of her business. 

Michelle shares how she learned to trust her intuition, walk away from more rigid wellness practices, figure out what works best for her, and embrace activities that are fun. 

As a business owner, she is redefining self-care, what it means to be healthy, and helps clients realize the importance of energy management, rest, and movement to avoid burnout. Michelle also discusses what it’s like running her online business while also holding a full-time job and the new services she has planned for the future. 

Finally, Michelle reveals the really unique way she incorporates movement into her own life, how to choose a movement activity you can stick to, the shift she is making in the way she gets clients, and one big truth she’s learned about marketing in the online business world.

Find Michelle at:
Website: https://www.mybodymyqueen.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mybodymyqueen/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mybodymyqueen
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mybodymyqueen

Visit Stephanie at: https://www.stephaniehayes.biz/

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Jackie is an expert in Human Design for business, a breathwork facilitator, subconscious transformation coach, retreat leader, copywriter, marketing consultant, and a lover of all things French! She’s been in business since 2013, but after a move to a new country thrust her into the online business world, she soon found herself on a path of many pivots - and discovered that pivoting is something she loves to do.  

Jackie went from being a social media consultant to what she does today - helping entrepreneurs use Human Design, breathwork, and subconscious transformation to grow their business. 

In this episode, we discuss how Jackie went from skeptic to human design raving fan; how motherhood impacted the direction of her business; what human design is and how it can benefit you in both life and business; how she stumbled on the benefits of breathwork through an unexpected out of body experience; and how she expanded her business to combine human design, breathwork and subconscious transformation. 

This episode is full of interesting tidbits and tools you can use to go deeper to discover who you truly are and how to align yourself around that. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Human Design, discover your own Human Design type, and learn more about how it can enhance your life and business, this is the episode for you.

Skip to Topic:

1:15: How a move across the world propelled her into the online business world

4:52: The way motherhood caused her to pivot her business

6:13: Discovering this crazy thing called Human Design 

6:58: The big impact Human Design had on her that led to her next business pivot

10:33: How she applies Human Design to help her clients in business

15:49: The element of Human Design she thinks everyone should start with 

18:09: The tipping point that took her from skeptic to Human Design convert

24:53: How to get your Human Design chart

25:04: Overview of the different Human Design types 

27:07: Where to start with understanding your Human Design

33:52: The role your birth time and place play in your Human Design

38:25: How she discovered breathwork and began to combine it with Human Design

42:23: Incorporating Subconscious Transformation into her work

44:32: The implications of Human Design for the future  

49:29: The 2 things she does that attracts clients 

52:18: Her biggest takeaway about what’s real in the online business world

Find Jackie at:
Website: Jackie johnstone.ca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackiejohnstone/
Podcast: https://www.jackiejohnstone.ca/blog

Resources Mentioned:
Learn more about the work that Jackie does at: Jackie johnstone.ca/more
Discover more about your own Human Design for free at: https://www.jackiejohnstone.ca/offers/f8uVVqo4/checkout
Get your Human Design chart at: Mybodygraph.com

Visit Stephanie at: https://www.stephaniehayes.biz/

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