[00:00:05] Kim Ades:
Hello, hello. My name is Kim Ades, I am the President and Founder of Frame of Mind Coaching™ and you have just joined The Frame of Mind Coaching™ Podcast, where we invite guests leaders from all over the world to come onto the podcast and get coached live and in person.
Today, I have someone very special on with me. She's a visibility expert and her name is Amelia Roberts, and she runs a company called Solutions by Amelia. Amelia, welcome!
[00:00:33] Amelia Roberts:
Hey there. How are you? I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:35] Kim Ades:
I'm so happy to have you! Tell me a little bit about you. Where are you from? What does a visibility expert even do? Fill us in.
[00:00:45] Amelia Roberts:
Sure. So I'm based in the Washington DC area, Silver Springs to be exact. And after feeling very invisible in a job role, and then being forced to articulate my special value in that role, that pushed me on a journey of learning how-- lots of career shift and learning how to connect with people and speak before audiences, and that lended different opportunities. And people started to ask me, you know, "how did you end up being a speaker at this conference in Las Vegas? How'd you end up on that podcast? How did you end up doing this webinar presentation with this name?"
And so I started teaching people about how I was showing up and learned to show up and articulate my message and all that sort of thing. So that's part of the visibility expertise. But there's other things I have questions about that aren't related to that. You know, when I heard the opportunity to be coached by you on air, I said "you know what? I'm open for that. I know that coaches need coaches". So, I'm so happy that this worked out.
[00:01:47] Kim Ades:
Well, I'm happy too, and we're going to dig in in one minute. But just so I understand, you teach people how to obtain speaking engagements, how to get on podcasts, how to really increase their... The term is platform. Is that accurate?
[00:02:01] Amelia Roberts:
Yeah. And the last few client projects, the people who've been raising their hand for that has been people who have teams. So it's actually been looking like teaching teams how to source opportunities, strategic partnerships. Some of these collaborations haven't necessarily been... looked like podcasts, it looked like finding micro influencers to share their thing with, you know, an audience of affiliates and whatnot.
So, the visibility is showing up and collaboration lane is I've been operating in. Yes.
[00:02:33] Kim Ades:
Okay, very interesting. And the reason why I'm like, dwelling here, because I think a lot of people in our audience are interested in the work that you do. And so I want to make sure that they know who you are and how to reach you. How can they reach you for help, for more information?
[00:02:49] Amelia Roberts:
Sure. So my email is amelia@solutionsbyamelia.com. And if just wants to get a taste of my thoughts on things, I have a podcast called the Confident Collaborations Podcast. Over on LinkedIn, I do professional watercooler chats with the purpose of talking to strangers and highlighting interesting people that have come on my radar.
I do with these professional watercooler chats over on LinkedIn, and I'm there as Amelia J. Roberts.
[00:03:19] Kim Ades:
Amazing. I'm going to go look for you. Okay, So tell us, what is your greatest challenge today?
[00:03:26] Amelia Roberts:
Yes. So it is the knowing versus doing gap. It's like, I don't know if I need a coach or need to be on someone's couch, so I'm just open to hearing things. So when it comes to doing what I tell other people to do, it's easier to tell other people want to do.
And so, I know that I need to do a better job of following up with people. I know... You know, I guess my struggle is in my follow-up. I have resistance to that and I've been very like, you know, I would reach out to somebody and, you know, sometimes at least it's something, sometimes it doesn't, and I've been, you know, just kind of going with the flow. But I know that I could be more targeted. I know I could be more... I don't even want to use the word strategic, but because following up, I don't think that it's being strategic. It's just following up.
But yeah, it's a simple thing that I know would make a difference and I'm apparently experiencing resistance around it. So I'm open to hearing your thoughts and, you know, maybe–
[00:04:30] Kim Ades:
Okay, I'm going to ask you two questions.
[00:04:31] Amelia Roberts:
Okay.
[00:04:32] Kim Ades:
So when you say resistance, what does that mean?
[00:04:34] Amelia Roberts:
Not doing the thing that I know that I need to do.
[00:04:37] Kim Ades:
So you're not doing the thing. And if I say, "well, why aren't you doing the thing?" How might you answer that?
[00:04:43] Amelia Roberts:
So, on my calendar, I have listed... you know, it's haphazard, right? I have like, listed, you know, "follow up with her" and then I'll see that come up on my calendar or something I need to do, and then I just go by it and do something else. And I click on it to see, you know, who is the her, or maybe that's my first problem. You know, maybe I need to be more specific about why I need to follow up with that person, you know, a benefit worded... Thing in it. I don't know.
But I'll see it come up on my calendar and I'll opt not to do it. Or, you know, I have–
[00:05:21] Kim Ades:
So, go a little deeper. So why are you opting not to do it? Why aren't you opening that link and figuring out who this person even is? And I get it, you talk to people all the time, you even forget their names, right?
[00:05:33] Amelia Roberts:
Yes.
[00:05:33] Kim Ades:
So yeah, I get it. [Laughs] So why do you think, take a guess, why do you think you're just skipping over it?
[00:05:43] Amelia Roberts:
So, the truth of the matter is that while I had to get visible for myself out of necessity, by nature, like, how do I recover and deal with the world is I'm an introvert? So if I have like a day of networking and being out there and being visible, I know that I also have to bake in space for myself and for quiet time.
And sometimes those "follow up with her" notifications, maybe they're at a point where I'm wanting to be in my recovery mode. And so maybe that's why I'm not, you know, saying, "oh yes, I absolutely need to reach out to this person".
[00:06:23] Kim Ades:
Okay, let me ask you one other question. Do you literally put "follow up with her" or do you put the name of the person?
[00:06:30] Amelia Roberts:
[Laughs] Follow up with her? No, I'm thinking about a specific instance.
[00:06:34] Kim Ades:
So, it's a person, a person's name.
[00:06:36] Amelia Roberts:
Yes. Well, no, no. I put-- it showed up in my calendar as "follow up with her". I'm thinking about this specific instance, that's a reflection of stuff that's happened before, but this specific instance, yes, it was as vague as that: "follow up with her".
[00:06:50] Kim Ades:
Wow, okay. That's very interesting.
[00:06:52] Amelia Roberts:
So that could probably be my first thing. [Laughs]
[00:06:55] Kim Ades:
I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I want to step back for a minute. I'm going to ask you, who are your clients exactly? Like, are they entrepreneurs? Who are these people?
[00:07:05] Amelia Roberts:
So, they have been people who have been leading... their lead revenue generation roles, either in their business or career, and they're in a circumstance where they need to get in front of more people for various reasons. And they don't have the capacity or energy or desire to do it themselves, of course. And the people on their team don't necessarily have that skillset.
They may have tried to sit that person down in front of a video to learn how to do it and, you know, those results may have varied, but long story short, they want their team to be trained on how to source opportunities, collaborations, and come up, develop the leads list and develop the outreach messaging, and then send the outreach messaging or... My last few engagements has looked like retainers where I've supported the team.
If the team has questions along the way that says, you know, "Hey Amelia, can you take a look at this pitch? Or we sent this, we didn't get a response. What do you think?" They've been interfacing with me instead of my super busy client. So, I don't have, like–
[00:08:14] Kim Ades:
So, are you saying that they might have resistance to and that's why they hire you?
[00:08:20] Amelia Roberts:
Not resistance, but they just don't have the capacity.
[00:08:22] Kim Ades:
So is capacity the same as resistance?
[00:08:26] Amelia Roberts:
That's a good question. The most recent one that I'm thinking about was a 14,200 company. They were launching a new product and for various reasons, they didn't want to spend money on Facebook ads, they didn't want to wait for SEO to work. So, they knew that micro influencers, you know, getting in front of people who already have access to their best buyers, that was a thing. And there wasn't capacity in-house to implement a micro-influencer campaign in under three weeks.
And so they were working with an agency, that agency says "that's not in our wheelhouse either, but we know this Amelia lady and she could come in and support us".
[00:09:06] Kim Ades:
Right.
[00:09:08] Amelia Roberts:
I was about to mention someone else. That was a little different.
[00:09:10] Kim Ades:
Okay, before you mentioned someone else. So when you came in to support them, did you connect them with the influencers? Did you follow up to make sure that happened properly?
[00:09:20] Amelia Roberts:
Yeah, so that was a larger project and my support was equal to that, it was more robust. But yeah, it looked like sourcing, developing the leads list, developing and messaging, reaching out some people of those influencers, they want to have a phone conversation with somebody to hear more about this thing.
[00:09:41] Kim Ades:
But you didn't have a problem following up on all the details to make sure they were done properly, right?
[00:09:46] Amelia Roberts:
No, I did not have a problem with that, Kim. [Laughs]
[00:09:49] Kim Ades:
So you don't have a following up problem, right? Like, a lot of times people say, "well, I have this problem with this thing that I need to do". And I want to say to them, you know what? Many times people want to, like, change the system so that they're doing things that they need to do. Change the system.
And I always encourage my clients not to change the system yet. Yes, sometimes system changes are a great idea. But before we change the system, let's look at your thinking that's causing you to feel the resistance that you're talking about. And if what you're really talking about is "I need a little recovery time", what you're talking about also is your own capacity, right?
So when you say "my clients don't have capacity and that's why they call me", guess what? You also have capacity. And what it sounds like is you're not factoring that in. So if you know "there are all these things I need to do, but I'm not getting them done because I don't have capacity", what does that mean? "I need to figure out how to increase my capacity".
That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do all the work, but it might mean that you need some assistance, some support in getting that stuff done, in the followup. Does that mean you have to pick up a phone and call? Not necessarily. Maybe there's an EA that you can hire on board, that says "you're going to do all the follow ups. And when there's truly interest, then I'll get on a phone call". Right?
So what I'm really saying is that, you know, oftentimes we beat ourselves up because we're not doing the things we know we need to do. And I'm always interested in what really stops people from doing the things they need to do. And there are a million reasons, but it usually has to do with their thinking and their beliefs.
And for you, perhaps your thinking is "it's a lot of effort, I'm tired and it's probably not going to yield the results I'm looking for". In the back of your mind, the equation doesn't add up. Does that make any sense to you?
[00:11:59] Amelia Roberts:
It makes a ton of sense.
[00:12:01] Kim Ades:
Okay. And we also know that while the followup might not yield the outcome we're looking for, we still need to follow up in case it does. Right? Because we know that if we don't follow up it, for sure won't lead to the results we're looking for. And so we still need to do the followup. The question is, do you need to do the followup? Is there another mechanism in place?
And so for you, the thinking change isn't "I need to force myself to do the follow-up". And yes, probably putting the name of the person in the reminder is a good idea. Right? Probably. But it sounds like the thinking change that needs to happen is "1) Do I really need to follow up? 2) Do I need to follow up? 3) Can someone else follow up for me? And what does that follow up look like? Does it have to be a phone call? Can there be another way to follow up?"
But really the thing is whenever we experience resistance, it's usually fueled by a set of beliefs that are getting in our way. And so for you, it's important to explore what beliefs are happening and I'm feeling inside of me that are preventing me from taking the action that I would recommend for someone else? I realize I have a capacity limitation. I need to factor that in.
It's kind of the same thing as saying, "Hey Kim, why aren't you doing the accounting in your business?" Well, I have a capacity limitation. That's not my area of expertise. I could do it if I really wanted to, but it's not the best use of my time, talent or resources. And so I have someone else doing my accounting for me. Right?
So it's not about pushing you to do the thing, it's about pushing you to think about what's really stopping you from doing the thing. And so if it's a capacity issue, we need help. If it's a "hey, you know, the likelihood of this turning into something is low", then maybe we'll look at why are we following up anyways? And how do we have that initial conversation to see whether it's a yes or no upfront and then stop following up so often. Does that make sense?
[00:14:21] Amelia Roberts:
It makes perfect sense. I never thought about it like that. I mean, even the words to say to call my not doing something, didn't even have the words. It's like, is it a capacity limitation and, you know, thinking about digging deeper with that. I haven't ever considered that. [Laughs]
[00:14:43] Kim Ades:
Well, and I think for leaders, it's very, very important, and I think you're conscious of the leaders you work with. You know, when you say it's not in their wheelhouse, you have to ask yourself "what's in my wheelhouse? What's the best use of my time, energy, and effort? Is it this action? If it's not this action, I need to outsource it somehow".
And right now in the world, there happens to be... We have access to a lot of EAs in the world who are more than willing to step in at a rather affordable rates.
[00:15:18] Amelia Roberts:
Yeah. And again, it's so easy for me to tell other people, you know, "just get it, get support", you know, and I have not thought of asking for support with this particular aspect. Even though I know it absolutely is a thing, you know, I mean, there's all sorts of-- and I can even rattle off the types of support.
I mean, now that you're saying this... I mean, I know that there are people who, you know, do even the lead generation. I know people who do nurturing, I know people who, you know, you can outsource sales, of course. And you know, "Hey, can you just even remind me/when this reminder comes up, this is the response, or can you just go ahead and nudge this person?"
That absolutely can be a thing, that someone can just hit send on a message that I have, and it's like, but did I ever think about asking? That's an interesting concept.
[00:16:17] Kim Ades:
Interesting concept.
[00:16:18] Amelia Roberts:
Yeah.
[00:16:18] Kim Ades:
The other thing is, and you asked in the beginning of this conversation, you know, I'm a coach and I have a coach, and my answer is every coach absolutely needs a coach. Like, there's no two ways about it. Right? It's kind of like, if you're a dentist, you still need to go to a dentist, right? [Laughs]
[00:16:34] Amelia Roberts:
Yes. I said yeah, coaches need coaches is what I always say.
[00:16:38] Kim Ades:
Absolutely
[00:16:38] Amelia Roberts:
Coaches need coaches. Yes.
[00:16:41] Kim Ades:
Coaches need coaches to help them think things through, and to help them make sure that they are aligned with their goals. And so for you, you're out there, you're helping the world, but in order for you to really be effective, you also need that support underneath you to help you think things through.
And I would recommend that to all leaders and all coaches. All coaches, all leaders need a coach so that they can think things through effectively, make the right decisions, and make sure that their decisions are aligned with their purpose, with their goals, with their desired outcomes.
[00:17:17] Amelia Roberts:
Oh, agreed. Yes.
[00:17:18] Kim Ades:
Agreed. Amazing. Anything else, Amelia, for today?
[00:17:25] Amelia Roberts:
No, no. This has been lovely. I mean, that was the "a-ha!" that I was hoping I'd get. [Laughs] And that was different than what I was expecting.
[00:17:40] Kim Ades:
Really?
[00:17:41] Amelia Roberts:
Yeah.
[00:17:41] Kim Ades:
What were you expecting?
[00:17:45] Amelia Roberts:
So, whenever– I shouldn't say whenever, I don't like using those terms. But yeah, so, "Hey, I'm struggling with follow-up. Okay. Well maybe you need, you know, accountability, maybe you need a different CRM, maybe you need--" you know, I was expecting to hear some version of that, but I really liked the angle and the approach, that you took it and to say, Hey, well, how about you look at it from all of these other things that I never thought about.
I'm somebody who's... you know, I've been acquainted with online business, at least since 2007, I was introduced to it. So I've heard a few things about the challenges that I faced that haven't worked. [Laughs] So when you introduce a new idea to me, I was like, "Hey, that's pretty cool".
[00:18:30] Kim Ades:
I'm thrilled that you said that because I just kind of want to step back and reiterate something, and I think it's very, very important. And for those of you who are listening, like, if you have a pencil and a paper, take note on this.
Whenever you're struggling with anything, our tendency is to say, "okay, this isn't working, I got to do something different". And our first instinct is to try to figure out a new kind of plan of action. And I always want to say: stop. No more action. Take a break from all your action and step back and say, "what is the thinking that's causing me to feel stuck or challenged? And how does my thinking need to shift in order to break through this barrier?"
So first we need to change our thinking and then our action will follow. If we try to take action from old thinking, we get the same old results. And this is very, very important. And so, action follows thought. And very often we don't take a moment to step back and align our thinking before taking action.
And that's truly, truly, the one biggest mistake that people make when they're trying to achieve their goals, they just forge ahead and they do because they're motivated and they're driven. And I say, great, you're motivated and you're driven. Slow down for a moment so you could truly speed up.
And that's what I got for today for today. [Laughs]
[00:20:02] Amelia Roberts:
That's so beautiful, Kim.
[00:20:03] Kim Ades:
Amelia, thank you so much for being my guest on this podcast. I really appreciate your challenge. I don't think you're alone in the world, where you are the person giving other people advice, but sometimes we need our own help to follow that advice. So, thank you so much.
For those of you who are listening, if you have a challenge that you want to share on the podcast, please reach out to me.
My email address is Kim@frameofmindcoaching.com.
If at the same time you have a challenge, but perhaps you don't want to share it on a podcast, please reach out to me as well.
My email address again is Kim@frameofmindcoaching.com.
Amelia, thank you. Loved that conversation.
[00:20:43] Amelia Roberts:
Thank you so much, Kim. Thank you for your wisdom.